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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18384-8.txt b/18384-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e285cad --- /dev/null +++ b/18384-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6084 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Studies in Early Victorian Literature, by +Frederic Harrison + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Studies in Early Victorian Literature + + +Author: Frederic Harrison + + + +Release Date: May 12, 2006 [eBook #18384] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUDIES IN EARLY VICTORIAN +LITERATURE*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +STUDIES IN EARLY VICTORIAN LITERATURE + +by + +FREDERIC HARRISON + + + + + + + +Edward Arnold +London ------ New York +37 Bedford Street ------ 70 Fifth Avenue +1895 +All rights reserved + + + + + +NOTE + +The following essays appeared in the _Forum_ of New York, and +simultaneously in London, during the years 1894-95. They have been +carefully revised and partly re-written, after due consideration of +various suggestions and criticisms both in England and in America. The +aim of the writer was to attempt a mature estimate of the permanent +influence and artistic achievement of some of the principal prose +writers in the earlier half of the reign of our Queen. The work of +living authors has not been touched upon, nor any book of poetry, +philosophy, or science. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTORIAN LITERATURE + II. THOMAS CARLYLE + III. LORD MACAULAY + IV. BENJAMIN DISRAELI + V. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY + VI. CHARLES DICKENS + VII. CHARLOTTE BRONTĖ + VIII. CHARLES KINGSLEY + IX. ANTHONY TROLLOPE + X. GEORGE ELIOT + + + + +CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTORIAN LITERATURE + +That which in England is conveniently described as the Victorian Age of +literature has a character of its own, at once brilliant, diverse, and +complex. It is an age peculiarly difficult to label in a phrase; but +its copious and versatile gifts will make it memorable in the history +of modern civilisation. The Victorian Age, it is true, has no +Shakespeare or Milton, no Bacon or Hume, no Fielding or Scott--no +supreme master in poetry, philosophy, or romance, whose work is +incorporated with the thought of the world, who is destined to form +epochs and to endure for centuries. Its genius is more scientific than +literary, more historical than dramatic, greater in discovery than in +abstract thought. + +In lyric poetry and in romance our age has names second only to the +greatest; its researches into nature and history are at least equal to +those of any previous epoch; and, if it has not many great +philosophers, it has developed the latest, most arduous, most important +of all the sciences. This is the age of Sociology: its central +achievement has been the revelation of social laws. This social aspect +of thought colours the poetry, the romance, the literature, the art, +and the philosophy of the Victorian Age. Literature has been the +gainer thereby in originality and in force. It has been the loser in +symmetry, in dignity, in grace. + +The Victorian Age is a convenient term in English literature to +describe the period from 1837 to 1895: not that we assign any +sacramental efficacy to a reign, or assume that the Queen has given any +special impulse to the writers of her time. Neither reigns, nor years, +nor centuries, nor any arbitrary measure of time in the gradual +evolution of thought can be exactly applied, or have any formative +influence. A period of so many years, having some well-known name by +which it can be labelled, is a mere artifice of classification. And of +course an Englishman will not venture to include in his survey the +American writers, or to bring them within his national era. The date, +1837, is an arbitrary point, and a purely English point. Yet it is +curious how different a colour may be seen in the main current of the +English literature produced before and after that year. In the year of +the Queen's accession to the throne, the great writers of the early +part of this century were either dead or silent. Scott, Byron, +Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Lamb, Sheridan, Hazlitt, Mackintosh, Crabbe, +and Cobbett, were gone. There were still living in 1837, Wordsworth, +Southey, Campbell, Moore, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, De Quincey, Miss +Edgeworth, Miss Mitford, Leigh Hunt, Brougham, Samuel Rogers:--living, +it is true, but they had all produced their important work at some +earlier date. Carlyle, Dickens, Thackeray, Macaulay, Tennyson, +Browning, had begun to write, but were not generally known. The +principal English authors who belong equally to the Georgian and to the +Victorian Age are Landor, Bulwer, Disraeli, Hallam, and Milman, and +they are not quite in the very first rank in either age. It is a +significant fact that the reign of the Queen has produced, with +trifling exceptions, the whole work of Tennyson, the Brownings, +Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontės, George Eliot, Kingsley, Trollope, +Spencer, Mill, Darwin, Ruskin, Grote, Macaulay, Freeman, Froude, Lecky, +Milman, Green, Maine, Matthew Arnold, Symonds, Rossetti, Swinburne, +Morris, John Morley, to say nothing of younger men who are still in +their prime and promise. + +Widely as these differ among themselves, they have characters which +differentiate them from all men of the eighteenth century, and also +from the men of the era of Goethe and Scott. Can we imagine _Sartor +Resartus_ being published in the age of Johnson, or _In Memoriam_ in +that of Byron? How different a land is the Italy which Ruskin sees +from the Italy that Rogers knew! What a new world is that of the +Brontės and George Eliot beside that which was painted by Miss +Edgeworth and Miss Austen! In what things would Southey and John +Morley agree, except about books and pure English? Place Burke _On the +Sublime and Beautiful_ beside Ruskin's _Modern Painters_; compare the +_Stones of Venice_ with Eustace's _Classical Tour_; compare Carlyle's +_French Revolution_ with Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_; compare the _Book +of Snobs_ with Addison's _Spectator_; contrast _The Ring and the Book_ +with Gray's _Elegy_ or Cowper's _Task_. What wholly different types, +ideas, aims! The age of Pope and Addison, of Johnson and Gibbon, clung +to symmetry, "the grand air," the "best models"; it cared much more for +books than for social reforms, and in the world of letters a classical +manner was valued far more than originality of ideas. And when we come +to a later age, what an irrepressible and stormy imagination do we +find! Byron, Shelley, Scott, Coleridge, Campbell, Southey, Landor, +revelled in romance and colour, in battle and phantasmagoria, in +tragedy, mystery, and legend. They boiled over with excitement, and +their visions were full of fight. The roar and fire of the great +revolutionary struggle filled men's brains with fierce and strange +dreams. + +Our Victorian Age is as different from the Virgilian and Ciceronian +style of the age of Gray and Johnson, as it is from the resounding +torrent which was poured forth by Byron and Scott. The social +earnestness of our time colours our literature, and almost distorts our +literature; while, on the other hand, our practical and scientific +genius scorns the melodramatic imagery with which our grandfathers were +delighted. Gibbon would have smiled a cruel epigram, if he had been +expected to thrust a Latter-Day Pamphlet on the social question into +one of his chapters on the Fall of Rome. But Carlyle's _French +Revolution_ is as much political rhapsody and invective as it is +history. Dickens made a series of novels serve as onslaughts on +various social abuses; and George Eliot's heart is ever with Darwin, +Spencer, and Comte, as much as it is with Miss Austen. Ruskin would +sacrifice all the pictures in the world, if society would transform +itself into a Brotherhood of St. George. Tennyson has tried to put the +dilemmas of theological controversy into lyric poetry, and Psychology +is now to be studied, not in metaphysical ethics, but in popular +novels. The aim of the modern historian is to compile a _Times_ +newspaper of events which happened three or four, eight or ten +centuries ago. The aim of the modern philosopher is to tabulate +mountains of research, and to prune away with agnostic _non possumus_ +the ancient oracles of hypothesis and imagination. + +Our literature to-day has many characteristics: but its central note is +the dominant influence of Sociology--enthusiasm for social truths as an +instrument of social reform. It is scientific, subjective, +introspective, historical, archaeological:--full of vitality, +versatility, and diligence:--intensely personal, defiant of all law, of +standards, of convention:--laborious, exact, but often indifferent to +grace, symmetry, or colour:--it is learned, critical, cultured:--with +all its ambition and its fine feeling, it is unsympathetic to the +highest forms of the imagination, and quite alien to the drama of +action. + +It would be a difficult problem in social dynamics to fix anything like +a true date for this change in the tone of literature, and to trace it +back to its real social causes. The historian of English literature +will perhaps take the death of Walter Scott, in 1832, as a typical +date. By a curious coincidence, Goethe died in the same year. Two +years later Coleridge and Lamb died. Within a few years more most of +those who belonged to the era of Byron, Shelley, Scott, and Sheridan +were departed or had sung their last effective note. The exceptions +were Wordsworth and his immediate Lakist followers, Landor and Bulwer, +of whom the latter two continued to produce. The death of Scott +happened in the year of the Reform Act of 1832; and here we reach a +political and social cause of the great change. The reformed +democratic Parliament of 1832 was itself the reaction after the furious +upheaval caused by the Revolution of 1789, and it heralded the social +and legislative revolution of the last sixty years. It was the era +when the steam-power and railway system was founded, and the vast +industrial development which went with it. The last sixty years have +witnessed a profound material revolution in English life; and the +reaction on our literature has been deep and wide. + +The most obvious and superficial change in literature is the extreme +diversity of its form. There is no standard now, no conventional type, +no good "model." It is an age of "Go-as-you-please," and of _tous les +genres sont bons, surtout le genre ennuyeux_. In almost any age of +English literature, or indeed of any other literature, an experienced +critic can detect the tone of the epoch at once in prose or verse. +There is in them an unmistakeable _Zeit-Geist_ in phraseology and form. +The Elizabethan drama, essay, or philosophy could not be mistaken for +the drama, essay, or philosophy of the Restoration; the heroic couplet +reigned from Dryden to Byron; Ciceronian diction reigned from Addison +to Burke; and then the Quarterlies, with Southey, Lamb, Scott, De +Quincey, Coleridge, Sydney Smith, and Leigh Hunt, introduced a simpler, +easier tone of the well-bred _causeur_, as free from classical +mannerism as it was free from subtle mechanism or epigrammatic +brilliance. Down to about the death of Scott and Coleridge, almost any +page of English prose or verse could be certainly attributed to its +proper generation by the mark of its style alone. + +The Victorian literature presents a dozen styles, every man speaking +out what is in him, in the phrases he likes best. Our _Zeit-Geist_ +flashes all across the heavens at once. Let us place a page from +_Sartor Resartus_ beside a page from Macaulay's _History of England_, +or either beside a page from Arnold's _Literature and Dogma_ or one +from the _Stones of Venice_. Here are four typical styles in prose, +each of which has been much admired and imitated; yet they differ as +widely as Shelley from Ovid, or Tennyson from Pope. Again, for verse, +contrast _Paracelsus_ with _The Princess_--poems written about the same +time by friends and colleagues. Compare a poem of William Morris with +one by Lewis Morris. Compare Swinburne's _Songs and Sonnets_ with +Matthew Arnold's _Obermann_; Rudyard Kipling's _Ballads_ with _The +Light of Asia_. Have they any common standard of form, any type of +metre? The purists doubt as to the style of Carlyle as a "model," but +no one denies that the _French Revolution_ and _Hero-Worship_, at least +in certain passages, display a mastery over language as splendid as +anything in our prose literature. Exactly the same might be said also +of _Esmond_, and again of _Silas Marner_, and again of the _Seven Lamps +of Architecture_. Yet all of these differ as widely as one style can +differ from another. _Fifine at the Fair_, and _The Angel in the +House_, have each fervent admirers. No! there is no recognised "model" +either in verse or in prose. + +In truth, we have now both in prose and in verse strongly-contrasted +types, each of which commands admiration and following. Both in prose +and verse we have one type which has carried subtle finish and a purism +studied almost to the point of "preciousness," alongside of another +type which crowds its effects without regard to tone and harmony, and +by its side a third type which trots along breathless in its +shirt-sleeves. Tennyson's _In Memoriam_ has that exquisite polish of +workmanship which we find in such poets as Virgil, Racine, and +Milton--that perfection of phrase which we cannot conceive the poet +capable of improving by any labour. Put aside for the moment any +question about the ideas, inspiration, or power of the poem as a whole, +and consider that, in all those hundreds of stanzas, there is hardly +one line that is either careless, prosaic, or harsh, not a single false +note, nothing commonplace, nothing over-coloured, but uniform harmony +of phrase. This perfection of phrasing is not always to be found even +in the greatest poets, for Aeschylus and Dante at times strike a fierce +discord, and Shakespeare, Calderon, and Goethe sometimes pass into rank +extravaganza. But this scholarly and measured speech has impressed +itself on the poetry of our time--insomuch, that the Tennysonian cycle +of minor poets has a higher standard of grace, precision, and subtlety +of phrase than the second rank of any modern literature:--a standard +which puts to shame the rugosities of strong men like Dryden, Burns, +and Byron. There is plenty of mannerism in this school of our minor +poetry, but no one can call it either slovenly or harsh. + +The friend, contemporary, almost the rival of Tennyson, one whom some +think endowed by nature with even stronger genius, on the other hand, +struck notes of discord harsher, louder, and more frequent than any +poet since Elizabethan times. Whatever we hold about the insight and +imagination of Browning, no one can doubt that he often chose to be +uncouth, crabbed, grotesque, and even clownish, when the humour was on +him. There are high precedents for genius choosing its own instrument +and making its own music. But, whatever were Browning's latent powers +of melody, his method when he chose to play upon the gong, or the +ancient instrument of marrow-bone and cleavers, was the exact +antithesis of Tennyson's; and he set on edge the teeth of those who +love the exquisite cadences of _In Memoriam_ and _Maud_. Browning has +left deep influence, if not a school. The younger Lytton, George +Meredith, Buchanan, here and there Swinburne and William Morris, seem +to break loose from the graceful harmony which the Tennysonians affect, +and to plunge headlong into the obscure, the uncouth, the ghastly, and +the lurid. No one denies originality and power in many of these +pieces: but they are flat blasphemy against the pellucid melody of the +Tennysonian idyll. Our poetry seems to be under two contrary spells: +it is enthralled at one time by the ravishing symmetry of Mozart; at +another time it yearns for the crashing discords that thunder along the +march of the Valkyrie through the air. + +As in poetry, so in prose. We find in our best prose of to-day an +extraordinary mastery over pure, nervous, imaginative language; and all +this, alongside here of a riotous extravagance, and there, of a crude +and garrulous commonplace. Thackeray's best chapters, say in _Vanity +Fair_, _Esmond_, the _Humourists_, contain an almost perfect prose +style--a style as nervous as that of Swift, as easy as that of +Goldsmith, as graceful as that of Addison, as rich as that of Gibbon or +Burke. No English romances have been clothed in a language so chaste +and scholarly--not even Fielding's. Certainly not the Waverley series; +for Scott, as we know, rehearsed his glowing chronicles of the past +with the somewhat conventional verbosity of the _improvisatore_ who +recites but will not pause to write. George Eliot relates her story +with an art even more cultivated than that of Thackeray--though, +doubtless, with an over-elaborated self-consciousness, and perceptible +suggestions of the laboratory of the student. Trollope tells his +artless tales in perfectly pure, natural, and most articulate prose, +the language of a man of the world telling a good story well. And a +dozen living novelists are masters of a style of extreme ease and grace. + +Side by side with this chastened English prose, we have men of genius +who have fallen into evil habits. Bulwer, who knew better, would quite +revel in a stagey bombast; Dickens, with his pathos and his humour, was +capable of sinking into a theatrical mannerism and cockney vulgarities +of wretched taste; Disraeli, with all his wit and _savoir faire_, has +printed some rank fustian, and much slip-slop gossip; and George +Meredith at times can be as jerky and mysterious as a prose Browning. +Charlotte Brontė and Kingsley could both descend to blue fire and +demoniac incoherences. Macaulay is brilliant and emphatic, but we +weary at last of his everlasting _staccato_ on the trumpet; and even +the magnificent symphonies of Ruskin at his best will end sometimes in +a sort of _coda_ of fantasias which suggest limelights and coloured +lenses. Carlyle, if not the greatest prose master of our age, must be +held to be, by virtue of his original genius and mass of stroke, the +literary dictator of Victorian prose. And, though we all know how +wantonly he often misused his mighty gift, though no one now would +venture to imitate him even at a distance, and though Matthew Arnold +was ever taking up his parable--"Flee Carlylese as the very Devil!"--we +are sliding into Carlylese unconsciously from time to time, and even +_Culture_ itself fell into the trap in the very act of warning others. + +Side by side with such chastened literary art as that of Thackeray and +George Eliot, Matthew Arnold and John Morley, Lecky and Froude, Maine +and Symonds, side by side with a Carlylese tendency to extravagance, +slang, and caricature, we find another vein in English prose--the flat, +ungainly, nerveless style of mere scientific research. What lumps of +raw fact are flung at our heads! What interminable gritty collops of +learning have we to munch! Through what tangles of uninteresting +phenomena are we not dragged in the name of Research, Truth, and the +higher Philosophy! Mr. Mill and Mr. Spencer, Mr. Bain and Mr. +Sidgwick, have taught our age very much; but no one of them was ever +seen to smile; and it is not easy to recall in their voluminous works a +single irradiating image or one monumental phrase. + +There are eminent historians to-day who disdain the luminous style of +Hume and Robertson, and yet deride the colour and fire of Gibbon. +Grote poured forth the precious contents of his portentous notebooks +with as little care for rhythm and as little sense of proportion as a +German professor. Freeman and Gardiner have evidently trained +themselves in the same school of elaborate learning, till they would +appear to count the graceful English of Froude, Lecky, and Green as +hardly becoming the dignity of history. It would seem as if the charge +which some of our historians are most anxious to avoid is the charge of +being "readable," and of keeping to themselves any fact that they know. + +The men who are rather pleased than pained to hear themselves called by +the barbarous term of "scientists" seem to think that it matters +nothing how ill-digested be their book, or how commonplace be their +language. They are accustomed to lecture to students in the laboratory +in their shirt-sleeves with their hands in their pockets; and they +believe that immortality may be achieved if they can pile up enough +facts and manufacture an adequate number of monographs. And they do +this, in the teeth of excellent examples to the contrary. Huxley and +Tyndall have given their brethren in science fine examples of a pure, +vigorous, and well-knit style. Yet, how many of them are still quite +content to go rumbling along with an interminable rigmarole of dry +"memoirs." Our ponderous biographies of third-rate people tend to +become mere bags of letters and waste-paper baskets. And all this with +such consummate models before us, and so very high a standard of +general cultivation. We have had in this age men who write an English +as pure and powerful as any in the whole range of our literature; we +have tens of thousands of men and women who write a perfectly correct +and intelligent prose. And yet out of a million books, we find so very +few which even aim at being works of art in the sense that _Tom Jones_ +is a work of art, and the _Decline and Fall_ is a work of art. + +It is, no doubt, this preponderance of the practical, scientific, and +social energies which has checked in our Victorian Age the highest +imaginative and dramatic genius. With all its achievements in lyric +and psychologic poetry, it has hardly attempted to scale the empyrean +of song. In the seventy-six years that have passed since Shelley +conceived his _Prometheus_, as he sat gazing over the sombre ruins of +the Campagna, no one has ever ventured into that seventh heaven of +invention. Since the _School for Scandal_ (1777) no English drama has +been produced which has anything like the same hold on the stage. For +more than sixty years the English stage has not known one consummate +actor. Though men of real genius have in these sixty years laboured at +the higher drama, they have hardly achieved even such measures of +success as fell to Byron and Shelley with _Manfred_ and the _Cenci_. +With all its lyric and psychologic power, with all its energy and its +learning, the Victorian Age has not quite equalled the age of Goethe. +It is as if its scientific spirit checked the supreme imagination: as +if its social earnestness produced a distaste for merely dramatic +passion. + +One of the most striking facts about our modern literature is the +preponderance of the "subjective" over the "objective." The interest +in external events, as the subject of imaginative work, quite pales +before the interest in analysis of mental and moral impulse. +Wordsworth, Coleridge, Jane Austen, have completely dominated our age, +and have displaced the epic and legendary themes of Scott, Byron, +Campbell, and Southey. _The Two Voices_, _In Memoriam_, _The Ring and +the Book_, _Silas Marner_, _Vanity Fair_, _Bleak House_, dissect brain +and heart, but do not make their prime motive in any thrilling history. +The crisis of modern romance goes on in the conscience, not in the +outside world. Hence the enormous multiplication of the psychologic +novel, a form of art which the eighteenth century would have viewed +with wonder and perplexity. The curious part of this is the striking +abatement of taste for the historical romance, in spite of the immense +extension of historical study and archaeological revival. We know far +more about the past, both within and without, than did our fathers; and +we are always seeking to realise to ourselves the habits, ideas, +aspect, the very clothes and furniture of ages of old, which we study +with sympathetic zeal and in the minutest detail. Yet the historical +romance appears only at intervals. _Harold_ and _Esmond_ are both more +than forty years old, _Romola_ more than thirty years old. They are +none of them quite unqualified successes; and no later historical +romance has approached these three in power and interest. Why is it, +that, in an age pre-eminently historical, in an age so redundant of +novels, the historical novel is out of fashion? Partly, no doubt, our +romancers shun comparison with the mighty Wizard of the North; partly, +the analytic genius of our time so greatly exceeds its synthetic +genius; and mainly, the range of our historical learning inclines us to +restore the past by exact scholarship and not by fiction without +authority. George Eliot was so anxious to have her local colour +accurate that she ended by becoming somewhat fatiguing. Some day, no +doubt, the genius of romance will return to this inexhaustible field +with enthusiasm equal to Scott's, with a knowledge far more accurate +than his, and a spirit quite purged from political and social bias. + +From the death of Scott in 1832 until 1894 are sixty-two years; and if +we divide this period into equal parts at the year 1863 (it was the +year of Thackeray's death), we shall be struck with the fact that the +purely literary product of the first period of thirty-one years +(1832-1863) is superior to the purely literary product of the second +period of thirty-one years (1863-1894). The former period gives us all +that was best of Tennyson, the Brownings, Carlyle, Thackeray, Dickens, +Bulwer, the Brontės, Mrs. Gaskell, Trollope, George Eliot, Kingsley, +Disraeli, Dr. Arnold, Thirlwall, Grote, Hallam, Milman, Macaulay, Mill, +Froude, Layard, Kinglake, Ruskin. The second period gave us in the +main, Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, G. H. Lewes, Maine, Leslie Stephen, John +Morley, Matthew Arnold, Lecky, Freeman, Stubbs, Bryce, Green, Gardiner, +Symonds, Rossetti, Morris, Swinburne. Poetry, romance, the critical, +imaginative, and pictorial power, dominate the former period: +philosophy, science, politics, history are the real inspiration of the +latter period. + +The era since the death of Scott is essentially a scientific age, a +sociologic age; and this is peculiarly visible in the second half of +this era of sixty-two years. About the middle of the period we see how +the scientific and sociologic interest begins to over-shadow, if not to +oust, the literary, poetic, and romantic interest. Darwin's _Origin of +Species_ was published in 1859; and its effect on thought became marked +within the next few years. In 1862, Herbert Spencer commenced to issue +his great encyclopaedic work, _Synthetic Philosophy_, still, we trust, +to be completed after more than thirty years of devoted toil. Darwin's +later books appeared about the same period, as did a large body of +scientific works in popular form by Huxley, Tyndall, Wallace, Lewes, +Lubbock, Tylor, and Clifford. It is only needful here to refer to such +scientific works as directly reacted on general literature. About the +same time the later speculations of Comte began to attract public +attention in England, and the _Positive Polity_ was translated in 1875. +Between the years 1860-1875, there grew up in England an absorbing +interest in Social Philosophy, and a conviction that the idea of +invariable law offered a solution of the progress of society. +Evolution as an idea was in the air, and it was applied to Man as much +as to Nature. It is no part of our present purpose to trace its growth +from the scientific aspect. It is enough to note how it acted and +reacted on general literature. + +Poetry began to hover round the problem of Evolution. It wrapped it in +mystery, denounced it with fine indignation, and took it for the text +of some rather prosaic homilies. Criticism fell into the prevailing +theory: so did history, and even romance. Philosophy and Science are +not the best foster-mothers of Poetry and Romance. Philosophy and +Science grew more solemn than ever; and Poetry and Romance lost +something of their wilder fancy and their light heart. Literature grew +less spontaneous, more correct, more learned, and, it may be, more +absorbed in its practical purpose of modifying social life. + +The old notion of literature being a business apart from affairs, of +men of letters being an order, of an absorption in books being ample +work for a life--all this is far from the rule. At least twenty +members of the present and late Governments have been copious writers; +Mr. Gladstone and at least three or four of his late colleagues are +quite in the front rank of living authors--nay, several of them began +their career as literary men. It would be difficult to name an +important writer of the Victorian Age who has not at times flung +himself with ardour into the great social, political, or religious +battles of his time. Thackeray, Trollope, Green, Symonds, are possible +exceptions--examples of bookmen who passed their lives with books, and +who never wrote to promote "a cause." But all the rest have entered on +the "burning questions" of their age, and most of them with the main +part of their force. As a consequence "learning," as it was understood +by Casaubon, Scaliger, Bentley, Johnson, and Gibbon, as it was +understood by Littré, Döllinger, and Mommsen, may be said to have +disappeared in England. Cardinal Newman, Mark Pattison, Dr. Pusey, +were said to be very learned, but it was a kind of learning which kept +very much to itself. For good or for evil, our literature is now +absorbed in the urgent social problem, and is become but an instrument +in the vast field of Sociology--the science of Society. + +This predominance of Sociology, the restless rapidity of modern life, +the omnipresence of material activity, fully account for the special +character of modern literature. Literature is no longer "bookish"--but +practical, social, propagandist. It is full of life--but it is a +dispersive, analytic, erratic form of vitality. It has a most +fastidious taste in form--but it often flings the critical spirit aside +in its passion for doing, in its ardour to convince and to inspire. It +is industrious, full of learning and research--but it regards its +learning as an instrument of influence, not as an end of thought. It +can work up a poem or an essay, as carefully as Mieris or Breughel +polished a cabinet picture--and it can "tear a passion to tatters," or +tumble its note-books into a volume all in a heap. It has no +"standard," no "model," no "best writer"--and yet it has a curious +faculty for reviving every known form and imitating any style. It is +intensely historical, but so accurately historical that it is afraid to +throw the least colour of imagination around its history. It has +consummate poetic feeling, and copious poetic gifts--but it has now no +single poet of the first rank. It has infinite romantic resources, and +an army of skilful novelists--and yet it has no single living writer +worthy to be named beside the great romancers of the nineteenth century. + +This rich, many-sided, strenuous literature, which will place the name +of Victoria higher than that of Elizabeth in the history of our +language, would form a splendid subject hereafter for some one of our +descendants who was equal to the task of treating our Victorian +literature as a whole. In the meantime, it may be worth while for the +men and women of to-day, who are full of all the excellent work around +us, to be reminded of the good things produced now nearly sixty years +ago. As one who can remember much that was given to the world in a +former generation, I shall endeavour in these little sketches to mark +some of the characteristics of the best writers in the early Victorian +Age, confining myself for the present to prose literature of the +imaginative kind. + +It is now some time since the country of Shakespeare and of Milton has +been without its poet laureate, and to the non-poetical world the +absence of that court functionary is hardly perceptible. Nay, the +question has begun to arise, If there is to be a laureate in poetry, +why not a laureate also in prose romance? And if there were a laureate +in prose romance, whom should we choose? + +The same phenomenon meets us in the realm of prose fiction as in +poetry: that we have vast quantities of thoughtful work produced, an +army of cultivated workers, a great demand, an equally great supply, a +very high average of merit--and yet so little of the very first rank. +For the first time in the present century, English literature is +without a single living novelist of world-wide reputation. The +nineteenth century opened with _Castle Rackrent_ and the admirably +original tales of Maria Edgeworth. Jane Austen followed in the same +field. And since _Waverley_ appeared, in 1814, we have had a +succession of fine romances in unbroken line. Fenimore Cooper's work +is nearly contemporary with the best of Scott's. At Sir Walter's death +Bulwer-Lytton was in full career. And Lytton, Disraeli, Hawthorne, the +Brontės, Dickens, Thackeray, and Trollope were all at their best nearly +together. During the last twenty years or so of this splendid period +they had been joined by George Eliot; and of the whole band Anthony +Trollope was the survivor. With him our language lost the last of +those companions of the fireside in mansion and cottage whose names are +household words, whose books are in every hand, where the English +tongue is heard. + +We need not engage in any critical estimate of these writers: we are +but too well aware of their failures and defects. Lytton indited not a +little bombast, Dickens had his incurable mannerisms, and Thackeray his +conventional cynicisms. There are passages in George Eliot's romances +which read like sticky bits from a lecture on comparative +palaeontology; and Disraeli, who for fifty years threw off most +readable tales in the intervals of politics, seems always to be +laughing at the public behind his mask. Yet the good sense of mankind +remembers the best and forgets the worst, even if the worst be +four-fifths of the whole. + +The place of genius is decided by its inimitable hits, and its misses +evermore drop out of memory as time goes on. The world loves its +bright spirits for what they give it, and it does not score their blots +like an examiner marking a student's paper. Thus the men and women of +the first rank still hold the field in the million homes where English +tales are a source of happiness; and it would be perverse to maintain +that any living men have reached that level. We can see no trace that +Pickwick or Emma, Natty Bumppo or Uncas, are losing their hold on the +imagination of men and women, any more than Jeanie Deans and the +Antiquary. _Oliver Twist_, the _Last Days of Pompeii_, _Vanity Fair_, +_Jane Eyre_, have more readers than ever. And I find the Last +Chronicle of _Barset_, _Lothair_, and _Silas Marner_ as fresh as they +were a quarter of a century ago. + +We all admit that there are delightful writers still. I am not about +to decry our living romancers, and certainly not to criticise them. If +any man choose to maintain that there is more poetry in Tess than in +the entire _Barsetshire_ series, that Dickens could not have bettered +the _Two Drummer Boys_ of Rudyard Kipling, that _Treasure Island_ has a +realism as vivid as _Robinson Crusoe_, that Mrs. Wood's _Village +Tragedy_ may rank with _Silas Marner_, that Howells and Besant, Ouida +and Rhoda Broughton, Henry James and Mrs. Burnett, are as good reading +as we need, that Bret Harte has struck a line as original as that of +Dickens, and that George Meredith has an eye for character which +reminds us not seldom of Thackeray and Fielding--I do not dispute it. +I am no one-book man or one-style man, but enjoy what is good in all. +But I am thinking of the settled judgment and the visible practice of +the vast English-speaking and English-reading world. And judging by +that test, we cannot shut our eyes to this, that we have no living +romancer who has yet achieved that world-wide place of being read and +welcomed in every home where the language is heard or known. George +Meredith has been a prolific writer for thirty years and Stevenson for +twenty years; but their most ardent admirers, among whom I would be +counted, can hardly claim for them a triumph so great. + +We come, then, to this, that for the first time during this whole +century now ending, English literature can count no living novelist +whom the world, and not merely the esoteric circle of cultured +Englishmen, consents to stamp with the mark of accepted fame. One is +too eccentric, obscure, and subtle, another too local and equal, a +third too sketchy, this one too unreal, that one far too real, too +obvious, too prosaic, to win and to hold the great public by their +spell. Critics praise them, friends utter rhapsodies, good judges +enjoy them--but their fame is partial, local, sectional, compared to +the fame of Scott, Dickens, or Thackeray. + +What is the cause? I do not hesitate to say it is that we have +over-trained our taste, we are overdone with criticism, we are too +systematically drilled, there is far too much moderate literature and +far too fastidious a standard in literature. Everyone is afraid to let +himself go, to offend the conventions, or to raise a sneer. It is the +inevitable result of uniformity in education and discipline in mental +training. Millions can write good grammar, easy and accurate +sentences, and imitate the best examples of the age. Education has +been driven at high pressure into literary lines, and a monotonous +correctness in literary taste has been erected into a moral code. Tens +of thousands of us can put the finger on a bit of exaggeration, or a +false light in the local colour, or a slip in perfect realism. The +result is a photographic accuracy of detail, a barren monotony of +commonplace, and the cramping of real inventive genius. It is the +penalty of giving ourselves up to mechanical culture. + +If another Dickens were to break out to-morrow with the riotous +tomfoolery of Pickwick at the trial, or of Weller and Stiggins, a +thousand lucid criticisms would denounce it as vulgar balderdash. +Glaucus and Nydia at Pompeii would be called melodramatic rant. The +_House of the Seven Gables_ would be rejected by a sixpenny magazine, +and _Jane Eyre_ would not rise above a common "shocker." Hence the +enormous growth of the _Kodak_ school of romance--the snap-shots at +everyday realism with a hand camera. We know how it is done. A woman +of forty, stout, plain, and dull, sits in an ordinary parlour at a +tea-table, near an angular girl with a bad squint. "Some tea?" said +Mary, touching the pot. "I don't mind," replied Jane in a careless +tone; "I am rather tired and it is a dull day." "It is," said Mary, as +her lack-lustre eyes glanced at the murky sky without. "Another cup?" +And so the modern _romance_ dribbles on hour by hour, chapter by +chapter, volume by volume, recording, as in a phonograph, the minute +commonplace of the average man and woman in perfectly real but entirely +common situations. To this dead level of correctness literary purism +has brought romance. The reaction against the photographic style, on +the other hand, leads to spasmodic efforts to arouse the jaded interest +by forced sensationalism, physiological bestialities, and a crude form +of the hobgoblin and bogey business. + +In all the ages of great productive work there were intense +individuality, great freedom, and plenty of failures. _Tom Jones_ +delighted the town which was satiated with gross absurdities, some of +them, alas! from the pen of Fielding himself. Shakespeare wrote +happily before criticism had invented the canons of the drama, and Sir +Walter's stories had no reviews to expose his historical blunders. In +the great romance age which began to decline some forty years ago, +there was not a tithe of such good average work as we get now; +criticism had not become a fine art; every one was free to like what he +pleased, and preposterous stuff was written and enjoyed. Of course it +cannot be good to like preposterous stuff, and an educated taste ought +to improve literature. But it is almost a worse thing when general +culture produces an artificial monotony, when people are taught what +they ought to like, when to violate the canons of taste is far worse +than to laugh at the Ten Commandments. + +With a very high average of fairly good work, an immense mass of such +work, and an elaborate code of criticism, the production of brilliant +and inimitable successes is usually arrested in every field. Having +thousands of graceful verse-writers, we have no great poet; in a +torrent of skilful fiction, we have no great novelist; with many +charming painters, who hardly seem to have a fault, we have no great +artist; with _mises-en-scčne_, make-up costumes, and accessories for +our plays such as the world never saw before, we have no great actor; +and with ten thousand thoughtful writers, we have not a single genius +of the first rank. Elaborate culture casts chill looks on original +ideas. Genius itself is made to feel the crudeness and extravagance of +its first efforts and retires with shame to take a lower place. We are +all so fastidious about form and have got such fixed regulation views +about form, we are so correct, so much like one another, such good boys +and girls, that the eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of the inventive +spirit are taught from childhood to control themselves and to conform +to the decorum of good society. A highly organised code of culture may +give us good manners, but it is the death of genius. + +There are other things which check the flow of a really original +literature, though perhaps a high average culture and a mechanical +system of education may be the most potent. Violent political +struggles check it: an absorption in material interests checks it: +uniformity of habits, a general love of comfort, conscious +self-criticism, make it dull and turbid. Now our age is marked by all +of these. From the age of Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau, the French +genius produced almost no imaginative work of really European +importance until it somewhat revived again with Chateaubriand in the +present century. Nor in England can we count anything of a like kind +from the death of Goldsmith until we reach Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth +after an interval of forty years. In the United States the great eras +of imaginative production have been those which were free from +political and military struggles. + +The case of France is indeed conclusive proof how suddenly political +turmoil kills imaginative work. French literature, which during the +greater part of the eighteenth century had shown amazing activity, +suddenly seems arrested with Rousseau; and in the latter years of the +eighteenth century there is absolutely nothing of even moderate quality +in the field of art. The same is true of England for the last thirty +years of the same century. Shakespeare's dramas were not produced till +his country had victoriously passed through the death-struggle of the +religious wars in the sixteenth century. The civil war of the Puritans +arrested poetry, so that for nearly thirty years the muse of Milton +himself withdrew into her solitary cell. Dryden carried on the torch +for a time. But prose literature did not revive in England until the +Hanoverian settlement. Political ferment kills literature: prolonged +war kills it: social agitation unnerves it; and still more the uneasy +sense of being on the verge of great and unknown change. + +Take our Queen's reign of now some fifty-eight years (1837-1895) and +divide it in half at the year 1866. It is plain that by far the +greater part of the "Victorian" literature was produced in the former +half and quite the inferior part of it was produced in the latter half. +By the year 1866 we had already got all, or all that was best, of +Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, Ruskin, Lytton, Thackeray, Dickens, +Trollope, George Eliot, Disraeli, Kingsley, and others who lived after +that date. In 1865 Lord Palmerston died, and with him died the old +Parliamentary era. In the same year died Abraham Lincoln in the great +crisis of the reconstruction of the American Constitution. We attach +no peculiar importance to that date. But it is certain that both +English and American people have been in this last twenty-nine years +absorbed in constitutional agitations which go deep down into our +social system. We in England have passed from one constitutional +struggle to another, and we are now in the most acute stage of all this +period. Parliamentary reform, continental changes, colonial wars, +military preparations, Home Rule, have absorbed the public mind and +stunned it with cataracts of stormy debate. We are all politicians, +all party-men now. + +There is upon us also, both in England and in America, a social ferment +that goes deeper than any mere constitutional struggle. It is the +vague, profound, multiform, and mysterious upheaval that is loosely +called Socialism--not Socialism in any definite formula, but the +universal yearning of the millions for power, consideration, material +improvement, and social equality. The very vagueness, universality, +and unbounded scope of the claim they make constitute its power. All +orders and classes are concerned in it: all minds of whatever type are +affected by it: every political, social, or industrial axiom has to be +reconsidered in the light of it: it appeals to all men and it enters +into life at every corner and pore. We are like men under the glamour +of some great change impending. The spell of a new order holds us +undecided and expectant. There is something in the air, and that +something is a vague and indescribable sense that a new time is coming. +Men felt it in France, and indeed all over Europe, from 1780 till 1790. +It was an uncertain and rather pleasing state of expectancy. It did +not check activity, nor enjoyment, nor science. But it diverted the +profounder minds from the higher forms of imaginative work. + +There is no reason to assume that Socialism or the ideals of Socialism +are at all hostile to literature or even imaginative poetry, provided +they are not too close, not actually causing direct agitation. But +when men are debating bills in heated meetings, they do not often see +these questions in the halo of romance. Rousseau's _Héloļse_ and +Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_ were quite a generation before the +Revolution, at a time when franchise and agrarian politics had hardly +begun. The poetry and the romance of a great social reformation are +never visible to men in the midst of it, who are ready to tear each +other's eyes out in the name of Eight-Hours Bills and Land +Nationalisation. When men have got to this stage they want lighter +matter to amuse them at home; but they can hardly appreciate, even if +they could find, the loftier flights of social romance. Sam Weller +to-day has joined a union, and reads his Henry George. Rawdon Crawley +of our own generation is a mere drunken ruffian, only fit to point the +moral in a lecture on the drink traffic. And Becky Sharp is voted to +be a stupid libel on the social destiny of the modern school "marm." + +The great advance in the material comfort and uniformity of life and +manners dries up the very sources of prose romance, even more than it +ruins poetry. The poet is by nature an isolated spirit dwelling in an +ideal world of his own. But the prose novelist draws life as he sees +it in the concrete from intimate knowledge of real men and women. How +intensely did Fielding, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Miss Austen, Miss +Edgeworth know by experience the characters they drew! A romance +cannot be constructed out of the novelist's inner consciousness as +_Paradise Lost_, Shelley's _Prometheus_, and Wordsworth's _Excursion_ +were constructed. Even Scott becomes grave and melodramatic when he +peoples his stage with those whose like he never saw. But how vastly +more romantic was the Scotland of Scott than is the Scotland of +Stevenson! The Vicar of Wakefield and Squire Western are not to be +found in an age that is busy with railways and telegraphs and the +_Review of Reviews_. Pickwick and Oliver Twist have been improved off +the face of the earth by cheap newspapers and sanitary reform. The fun +has gone out of Vanity Fair, and the House of the Seven Gables is an +hotel with seven hundred beds. + +Comfort, electric light, railway sleeping-cars, and equality are +excellent things, but they are the death of romance. The essence of +romance is variety, contrast, individuality, the eccentric, the +unconventional. Level up society, put nineteen out of every twenty on +fairly equal terms, popularise literature, and turn the Ten +Commandments into a code of decorum, and you cut up by the roots all +romantic types of life. The England of Fielding and the Scotland of +Scott were breezy, boisterous, disorderly, picturesque, and jolly +worlds, where gay and hot spirits got into mischief and played mad +pranks as, in the words of the old song, "They powlered up and down a +bit and had a rattling day." Laws, police, total abstinence, general +education, and weak digestions have put an end to pranks, as we are all +proud to say. The result is that Romance, finding little of romance in +the real world, has taken two different lines in the desperate effort +to amuse us somehow. The virtuous line is the phonographic +reproduction of everyday life in ordinary situations. The disreputable +line is Zolaesque bestiality, and forced, unreal, unlovely, and +hysterical sensationalism. + +It cannot be more than a paradox to pretend that _fin de sičcle_ has +anything to do with it. But it is a curious coincidence how the last +decade of modern centuries seems to die down in creative fertility. +The hundred millions who speak our English tongue have now no accepted +living master of the first rank, either in verse or in prose. In 1793 +there was not one in all Europe. In 1693, though Dryden lingered in +his decline, it was one of the most barren moments in English +literature. And so in 1593, though the _Faery Queen_ was just printed, +and Shakespeare had begun to write, there were nothing but the first +streaks which herald the dawn. But this is obviously a mere +coincidence; nor can an artificial division of time affect the rise or +fall of genius. It may be that, in these latter days, when our age is +the victim of self-conscious introspection, the close of a century +which has shown such energy may affect us in some unconscious way. +Perhaps there is a vague impression that the world is about to turn +over a new page in the mighty ledger of mankind, that it is now too +late to do much with the nineteenth century, and that we will make a +new start with the twentieth. + +The world is growing less interesting, less mysterious, less manifold, +at any rate to the outer eye. The _mise-en-scčne_ of external life is +less rich in colour and in contrast. Magnificence, squalor, oddity, +historic survivals, and picturesque personalities grow rarer year by +year. Everybody writes a grammatical letter in conventional style, +wears the clothes in fashion, and conforms to the courtesies of life. +It is right, good, and wise: but a little dull. It is the lady-like +age, the epoch of the dress-coat, of the prize lad and the girl of the +period. Mr. Charles Pearson, in his remarkable forecast of _National +Life and Character_, warned us how the universal levelling of modern +democracy must end in a certain monotony and a lowered vitality. We +live longer, but in quiet, comfortable, orderly ways. This is not at +all injurious to morality, politics, industry, science, philosophy, or +religion. It is not necessarily injurious to poetry, at least of the +lower flight. But it is adverse to high art. And it is asphyxiating +to romance. + +The novelist must draw from the living model and he must address the +people of his own age. He cannot write for posterity, nor can he live +in a day-dream world of his own. The poet is often lost to his own +contemporaries. It may need two or three, five or six, generations to +reveal him, as Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, and Wordsworth may remind +us. But the novelist must live in his generation, be of it most +intensely, and if he is to delight at all, like the actor, he must +delight his own age. What sons of their own time were Fielding, Scott, +Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope: how intensely did they drink with both +hands from the cup of life. George Eliot, George Meredith, Louis +Stevenson, Howells, James, look on life from a private box. We see +their kid gloves and their opera-glass and we know that nothing could +ever take them on to the stage and ruffle it with the world of the day, +like men of the world who mean to taste life. There is no known +instance of a great novelist who lived obscure in a solitary retreat or +who became famous only after the lapse of many generations. + +It is the lady-like age: and so it is the age of ladies' novels. Women +have it all their own way now in romance. They carry off all the +prizes, just as girl students do in the studios of Paris. Up to a +certain point, within their own limits, they are supreme. Half the +modern romance, and many people think the better half, is written by +women. That is perfectly natural, an obvious result of modern society. +The romance to which our age best lends itself is the romance of +ordinary society, with delicate shades of character and feeling in +place of furious passion or picturesque incident. Women are by nature +and training more subtle observers of these social _nuances_ and +refined waverings of the heart than any others but men of rare genius. +The field is a small and home-like area, the requirements are mainly +those of graceful intuition, the tone must be pure, lady-like, subdued. +In this sphere it is plain that women have a marked superiority; it is +the sphere in which Jane Austen is the yet unapproached queen. But we +may look for more Jane Austens, and on wider fields with a yet deeper +insight into far grander characters. The social romance of the future +is the true poetic function of women. It is their own realm, in which +they will doubtless achieve yet unimagined triumphs. Men, revolting +from this polite and monotonous world, are trying desperate expedients. +But they are all wrong; the age is against it. Try to get out of +modern democratic uniformity and decorum and you may as well try to get +out of your skin. Mr. Stevenson was driven to playing at Robinson +Crusoe in the Pacific, and Mr. Rudyard Kipling once seemed bent on +dying in a tussle with Fuzzy-Wuzzy in the Soudan. But it is no good. +A dirty savage is no longer a romantic being. And as to the romance of +the wigwam, it reminds me of the Jews who keep the Feast of Tabernacles +by putting up some boughs in a back yard. + +Let us have no nonsense, no topsy-turvy straining after new effects, +which is so wearisome to those who love the racy naturalism of Parson +Adams and Edie Ochiltree. But let us have no pessimism also. The age +is against the romance of colour, movement, passion, and jollity. But +it is full of the romance of subtle and decorous psychology. It is not +the highest art: it is indeed a very limited art. But it is true art: +wholesome, sound, and cheerful. The world does not exist in order to +supply brilliant literature; and the march of democratic equality and +of decorous social uniformity is too certain a thing, in one sense too +blessed a thing, to be denied or to be denounced. An age of colour, +movement, variety, and romantic beauty will come again one day, we know +not how. There will be then a romance of passion and incident, of +strenuous ambition and mad merriment. But not to-day nor to-morrow. +Let us accept what the dregs of the nineteenth century can give us, +without murmuring and repining for what it cannot give and should not +seek to give. + +In this little series of studies, I shall make no attempt to estimate +the later literature of the Victorian Age, nor will I at all refer to +any living writer. Nor shall I deal with social and moral philosophy, +poetry, art, or religion. I propose to look back, from our present +point of view, on the literature, in the narrower sense of the term, +produced in the earlier part of the Queen's reign. + + + + +II + +THOMAS CARLYLE + +It is now for about half a century that the world has had all that is +most masterly in the work of Thomas Carlyle. And a time has arrived +when we may very fairly seek to weigh the sum total of influence which +he left on his own and on subsequent generations. We are now far +enough off, neither to be dazzled by his eloquence nor irritated by his +eccentricities. The men whom he derided and who shook their heads at +him are gone: fresh problems, new hopes, other heroes and prophets whom +he knew not, have arisen. Our world is in no sense his world. And it +has become a very fair question to ask--What is the residuum of +permanent effect from these great books of his, which have been +permeating English thought for half a century and more? + +It is a rare honour for any writer--at least for one who is neither +poet nor novelist--to have his productions live beyond two generations, +and to continue to be a great literary force, when fifty years have +altered all the conditions in which he wrote and the purposes and ideas +which he treated. It cannot be said that Carlyle's effective influence +is less now than it was a generation ago. It has lived through the +Utilitarian and Evolution movements and has not been extinguished by +them. And Thomas Carlyle bids fair to enter into that sacred band +whose names outlive their own century and give some special tone to +their national literature. + +The survival of certain books and names from generation to generation +does not depend on merit alone. Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is +immortal: though we do not rank "Bozzy" as a hero or a genius. Hume's +_History of England_ is a classic: though it can hardly be said to be +an adequate account of our country. Few books have ever exercised so +amazing an influence as Rousseau's _Social Contract_; yet the loosest +mind of to-day can perceive its sophistry. Burke's diatribes on the +French Revolution affected the history of Europe; though no one denies +that they were inspired by passion and deformed by panic. Hobbes has +very few readers to-day; but the _Leviathan_ may last as long as More's +_Utopia_, which has hardly more readers in our age. Books which exert +a paramount influence over their contemporaries may die down and be +known only in the history of literature. And books, again, of very +moderate value, written by men of one-sided intellect or founded on +somewhat shallow theories, may, by virtue of some special quality, or +as embodying some potent idea, attain to a permanent place in the world +of letters. Many a great book ceases very early to command readers: +and many books continue to be read although they are far from great. + +The first question that arises is this:--Do the chief works of Carlyle +belong to that class of books which attain an enduring and increasing +power, or to that class which effect great things for one or two +generations and then become practically obsolete? It would not be safe +to put his masterpieces in any exclusive sense into either of these +categories; but we may infer that they will ultimately tend to the +second class rather than the first. Books which attain to an enduring +and increasing power are such books as the _Ethics_, the _Politics_, +and the _Republic_, the _Thoughts_ of Marcus Aurelius and of +Vauvenargues, the _Essays_ of Bacon and of Hume, Plutarch's _Lives_ and +Gibbon's _Rome_. In these we have a mass of pregnant and ever-fertile +thought in a form that is perennially luminous and inspiring. It can +hardly be said that even the masterpieces of Carlyle--no! not the +_Revolution_, _Cromwell_, or the _Heroes_--reach this point of immortal +wisdom clothed with consummate art. The "personal equation" of +Teufelsdröckhian humour, its whimsies, and conundrums, its wild +outbursts of hate and scorn, not a few false judgments, and perverse +likes and dislikes--all this is too common and too glaring in the +Carlylean cycle, to permit its master to pass into the portals where +dwell the wise, serene, just, and immortal spirits. Not of such is the +Kingdom of the literary Immortals. + +On the other hand, if these masterpieces of sixty years ago are not +quite amongst the great books of the world, it would be preposterous to +regard them as obsolete, or such as now interest only the historian of +literature. They are read to-day practically as much as ever, and are +certain to be read for a generation or two to come. But they are not +read to-day with the passionate delight in the wonderful originality, +nor have they the commanding authority they seemed to possess for the +faithful disciples of the forties and the fifties. Nor can any one +suppose that the next century will continue to read them, except with +an open and unbiassed mind, and a willingness to admit that even here +there is much dead wood, gross error, and pitiable exaggeration. When +we begin to read in that spirit, however splendid be the imagination, +and however keen the logic, we are no longer under the spell of a +master: we are reading a memorable book, with a primary desire to learn +how former generations looked upon things. + +Thomas Carlyle, like all other voluminous writers, wrote very much that +cannot be called equal to his best: and it cannot be denied that the +inferior pieces hold a rather large proportion of the whole. Nothing +is less fatal to true criticism than the popular habit of blindly +overvaluing the inferior work of men of genius, unless it be the habit +of undervaluing them by looking at their worst instead of at their +best. Great men are to be judged by their highest; and it is not of +very great consequence if this highest forms a moderate part of the +total product. Now, what are the masterpieces of Thomas Carlyle? In +the order of their production they are _Sartor Resartus_, 1831; _French +Revolution_, 1837; _Hero-Worship_, 1840; _Past and Present_, 1843; +_Cromwell_, 1845. We need not be alarmed if this list forms but a +third of the thirty volumes (not including translations); and if it +omits such potent outbursts as _Chartism_, 1839; and _Latter-Day +Pamphlets_, 1850; or such a wonderful piece of history as _Friedrich +the Second_, 1858-1865. _Chartism_ and the _Latter-Day Pamphlets_ are +full of eloquence, insight, indignation, and pity, and they exerted a +great and wholesome effect on the generation whom they smote as with +the rebuke and warning of a prophet. But, as we look back on them +after forty or fifty years of experience, we find in them too much of +passionate exaggeration, at times a ferocious wrong-headedness, and +everywhere so little practical guidance or fruitful suggestion, that we +cannot reckon these magnificent Jeremiads as permanent masterpieces. + +As to _Friedrich_, it is not a book at all, but an encyclopaedia of +German biographies in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Who +reads every word of these ten volumes? Who cares to know how big was +the belly of some court chamberlain, or who were the lovers of some +unendurable Frau? What a welter of dull garbage! In what dust-heaps +dost thou not smother us, Teufelsdröckh! O, Thomas, Thomas, what +Titania has bewitched thee with the head of Dryasdust on thy noble +shoulders? Compare _Friedrich_ with _Cromwell_. In the Life of the +Puritan hero we have a great purpose, a prolonged homily, a magnificent +appeal against an unjust sentence passed two hundred years before by +ignorance, bigotry, and passion. The literary interest never +overpowers the social and political, the moral and the religious +purpose. Twenty years later, when he takes up the German _Friedrich_, +the literary interest overpowers the historical. Half of the ten +volumes of _Friedrich_ are taken up with tiresome anecdotes about the +ordinary appendages of a German court. Even the true greatness of +Frederick--his organisation of a model civil administration--is +completely obscured in the deluge of court gossip and _Potsdamiana_. +_Friedrich_ is a wonderful work, highly valuable to the student, a +memorable result of Teufelsdröckhian industry and humour--but it is not +a masterpiece: judged by the standard of Carlyle's own masterpieces, it +is really a failure. _Cromwell_ is the life of a hero and a statesman; +_Friedrich_ consists of miscellaneous memoirs of the court and camp of +the greatest of modern rulers. + +On the whole, we may count the _Cromwell_ as the greatest of Carlyle's +effective products. With his own right hand, alone and by a single +stroke, he completely reversed the judgment of the English nation about +their greatest man. The whole weight of Church, monarchy, aristocracy, +fashion, literature, and wit had for two centuries combined to falsify +history and distort the character of the noblest of English statesmen. +And a simple man of letters, by one book, at once and for ever reversed +this sentence, silenced the allied forces of calumny and rancour, and +placed Oliver for all future time as the greatest hero of the +Protestant movement. There are few examples in the history of +literature of so great and so sudden a triumph of truth and justice. +At the same time, it is well to remember that the _Cromwell_ is not a +literary masterpiece, in the sense of being an organic work of high +art. It is not the "Life" of Cromwell: it was not so designed, and was +never so worked out. It is his "Letters and Speeches," illustrated by +notes. A work so planned cannot possibly be a work of art, or a +perfect piece of biography. The constant passage from text to +commentary, from small print to large, from Oliver's Puritan +sermonising to Carlyle's Sartorian eccentricities, destroys the +artistic harmony of the book as an organic work of art. The "Life" of +Cromwell was in fact never written by Carlyle; and has yet to be +written. Never yet was such splendid material for a "Life" prepared by +a great historian. + +_Sartor Resartus_ (1831), the earliest of his greater works, is +unquestionably the most original, the most characteristic, the deepest +and most lyrical of his productions. Here is the Sage of +Craigenputtock at his best, at his grimmest, and, we must add, in his +most incoherent mood. To make men think, to rouse men out of the +slough of the conventional, the sensual, the mechanical, to make men +feel, by sheer force of poetry, pathos, and humour, the religious +mystery of life and the "wretchlessness of unclean living"--(as our +Church article hath it)--nothing could be more trumpet-tongued than +_Sartor_. The Gospel according to Teufelsdröckh is, however, a +somewhat Apocalyptic dispensation, and few there be who can "rehearse +the articles of his belief" with anything like precision. Another and +a more serious difficulty is this. How many a "general reader" +steadily reads through _Sartor_ from cover to cover? And of such, how +many entirely understand the inner Philosophy of Clothes, and follow +all the allusions, quips, and nicknames of Sartorian subjectivity. It +would be a fine subject for some Self-Improvement Circle of readers to +write examination papers upon questions as to the exact meaning of all +the inward musings of Teufelsdröckh. The first class of successful +candidates, one fears, would be small. A book--not of science or of +pure philosophy, or any technical art whatever--but a book addressed to +the general reader, and designed for the education of the public, and +which can be intelligently digested and assimilated by so very few of +the public, can hardly be counted as an unqualified success. And the +adepts who have mastered the inwardness of _Sartor_ are rare and few. + +The _French Revolution_, however, is far more distinctly a work of art +than _Cromwell_, and far more accessible to the great public than +_Sartor_. Indeed the _French Revolution_ is usually, and very +properly, spoken of and thought of, as a prose poem, if prose poem +there can be. It has the essential character of an epic, short of +rhythm and versification. Its "argument" and its "books"; its +contrasts and "episodes"; its grouping of characters and +_dénoūment_--are as carefully elaborated as the _Gerusalemme_ of Tasso, +or the _Aeneid_ of Virgil. And it produces on the mind the effect of a +poem with an epic or dramatic plot. It is only a reader thoroughly at +home in the history of the time, who can resist the poet's spell when, +at the end of Part III., Book VII., he is told that the Revolution is +"ended," and the curtain falls. As a matter of real history, this is +an arbitrary invention. For the street fight on the day named in the +Revolutionary Calendar--13 _Vendémiaire, An 4_ (5th October 1795), is +merely a casual point in a long movement, at which the poet finds it +artistic to stop. But the French Revolution does not stop there, nor +did the "Whiff of Grapeshot" end it in any but an arbitrary sense. +When the poet tells us that, upon Napoleon's defeating the sections +around the Convention, "the hour had come and the Man," and that the +thing called the French Revolution was thereby "blown into space," +nothing more silly, mendacious, and "phantasmic" was ever stated by +sober historian. The Convention was itself the living embodiment and +product of the Revolution, and Bonaparte's smart feat in protecting it, +increased its authority and confidence. If Carlyle's _French +Revolution_ be trusted as real history, it lands us in as futile a _non +sequitur_ as ever historian committed. + +Viewed as an historical poem, the _French Revolution_ is a splendid +creation. Its passion, energy, colour, and vast prodigality of +ineffaceable pictures place it undoubtedly at the head of all the +pictorial histories of modern times. And the dramatic rapidity of its +action, and the inexhaustible contrasts of its scenes and +tableaux--things which so fatally pervert its truthfulness as authentic +history--immensely heighten the effect of the poem on the reader's +mind. Not that Carlyle was capable of deliberately manufacturing an +historical romance in the mendacious way of Thiers and Lamartine. But, +having resolved to cast the cataclysm of 1789 and the few years before +and after it into a dramatic poem, he inevitably, and no doubt +unconsciously, treated certain incidents and certain men with a poet's +license or with a distorted vision. This too is more apparent toward +the close of his work, when he begins to show signs of fatigue and +exhaustion. Nay, it is to be feared that we are still suffering from +the outrage committed on Victorian literature by Mr. Mill's incendiary +housemaid. We may yet note marks of arson in the restored volume. At +the same time, there are large parts of his work which are as true +historically as they are poetically brilliant. Part I.--"The +Bastille"--is almost perfect. The whole description of Versailles, its +court, and government, of the effervescence of Paris--from the death of +Louis XV. to the capture of Versailles--is both powerful and true. +Part II.--"The Constitution"--is the weakest part of the whole from the +point of view of accurate history. And Part III.--"The Terror"--is +only trustworthy in separate pictures and episodes, however splendid +its dramatic power. + +It would need an essay, or rather a volume, on the French Revolution to +enumerate all the wrong judgments and fallacies of Carlyle's book, if +we bring it to the bar of sober and authentic history. First and +foremost comes his fundamental misconception that the Revolution was an +anarchical outburst against corruption and oppression, instead of +being, as it was, the systematic foundation of a new order of society. +Again, he takes it to be a purely French, local, and political +movement, instead of seeing that it was an European, social, spiritual +movement toward a more humane civilisation. And next, he regards the +Revolution as taking place in the six years between the taking of the +Bastille and the defeat of the Sections by Bonaparte; whereas the +Revolution was preparing from the time of Louis XIV., and is not yet +ended in the time of President Faure. Next to the capital mistake of +misconceiving the entire character and result of the Revolution, comes +the insolence which treats the public men of France during a whole +generation as mere subjects for ribaldry and caricature. From this +uniform mockery, Mirabeau and Bonaparte, two of the least worthy of +them, are almost alone exempted. This is a blunder in art, as well as +a moral and historical offence. Men like Gondorcet, Danton, Hoche, +Carnot, not to name a score of other old Conventionels, soldiers, and +leaders were pure, enlightened, and valorous patriots--with a breadth +of soul and social sympathies and hopes that tower far above the +insular prejudices and Hebrew traditions of a Scotch Cameronian +_littérateur_--poet, genius, and moralist though he also was himself. + +But though the _French Revolution_ is not to be accepted as +historical authority, it is profoundly stimulating and instructive, +when we look on it as a lyrical apologue. It is an historical +phantasmagoria--which, though hardly more literally true than +Aristophanes' _Knights_ or _Clouds_, may almost be placed beside these +immortal satires for its imagination, wisdom, and insight. The +personages and the events of the French Revolution in fact succeeded +each other with such startling rapidity and such bewildering variety, +that it is difficult for any but the most patient student to keep the +men and the phases steadily before the eye without confusion and in +distinct form. This Carlyle has done far better than any other +historian of the period, perhaps even better than any historian +whatever. That so many Englishmen are more familiar with the scenes +and the men and women of the French Revolution than they are with the +scenes and the men and women of their own history, is very largely the +work of Carlyle. And as to the vices and weakness of the Old Régime, +the electric contagion of the people of Paris, the indomitable +elasticity of the French spirit, the magnetic power of the French +genius, the famous _furia francese_, and the terrible rage into which +it can be lashed--all this Carlyle has told with a truth and insight +that has not been surpassed by any modern historian. + +It being then clearly understood that Carlyle did not leave us the +trustworthy history of the French Revolution, in the way in which +Thucydides gave us the authentic annals of the Peloponnesian war, or +Caesar the official despatches of the Conquest of Gaul, we must +willingly admit that Carlyle's history is one of the most fruitful +products of the nineteenth century. No one else certainly has written +the authentic story of the French Revolution at large, or of more than +certain aspects and incidents of it. In spite of misconceptions, and +such mistaken estimates as those of Mirabeau and Bonaparte, such +insolent mockery of good and able men, such ridiculous caricatures as +that of the "Feast of Pikes" and the trial of the King, such ribald +horse-play as "Grilled Herrings" and "Lion Sprawling," in spite of +blots and blunders in every chapter--the _French Revolution_ is +destined to live long and to stand forth to posterity as the typical +work of the master. It cannot be said to have done such work as the +_Cromwell_; for it is far less true and sound as history, and it is +only one out of scores of interpreters of the Revolution, whereas in +the Cromwell Carlyle worked single-handed. But being far more organic, +far more imaginative, indeed more powerful than the _Cromwell_ in +literary art, the _French Revolution_--produced, we may remember, +exactly in the middle of the author's life--will remain the enduring +monument of Carlyle's great spirit and splendid brain. + +The book entitled _Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History_ +(1840), to give it its full and original title, comes next in order of +time, and perhaps of abiding value. It is a book rather difficult for +us now to estimate after more than half a century, for so very much has +been done in the interval to build upon these foundations, to enlarge +our knowledge of these very heroes, and the estimates of Carlyle in the +first half of this century are for the most part so completely the +commonplaces of the English-speaking world at the close of the century, +that when we open the _Heroes_ again it is apt to seem obvious, +_connu_, the emphatic assertion of a truism that no one disputes. How +infinitely better do we now, in 1895, know Dante and Shakespeare, +Cromwell and Napoleon, than did our grandfathers in 1840! Who, +nowadays, imagines Mahomet to have been an impostor, or Burns to have +been a mere tipsy song-writer? What a copious literature has the last +half-century given us on Dante, on Islam and its spirit, on Rousseau, +on Burns, on the English and the French revolutions! But in 1840 the +true nature of these men was very faintly understood. Few people but +soldiers had the least chance of being called "heroes," and the "heroic +in history" was certainly not thought to include either poets, +preachers, or men of letters. _Heroes and Hero-Worship_, like the +_Cromwell_, has, in fact, done its work so completely that we find it a +little too familiar to need any constant reading or careful study. + +To judge fairly all that Carlyle effected by his book on Heroes we must +put ourselves at the point of view of the time when it was written, the +days of Wellington and Melbourne, Brougham and Macaulay, Southey and +Coleridge. None of these men understood the heroic in Norse mythology, +or the grandeur of Oliver Cromwell, or the supreme importance of the +_Divina Commedia_ as the embodiment of Catholic Feudalism. All this +Carlyle felt as no Englishman before him had felt, and told us in a +voice which has since been accepted as conclusive. How far deeper is +the view of Carlyle about some familiar personality like Johnson than +is that of Macaulay, how much farther does Carlyle see into the +Shakesperean firmament than even Coleridge! How far better does he +understand Rousseau and Burns than did Southey, laureate and critic as +he was hailed in his time. The book is a collection of Lectures, and +we now know how entirely Carlyle loathed that kind of utterance, how +much he felt the restraints and limits it involved. And for that +reason, the book is the simplest and most easily legible of his works, +with the least of his mannerism and the largest concessions to the +written language of sublunary mortals. Nearly all the judgments he +passes are not only sound, but now almost universally accepted. To +deal with the heroic in history, he needed, as he said, six months +rather than six days. It was intended, he told his hearers, "to break +ground," to clear up misunderstandings. It has done this: and a rich +crop has resulted from his ploughshare. + +Nothing but a few sketches could be compressed into six hours. But it +is curious how many things seem omitted in this survey of the heroic. +At the age of forty-five Carlyle had not recognised Friedrich at all, +for he does not figure in the "Hero as King." Napoleon takes his +place, though Bonaparte was a "hero" only in the bad sense of hero +which Carlyle was seeking to explode. It is well that, since he +finished the _French Revolution_, Carlyle seems to have found out that +Bonaparte "parted with Reality," and had become a charlatan, a sham. +Still for all that, he remains "our last great man." Mazzini was +present at the delivery of these lectures: and when he had listened to +this last, he went up to Carlyle and told him that he had undone his +Hero-Worship and had fallen from the truth; and from that hour Mazzini +would hold no terms with the gospel of One-Man. To make Hero-Worship +close with the installation of Napoleon as "our last great man," was to +expose the inherent weakness of the Sartorian creed--that humanity +exists for the sake of its great men. The other strange delusion is +the entire omission from the "Hero as Priest" of any Catholic hero. +Not only are St. Bernard, and St. Francis, Becket and Lanfranc--all the +martyrs and missionaries of Catholicism--consigned to oblivion:--but +not a word is said of Alfred, Godfrey, St. Louis, St. Ferdinand, and +St. Stephen. In a single volume there must be selection of types. But +the whole idea of Hero-Worship was perverted in a plan which had no +room for a single Catholic chief or priest. + +This perverse exaggeration of Puritan religion, and the still more +unjust hatred of Catholic religion, unfortunately runs through all +Carlyle's work, and perhaps nowhere breaks out in so repulsive a form +as in the piece called "Jesuitism" (1850), in the _Latter-Day +Pamphlets_ (No. VIII.). Discarding the creed, the practice, and the +language of Puritanism, Carlyle still retained its narrowness, its +self-righteousness, its intolerance, and its savagery. The moralist, +to whom John Knox was a hero, but St. Bernard was not, but only a +follower of the "three-hatted Papa," and an apostle of "Pig's-wash," +was hardly the man to exhaust the heroic in history. In the "Hero as +Man-of-Letters," Carlyle was at home. If ever pure letters produced a +hero, the sage of Chelsea was one. With Johnson, with Rousseau, he is +perfectly rational, and the mass of literature which has accumulated +round the names of these two, only tends to confirm the essential +justice of Carlyle's estimate. Nor need we dispute his estimate of the +vigour and manliness of Burns. It is only when Carlyle describes him +as "the most gifted British soul" in the eighteenth century--the +century of Hume, Adam Smith, Fielding, and Burke--that we begin to +smile. Burns was a noble-hearted fellow, as well as a born poet. But +perhaps the whole cycle of Sartorian extravaganza contains no saying so +futile as the complaint, that the British nation in the great war with +France entrusted their destinies to a phantasmic Pitt, instead of to +"the Thunder-god, Robert Burns." Napoleon would no doubt have welcomed +such a change of ministry. It is incoherences of this sort which undo +so much of the splendid service that Carlyle gave to his age. + +But we are not willing to let the defects of Carlyle's philosophy drive +out of mind the permanent and beautiful things in his literary work. +_Past and Present_ (1843) is certainly a success--a happy and true +thought, full of originality, worked out with art and power. The idea +of embedding a living and pathetic picture of monastic life in the +twelfth century, and a minute study of the labours of enlightened +churchmen in the early struggles of civilisation--the idea of embedding +this tale, as if it were the remains of some disinterred saint, in the +midst of a series of essays on the vices and weaknesses of modern +society--was a highly original and instructive device, only to be +worked to success by a master. And the master brought it to a +delightful success. In all his writings of thirty volumes there are +few pages more attractive than the story of Jocelin of Brakelond, Abbot +Hugo, Abbot Samson, and the festival of St. Edmund, which all pass away +as in a vision leaving "a mutilated black ruin amidst green +expanses"--as we so often see in our England to-day after the trampling +of seven centuries over the graves of the early monks. + +And then, when the preacher passes suddenly from the twelfth century to +the nineteenth, from toiling and ascetic monks to cotton spinners and +platform orators--the effect is electric--as though some old +Benedictine rose from the dead and began to preach in the crowded +streets of a city of factories. Have we yet, after fifty years of this +time of tepid hankering after Socialism and Theophilanthropic +experiments, got much farther than Thomas Carlyle in his preaching in +Book IV. on "Aristocracies," "Captains of Industry," "The Landed," "The +Gifted"? What truth, what force in the aphorism:--"To predict the +Future, to manage the Present, would not be so impossible, had not the +Past been so sacrilegiously mishandled; effaced, and what is worse, +defaced!"--"Of all Bibles, the frightfulest to disbelieve in is this +'Bible of Universal History'"--"The Leaders of Industry, if Industry is +ever to be led, are virtually the Captains of the World." What new +meaning that phrase has acquired in these fifty years! "Men of letters +may become a 'chivalry,' an actual instead of a virtual Priesthood." +Well! not men of letters exactly: but perhaps philosophers, with an +adequate moral and scientific training. Here, as so often, Carlyle +just missed a grand truth to which his insight and nobility of soul had +led him, through his perverse inability to accept any systematic +philosophy, and through his habit to listen to the whispering of his +own heart as if it were equivalent to scientific certainty. But the +whole book, _Past and Present_, is a splendid piece and has done much +to mould the thought of our time. It would impress us much more than +it does, were it not already become the very basis of all sincere +thought about social problems and the future conditions of industry. + +Of the _Cromwell's Letters and Speeches_ (1845) we have already spoken, +as the greatest of our author's effective products, inasmuch as it +produced the most definite practical result in moulding opinion, and a +result of the highest importance. But it is not, as we have seen, a +work of art, or even an organic work at all, and it cannot compare in +literary charm with some other of the author's works. We do not turn +to the _Cromwell_ again and again, as we do to the _French Revolution_, +or to _Sartor_, which we can take up from time to time as we do a poem +or a romance. Many of the great books of the world are not read and +re-read by the public, just as none but special students continually +resort to the _Novum Organum_, or the _Wealth of Nations_. For similar +reasons, the _Cromwell_ will never be a favourite book with the next +century, as it cannot be said to have been with ours. It has done its +work with masterly power; and its work will endure. And some day +perhaps, from out these materials, and those collected by Mr. Gardiner, +and by [Transcriber's note: next two words transliterated from Greek] +_oi peri_ Gardiner, a _Life of Cromwell_ may be finally composed. + +It is true that Carlyle's determination to force Oliver upon us as +perfect saint and infallible hero is irritating and sometimes +laughable; it is true that his zeal to be-dwarf every one but Cromwell +himself is unjust and untrue; and the depreciation of every man who +declines to play into Oliver's hands is too often manifest. But, on +the whole, the judgments are so sound, the supporting authorities are +so overwhelming, the work of verification is so thorough, so +scrupulous, so perfectly borne out by all subsequent research--that the +future will no doubt look on the _Cromwell_, not only as the most +extraordinary, but the most satisfactory and effective of all Carlyle's +work; although for the reasons stated, it can never have the largest +measure of his literary charm or possess the full afflatus of his +poetic and mystical genius. + +By the time that _Cromwell_ was published, Thomas Carlyle was turned of +fifty, and had produced nearly two-thirds of his total work. It may be +doubted if any later book will be permanently counted amongst his +masterpieces. _Friedrich_, for reasons set forth, was an attempt in +late life to repeat the feat of the _Cromwell_: it was a much less +urgent task: and it was not so well performed. The _Latter-Day +Pamphlets_ (1850) do not add much that is new to _Past and Present_ +(1843) or to _Sartor_ (1831); and little of what they add is either +needful or true. The world had been fully enlightened about Wind-bags, +Shams, the approach to Tophet, Stump-orators, Palaver-Parliaments, +Phantasm-Captains, and the rest of the Sartorian puppet-pantomime. +There was a profound truth in all of these invectives, warnings, and +prophecies. But the prophet's voice at last got so shrieky and +monotonous, that instead of warning and inspiring a second generation, +these terrific maledictions began to pall upon a practical world. An +ardent admirer of the prophet has said that, when he first heard +Carlyle speak face to face, he could hardly resist the impression that +he was listening to an actor personating the Sage of Chelsea, and +mimicking the stock phrases of the _Latter-Day Pamphlets_. Certainly +no man of sense can find any serious guidance on any definite social +problem from these "Pamphlets" of his morbid decline. Carlyle at last +sat eating his heart out, like Napoleon on St. Helena. His true +friends will hasten to throw such a decent covering as Japhet and Shem +threw around Noah, over the latest melancholy outbursts about Negroes, +Reformers, Jamaica massacres, and the anticipated conflagration of +Paris by the Germans. It is pitiful indeed to find in "the collected +and revised works," thirty-six volumes, the drivel of his Pro-Slavery +advocacy, and of ill-conditioned snarling at honest men labouring to +reform ancient abuses. + +It is perilous for any man, however consummate be his genius, to place +himself on a solitary rock apart from all living men and defiant of all +before him, as the sole source of truth out of his own inner +consciousness. It is fatal to any man, however noble his own spirit, +to look upon this earth as "one fuliginous dust-heap," and the whole +human race as a mere herd of swine rushing violently down a steep place +into the sea. Nor can the guidance of mankind be with safety entrusted +to one who for eighty-six years insisted on remaining by his own +hearth-stone a mere omnivorous reader and omnigenous writer of books. +Carlyle was a true and pure "man of letters," looking at things and +speaking to men, alone in his study, through the medium of printed +paper. All that a "man of letters," of great genius and lofty spirit, +could do by consuming and producing mere printed paper, he did. And as +the "supreme man of letters" of his time he will ever be honoured and +long continue to be read. He deliberately cultivated a form of speech +which made him unreadable to all except English-speaking readers, and +intelligible only to a select and cultivated body even amongst them. +He wrote in what, for practical purposes, is a local, or rather +personal, dialect. And thus he deprived himself of that world-wide and +European influence which belongs to such men as Hume, Gibbon, Scott, +Byron--even to Macaulay, Tennyson, Dickens, Ruskin, and Spencer. But +his name will stand beside theirs in the history of British thought in +the nineteenth century; and a devoted band of chosen readers, wherever +the Anglo-Saxon tongue is heard, will for generations to come continue +to drink inspiration from the two or three masterpieces of the +Annandale peasant-poet. + + + + +III + +LORD MACAULAY + +Macaulay, who counted his years of life by those of this century, may +fairly claim to have had the greatest body of readers, and to be the +most admired prose-writer of the Victorian Age. It is now some seventy +years since his first brilliant essay on "Milton" took the world by +storm. It is half a century since that fascinating series of _Essays_ +was closed, and little short of that time since his famous _History_ +appeared. The editions of it in England and in America are counted by +thousands; it has six translations into German, and translations into +ten other European languages. It made him rich, famous, and a peer. +Has it given him a foremost place in English literature? + +Here is a case where the judgment of the public and the judgment of +experts is in striking contrast. The readers both of the Old and of +the New World continue to give the most practical evidence that they +love his books. Macaulay is a rare example of a writer all of whose +works are almost equally popular, and believed by many to be equally +good. _Essays, Lays, History, Lives_--all are read by millions: as +critic, poet, historian, biographer, Macaulay has achieved world-wide +renown. And yet some of our best critics deny him either fine taste, +or subtlety, or delicate discrimination, catholic sympathies, or serene +judgment. They say he is always more declaimer than thinker--more +advocate than judge. The poets deny that the _Lays_ are poetry at all. +The modern school of scientific historians declare that the _History_ +is a splendid failure, and it proves how rotten was the theory on which +it is constructed. The purists in style shake their heads over his +everlasting antitheses, the mannerism of violent phrases and the +perpetual abuse of paradox. His most indulgent friends admit the force +of these defects, which they usually speak of as his "limitations" or +his "methods." Here, indeed, is an opportunity for one of those +long-drawn antitheses of which Macaulay was so great a master. How he +would himself have revelled in the paradox--"that books which were +household words with every cow-boy in Nevada, and every Baboo in +Bengal, were condemned by men of culture as the work of a Philistine +and a mannerist"; "how ballads which were the delight of every child +were ridiculed by critics as rhetorical jingles that would hardly win a +prize in a public school"; "how the most famous of all modern reviewers +scarcely gave us one example of delicate appreciation or subtle +analysis"; how it comes about "that the most elaborate of modern +histories does not contain an idea above the commonplaces of a +crammer's textbook"--and so forth, in the true Black-and-White style +which is so clear and so familiar. But let us beware of applying to +Macaulay himself that tone of exaggeration and laborious antithesis +which he so often applied to others. Boswell, he says, was immortal, +"_because_ he was a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb." It would be a +feeble parody to retort that Macaulay became a great literary power +"because he had no philosophy, little subtlety, and a heavy hand." For +my part, I am slow to believe that the judgment of the whole +English-speaking race, a judgment maintained over more than half a +century, can be altogether wrong; and the writer who has given such +delight, has influenced so many writers, and has taught so much to so +many persons, can hardly have been a shallow mannerist, or an +ungovernable partisan. No one denies that Macaulay had a prodigious +knowledge of books; that in literary fecundity and in varied +improvisation he has rarely been surpassed; that his good sense is +unfailing, his spirit manly, just, and generous; and lastly, that his +command over language had unequalled qualities of precision, energy, +and brilliance. These are all very great and sterling qualities. And +it is right to acknowledge them with no unstinted honour--even whilst +we are fully conscious of the profound shortcomings and limitations +that accompanied but did not destroy them. + +In a previous paper we discussed the permanent contribution to English +literature of Thomas Carlyle; and it is curious to note how complete a +contrast these two famous writers present. Carlyle was a simple, +self-taught, recluse man of letters: Macaulay was legislator, cabinet +minister, orator, politician, peer--a pet of society, a famous talker, +and member of numerous academies. Carlyle was poor, despondent, +morbid, and cynical: Macaulay was rich, optimist, overflowing with +health, high spirits, and good nature. The one hardly ever knew what +the world called success: the other hardly ever knew failure. Carlyle +had in him the elements that make the poet, the prophet, the apostle, +the social philosopher. In Macaulay these were singularly wanting; he +was the man of affairs, the busy politician, the rhetorician, the +eulogist of society as it is, the believer in material progress, in the +ultimate triumph of all that is practical and commonplace, and in the +final discomfiture of all that is visionary and Utopian. The +Teufelsdröckhian dialect is obscure even to its select students: the +Macaulay sentence is plain as that of Swift himself. Carlyle's gospel +is full of passion, novelty, suggestion, theory, and social problems. +Macaulay turned his back on social problems and disdained any kind of +gospel. He had no mission to tell the world how bad it is; on the +contrary, he was never wearied with his proofs that it ought to be well +satisfied with its lot and its vast superiority in all things to its +ancestors. + +The great public, wherever English books penetrate, from the White Sea +to Australia, from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, loves the +brilliant, manly, downright optimist; the critics and the philosophers +care more for the moody and prophetic pessimist. But this does not +decide the matter; and it does not follow that either public or critic +has the whole truth. If books were written only in the dialect, and +with the apocalyptic spirit of _Sartor_, it is certain that millions +would cease to read books, and could gain little from books if they +did. And if the only books were such "purple patches" of history as +Macaulay left us, with their hard and fast divisions of men into sheep +and goats, and minute biographies of fops, pedants, and grandees, +narrated in the same resonant, rhetorical, unsympathetic, and falsely +emphatic style--this generation would have a very patchwork idea of +past ages and a narrow sense of the resources of our English language. +There is room for both literary schools, and we need teachers of many +kinds. We must not ask of any kind more than they can give. Macaulay +has led millions who read no one else, or who never read before, to +know something of the past, and to enjoy reading. He will have done +them serious harm if he has persuaded them that this is the best that +can be done in historical literature, or that this is the way in which +the English language can be most fitly used. Let us be thankful for +his energy, learning, brilliance. He is no priest, philosopher, or +master. Let us delight in him as a fireside companion. + +In one thing all agree--critics, public, friends, and opponents. +Macaulay's was a life of purity, honour, courage, generosity, +affection, and manly perseverance, almost without a stain or a defect. +His life, it was true, was singularly fortunate, and he had but few +trials, and no formidable obstacles. He was bred up in the comfortable +egoism of the opulent middle classes; the religion of comfort, +_laisser-faire_, and social order was infused into his bones. But, so +far as his traditions and temper would permit, his life was as +honourable, as unsullied, and as generous, as ever was that of any man +who lived in the fierce light that beats upon the famous. We know his +nature and his career as well as we know any man's; and we find it on +every side wholesome, just, and right. He has been fortunate in his +biographers, and amply criticised by the best judges. His nephew, Sir +George Trevelyan, has written his life at length in a fine book. Dean +Milman and Mark Pattison have given us vignettes; Cotter Morison has +adorned the _Men of Letters_ series with a delightful and sympathetic +sketch; and John Morley and Leslie Stephen have weighed his work in the +balance with judicial acumen and temperate firmness. There is but one +voice in all this company. It was a fine, generous, honourable, and +sterling nature. His books deserve their vast popularity and may long +continue to maintain it. But Macaulay must not be judged amongst +philosophers--nor even amongst the real masters of the English +language. And, unless duly corrected, he may lead historical students +astray and his imitators into an obtrusive mannerism. + +Let us take a famous passage from one of his most famous essays, +written in the zenith of his powers after his return from India, at the +age of forty--an essay on a grand subject which never ceased to +fascinate his imagination, composed with all his amazing resources of +memory and his dazzling mastery of colour. It is the third paragraph +of his well-known review of Von Ranke's _History of the Popes_. The +passage is familiar to all readers, and some of its phrases are +household words. It is rather long as well as trite; but it contains +in a single page such a profusion of historical suggestion; it is so +vigorous, so characteristic of Macaulay in all his undoubted resources +as in all his mannerism and limitations; it is so essentially true, and +yet so thoroughly obvious; it is so grand in form, and yet so meagre in +philosophic logic, that it may be worth while to analyse it in detail; +and for that purpose it must be set forth, even though it convey to +most readers little more than a sonorous truism. + + +There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy +so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The +history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human +civilisation. No other institution is left standing which carries the +mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the +Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian +amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday when +compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace +back in unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the +nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far +beyond Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the +twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But +the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and +the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy +remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and +youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth, to the +farthest ends of the world, missionaries as zealous as those who landed +in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the +same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her +children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the +New World have more than compensated her for what she has lost in the +Old. Her spiritual ascendancy extends over the vast countries which +lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which, +a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as +that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are +certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be +difficult to show that all the other Christian sects united amount to a +hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates +that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the +commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical +establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance +that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and +respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank +had crossed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in +Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And +she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New +Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a +broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. + + +Here we have Macaulay in all his strength and all his limitations. The +passage contains in the main a solid truth--a truth which was very +little accepted in England in the year 1840--a truth of vast import and +very needful to assert. And this truth is clothed in such pomp of +illustration, and is hammered into the mind with such accumulated +blows; it is so clear, so hard, so coruscating with images, that it is +impossible to escape its effect. The paragraph is one never to be +forgotten, and not easy to be refuted or qualified. No intelligent +tiro in history can read that page without being set a-thinking, +without feeling that he has a formidable problem to solve. Tens of +thousands of young minds must have had that deeply-coloured picture of +Rome visibly before them in many a Protestant home in England and in +America. Now, all this is a very great merit. To have posed a great +historical problem, at a time when it was very faintly grasped, and to +have sent it ringing across the English-speaking world in such a form +that he who runs may read--nay, he who rides, he who sails, he who +watches sheep or stock _must_ read--this is a real and signal service +conferred on literature and on thought. Compare this solid sense with +Carlyle's ribaldry about "the three-hatted Papa," "pig's wash," +"servants of the Devil," "this accursed nightmare," and the rest of his +execrations--and we see the difference between the sane judgment of the +man of the world and the prejudices of intolerant fanaticism. + +But, unfortunately, Macaulay, having stated in majestic antitheses his +problem of "the unchangeable Church," makes no attempt to provide us +with a solution. This splendid eulogium is not meant to convert us to +Catholicism--very far from it. Macaulay was no Catholic, and had only +a sort of literary admiration for the Papacy. As Mr. Cotter Morison +has shown, he leaves the problem just where he found it, and such +theories as he offers are not quite trustworthy. He does not suggest +that the Catholic Church is permanent because it possesses truth: but, +rather, because men's ideas of truth are a matter of idiosyncrasy or +digestion. The whole essay is not a very safe guide to the history of +Protestantism or of Catholicism, though it is full of brilliant points +and sensible assertions. And in the end our essayist, the rebel from +his Puritan traditions, and the close ally of sceptical Gallios, after +forty pages of learned _pros_ and _cons_, declares that he will not say +more for fear of "exciting angry feelings." He rather sneers at +Protestant fervour: he declaims grand sentences about Catholic fervour. +He will not declare for either of them; and it does not seem to matter +much in the long run for which men declare, provided they can be kept +well in hand by saving common-sense. In the meantime the topic is a +mine of paradox to the picturesque historian. This is not philosophy, +it is not history, but it is full of a certain rich literary seed. + +The passage, though a truism to all thoughtful men, was a striking +novelty to English Protestants fifty years ago. But it will hardly +bear a close scrutiny of these sweeping, sharp-edged, "cock-sure" +dogmas of which it is composed. The exact propositions it contains may +be singly accurate; but as to the most enduring "work of human policy," +it is fair to remember that the Civil Law of Rome has a continuous +history of at least twenty-four centuries; that the Roman Empire from +Augustus to the last Constantine in New Rome endured for fifteen +centuries; and from Augustus to the last Hapsburg it endured for +eighteen centuries. There is a certain ambiguity between the way in +which Macaulay alternates between the Papacy and the Christian Church, +which are not at all the same thing. The Papacy, as a European or +cosmical institution, can hardly be said to have more than twelve +centuries of continuous history on the stage of the world. The +religion and institutions of Confucius and of Buddha have twice that +epoch; and the religion and institutions of Moses have thirty +centuries; and the Califate in some form or other is nearly coeval with +the Papacy. The judicious eulogist has guarded himself against denying +in words any of these facts; but a cool survey of universal history +will somewhat blunt the edge of Macaulay's trenchant phrases. After +all, we must admit that the passage as a whole, apart from the +superlatives, is substantially true, and contains a most valuable and +very striking thought. + +Passing from the thought to the form of this famous passage, with what +a wealth of illustration is it enforced, with what telling contrasts, +with what gorgeous associations! How vivid the images, how stately the +personages, who are called up to heighten the lights of the tableau of +the Vatican! Ancient and modern civilisation are joined by it; it +recalls the Pantheon and the Colosseum; it gave sanction to the Empire +of Charlemagne and to that of Napoleon, it inspired Augustin, and +confronted Attila; Venice is a mere modern foundation; the Church is +older than Hengist and Horsa, Clovis, or Mahomet; yet it stretches over +the Atlantic continent from Missouri to Cape Horn, and still goes on +conquering and to conquer. And the climax of this kaleidoscopic +"symphony in purple and gold"--the New Zealander sketching the ruins of +St. Paul's from a broken arch of London Bridge--has become a proverb, +and is repeated daily by men who never heard of Macaulay, much less of +Von Ranke, and is an inimitable bit of picturesque colouring. It is +very telling, nobly hyperbolic, no man can misunderstand it, or forget +it. The most practised hand will not find it easy to "go one better +than" Macaulay in a swingeing trope. It is a fascinating literary +artifice, and it has fascinated many to their ruin. In feebler hands, +it degenerates into what in London journalistic slang is known as +"telegraphese." A pocket encyclopaedia and a copious store of +adjectives have enabled many a youth to roar out brilliant articles "as +gently as a sucking dove." But all men of power have their imitators, +and are open to parody and spurious coining. Now, Macaulay, however +brilliant and kaleidoscopic, is always using his own vast reading, his +own warm imagination, his unfailing fecundity, and his sterling good +sense. + +Turn to the style of the passage--it is perfectly pellucid in meaning, +rings on the ear like the crack of a rifle, is sonorous, rich, and +swift. One can fancy the whole passage spoken by an orator; indeed it +is difficult to resist the illusion that it was "declaimed" before it +was written. We catch the oratorial tags and devices, the repeated +phrase, the incessant antithesis, the alternate rise and fall of +eloquent speech. It is declamation--fine declamation--but we miss the +musical undertones, the subtle involutions, the unexpected bursts, and +mysterious cadences of really great written prose. The term "the +Republic of Venice" is repeated three times in three lines: the term +"the Papacy" is repeated three times in two lines. Any other writer +would substitute a simple "it" for most of these; and it is difficult +to see how the paragraph would lose. The orator aids his hearers by +constant repetition of the same term; the writer avoids this lest he +prove monotonous. The short sentences of four or five words interposed +to break the torrent--the repetition of the same words--the see-saw of +black and white, old and young, base and pure--all these are the +stock-in-trade of the rhetorician, not of the master of written prose. +Now, Macaulay was a rhetorician, a consummate rhetorician, who wrote +powerful invectives or panegyrics in massive rhetoric which differed +from speeches mainly in their very close fibre, in their chiselled +phrasing, and above all in their dazzling profusion of literary +illustration. If it was oratory, it was the oratory of a speaker of +enormous reading, inexhaustible memory, and consummate skill with words. + +There is nothing at all exceptional about this passage which has been +chosen for analysis. It is a fair and typical piece of Macaulay's best +style. Indeed his method is so uniform and so mechanical that any page +of his writing exhibits the same force and the same defects as any +other. Take one of the most famous of his scenes, the trial of Warren +Hastings, toward the end of that elaborate essay, written in 1841. +Every one knows the gorgeous and sonorous description of Westminster +Hall, beginning--"The place was worthy of such a trial." In the next +sentence the word "hall" recurs five times, and the relative "which" +occurs three times, and is not related to the same noun. Ten sentences +in succession open with the pronoun "there." It is a perfect galaxy of +varied colour, pomp, and illustration; but the effect is somewhat +artificial, and the whole scene smells of the court upholsterer. The +"just sentence of Bacon" pairs off with "the just absolution of +Somers"; the "greatest painter" sits beside the "greatest scholar of +the age"; ladies have "lips more persuasive than those of Fox"; there, +too, is "the beautiful mother of a beautiful race." And in the midst +of these long-drawn superlatives and glittering contrasts come in short +martial phrases, as brief and sharp as a drill-sergeant's word of +command. "Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting"--"The avenues +were lined with grenadiers"--"The streets were kept clear by cavalry." +No man can forget these short, hard decisive sentences. + +The artificial structure of his paragraphs grew upon Macaulay with age. +His _History of England_ opens with a paragraph of four sentences. +Each of these begins with "I purpose," "I shall"; and the last sentence +of the four has ten clauses each beginning with "how." The next +paragraph has four successive sentences beginning "It will be +seen"--and the last sentence has again three clauses each beginning +with "how." The fourth paragraph contains the word "I" four times in +as many lines. This method of composition has its own merits. The +repetition of words and phrases helps the perception and prevents the +possibility of misunderstanding. Where effects are simply enumerated, +the monotony of form is logically correct. Every successive sentence +heralded by a repeated "how," or "there," or "I," adjusts itself into +its proper line without an effort of thought on the reader's part. It +is not graceful; it is pompous, and distinctly rhetorical. But it is +eminently clear, emphatic, orderly, and easy to follow or to remember. +Hence it is unpleasing to the finely-attuned ear, and is counted +somewhat vulgar by the trained lover of style, whilst it is immensely +popular with those who read but little, and is able to give them as +much pleasure as it gives instruction. + +The famous passage about Westminster Hall, written in 1841, may be +compared with the equally known passage on the Chapel in the Tower +which occurs in the fifth chapter of the _History_, written in 1848. +It begins as all lovers of English remember--"In truth there is no +sadder spot on the earth than this little cemetery." The passage +continues with "there" and "thither" repeated eight times; it bristles +with contrasts, graces and horrors, antithesis, climax, and sonorous +heraldries. "Such was the dust with which the dust of Monmouth +mingled." It is a fine paragraph, which has impressed and delighted +millions. But it is, after all, rather facile moralising; its +rhetorical artifice has been imitated with success in many a prize +essay and not a few tall-talking journals. How much more pathos is +there in a stanza from Gray's _Elegy_, or a sentence from Carlyle's +_Bastille_, or Burke's _French Revolution_! + +The habit of false emphasis and the love of superlatives is a far worse +defect, and no one has attempted to clear Macaulay of the charge. It +runs through every page he wrote, from his essay on Milton, with which +he astonished the town at the age of twenty-five, down to the close of +his _History_ wherein we read that James II. valued Lord Perth as +"author of the last improvements on the thumb-screw." Indeed no more +glaring example of Macaulay's _megalomania_ or taste for exaggeration +can be found than the famous piece in the _Milton_ on the Restoration +of Charles II. + + +Then came those days, never to be recalled without a blush, the days of +servitude without loyalty and sensuality without love, of dwarfish +talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow +minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The +king cringed to his rival that he might trample on his people, sank +into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her +degrading insults, and her more degrading gold. The caresses of +harlots and the jests of buffoons regulated the policy of the State. +The government had just ability enough to deceive and just religion +enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the scoff of every +grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. +In every high place, worship was paid to Charles and James, Belial and +Moloch; and England propitiated these obscene and cruel idols with the +blood of her best and bravest children. Crime succeeded to crime, and +disgrace to disgrace, till the race, accursed of God and man, was a +second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and to be +a by-word and a shaking of the head to the nations. + + +This is vigorous invective, in the style of Cicero against Catiline, or +Junius attacking a duke; it is brilliant rhetoric and scathing satire. +At bottom it has substantial truth, if the attention is fixed on +Whitehall and the scandalous chronicle of its frequenters. It differs +also from much in Macaulay's invectives in being the genuine hot-headed +passion of an ardent reformer only twenty-five years old. It is +substantially true as a picture of the Court at the Restoration: +but in form how extravagant, even of that! Charles II. is Belial; +James is Moloch; and Charles is _propitiated_ by the blood of +Englishmen!--Charles, easy, courteous, good-natured, profligate +Charles. And all this of the age of the _Paradise Lost_ and the +_Morning Hymn_, of Jeremy Taylor, Izaak Walton, Locke, Newton, and +Wren! Watch Macaulay banging on his antithetic drum--"servitude +without loyalty and sensuality without love"--"dwarfish talents and +gigantic vices"--"ability enough to deceive"--"religion enough to +persecute." Every phrase is a superlative; every word has its +contrast; every sentence has its climax. And withal let us admit that +it is tremendously powerful, that no one who ever read it can forget +it, and few even who have read it fail to be tinged with its fury and +contempt. And, though a tissue of superlatives, it bears a solid +truth, and has turned to just thoughts many a young spirit prone to be +fascinated by Charles's good-nature, and impressed with the halo of the +divine consecration of kings. + +But the savage sarcasms which are tolerable in a passionate young +reformer smarting under the follies of George IV., are a serious defect +in a grave historian, when used indiscriminately of men and women in +every age and under every condition. In his _Machiavelli_, Macaulay +hints that the best histories are perhaps "those in which a little of +fictitious narrative is judiciously employed." "Much," he says, "is +gained in effect." It is to be feared that this youthful indiscretion +was never wholly purged out of him. Boswell, we know, was "a dunce, a +parasite, and a coxcomb"--_and therefore_ immortal. He was one of "the +smallest men that ever lived," of "the meanest and feeblest intellect," +"servile," "shallow," "a bigot and a sot," and so forth--and yet, "a +great writer, _because_ he was a great fool." We all know what is +meant; and there is a substratum of truth in this; but it is tearing a +paradox to tatters. How differently has Carlyle dealt with poor dear +Bozzy! Croker's _Boswell's Johnson_ "is as bad as bad can be," full of +"monstrous blunders"--(he had put 1761 for 1766) "gross mistakes"--"for +which a schoolboy would be flogged." Southey is "utterly destitute of +the power of discerning truth from falsehood." He prints a joke which +"is enough to make us ashamed of our species." Robert Montgomery pours +out "a roaring cataract of nonsense." One of his tropes is "the worst +similitude in the world." And yet Macaulay can rebuke Johnson for "big +words wasted on little things"! + +Neither Cicero, Milton, Swift, nor Junius ever dealt in more furious +words than Macaulay, who had not the excuse of controversy or passion. +Frederick William of Prussia was "the most execrable of fiends, a cross +between Moloch and Puck"; "his palace was hell"; compared with the +Prince, afterwards Frederick the Great, "Oliver Twist in the workhouse, +and Smike at Dotheboys Hall were petted children." It would be +difficult for Mark Twain to beat that. "The follies and vices of King +John _were the salvation_ of England." Cranmer was peculiarly fitted +to organise the Church of England by being "unscrupulous, indifferent, +a coward, and a time-server." James I. was given to "stammering, +slobbering, shedding unmanly tears," alternating between the buffoon +and the pedagogue. James II. "amused himself with hearing Covenanters +shriek"; he was "a libertine, singularly slow and narrow in +understanding, obstinate, harsh, and unforgiving." The country +gentleman of that age talked like "the most ignorant clown"; his wife +and daughter were in taste "below a stillroom maid of the present day." +The chaplain was a mere servant, and was expected to marry a servant +girl whose character had been blown upon. + +But it ought to be remembered that all of these descriptions are +substantially true. Macaulay's pictures of the Stuarts, of Cromwell, +of the Restoration and its courtiers, of Milton, of William III., are +all faithful and just; Boswell _was_ often absurd; Southey _was_ +shallow; Montgomery _was_ an impostor; Frederick William _did_ treat +his son brutally; the country squire and the parson two centuries ago +were much rougher people than they are to-day. And if Macaulay had +simply told us this in measured language of this kind, he would have +failed in beating his lesson into the mind. Not only was "a little of +fictitious narrative judiciously employed," but not a little of +picturesque exaggeration and redundant superlatives. Carlyle is an +even worse offender in this line. Did he not call Macaulay himself +"squat, low-browed, commonplace"--"a poor creature, with his dictionary +literature and his saloon arrogance"--"no vision in him"--"will neither +see nor do any great thing"?[1] Ruskin, Freeman, Froude, and others +have been tempted to deal in gross superlatives. But with all these it +has been under the stimulus of violent indignation. With Macaulay the +superlatives pour out as his native vernacular without heat or wrath, +as a mere rhetorician's trick, as the favourite tones of a great +colourist. And though the trick, like all literary tricks, grows upon +the artist, and becomes singularly offensive to the man of taste, it +must always be remembered that, with Macaulay, the praise or blame is +usually just and true; he is very rarely grossly unfair and wrong, as +Carlyle so often is; and if Macaulay resorts too often to the +superlative degree, he is usually entitled to use the comparative +degree of the same adjective. + +The style, with all its defects, has had a solid success and has done +great things. By clothing his historical judgments and his critical +reflections in these cutting and sonorous periods, he has forced them +on the attention of a vast body of readers wherever English is read at +all, and on millions who have neither time nor attainments for any +regular studies of their own. How many men has Macaulay succeeded in +reaching, to whom all other history and criticism is a closed book, or +a book in an unknown tongue! If he were a sciolist or a wrong-headed +fanatic, this would be a serious evil. But, as he is substantially +right in his judgments, brimful of saving common-sense and generous +feeling, and profoundly well read in his own periods and his favourite +literature, Macaulay has conferred most memorable services on the +readers of English throughout the world. He stands between philosophic +historians and the public very much as journals and periodicals stand +between the masses and great libraries. Macaulay is a glorified +journalist and reviewer, who brings the matured results of scholars to +the man in the street in a form that he can remember and enjoy, when he +could not make use of a merely learned book. He performs the office of +the ballad-maker or story-teller in an age before books were known or +were common. And it is largely due to his influence that the best +journals and periodicals of our day are written in a style so clear, so +direct, so resonant. We need not imitate his mannerism; we may all +learn to be outspoken, lucid, and brisk. + +It is the very perfection of his qualities in rousing the interest of +the great public which has drawn down on Macaulay the grave rebukes of +so many fine judges of the higher historical literature. Cotter +Morison, Mark Pattison, Leslie Stephen, and John Morley all agree that +his style has none of the subtler charms of the noblest prose, that his +conception of history is radically unsound, that, in fact, it broke +down by its own unwieldy proportions. Mr. Morison has very justly +remarked that if the _History of England_ had ever been completed on +the same scale for the whole of the period as originally designed, it +would have run to fifty volumes, and would have occupied in composition +one hundred and fifty years. As it is, the eight duodecimo volumes +give us the events of sixteen years, from 1685 to 1701; so that the +history of England from Alfred would require five hundred similar +volumes. Now, Gibbon's eight octavo volumes give us the history of the +world for thirteen centuries; that is to say, Gibbon has recounted the +history of a century in nearly the same space that Macaulay records the +history of a year. There cannot be a doubt that Gibbon's _Decline and +Fall_ is immeasurably superior to Macaulay's fragment, in thought, in +imagination, in form, in all the qualities of permanent history; it +stands on a far higher plane; it will long outlast and overshadow it. +Compared with this, Macaulay's delightful and brilliant pictures are +mere glorified journalism. + +Macaulay, who was no braggart, has put it on record that his conception +of history was more just than that of Hume, Robertson, Voltaire, and +Gibbon. It is perfectly true that his conception was different from +theirs, his execution was different, and he does not address the same +class of readers. But his conception of history was not just; it was a +mistake. His leading idea was to make history a true romance. He has +accomplished this; and he has given us _a historical novel drawn from +authentic documents_. This is, no doubt, a very useful thing to do, a +most interesting book to read; it is very pleasant literature, and has +a certain teaching of its own to a certain order of readers. But it is +not history. It sacrifices the breadth of view, the organic life, the +philosophy, the grand continuity of human society. It must be a +sectional picture of a very limited period in a selected area; it can +give us only the external; it inevitably tends to trivial detail and to +amusing personalities; it necessarily blinds us to the slow sequence of +the ages. Besides this, it explains none of the deeper causes of +movement; for, to make a picture, the artist must give us the visible +and the obvious. History, in its highest sense, is the record of the +evolution of humanity, in whole or in part. To compose an historical +novel from documents is to put this object aside. History, said +Macaulay in his _Hallam_, "is a compound of poetry and philosophy." But +in practice, he substituted word-painting for poetry, and anecdote for +philosophy. His own delightful and popular _History of England_ is a +compound of historical romance and biographical memoir. + +Macaulay's strong point was in narrative, and in narrative he has been +surpassed by hardly any historian and even by few novelists. Scott and +Victor Hugo have hardly a scene more stirring than Macaulay's death of +Charles II., Monmouth's rebellion, the flight of James II., the trial +of Titus Gates, the inner life of William III. This is a very great +quality which has deservedly made him popular. And if Macaulay had +less philosophy than almost any historian of the smallest pretension, +he has a skill in narration which places him in a fair line with the +greatest. Unfortunately, this superb genius for narration has rarely +been devoted to the grander events and the noblest chiefs in history. +Even his hero William III. hardly lives in his canvas with such a +glowing light as Charles II., Monmouth, and Jeffreys. The expulsion of +James II. was a very poor affair if compared with the story of Charles +I. and the Parliament. If Macaulay had painted for us the Council +Chamber of Cromwell as he has painted the Whitehall of Charles II.; if +he had described the battle of Naseby as well as he has pictured the +fight of Sedgemoor; if he had narrated the campaigns of Marlborough as +brilliantly as he has told that which ended at the Boyne--how much +should we have had! + +But it could not be. His own conception of history made this +impossible. It is well said that he planned his history "on the scale +of an ordnance map." He did what a German professor does when he tries +to fathom English society by studying the _Times_ newspaper day by day. +The enormous mass of detail, the infinitesimal minuteness of view, beat +him. As he complained about Samuel Johnson, he runs into "big words +about little things." Charles's mistress, her pug-dog, the page-boy +who tended the dog, nay, the boy's putative father, occupy the +foreground: and the poet, the statesman, and the hero retire into the +middle distance or the background. What would we not have given to +have had Macaulay's _History of England_ continued down to his own +time, the wars of Marlborough, the reign of Anne, the poets, wits, +romancers, inventors, reformers, and heroes of the eighteenth century, +the careers of Walpole, Chatham, Pitt, Burke, Fox, Nelson, Wellington, +Brougham, Bentham, and Canning--the formation of the British +Empire--the great revolutionary struggle in Europe! The one thought +which dims our enjoyment of this fascinating collection of memoirs, and +these veracious historical romances, is the sense of what we might have +had, if their author had been a great historian as well as a +magnificent literary artist. + + + +[1] Froude's _Carlyle_, i. 192. + + + + +IV + +BENJAMIN DISRAELI + +In the blaze of the political reputation of the Earl of Beaconsfield we +are too apt to overlook the literary claims of Benjamin Disraeli. But +many of those who have small sympathy with his career as a statesman +find a keen relish in certain of his writings; and it is hardly a +paradox to augur that in a few generations more the former chief of the +new Tory Democracy may have become a tradition, whilst certain of his +social satires may continue to be widely read. Bolingbroke, Swift, +Sheridan, and Macaulay live in English literature, but are little +remembered as politicians; and Burke, the philosopher, grows larger in +power over our thoughts, as Burke, the party orator, becomes less and +less by time. We do not talk of Viscount St. Albans, the learned +Chancellor: we speak only of Bacon, the brilliant writer, the potent +thinker. And so perhaps in the next century, we shall hear less of +Lord Beaconsfield, the Imperial Prime Minister: but Benjamin Disraeli's +pictures of English society and the British Parliament may still amuse +and instruct our descendants. + +It is true that the permanent parts of his twenty works may prove to be +small. Pictures, vignettes, sketches, epigrams will survive rather +than elaborate works of art; these gems of wit and fancy will have to +be picked out of a mass of rubbish; and they will be enjoyed for their +vivacious originality and Voltairean pungency, not as masterpieces or +complete creations. That Disraeli wrote much stuff is true enough. +But so did Fielding, so did Swift, and Defoe, and Goldsmith. Writers +are to be judged by their best; and it does not matter so very much if +that best is little in bulk. Disraeli's social and political satires +have a peculiar and rare flavour of their own, charged with an insight +and a vein of wit such as no other man perhaps in this century has +touched--so that, even though they be thrown off in sketches and +sometimes in mere _jeux d'esprit_, they bring him into the company of +Swift, Voltaire, and Montesquieu. He is certainly inferior to all +these mighty satirists both in wit and passion, and also in definite +purpose. But he has touches of their lightning-flash irradiating +contemporary society. And it seems a pity that the famous _Men of +Letters_ series which admits (and rightly admits) Hawthorne and De +Quincey, could find no room for the author of _Ixion in Heaven_, _The +Infernal Marriage_, _Coningsby_, and _Lothair_. + +Disraeli's literary reputation has suffered much in England by the +unfortunate circumstance of his having been the leader of a political +party. As the chief of a powerful party which he transformed with +amazing audacity, as the victorious destroyer of the old Whig oligarchy +and the founder of the new Tory democracy, as a man of Jewish birth and +alien race, as a man to whom satire was the normal weapon and bombastic +affectation a deliberate expedient for dazzling the weak--Disraeli, +even in his writings, has been exposed in England to a bitter system of +disparagement which blinds partisans to their real literary merit. His +political opponents, and they are many and savage, can see little to +admire in his strange romances: his political worshippers and +followers, who took him seriously as a great statesman, are not fond of +imagining their hero as an airy satirist. His romances as well as his +satires are wholly unlike anything English; and though he had brilliant +literary powers, he never acquired any serious literary education. +Much as he had read, he had no learning, and no systematic knowledge of +any kind. He was never, strictly speaking, even an accurate master of +literary English. He would slip, as it were, unconsciously, into +foreign idioms and obsolete words. In America, where his name arouses +no political prejudice, he is better judged. To the Englishman, at +least to the pedant, he is still a somewhat elaborate jest. + +Let us put aside every bias of political sympathy and anything that we +know or suspect of the nature of the man, and we may find in the +writer, Benjamin Disraeli, certain very rare qualities which justify +his immense popularity in America, and which ought to maintain it in +England. In his preface to _Lothair_ (October 1870), he proudly said +that it had been "more extensively read both by the people of the +United Kingdom and the United States than any work that has appeared +for the last half century." This singular popularity must have a +ground. Disraeli, in truth, belongs to that very small group of real +political satirists of whom Swift is the type. He is not the equal of +the terrible Dean; but it may be doubted if any Englishman since Swift +has had the same power of presenting vivid pictures and decisive +criticisms of the political and social organism of his times. It is +this Aristophanic gift which Swift had. Voltaire, Montesquieu, +Rabelais, Diderot, Heine, Beaumarchais had it. Carlyle had it for +other ages, and in a historic spirit. There have been far greater +satirists, men like Fielding and Thackeray, who have drawn far more +powerful pictures of particular characters, foibles, or social +maladies. But since Swift we have had no Englishman who could give us +a vivid and amusing picture of our political life, as laid bare to the +eye of a consummate political genius. + +It must be admitted that, with all the rare qualities of Disraeli's +literary work, he hardly ever took it quite seriously, or except as an +interlude and with some ulterior aim. In his early pieces he simply +sought to startle the town and to show what a wonderfully clever young +fellow had descended upon it. In his later books, such as _Coningsby_, +_Sybil_, and _Tancred_, he wished to propound a new party programme. +_Lothair_ was a picture of British society, partly indulgent and +sympathetic, partly caustic or contemptuous, but presented all through +with a vein of _persiflage_, mockery, and extravaganza. All this was +amusing and original; but every one of these things is fatal to +sustained and serious art. If an active politician seeks to galvanise +a new party by a series of novels, the romances cannot be works of +literary art. If a young man wants only to advertise his own +smartness, he will not produce a beautiful thing. And if a statesman +out of office wishes to amuse himself by alternate banter and laudation +of the very society which he has led and which looks to him as its +inspiration, the result will be infinitely entertaining, but not a +great work of art. Disraeli therefore with literary gifts of a very +high order never used them in the way in which a true artist works, and +only resorted to them as a means of gaining some practical and even +material end. + +But, if Disraeli's ambition led him to political and social triumphs, +for which he sacrificed artistic success and literary honours, we ought +not to be blind to the rare qualities which are squandered in his +books. He did not produce immortal romances--he knew nothing of an +ingenious plot, or a striking situation, or a creative character--but +he did give us inimitable political satires and some delicious social +pantomimes; and he presented these with an original wit in which the +French excel, which is very rare indeed in England. Ask not of +Disraeli more than he professes to give you, judge him by his own +standard, and he will still furnish you with delightful reading, with +suggestive and original thoughts. He is usually inclined to make game +of his reader, his subject, and even of himself; but he lets you see +that he never forgets this, and never attempts to conceal it. He is +seldom dull, never sardonic or cruel, and always clean, healthy, and +decent. His heroines are ideal fairy queens, his heroes are all +visionary and chivalrous nincompoops; and even, though we know that +much of it is whimsical banter and nonsensical fancy, there is an air +of refined extravaganza in these books which may continue to give them +a lasting charm. + +The short juvenile drolleries of his restless youth are the least +defective as works of art; and, being brief and simple _jeux d'esprit_ +of a rare order, they are entirely successful and infinitely amusing. +_Ixion in Heaven_, _The Infernal Marriage_, and _Popanilla_, are +astonishing products of a lad of twenty-three, who knew nothing of +English society, and who had had neither regular education nor social +opportunities. They have been compared with the social satirettes of +Lucian, Swift, and Voltaire. It is true they have not the fine touch +and exquisite polish of the witty Greek of Samosata, nor the subtle +irony of Voltaire and Montesquieu, nor the profound grasp of the Dean. +But they are full of wit, observation, sparkle, and fun. The style is +careless and even incorrect, but it is full of point and life. The +effects are rather stagey, and the smartness somewhat strained--that +is, if these boyish trifles are compared with _Candide_ and the +_Lettres Persanes_. As pictures of English society, court, and manners +in 1827 painted in fantastic apologues, they are most ingenious, and +may be read again and again. The _Infernal Marriage_, in the vein of +the _Dialogues of the Dead_, is the most successful. _Ixion_ is rather +broader, simpler, and much more slight, but is full of boisterous fun. +_Popanilla_, a more elaborate satire in direct imitation of _Gulliver's +Travels_, is neither so vivacious nor so easy as the smaller pieces, +but it is full of wit and insight. Nothing could give a raw Hebrew lad +the sustained imagination and passion of Jonathan Swift; but there are +few other masters of social satire with whom the young genius of +twenty-three can be compared. These three satires, which together do +not fill 200 pages, are read and re-read by busy and learned men after +nearly seventy years have passed. And that is in itself a striking +proof of their originality and force. + +It is not fair to one who wrote under the conditions of Benjamin +Disraeli to take any account of his inferior work: we must judge him at +his best. He avowedly wrote many pot-boilers merely for money; he +began to write simply to make the world talk about him, and he hardly +cared what the world might say; and he not seldom wrote rank bombast in +open contempt for his reader, apparently as if he had made a bet to +ascertain how much stuff the British public would swallow. _Vivian +Grey_ is a lump of impudence; _The Young Duke_ is a lump of +affectation; _Alroy_ is ambitious balderdash. They all have passages +and epigrams of curious brilliancy and trenchant observation; they have +wit, fancy, and life scattered up and down their pages. But they are +no longer read, nor do they deserve to be read. _Contarini Fleming_, +_Henrietta Temple_, _Venetia_, are full of sentiment, and occasionally +touch a poetic vein. They had ardent admirers once, even amongst +competent judges. They may still be read, and they have scenes, +descriptions, and detached thoughts of real charm, and almost of true +beauty. They are not, in any sense, works of art; they are ill +constructed, full of the mawkish gush of the Byronic fever, and never +were really sincere and genuine products of heart and brain. They were +show exercises in the Byronic mode. And, though we may still take them +up for an hour for the occasional flashes of genius and wit they +retain, no one believes that they can add much permanent glory to the +name of Benjamin Disraeli. + +Apart from the three early burlesques of which we have spoken--trifles +indeed and crude enough, but trifles that sparkle with penetration and +wit--the books on which Disraeli's reputation alone can be founded are +_Coningsby_, _Sybil_, and _Lothair_. These all contain many striking +epigrams, ingenious theories, original suggestions, vivacious +caricatures, and even creative reflections, mixed, it must be admitted, +with not a little transparent nonsense. But they are all so charged +with bright invention, keen criticism, quaint paradox, they are so +entirely unlike anything else in our recent literature, and they +pierce, in a Voltairean way, so deeply to the roots of our social and +political fabric, that they may long continue to be read. In the +various prefaces, and especially in the general preface to _Lothair_ +(of October 1870), Disraeli has fully explained the origin and aim of +these and his other works. It is written, as usual, with his tongue in +his cheek, in that vein of semi-bombastic paradox which was designed to +mystify the simple and to amuse the acuter reader. But there is an +inner seriousness in it all; and, as it has a certain correspondence +with his public career and achievements, it must be taken as +substantially true. _Coningsby_ (1844) and _Sybil_ (1845) were written +in the vigour of manhood and the early days of his political ambition, +with an avowed purpose of founding a new party in Parliament. It must +be admitted that they did to some extent effect their purpose--not +immediately or directly, and only as part of their author's schemes. +But the Primrose League and the New Tory Democracy of our day bear +witness to the vitality of the movement which, fifty years ago, +Disraeli propounded to a puzzled world. _Lothair_ (1870) came +twenty-five years later--when he had outlived his illusions; and in +more artistic and more mellow tones he painted the weaknesses of a +society that he had failed to inspire, but which it gratified his pride +to command. + +"_Coningsby_, _Sybil_, and _Tancred_," says he, in his grandiose way, +"form a real Trilogy." "The derivation and character of political +parties,"--he goes on to explain--"was the subject of _Coningsby_." +"The condition of the people which had been the consequence of +them"--was the subject of _Sybil_. "The duties of the Church as a main +remedial agency" and "the race who had been the founders of +Christianity" [although, surely, friend Benjamin, if we are to believe +the Gospels, the murderers and persecutors of Christ and His +Apostles]--were the subjects of _Tancred_ (1847). _Tancred_, though it +has some highly amusing scenes, may be dismissed at once. Disraeli +fought for the Chosen Race, their endowments and achievements, with +wonderful courage and ingenuity. It was perhaps the cause which he had +most deeply at heart, from its intimate relation to his own superb +ambition and pride. But it has made no real way, nor has it made any +converts, unless we count _Daniel Deronda_ as amongst them. +Thackeray's "Codlingsby" has almost extinguished "Sidonia." And the +strange phantasmagoria of the Anglican Church, revivified by the +traditions of Judaism, and ascending to the throne of St. Peter, is +perhaps the most stupendous joke which even Disraeli had ever dared to +perpetrate. In the preface to _Lothair_ we read:-- + + +The tradition of the Anglican Church was powerful. Resting on the +Church of Jerusalem, modified by the divine school of Galilee, it would +have found that rock of truth which Providence, by the instrumentality +of the Semitic race, had promised to St. Peter. + + +Whatever this jargon may mean, the public has allowed it to fall flat. +It seems to suggest that the Archbishop of Canterbury, by resuming the +tradition of Caiaphas, as "modified" by the Sermon on the Mount, might +oust the Pope of Rome as was foretold by the Divine young Jewish +reformer when he called the fishermen of Galilee. It is difficult to +believe that Disraeli himself was serious in all this. In the last +scene, as Tancred is proposing to the lovely Jewess, their privacy is +disturbed by a crowd of retainers around the papa and mamma of the +young heir. The last lines of _Tancred_ are these:--"The Duke and +Duchess of Bellamont had arrived at Jerusalem." This is hardly the way +in which to preach a New Gospel to a sceptical and pampered generation. + +But, if the regeneration of the Church of England by a re-Judaising +process and by return to the Targum of the Pharisees has proved +abortive, it must be admitted that, from the political point of view, +the conception announced in the "trilogy," and rhapsodically +illustrated in _Tancred_--the conception of the Anglican Church +reviving its political ascendancy and developing "the most efficient +means of the renovation of the national spirit"--has not proved quite +abortive. It shows astonishing prescience to have seen fifty years ago +that the Church of England might yet become a considerable political +power, and could be converted, by a revival of Mediaeval traditions, +into a potent instrument of the New Tory Democracy. Whatever we may +think about the strengthening of the Established Church from the point +of view of intellectual solidity or influence with the nation, it can +hardly be doubted that in the fifty years that have passed since the +date of the "trilogy," the Church as a body has rallied to one party in +the State, and has proved a potent ally of militant Imperialism and +Tory Democracy. Lord Beaconsfield lived to witness that great +transformation in the Church of the High and Dry Pluralists and the +Simeonite parsons, which he had himself so powerfully organised in +Parliament, in society, and on the platform. His successor to-day can +count on no ally so sure and loyal as the Church. But it was a +wonderful inspiration for a young man fifty years ago to perceive that +this could be done--and to see the way in which it might be done. + +_Coningsby_ and _Sybil_ at any rate were active forces in the formation +of a definite political programme. And this was a programme which in +Parliament and in the country their author himself had created, +organised, and led to victory. It cannot be denied that they largely +contributed to this result. And thus these books have this very +remarkable and almost unique character. It would be very difficult to +mention anything like a romance in any age or country which had ever +effected a direct political result or created a new party. _Don +Quixote_ is said to have annihilated chivalry; _Tartuffe_ dealt a blow +at the pretensions of the Church; and the _Marriage of Figaro_ at those +of the old _noblesse_. It is possible that _Bleak House_ gave some +impulse to law reform, and _Vanity Fair_ has relieved us of a good deal +of snobbery. But no novel before or since ever created a political +party and provided them with a new programme. _Coningsby_ and _Sybil_ +really did this; and it may be doubted if it could have been done in +any other way. "Imagination, in the government of nations" (we are +told in the preface to _Lothair_) "is a quality not less important than +reason." Its author trusts much "to a popular sentiment which rested +on a heroic tradition and which was sustained by the high spirit of a +free aristocracy." + +Now this is a kind of party programme which it was almost impossible to +propound on the platform or in Parliament. These imaginative and +somewhat Utopian schemes of "changing back the oligarchy into a +generous aristocracy round a real throne," of "infusing life and +vigour into the Church as the trainer of the nation," of recalling +the popular sympathies "to the principles of loyalty and religious +reverence"--these were exactly the kind of new ideas which it would be +difficult to expound in the House of Commons or in a towns-meeting. In +the preface to _Coningsby_ the author tells us that, after reflection, +the form of fiction seemed to be the best method of influencing +opinion. These books then present us with the unique example of an +ambitious statesman resorting to romance as his means of reorganising a +political party. + +There is another side to this feature which is also unique and +curiously full of interest. These romances are the only instances in +which any statesman of the first rank, who for years was the ruling +spirit of a great empire, has thrown his political conceptions and +schemes into an imaginative form. And these books, from _Vivian Grey_ +(1825) to _Endymion_ (1880), extend over fifty-five years; some being +published before his political career seemed able to begin, some in the +midst of it, and the later books after it was ended. In the +grandiloquent style of the autobiographical prefaces, we may say that +they recall to us the _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius, the _Political +Testament_ of Richelieu, and the _Conversations_ of Napoleon at St. +Helena. + +In judging these remarkable works, we ought to remember that they are +not primarily romances at all, that they do not compete with genuine +romances, and they ought to be read for the qualities they have, not +for those in which they fail. They are in part autobiographical +sketches, meditations on society, historical disquisitions, and +political manifestoes. They are the productions of a statesman aiming +at a practical effect, not of a man of letters creating a work of +imaginative art. The creative form is quite subsidiary and +subordinate. It would be unreasonable to expect in them elaborate +drawing of character, complex plot, or subtle types of contemporary +life. Their aim is to paint the actual political world, to trace its +origin, and to idealise its possible development. And this is done, +not by an outside man of letters, but by the very man who had conquered +a front place in this political world, and who had more or less +realised his ideal development. They are almost the only pictures of +the inner parliamentary life we have; and they are painted by an artist +who was first and foremost a great parliamentary power, of consummate +experience and insight. If the artistic skill were altogether absent, +we should not read them at all, as nobody reads Lord Russell's dramas +or the poems of Frederick the Great. But the art, though unequal and +faulty, is full of vigour, originality, and suggestion. Taken as a +whole, they are quite unique. + +_Coningsby; or, the New Generation_, was the earliest and in some ways +the best of the trilogy. It is still highly diverting as a novel, and, +as we see to-day, was charged with potent ideas and searching +criticism. It was far more real and effective as a romance than +anything Disraeli had previously written. There are scenes and +characters in the story which will live in English literature. +Thackeray could hardly have created more living portraits than "Rigby," +"Tadpole," and "Taper," or "Lord Monmouth." These are characters which +are household words with us like "Lord Steyne" and "Rawdon Crawley." +The social pictures are as realistic as those of Trollope, and now and +then as bright as those of Thackeray. The love-making is tender, +pretty, and not nearly so mawkish as that of "Henrietta Temple" and +"Venetia." There is plenty of wit, epigram, squib, and _bon mot_. +There is almost none of that rhodomontade which pervades the other +romances, except as to "Sidonia" and the supremacy of the Hebrew +race--a topic on which Benjamin himself was hardly sane. _Coningsby_, +as a novel, is sacrificed to its being a party manifesto and a +political programme first and foremost. But as a novel it is good. It +is the only book of Disraeli's in which we hardly ever suspect that he +is merely trying to fool us. It is not so gay and fantastic as +_Lothair_. But, being far more real and serious, it is perhaps the +best of Disraeli's novels. + +As a political manifesto, Coningsby has been an astonishing success. +The grand idea of Disraeli's life was to struggle against what he +called the "Venetian Constitution," imposed and maintained by the "Whig +Oligarchy." As Radical, as Tory, as novelist, as statesman, his ruling +idea was "to dish the Whigs," in Lord Derby's historic phrase. And he +did "dish the Whigs." The old Whigs have disappeared from English +politics. They have either amalgamated with the Tories, become +Unionist Conservatives, henchmen of Lord Salisbury, or else have become +Gladstonians and Radicals. The so-called Whigs of 1895, if any +politicians so call themselves, are far more Tory than the Whigs of +1844, and the Tories of 1895 are far more democratic than the Whigs of +1844. This complete transformation is very largely due to Disraeli +himself. + +Strictly speaking, Disraeli has eliminated from our political arena +both "Whig" and "Tory," as understood in the old language of our party +history. And the first sketch of the new policy was flung upon an +astonished public in _Coningsby_, just fifty years ago. No doubt, the +arduous task of educating the Conservative Party into the new faith of +Tory Democracy was not effected by _Coningsby_ alone. But it may be +doubted if Mr. Disraeli would have accomplished it by his speeches +without his writings. As a sketch of the inner life of the +parliamentary system of fifty years ago, _Coningsby_ is perfect and has +never been approached. Both Thackeray and Trollope have painted +Parliament and public life so far as it could be seen from a London +club. But Disraeli has painted it as it was known to a man who threw +his whole life into it, and who was himself a consummate parliamentary +leader. + +_Sybil; or, the Two Nations_, the second of the trilogy (1845), was +devoted, he tells us, "to the condition of the people," that dismal +result of the "Venetian Constitution" and of the "Whig Oligarchy" which +he had denounced in _Coningsby_. _Sybil_ was perhaps the most +genuinely serious of all Disraeli's romances; and in many ways it was +the most powerful. Disraeli himself was a man of sympathetic and +imaginative nature who really felt for the suffering and oppressed. He +was tender-hearted as a man, however sardonic as a politician. He had +seen and felt the condition of the people in 1844. It was a time of +cruel suffering which also stirred the spirits of Carlyle, Mill, +Cobden, and Bright. It led to the new Radicalism of which Mr. +Gladstone and Mr. John Morley are eminent types. But the genius of +Disraeli saw that it might also become the foundation of a new Toryism; +and _Sybil_ was the first public manifesto of the new departure. The +political history of the last fifty years is evidence of his insight +that, to recover their political ascendancy, a Conservative Party must +take in hand "the condition of the people," under the leadership of "a +generous aristocracy," and in alliance with a renovated Church. These +are the ideas of _Sybil_, though in the novel they are adumbrated in a +dim and fantastic way. As a romance, _Sybil_ is certainly inferior to +_Coningsby_. As a political manifesto, it has had an almost greater +success, and the movement that it launched is far from exhausted even +yet. One of Disraeli's comrades in the new programme of 1844-5 was a +member of the last Conservative cabinet. And when we consider all the +phases of Tory Democracy, Socialistic Toryism, and the current type of +Christian Socialism, we may come to regard the ideas propounded in +_Sybil_ as not quite so visionary as they appeared to the Whigs, +Radicals, Free Traders, and Benthamites of fifty years ago. + +In _Lothair_, which did not appear until twenty-five years after +_Sybil_, we find an altered and more mellow tone, as of a man who was +playing with his own puppets, and had no longer any startling theories +to propound or political objects to win. For this reason it is in some +ways the most complete and artistic of Disraeli's romances. The plot +is not suspended by historical disquisitions on the origin of the Whig +oligarchy, by pictures of the House of Commons that must weary those +who know nothing about it, and by enthusiastic appeals to the younger +aristocracy to rouse itself and take in hand the condition of the +people. In 1870, Mr. Disraeli had little hope of realising his earlier +visions, and he did not write _Lothair_ to preach a political creed. +The tale is that he avowed three motives, the first to occupy his mind +on his fall from power, the second to make a large sum which he much +needed, and the third to paint the manners of the highest order of rank +and wealth, of which he alone amongst novelists had intimate knowledge. +That is exactly what we see in _Lothair_. It is airy, fantastic, pure, +graceful, and extravagant. The whole thing goes to bright music, like +a comic opera of Gilbert and Sullivan. There is life and movement; but +it is a scenic and burlesque life. There is wit, criticism, and +caricature;, but it does not cut deep, and it is neither hot nor +fierce. There is some pleasant tom-foolery; but at a comic opera we +enjoy this graceful nonsense. We see in every page the trace of a +powerful mind; but it is a mind laughing at its own creatures, at +itself, at us. _Lothair_ would be a work of art, if it were explicitly +presented as a burlesque, such as was _The Infernal Marriage_, or if we +did not know that it was written to pass the time by one who had ruled +this great empire for years, and who within a few years more was +destined to rule it again. It was a fanciful and almost sympathetic +satire on the selfish fatuity of the noble, wealthy, and governing +orders of British society. But then the author of this burlesque was +himself about to ask these orders to admit him to their select ranks, +and to enthrone him as their acknowledged chief. + +As the rancour of party feeling that has gathered round the personality +of Beaconsfield subsides, and as time brings new proofs of the sagacity +of the judgments with which Benjamin Disraeli analysed the political +traditions of British society, we may look for a fresh growth of the +popularity of the trilogy and _Lothair_. England will one day be as +just, as America has always been, to one of our wittiest writers. He +will one day be formally admitted into the ranks of the Men of Letters. +He has hitherto been kept outside, in a sense, partly by his being a +prominent statesman and party chief, partly by his incurable tone of +mind with its Semitic and non-English ways, partly by his strange +incapacity to acquire the _nuances_ of pure literary English. No +English writer of such literary genius slips so often into vulgarisms, +solecisms, archaisms, and mere slip-shod gossip. But these are after +all quite minor defects. His books, even his worst books, abound in +epigrams, pictures, characters, and scenes of rare wit. His painting +of parliamentary life in England has neither equal nor rival. And his +reflections on English society and politics reveal the insight of vast +experience and profound genius. + + + + +V + +W. M. THACKERAY + +The literary career of William Makepeace Thackeray has not a few +special features of its own that it is interesting to note at once. Of +all the more eminent writers of the Victorian Age, his life was the +shortest: he died in 1863 at the age of fifty-two, the age of +Shakespeare. His literary career of twenty-six years was shorter than +that of Carlyle, of Macaulay, Disraeli, Dickens, Trollope, George +Eliot, Froude, or Ruskin. It opened with the reign of the Queen, +almost in the very year of _Pickwick_, whose author stood beside his +grave and lived and wrote for some years more. But these twenty-six +years of Thackeray's era of production were full of wonderful activity, +and have left us as many volumes of rich and varied genius. And the +most striking feature of all is this--that in these twenty-six full +volumes in so many modes, prose, verse, romance, parody, burlesque, +essay, biography, criticism, there are hardly more than one or two +which can be put aside as worthless and as utter failures; very few +fail in his consummate mastery of style; few can be said to be irksome +to read, to re-read, and to linger over in the reading. + +This mastery over style--a style at once simple, pure, nervous, +flexible, pathetic, and graceful--places Thackeray amongst the very +greatest masters of English prose, and undoubtedly as the most certain +and faultless of all the prose writers of the Victorian Age. Without +saying that he has ever reached quite to the level of some lyrical and +apocalyptic descants that we may find in Carlyle and in Ruskin, +Thackeray has never fallen into the faults of violence and turgidity +which their warmest admirers are bound to confess in many a passage +from these our two prose-poets. Carlyle is often grotesque; Macaulay +can be pompous; Disraeli, Bulwer, Dickens, are often slovenly and +sometimes bombastic; George Eliot is sometimes pedantic, and Ruskin has +been stirred into hysterics. But Thackeray's English, from the first +page of his first volume to the last page of his twenty-sixth volume, +is natural, scholarly, pure, incisive, and yet gracefully and easily +modulated--the language of an English gentleman of culture, wit, +knowledge of the world, and consummate ease and self-possession. It is +the direct and trenchant language of Swift: but more graceful, more +flexible, more courteous. + +And what is a truly striking fact about Thackeray's mastery of style is +this--that it was perfectly formed from the beginning; that it hardly +ever varied, or developed, or waned in the whole course of his literary +career; that his first venture as a very young man is as finished and +as ripe as his very latest piece, when he died almost in the act of +writing the words--"_and his heart throbbed, with an exquisite bliss_." +This prodigious precocity in style, such uniform perfection of exact +composition, are perhaps without parallel in English literature. At +the age of twenty-six Thackeray wrote _The History of Samuel Titmarsh_ +and the _Great Hoggarty Diamond_. It was produced under very +melancholy conditions, in the most unfavourable form of publication, +and it was mangled by editorial necessities. And yet it can still be +read and re-read as one of Thackeray's masterpieces, trifling and +curtailed as it is (for it may be printed in one hundred pages); it is +as full of wit, humour, scathing insight, and fine pathos in the midst +of burlesque, as is _Vanity Fair_ itself. It is already Thackeray in +all his strength, with his "Snobs," his "Nobs," his fierce satire, and +his exquisite style. + +Modern romance has no purer, more pathetic, or simpler page than the +tale of the death of poor Samuel Titmarsh's first child. Though it is, +as it deserves to be, a household word, the passage must be quoted here +as a specimen of faultless and beautiful style. + + +It was not, however, destined that she and her child should inhabit +that little garret. We were to leave our lodgings on Monday morning; +but on Saturday evening the child was seized with convulsions, and all +Sunday the mother watched and prayed for it: but it pleased God to take +the innocent infant from us, and on Sunday, at midnight, it lay a +corpse in its mother's bosom. Amen. We have other children, happy and +well, now round about us, and from the father's heart the memory of +this little thing has almost faded; but I do believe that every day of +her life the mother thinks of her first-born that was with her for so +short a while: many and many a time she has taken her daughters to the +grave, in Saint Bride's, where he lies buried; and she wears still at +her neck a little, little lock of gold hair, which she took from the +head of the infant as he lay smiling in his coffin. It has happened to +me to forget the child's birthday, but to her never; and often in the +midst of common talk, comes something that shows she is thinking of the +child still,--some simple allusion that is to me inexpressibly +affecting. + + +Could words simpler, purer, more touching be found to paint a terrible, +albeit very common sorrow! Not a needless epithet, not a false note, +not a touch over-wrought! And this is the writing of an unknown, +untried youth! + +This exquisitely simple, easy, idiomatic, and nervous style marks all +Thackeray's work for his twenty-six years of activity, and is equally +perfect for whatever purpose it is used, and in whatever key he may +choose to compose. It naturally culminates in _Vanity Fair_, written +just in the middle of his literary career. Here not a word is wasted: +the profoundest impressions are made by a quiet sentence or a dozen +plain words that neither Swift nor Defoe could have surpassed. I know +nothing in English literature more powerful than those last lines of +the thirty-second chapter of _Vanity Fair_. For thirty-two chapters we +have been following the loves, sorrows, and anxieties of Amelia Sedley +and George Osborne. For four chapters the story has pictured the scene +in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo. The women and non-combatants are +trembling with excitement, anxiety, fear; the men are in the field, +whilst the cannon roar all day in the distance--Amelia half distracted +with love, jealousy, and foreboding. And the wild alternations of +hope, terror, grief, and agony are suddenly closed in the last +paragraph of Chapter XXXII. + + +No more firing was heard at Brussels--the pursuit rolled miles away. +Darkness came down on the field and city: and Amelia was praying for +George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his +heart. + + +Take all the great critical scenes in the book, and note how simple, +and yet how full of pathos and of power, is the language in which they +are described. There is the last parting of George and Amelia as the +bugle rings to arms. + + +George came in and looked at her again, entering still more softly. By +the pale night-lamp he could see her sweet, pale face--the purple +eyelids were fringed and closed, and one round arm, smooth and white, +lay outside of the coverlet. Good God! how pure she was; how gentle, +how tender, and how friendless! and he, how selfish, brutal, and black +with crime! Heart-stained and shame-stricken, he stood at the bed's +foot, and looked at the sleeping girl. How dared he--who was he, to +pray for one so spotless! God bless her! God bless her! He came to +the bed-side, and looked at the hand, the little soft hand, lying +asleep; and he bent over the pillow noiselessly towards the gentle pale +face. + + +The whole tragedy of their lives is given in miniature in this touching +scene; and yet how natural and commonplace are all the effects of which +it is composed, how few and simple the words which describe such love +and such remorse. It is hard to judge in _Vanity Fair_ which are the +more perfect in style, the pathetic and tragic scenes or those which +are charged with humour and epigram. + +And the scene after George's marriage, when old Osborne burns his will +and erases his son's name from the family Bible--and the scene when +Osborne receives his son's last letter--"Osborne trembled long before +the letter from his dead son"--"His father could not see the kiss +George had placed on the superscription of his letter. Mr. Osborne +dropped it with the bitterest, deadliest pang of balked affection and +revenge. His son was still beloved and unforgiven." And the scene of +"the widow and mother," when young Georgy is born, and the wonderful +scene when Sir Pitt proposes marriage to the little green-eyed +governess and she is scared into confessing her great secret, and the +most famous scene of all, when Rawdon Crawley is released from the +sponging-house and finds Lord Steyne with Rebecca alone. It is but a +single page. The words spoken are short, brief, plain--not five +sentences pass--"I am innocent," said she--"Make way, let me pass," +cried My Lord--"You lie, you coward and villain!" said Rawdon. There +is in all fiction no single scene more vivid, more true, more burnt +into the memory, more tragic. And with what noble simplicity, with +what incisive reticence, with what subtle anatomy of the human heart, +is it recorded. + +_Vanity Fair_ was written, it is true, under the strain of serial +publication, haste, and anxiety, but it is perhaps, even in style, the +most truly complete. The wonderful variety, elasticity, and freshness +of the dialogue, the wit of the common scenes, the terrible power of +the tragic scenes, the perfection of the _mise-en-scčne_--the rattle, +the fun, the glitter of the Fair, are sustained from end to end, from +the first words of the ineffable Miss Pinkerton to the _Vanitas +Vanitatum_ when the showman shuts up his puppets in their box. There +is not in all _Vanity Fair_ a single dull page that we skip, not a bit +of padding, no rigmarole of explanation whilst the action stands still. +Of what other fiction can this be said? Richardson and even Fielding +have their _longueurs_. Miss Austen is too prone to linger over the +tea-table beyond all human patience. And even Scott's descriptions of +his loved hills grow sometimes unreadable, especially when they are +told in a flaccid and slovenly style. But _Vanity Fair_ is kept up +with inexhaustible life and invention, with a style which, for purity +and polish, was beyond the reach of Fielding, Richardson, or Scott. + +_Esmond_ was composed with even greater care than _Vanity Fair_, and in +the matter of style is usually taken to be Thackeray's greatest +masterpiece. Its language is a miracle of art. But it is avowedly a +_tour de force_--an effort to reproduce an entire book in the form and +speech of a century and a half preceding. As a _tour de force_ it is +wonderful; but in so long a book the effort becomes at last too +visible, and undoubtedly it somewhat cramps the freedom of the author's +genius. Thackeray was not a born historical romancist, as were Scott +and Dumas; nor was he a born historian at all. And when he undertook +to produce an elaborate romance in the form and with the colouring of a +past age, like George Eliot, he becomes rather too learned, too +conscientious, too rigidly full of his authorities; and if as an +historian he enters into rivalry with Macaulay, he somewhat loses his +cunning as a novelist. Thackeray's force lay in the comedy of manners. +In the comedy of manners we have nothing but _Tom Jones_ to compare +with _Vanity Fair_. And though Thackeray is not equal to the "prose +Homer of human nature," he wrote an English even finer and more racy. + +In _Esmond_ we are constantly pausing to admire the wonderful ingenuity +and exquisite grace of the style, studying the language quite apart +from the story; and we feel, as we do when we read Milton's Latin poems +or Swinburne's French sonnets, that it is a surprising imitation of the +original. But at the same time _Esmond_ contains some of the noblest +passages that Thackeray ever wrote, scenes and chapters which in form +have no superior in English literature. That sixth chapter of the +second book, in the cathedral, when Henry Esmond returns to his +mistress on the 29th of December, on his birthday. "Here she was +weeping and happy. She took his hand in both hers; he felt her tears. +It was a rapture of reconciliation"--"so for a few moments Esmond's +beloved mistress came to him and blessed him." To my mind, there is +nothing in English fiction which has been set forth in language of such +exquisite purity and pathos. + +_Esmond_, too, which may be said to be one prolonged parody of the +great Queen-Anne essayists, contains that most perfect of all parodies +in the English language--"The paper out of the _Spectator_"--in chapter +third of the third book. It is of course not a "parody" in the proper +sense, for it has no element of satire or burlesque, and imitates not +the foibles but the merits of the original, with an absolute illusion. +The 341st number of the _Spectator_, dated Tuesday, April 1, 1712, is +so absolutely like Dick Steele at his best, that Addison himself would +have been deceived by it. Steele hardly ever wrote anything so bright +and amusing. It is not a "parody": it is a forgery; but a forgery +which required for its execution the most consummate mastery over all +the subtleties and mysteries of style. + +In parody of every kind, from the most admiring imitation down to the +most boisterous burlesque, Thackeray stands at the head of all other +imitators. The _Rejected Addresses_ of James and Horace Smith (1812) +is usually regarded as the masterpiece in this art; and Scott +good-humouredly said that he could have mistaken the death of +Higginbottom for his own verses. But Thackeray's _Novels by Eminent +Hands_ are superior even to the _Rejected Addresses_. _Codlingsby_, +the parody of Disraeli's _Coningsby_, may be taken as the most +effective parody in our language: intensely droll in itself, it +reproduces the absurdities, the affectations, the oriental imagination +of Disraeli with inimitable wit. Those ten pages of irrepressible +fooling are enough to destroy Disraeli's reputation as a serious +romancer. No doubt they have unfairly reacted so as to dim our sense +of Disraeli's real genius as a writer. When we know _Codlingsby_ by +heart, as every one with a sense of humour must do, it is impossible +for us to keep our countenance when we take up the palaver about +Sidonia and the Chosen Race. The _Novels by Eminent Hands_ are all +good: they are much more than parodies; they are real criticism, sound, +wise, genial, and instructive. Nor are they in the least unfair. If +the balderdash and cheap erudition of Bulwer and Disraeli are covered +with inextinguishable mirth, no one is offended by the pleasant +imitations of Lever, James, and Fenimore Cooper. + +All the burlesques are good, and will bear continual re-reading; but +the masterpiece of all is _Rebecca and Rowena_, the continuation in +burlesque of _Ivanhoe_. It is one of the mysteries of literature that +we can enjoy both, that the warmest admirers of Scott's glorious +genius, and even those who delight in _Ivanhoe_, can find the keenest +relish in _Rebecca and Rowena_, which is simply the great romance of +chivalry turned inside out. But Thackeray's immortal burlesque has +something of the quality of Cervantes' _Don Quixote_--that we love the +knight whilst we laugh, and feel the deep pathos of human nature and +the beauty of goodness and love even in the midst of the wildest fun. +And this fine quality runs through all the comic pieces, ballads, +burlesques, pantomimes, and sketches. What genial fun in the _Rose and +the Ring_, in _Little Billee_, in _Mrs. Perkins' Ball_, in the _Sketch +Book_, in _Yellowplush_. It is only the very greatest masters who can +produce extravaganzas, puerile tomfooleries, drolleries to delight +children, and catchpenny songs, of such a kind that mature and +cultivated students can laugh over them for the fiftieth time and read +them till they are household words. This is the supreme merit of _Don +Quixote_, of _Scapin_, of _Gulliver_, of _Robinson Crusoe_. And this +quality of immortal truth and wit we find in _Rebecca and Rowena_, in +the _Rose and the Ring_, in _Little Billee_, in _Codlingsby_, and +_Yellowplush_. The burlesques have that Aristophanic touch of beauty, +pathos, and wisdom mingled with the wildest pantomime. + +A striking example of Thackeray's unrivalled powers of imitation may be +seen in the letters which are freely scattered about his works. No one +before or since ever wrote such wonderfully happy illustrations of the +epistolary style of boy or girl, old maid or illiterate man. There +never were such letters as those of George Osborne in _Vanity +Fair_--that letter from school describing the fight between Cuff and +Figs is a masterpiece--the letters of Becky, of Rawdon, of Amelia--all +are perfect reproductions of the writer, as are scores of letters +scattered up and down the twenty-six volumes. Nor must we omit, as +part of the style, the author's own illustrations. They are really +part of the book; they assist us to understand the characters; they are +a very important portion of the writer's method. None of our great +writers ever had this double instrument: and Thackeray has used it with +consummate effect. The sketches in _Vanity Fair_ and in _Punch_, +especially the minor thumb-nail drolleries, are delightful--true +caricatures--real portraits of character. It is true they are ill +drawn, often impossible, crude, and almost childish in their +incorrectness and artlessness. But they have in them the soul of a +great caricaturist. They have the Hogarthian touch of a great comic +artist. + +One is tempted to enlarge at length on the merits of Thackeray's style, +because it is in his mastery over all the resources of the English +language that he surpasses contemporary prose writers. And it is a +mastery which is equally shown in every form of composition. There is +a famous bit of Byron's about Sheridan to the effect that he had +written the best comedy, made the finest speech, and invented the +drollest farce in the English language. And it is hardly extravagant +to say of Thackeray that, of all the Englishmen of this century, he has +written the best comedy of manners, the best extravaganza, the best +burlesque, the best parody, and the best comic song. And to this some +of his admirers would add--the best lectures, and the best critical +essays. It is of course true that he has never reached or attempted to +reach the gorgeous rhapsodies of De Quincey or the dithyrambic melodies +of Ruskin. But these heaven-born Pegasi cannot be harnessed to the +working vehicles of our streets. The marvel of Thackeray's command +over language is this--that it is unfailing in prose or in verse, in +pathos or in terror, in tragedy or in burlesque, in narrative, in +repartee, or in drollery: and that it never waxes or flags in force and +precision throughout twenty-six full volumes. + +Of Thackeray's style--a style that has every quality in perfection: +simplicity, clearness, ease, force, elasticity, and grace--it is +difficult to speak but in terms of unstinted admiration. When we deal +with the substance and effective value of his great books we see that, +although Thackeray holds his own with the best writers of this century, +he cannot be said to hold the same manifest crown of supremacy. One of +his strongest claims is the vast quantity and variety of his best work, +and the singularly small proportion of inferior work. Fielding himself +wrote pitiful trash when he became, as he said, a mere "hackney +writer"; Richardson's _Grandison_ overcomes most readers; Scott at last +broke down; Carlyle, Disraeli, Dickens, and Ruskin have written many +things which "we do not turn over by day and turn over by night," to +put it as gently as one can. But Thackeray is hardly ever below +himself in form, and rarely is he below himself in substance. +_Pendennis_ is certainly much inferior to _Vanity Fair_, and _Philip_ +is much inferior to _Pendennis_. _The Virginians_ is far behind +_Esmond_. But of the more important books not one can be called in any +sense a failure unless it be _Lovel the Widower_, and _The Adventures +of Philip_. + +Thackeray's masterpiece beyond question is _Vanity Fair_--which as a +comedy of the manners of contemporary life is quite the greatest +achievement in English literature since _Tom Jones_. It has not the +consummate plot of _Tom Jones_; it has not the breadth, the +Shakespearean jollity, the genial humanity of the great "prose Homer"; +it has no such beautiful character as Sophia Western. It is not the +overflowing of a warm, genial, sociable soul, such as that of Henry +Fielding. But _Vanity Fair_ may be put beside _Tom Jones_ for variety +of character, intense reality, ingenuity of incident, and profusion of +wit, humour, and invention. It is even better written than _Tom +Jones_; has more pathos and more tragedy; and is happily free from the +nauseous blots into which Harry Fielding was betrayed by the taste of +his age. It is hard to say what scene in _Vanity Fair_, what part, +what character, rests longest in the memory. Is it the home of the +Sedleys and the Osbornes, is it Queen's Crawley, or the incidents at +Brussels, or at Gaunt House:--is it George Osborne, or Jos, or Miss +Crawley, the Major or the Colonel,--is it Lord Steyne or Rebecca? All +are excellent, all seem perfect in truth, in consistency, in contrast. + +The great triumph of _Vanity Fair_--the great triumph of modern +fiction--is Becky Sharp: a character which will ever stand in the very +foremost rank of English literature, if not with Falstaff and Shylock, +then with Squire Western, Uncle Toby, Mr. Primrose, Jonathan Oldbuck, +and Sam Weller. There is no character in the whole range of literature +which has been worked out with more elaborate completeness. She is +drawn from girlhood to old age, under every conceivable condition, and +is brought face to face with all kinds of persons and trials. In all +circumstances Becky is true to herself; her ingenuity, her wit, her +selfishness, her audacity, her cunning, her clear, cool, alert brain, +even her common sense, her spirit of justice, when she herself is not +concerned, and her good-nature, when it could cost her nothing--all +this is unfailing, inimitable, never to be forgotten. Some good people +cry out that she is so wicked. Of course she is wicked: so were Iago +and Blifil. The only question is, if she be real? Most certainly she +is, as real as anything in the whole range of fiction, as real as +Tartuffe, or Gil Blas, Wilhelm Meister, or Rob Roy. No one doubts that +Becky Sharps exist: unhappily they are not even very uncommon. And +Thackeray has drawn one typical example of such bad women with an +anatomical precision that makes us shudder. + +And if Becky Sharp be the masterpiece of Thackeray's art amongst the +characters, the scene of her husband's encounter with her paramour is +the masterpiece of all the scenes in _Vanity Fair_, and has no +superior, hardly any equal, in modern fiction. Becky, Rawdon Crawley, +and Lord Steyne--all are inimitably true, all are powerful, all are +fearful in their agony and rage. The uprising of the poor rake almost +into dignity and heroism, and his wife's outburst of admiration at his +vengeance, are strokes of really Shakespearean insight. It was with +justice that Thackeray himself felt pride in that touch. "_She stood +there trembling before him. She admired her husband, strong, brave, +victorious_." It is these touches of clear sight in Becky, her respect +for Dobbin, her kindliness to Amelia apart from her own schemes, which +make us feel an interest in Becky, loathsome as she is. She is always +a woman, and not an inhuman monster, however bad a woman, cruel, +heartless, and false. + +There remains always the perpetual problem if _Vanity Fair_ be a +cynic's view of life, the sardonic grin of a misanthrope gloating over +the trickery and meanness of mankind. It is well to remember how many +are the scenes of tenderness and pathos in _Vanity Fair_, how +powerfully told, how deeply they haunt the memory and sink into the +heart. The school life of Dobbin, the ruin of old Sedley and the +despair of Amelia, the last parting of Amelia and George, Osborne +revoking his will, Sedley broken down, Rawdon in the sponging-house, +the birth and boyhood of Georgy Osborne, the end of old Sedley, the end +of old Osborne, are as pathetic and humane as anything in our +literature. Mature men, who study fiction with a critical spirit and a +cool head, admit that the only passages in English romance that they +can never read again without faltering, without a dim eye and a +quavering voice, are these scenes of pain and sorrow in _Vanity Fair_. +The death of old Sedley, nursed by his daughter, is a typical +piece--perfect in simplicity, in truth, in pathos. + + +One night when she stole into his room, she found him awake, when the +broken old man made his confession. "O, Emmy, I've been thinking we +were very unkind and unjust to you," he said, and put out his cold and +feeble hand to her. She knelt down and prayed by his bed-side, as he +did too, having still hold of her hand. When our turn comes, friend, +may we have such company in our prayers. + + +And this is the arch-cynic and misanthrope, grinning at all that is +loveable and tender! + +It is too often forgotten that _Vanity Fair_ is not intended to be +simply the world: it is society, it is fashion, the market where +mammon-worship, folly, and dissipation display and barter their wares. +Thackeray wrote many other books, and has given us many worthy +characters. Dobbin, Warrington, Colonel Newcome, Ethel Newcome, Henry +Esmond are generous, brave, just, and true. Neither _Esmond_, nor _The +Newcomes_, nor _The Virginians_ are in any sense the work of a +misanthrope. And where Thackeray speaks in his own person, in the +lectures on the _English Humourists_, he is brimful of all that is +genial, frank, lenient, and good-hearted. What we know of the man, who +loved his friends and was loved by them, and who in all his critical +and personal sketches showed himself a kindly, courteous, and +considerate gentleman, inclines us to repel this charge of cynicism. +We will not brand him as a mere satirist, and a cruel mocker at human +virtue and goodness. + +This is, however, not the whole of the truth. The consent of mankind, +and especially the consent of women, is too manifest. There is +something ungenial, there is a bitter taste left when we have enjoyed +these books, especially as we lay down _Vanity Fair_. It is a long +comedy of roguery, meanness, selfishness, intrigue, and affectation. +Rakes, ruffians, bullies, parasites, fortune-hunters, adventurers, +women who sell themselves, and men who cheat and cringe, pass before us +in one incessant procession, crushing the weak, and making fools of the +good. Such, says our author, is the way of Vanity Fair--which we are +warned to loathe and to shun. Be it so:--but it cannot be denied that +the rakes, ruffians, and adventurers fill too large a canvas, are too +conspicuous, too triumphant, too interesting. They are more +interesting than the weak and the good whom they crush under foot: they +are drawn with a more glowing brush, they are far more splendidly +endowed. They have better heads, stronger wills, richer natures than +the good and kind ones who are their butts. Dobbin, as the author +himself tells us, "is a spooney." Amelia, as he says also, "is a +little fool." Peggy O'Dowd, dear old goody, is the laughing-stock of +the regiment, though she is also its grandmother. _Vanity Fair_ has +here and there some virtuous and generous characters. But we are made +to laugh at every one of them to their very faces. And the evil and +the selfish characters bully them, mock them, thrust them aside at +every page--and they do so because they are more the stuff of which men +and women of any mark are made. + +There are evil characters in Shakespeare, in Fielding, in Goldsmith, in +Scott: we find ruffians, rakes, traitors, and parasites. But they are +not paramount, not universal, not unqualified. Iago is utterly +overshadowed by Othello, Blifil by Alworthy, Tom Jones by Sophia +Western, Squire Thornhill by Dr. Primrose, the reprobate Staunton by +the good angel Jeanie Deans. Shakespeare, Fielding, Goethe, Scott draw +noble and generous natures quite as well as they paint the evil +natures: indeed they paint them better; they enjoy the painting of them +more; they make us enjoy them more. Take this test: if we run over the +characters of Shakespeare or of Scott we have to reflect before we find +the villains. If we run over the characters in Thackeray, it is an +effort of memory to recall the generous and the fine natures. +Thackeray has given us some loveable and affectionate men and women; +but they all have qualities which lower them and tend to make them +either tiresome or ridiculous. Henry Esmond is a high-minded and +almost heroic gentleman, but he is glum, a regular kill-joy, and, as +his author admitted, something of a prig. Colonel Newcome is a noble +true-hearted soldier; but he is made too good for this world and +somewhat too innocent, too transparently a child of nature. +Warrington, with all his sense and honesty, is rough; Pendennis is a +bit of a puppy; Clive Newcome is not much of a hero; and as for Dobbin +he is almost intended to be a butt. + +A more serious defect is a dearth in Thackeray of women to love and to +honour. Shakespeare has given us a gallery of noble women; Fielding +has drawn the adorable Sophia Western; Scott has his Jeanie Deans. But +though Thackeray has given us over and over again living pictures of +women of power, intellect, wit, charm, they are all marred by atrocious +selfishness, cruelty, ambition, like Becky Sharp, Beatrix Esmond, and +Lady Kew; or else they have some weakness, silliness, or narrowness +which prevents us from at once loving and respecting them. Amelia is +rather a poor thing and decidedly silly; we do not really admire Laura +Pendennis; the Little Sister is somewhat colourless; Ethel Newcome runs +great risk of being a spoilt beauty; and about Lady Castlewood, with +all her love and devotion, there hangs a certain sinister and unnatural +taint, which the world cannot forgive, and perhaps ought not to +forgive. The sum of all this is, that in all these twenty-six volumes +and hundreds of men and women portrayed, there is not one man or one +woman having at once a noble character, perfect generosity, powerful +mind, and loveable nature; not one man or one woman of tender heart and +perfect honour, but has some trait that tends to make him or her either +laughable or tedious. It is not so with the supreme masters of the +human heart. And the world does not condone this, and it is right in +not condoning it. + +But to say this, is not to condemn Thackeray as a cynic. With these +many scenes of exquisite tenderness and pathos, with men and women of +such loving hearts and devoted spirits, with the profusion of gay, +kindly, childlike love of innocent fun, that we find all through +Thackeray's work, he does not belong to the order of the Jonathan +Swifts, the Balzacs, the Zolas, the gruesome anatomists of human vice +and meanness. On the other hand he does not belong to the order of the +Shakespeares, Goethes, and Scotts, to whom human virtue and dignity +always remain in the end the supreme forces of human life. Thackeray, +with a fine and sympathetic soul, had a creative imagination that was +far stronger on the darker and fouler sides of life than it was on the +brighter and pure side of life. He saw the bright and pure side: he +loved it, he felt with it, he made us love it. But his artistic genius +worked with more free and consummate zest when he painted the dark and +the foul. His creative imagination fell short of the true equipoise, +of that just vision of _chiaroscuro_, which we find in the greatest +masters of the human heart. This limitation of his genius has been +visited upon Thackeray with a heavy hand. And such as it is, he must +bear it. + +The place of Thackeray in English literature will always be determined +by his _Vanity Fair_: which will be read, we may confidently predict, +as long as _Tom Jones_, _Clarissa_, _Tristram Shandy_, _The Antiquary_, +and _Pickwick_. But all the best of his pieces, even the smaller _jeux +d'esprit_, may be read with delight again and again by young and old. +And of the best are--_Esmond_, _The Newcomes_, _Barry Lyndon_, the +_Book of Snobs_, the _Hoggarty Diamond_, some of the _Burlesques_ and +_Christmas Books_, and the _English Humourists_. Of these, _Esmond_ +has every quality of a great book, except its artificial form, its +excessive elaboration of historical colouring, and its unsavoury plot. +Beatrix Esmond is almost as wonderful a creation as Becky Sharp; +though, if formed on a grander mould, she has less fascination than +that incorrigible minx. The _Newcomes_, if in some ways the most +genial of the longer pieces, is plainly without the power of _Vanity +Fair_. And if _Barry Lyndon_ has this power, it is an awful picture of +cruelty and meanness. The _Book of Snobs_ and the _Hoggarty Diamond_ +were each a kind of prelude to _Vanity Fair_, and both contain some of +its essential marks of pathos and of power. It is indeed strange to us +now to remember that both of these books, written with such finished +mastery of hand and full of such passages of wit and insight, could +have been published for years before the world had recognised that it +had a new and consummate writer before it. The _Book of Snobs_ indeed +may truly be said to have seriously improved the public opinion of the +age, and to have given a death-blow to many odious forms of sycophancy +and affectation which passed unrebuked in England fifty years ago. And +the _Burlesque Romances_ and the _English Humourists_ have certainly +assisted in forming the public taste and in promoting a sound criticism +of our standard fiction. + +Charlotte Brontė dedicated her _Jane Eyre_, in 1847, to William +Makepeace Thackeray, as "the first social regenerator of the day." +Such language, though interesting as coming from a girl of singular +genius and sincerity, however ignorant of real life, was excessive. +But we may truly assert that he has enriched our literature with some +classical masterpieces in the comedy of contemporary manners. + + + + +VI + +CHARLES DICKENS + +It is a fearsome thing to venture to say anything now about Charles +Dickens, whom we have all loved, enjoyed, and laughed over: whose tales +are household words in every home where the English tongue is heard, +whose characters are our own school-friends, the sentiment of our +youthful memories, our boon-companions and our early attachments. To +view him in any critical light is a task as risky as it would be to +discuss the permanent value of some fashionable amusement, a favourite +actor, a popular beverage, or a famous horse. Millions and millions of +old and young love Charles Dickens, know his personages by heart, play +at games with his incidents and names, and from the bottom of their +souls believe that there never was such fun, and that there never will +be conceived again such inimitable beings, as they find in his +ever-fresh and ever-varied pages. This is by itself a very high title +to honour: perhaps it is the chief jewel in the crown that rests on the +head of Charles Dickens. I am myself one of these devotees, of these +lovers, of these slaves of his: or at least I can remember that I have +been. To have stirred this pure and natural humanity, this force of +sympathy, in such countless millions is a great triumph. Men and women +to-day do not want any criticism of Charles Dickens, any talk about him +at all. They enjoy him as he is: they examine one another in his +books: they gossip on by the hour about his innumerable characters, his +never-to-be-forgotten waggeries and fancies. + +No account of early Victorian literature can omit the name of Charles +Dickens from the famous writers of the time. How could we avoid notice +of one whose first immortal tale coincides with the accession of our +Queen, and who for thirty-three successive years continued to pour out +a long stream of books that still delight the English-speaking world? +When we begin to talk about the permanent place in English literature +of eminent writers, one of the first definite problems is presented by +Charles Dickens. And it is one of the most obscure of such problems; +because, more than almost any writer of our age, Charles Dickens has +his own accustomed nook at every fireside: he is a familiar friend, a +welcome guest; we remember the glance of his eye; we have held his +hand, as it were, in our own. The children brighten up as his step is +heard; the chairs are drawn round the hearth, and a fresh glow is given +to the room. We do not criticise one whom we love, nor do we suffer +others to do so. And there is perhaps a wider sympathy with Charles +Dickens as a person than with any other writer of our time. For this +reason there has been hardly any serious criticism or estimate of +Dickens as a great artist, apart from some peevish and sectional +disparagement of his genius, which has been too much tinged with +academic pedantry and the bias of aristocratic temper or political +antagonism. + +I am free to confess that I am in no mood to pretend making up my mind +for any impartial estimate of Charles Dickens as an abiding power in +English literature. The "personal equation" is in my own case somewhat +too strong to leave me with a perfectly "dry light" in the matter. I +will make a clean breast of it at once by saying, that I can remember +reading some of the most famous of these books in their green covers, +month by month, as they came out in parts, when I was myself a child or +"in my 'teens." That period included the first ten of the main works +from _Pickwick_ down to _David Copperfield_. With _Bleak House_, which +I read as a student of philosophy at Oxford beginning to be familiar +with Aristotelian canons, I felt my enjoyment mellowed by a somewhat +more measured judgment. From that time onward Charles Dickens threw +himself into a great variety of undertakings and many diverse kinds of +publication. His _Hard Times_, _Little Dorrit_, _Our Mutual Friend_, +_Great Expectations_, _Tale of Two Cities_, were never to me anything +like the wonder and delight that I found in Oliver Twist, Nickleby, and +Copperfield. And as to the short tales and the later pieces down to +_Edwin Drood_, I never find myself turning back to them; the very +memory of the story is fading away; and I fail to recall the characters +and names. A mature judgment will decide that the series after _David +Copperfield_, written when the author was thirty-eight, was not equal +to the series of the thirteen years preceding. Charles Dickens will +always be remembered by _Pickwick_, _Oliver Twist_, _Nickleby_, and +_Copperfield_. And though these tales will long continue to delight +both old and young, learned and unlearned alike, they are most to be +envied who read him when young, and they are most to be pitied who read +him with a critical spirit. May that be far from us, as we take up our +_Pickwick_ and talk over the autobiographic pathos of _David +Copperfield_. + +This vivid sympathy with the man is made stronger in my own case in +that, from my own boyhood till his death, I was continually seeing him, +was frequently his neighbour both in London and the seaside, knew some +of his friends, and heard much about him and about his work. Though I +never spoke to him, there were times when I saw him almost daily; I +heard him speak and read in public; and his favourite haunts in London +and the country have been familiar to me from my boyhood. And thus, as +I read again my _Pickwick_, and _Nickleby_, and _Copperfield_, there +come back to me many personal and local memories of my own. The +personality of Charles Dickens was, even to his distant readers, vivid +and intense; and hence it is much more so to those who have known his +person. I am thus an ardent Pickwickian myself; and anything I say +about our immortal Founder must be understood in a Pickwickian sense. + +Charles Dickens was before all things a great humourist--doubtless the +greatest of this century; for, though we may find in Scott a more truly +Shakespearean humour of the highest order, the humour of Dickens is so +varied, so paramount, so inexhaustible, that he stands forth in our +memory as the humourist of the age. Swift, Fielding, Hogarth, Sterne, +and Goldsmith, in the last century, reached at times a more enduring +level of humour without caricature; but the gift has been more rarely +imparted to their successors in the age of steam. Now, we shall never +get an adequate definition of that imponderable term--humour--a term +which, perhaps, was invented to be the eternal theme of budding +essayists. We need not be quite as liberal in our interpretation of +humour as was Thackeray in opening his _English Humourists_; for he +declared that its business was to awaken and direct our love, our pity, +our kindness, our scorn for imposture, our tenderness for the weak, to +comment on the actions and passions of life, to be the week-day +preacher--and much more to that effect. But it may serve our immediate +purpose to say with Samuel Johnson that humour is "grotesque imagery"; +and "grotesque" is "distorted of figure; unnatural." That is to say, +humour is an effort of the imagination presenting human nature with +some element of distortion or disproportion which instantly kindles +mirth. It must be imaginative; it must touch the bed-rock of human +nature; it must arouse merriment and not anger or scorn. In this fine +and most rare gift Charles Dickens abounded to overflowing; and this +humour poured in perfect cataracts of "grotesque imagery" over every +phase of life of the poor and the lower middle classes of his time, in +London and a few of its suburbs and neighbouring parts. + +This in itself is a great title to honour; it is his main work, his +noblest title. His sphere was wide, but not at all general; it was +strictly limited to the range of his own indefatigable observations. +He hardly ever drew a character or painted a scene, even of the most +subordinate kind, which he had not studied from the life with minute +care, and whenever he did for a moment wander out of his limits, he +made an egregious failure. But this task of his, to cast the sunshine +of pathos and of genial mirth over the humblest, dullest, and most +uninviting of our fellow-creatures, was a great social mission to which +his whole genius was devoted. No waif and stray was so repulsive, no +drudge was so mean, no criminal was so atrocious, but what Charles +Dickens could feel for him some ray of sympathy, or extract some +pathetic mirth out of his abject state. And Dickens does not look on +the mean and the vile as do Balzac and Zola, that is, from without, +like the detective or the surgeon. He sees things more or less from +their point of view: he feels with the Marchioness: he himself as a +child was once a Smike: he cannot help liking the fun of the Artful +Dodger: he has been a good friend to Barkis: he likes Traddles: he +loves Joe: poor Nancy ends her vile life in heroism: and even his brute +of a dog worships Bill Sikes. + +Here lies the secret of his power over such countless millions of +readers. He not only paints a vast range of ordinary humanity and +suffering or wearied humanity, but he speaks for it and lives in it +himself, and throws a halo of imagination over it, and brings home to +the great mass of average readers a new sense of sympathy and gaiety. +This humane kinship with the vulgar and the common, this magic which +strikes poetry out of the dust of the streets, and discovers traces of +beauty and joy in the most monotonous of lives, is, in the true and +best sense of the term, Christ-like, with a message and gospel of hope. +Thackeray must have had Charles Dickens in his mind when he wrote: "The +humourous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, +your kindness--your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture--your +tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy." +Charles Dickens, of all writers of our age, assuredly did this in every +work of his pen, for thirty-three years of incessant production. It is +his great title to honour; and a novelist can desire no higher title +than this. + +There is another quality in which Charles Dickens is supreme--in +purity. Here is a writer who is realistic, if ever any writer was, in +the sense of having closely observed the lowest strata of city life, +who has drawn the most miserable outcasts, the most abandoned men and +women in the dregs of society, who has invented many dreadful scenes of +passion, lust, seduction, and debauchery; and yet in forty works and +more you will not find a page which a mother need withhold from her +grown daughter. As Thackeray wrote of his friend:--"I am grateful for +the innocent laughter and the sweet and unsullied page which the author +of _David Copperfield_ gives to my children." We need not formulate +any dogma or rule on such a topic, nor is it essential that all books +should be written _virginibus puerisque_; but it is certain that every +word of Charles Dickens was so written, even when he set himself (as he +sometimes did) to describe animal natures and the vilest of their sex. +Dickens is a realist in that he probes the gloomiest recesses and faces +the most disheartening problems of life: he is an idealist in that he +never presents us the common or the vile with mere commonplace or +repulsiveness, and without some ray of humane and genial charm to which +ordinary eyes are blind. Dickens, then, was above all things a +humourist, an inexhaustible humourist, to whom the humblest forms of +daily life wore a certain sunny air of genial mirth; but the question +remains if he was a humourist of the highest order: was he a poet, a +creator of abiding imaginative types? Old Johnson's definition of +humour as "grotesque imagery," and "grotesque" as meaning some +distortion in figure, may not be adequate as a description of humour, +but it well describes the essential feature of Charles Dickens. His +infallible instrument is caricature--which strictly means an +"overload," as Johnson says, "an exaggerated resemblance." Caricature +is a likeness having some comical exaggeration or distortion. Now, +caricature is a legitimate and potent instrument of humour, which great +masters have used with consummate effect. Leonardo da Vinci, Michael +Angelo, Rembrandt, Hogarth, use it; but only at times, and in a +subsidiary way. Rabelais, Swift, Fielding, use this weapon not +unfrequently; Shakespeare very sparingly; Goldsmith and Scott, I think, +almost never. Caricature, the essence of which is exaggeration of some +selected feature, distortion of figure, disproportion of some part, is +a potent resource, but one to which the greater masters resort rarely +and with much moderation. + +Now with Charles Dickens caricature--that comical exaggeration of a +particular feature, distortion of some part beyond nature--is not only +the essence of his humour, but it is the universal and ever-present +source of his mirth. It would not be true to say that, exaggeration is +the sole form of humour that he uses, but there is hardly a character +of his to which it is not applied, nor a scene of which it is not the +pervading "motive." Some feature, some oddity, some temperament is +seized, dwelt upon, played with, and turned inside out, with incessant +repetition and unwearied energy. Every character, except the walking +gentleman and the walking lady, the insipid lover, or the colourless +friend, have some feature thrust out of proportion, magnified beyond +nature. Sam Weller never speaks without his anecdote, Uriah is always +"'umble," Barkis is always "willin'," Mark Tapley is always "jolly," +Dombey is always solemn, and Toots is invariably idiotic. It is no +doubt natural that Barnaby's Raven should always want tea, whatever +happens, for the poor bird has but a limited vocabulary. But one does +not see why articulate and sane persons like Captain Cuttle, Pecksniff, +and Micawber should repeat the same phrases under every condition and +to all persons. This, no doubt, is the essence of farce: it may be +irresistibly droll as farce, but it does not rise beyond farce. And at +last even the most enthusiastic Pickwickian wearies of such monotony of +iteration. + +Now, the keynote of caricature being the distortion of nature, it +inevitably follows that humourous exaggeration is unnatural, however +droll; and, where it is the main source of the drollery, the picture as +a whole ceases to be within the bounds of nature. But the great +masters of the human heart invariably remain true to nature: not merely +true to a selected feature, but to the natural form as a whole. +Falstaff, in his wildest humour, speaks and acts as such a man really +might speak and act. He has no catch-phrase on which he harps, as if +he were a talking-machine wound up to emit a dozen sounds. Parson +Adams speaks and acts as such a being might do in nature. The comic +characters of Goldsmith, Scott, or Thackeray do not outrun and defy +nature, nor does their drollery depend on any special and abnormal +feature, much less on any stock phrase which they use as a label. The +illustrations of Cruikshank and Phiz are delightfully droll, and often +caricatures of a high order. But being caricatures, they overload and +exaggerate nature, and indeed are always, in one sense, impossible in +nature. The grins, the grimaces, the contortions, the dwarfs, the +idiots, the monstrosities of these wonderful sketches could not be +found in human beings constructed on any known anatomy. And Dickens's +own characters have the same element of unnatural distortion. It is +possible that these familiar caricatures have even done harm to his +reputation. His creations are of a higher order of art and are more +distinctly spontaneous and original. But the grotesque sketches with +which he almost uniformly presented his books accentuate the element of +caricature on which he relied; and often add an unnatural extravagance +beyond that extravagance which was the essence of his own method. + +The consequence is that everything in Dickens is "in the excess," as +Aristotle would say, and not "in the mean." Whether it is Tony Weller, +or "the Shepherd," or the Fat Boy, Hugh or the Raven, Toots or +Traddles, Micawber or Skimpole, Gamp or Mantalini--all are overloaded +in the sense that they exceed nature, and are more or less extravagant. +They are wonderful and delightful caricatures, but they are impossible +in fact. The similes are hyperbolic; the names are grotesque; the +incidents partake of harlequinade, and the speeches of roaring farce. +It is often wildly droll, but it is rather the drollery of the stage +than of the book. The characters are never possible in fact; they are +not, and are not meant to be, nature; they are always and everywhere +comic distortions of nature. Goldsmith's Dr. Primrose tells us that he +chose his wife for the same qualities for which she chose her wedding +gown. That is humour, but it is also pure, literal, exact truth to +nature. David Copperfield's little wife is called a lap-dog, acts like +a lap-dog, and dies like a lap-dog; the lap-dog simile is so much +overdone that we are glad to get rid of her, and instead of weeping +with Copperfield, we feel disposed to call him a ninny. + +Nothing is more wonderful in Dickens than his exuberance of animal +spirits, that inexhaustible fountain of life and gaiety, in which he +equals Scott and far surpasses any other modern. The intensity of the +man, his electric activity, his spasmodic nervous power, quite dazzle +and stun us. But this restless gaiety too often grows fatiguing, as +the rollicking fun begins to pall upon us, as the jokes ring hollow, +and the wit gets stale by incessant reiteration. We know how much in +real life we get to hate the joker who does not know when to stop, who +repeats his jests, and forces the laugh when it does not flow freely. +Something of the kind the most devoted of Dickens's readers feel when +they take in too much at one time. None but the very greatest can +maintain for long one incessant outpour of drollery, much less of +extravagance. Aristophanes could do it; Shakespeare could do it; so +could Cervantes; and so, too, Rabelais. But then, the wildest +extravagance of these men is so rich, so varied, so charged with +insight and thought, and, in the case of Rabelais, so resplendent with +learning and suggestion, that we never feel satiety and the cruel sense +that the painted mask on the stage is grinning at us, whilst the actor +behind it is weary and sad. When one who is not amongst the very +greatest pours forth the same inextinguishable laughter in the same +key, repeating the same tricks, and multiplying kindred oddities, +people of cultivation enjoy it heartily once, twice, it may be a dozen +times, but at last they make way for the young bloods who can go +thirty-seven times to see "Charley's Aunt." + +A good deal has been said about Dickens's want of reading; and his +enthusiastic biographer very fairly answers that Charles Dickens's book +was the great book of life, of which he was an indefatigable student. +When other men were at school and at college, he was gathering up a +vast experience of the hard world, and when his brother writers were +poring over big volumes in their libraries, he was pacing up and down +London and its suburbs with inexhaustible energy, drinking in oddities, +idiosyncrasies, and wayside incidents at every pore. It is quite true: +London is a microcosm, an endless and bottomless Babylon; which, +perhaps, no man has ever known so well as did Charles Dickens. This +was his library: here he gathered that vast encyclopaedia of human +nature, which some are inclined to call "cockney," but if it be, +"Cockayne" must be a very large country indeed. Still, the fact +remains, that of book-learning of any kind Dickens remained, to the end +of his days, perhaps more utterly innocent than any other famous +English writer since Shakespeare. His biographer labours to prove that +he had read Fielding and Smollett, _Don Quixote_ and _Gil Blas_, _The +Spectator_, and _Robinson Crusoe_. Perhaps he had, like most men who +have learned to read. But, no doubt, this utter severance from books, +which we feel in his tales, will ultimately tell against their +immortality. + +This rigid abstinence from books, which Dickens practised on system, +had another reaction that we notice in his style. Not only do we feel +in reading his novels that we have no reason to assume that he had ever +read anything except a few popular romances, but we note that he can +hardly be said to have a formed literary style of his own. Dickens had +mannerisms, but hardly a style. In some ways, this is a good thing: +much less can he be said to have a bad style. It is simply no style. +He knows nothing of the crisp, modulated, balanced, and reserved +mastery of phrase and sentence which marks Thackeray. Nor is it the +easy simplicity of _Robinson Crusoe_ and the _Vicar of Wakefield_. The +tale spins along, and the incidents rattle on with the volubility of a +good story-teller who warms up as he goes, but who never stops to think +of his sentences and phrases. He often gets verbose, rings the changes +on a point which he sees to have caught his hearers; he plays with a +fancy out of measure, and turns his jest inside out and over and over, +like a fine comic actor when the house is in a roar. His language is +free, perfectly clear, often redundant, sometimes grandiloquent, and +usually addressed more to the pit than to the boxes. And he is a +little prone to slide, even in his own proper person, into those formal +courtesies and obsolete compliments which forty years ago survived +amongst the superior orders of bagmen and managing clerks. + +There is an old topic of discussion whether Dickens could invent an +organic and powerful plot, and carry out an elaborate scheme with +perfect skill. It is certain that he has never done so, and it can +hardly be said that he has ever essayed it. The serial form in parts, +wherein almost all his stories were cast, requiring each number of +three chapters to be "assorted," like sugar-plums, with grave and gay, +so as to tell just enough but not too much, made a highly-wrought +scheme almost impossible. It is plain that Charles Dickens had nothing +of that epical gift which gave us _Tom Jones_ and _Ivanhoe_. Perhaps +the persistent use of the serial form shows that he felt no interest in +that supreme art of an immense drama duly unfolded to a prepared end. +In _Pickwick_ there neither was, nor could there be, any organic plot. +In _Oliver Twist_, in _Barnaby Rudge_, in _Dombey_, in _Bleak House_, +in the _Tale of Two Cities_, there are indications of his possessing +this power, and in certain parts of these tales we seem to be in the +presence of a great master of epical narration. But the power is not +sustained; and it must be confessed that in none of these tales is +there a complete and equal scheme. In most of the other books, +especially in those after _Bleak House_, the plot is so artless, so +_décousu_, so confused, that even practised readers of Dickens fail to +keep it clear in their mind. The serial form, where a leading +character wanders about to various places, and meets a succession of +quaint parties, seems to be that which suited his genius and which he +himself most entirely enjoyed. + +In contrast with the Pickwickian method of comic rambles in search of +human "curios," Dickens introduced some darker effects and persons of a +more or less sensational kind. Some of these are as powerful as +anything in modern fiction; and Fagin and Bill Sikes, Smike and Poor +Jo, the Gordon riots and the storms at sea, may stand beside some +tableaux of Victor Hugo for lurid power and intense realism. But it +was only at times and during the first half of his career that Dickens +could keep clear of melodrama and somewhat stagey blue fire. And at +times his blue fire was of a very cheap kind. Rosa Dartle and Carker, +Steerforth and Blandois, Quilp and Uriah Heep, have a melancholy +glitter of the footlights over them. We cannot see what the villains +want, except to look villainous, and we fail to make out where is the +danger to the innocent victims. We find the villain of the piece +frantically struggling to get some paper, or to get hold of some boy or +girl. But as the scene is in London in the nineteenth century, and not +in Naples in the fifteenth century, we cannot see who is in real +danger, or why, or of what. And with all this, Dickens was not +incapable of bathos, or tragedy suddenly exploding in farce. The end +of Krook by spontaneous combustion is such a case; but a worse case is +the death of Dora, Copperfield's baby wife, along with that of the +lap-dog, Jip. This is one of those unforgotten, unpardonable, +egregious blunders in art, in feeling, even in decency, which must +finally exclude Charles Dickens from the rank of the true immortals. + +But his books will long be read for his wonderful successes, and his +weaker pieces will entirely be laid aside as are the failures of so +many great men, the rubbish of Fielding, of Goldsmith, of Defoe; which +do nothing now to dim the glory of _Tom Jones_, _The Vicar of +Wakefield_, and _Robinson Crusoe_. The glory of Charles Dickens will +always be in his _Pickwick_, his first, his best, his inimitable +triumph. It is true that it is a novel without a plot, without +beginning, middle, or end, with much more of caricature than of +character, with some extravagant tom-foolery, and plenty of vulgarity. +But its originality, its irrepressible drolleries, its substantial +human nature, and its intense vitality, place it quite in a class by +itself. We can no more group it, or test it by any canon of criticism, +than we could group or define _Pantagruel_ or _Faust_. There are some +works of genius which seem to transcend all criticism, of which the +very extravagances and incoherences increase the charm. And _Pickwick_ +ought to live with _Gil Blas_ and _Tristram Shandy_. In a deeper vein, +the tragic scenes in _Oliver Twist_ and in _Barnaby Rudge_ must long +hold their ground, for they can be read and re-read in youth, in +manhood, in old age. The story of Dotheboys Hall, the Yarmouth +memories of Copperfield, Little Nell, Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, Toots, +Captain Cuttle, Pecksniff, and many more will long continue to delight +the youth of the English-speaking races. But few writers are +remembered so keenly by certain characters, certain scenes, incidental +whimsies, and so little for entire novels treated strictly as works of +art. There is no reason whatever for pretending that all these scores +of tales are at all to be compared with the best of them, or that the +invention of some inimitable scenes and characters is enough to make a +supreme and faultless artist. The young and the uncritical make too +much of Charles Dickens, when they fail to distinguish between his best +and his worst. Their fastidious seniors make too little of him, when +they note his many shortcomings and fail to see that in certain +elements of humour he has no equal and no rival. If we mean Charles +Dickens to live we must fix our eye on these supreme gifts alone. + + + + +VII + +CHARLOTTE BRONTĖ + +They who are still youthful in the nineties can hardly understand the +thrill which went through us all in the forties upon the appearance of +_Jane Eyre_, on the discovery of a new genius and a new style. The +reputation of most later writers grew by degrees and by repeated +impressions of good work. Trollope, George Eliot, Stevenson, George +Meredith, did not conquer the interest of the larger public until after +many books and by gradual widening of the judgment of experts. But +little Charlotte Brontė, who published but three tales in six years and +who died at the age of thirty-eight, bounded into immediate fame--a +fame that after nearly fifty years we do not even now find to have been +excessive. + +And then, there was such personal interest in the writer's self, in her +intense individuality, in her strong character; there was so much +sympathy with her hard and lonely life; there was such pathos in her +family history and the tragedy which threw gloom over her whole life, +and cut it off in youth after a few months of happiness. To have lived +in poverty, in a remote and wild moorland, almost friendless and in +continual struggle against sickness, to have been motherless since the +age of five, to have lost four sisters and a brother before she was +more than thirty-three, to have been sole survivor of a large +household, to have passed a life of continual weakness, toil, and +suffering--and then to be cut off after nine months of marriage,--all +this touched the sympathies of the world as the private life of few +writers touches them. And then the shock of her sudden death came upon +us as a personal sorrow. Such genius, such courage, such perseverance, +such promise--and yet but three books in all, published at intervals of +two and of four years! There was meaning in the somewhat unusual form +in which Mrs. Gaskell opens her _Life of Charlotte Brontė_, setting out +verbatim in her first chapter the seven memorial inscriptions to the +buried family in Haworth Church, and placing on the title-page a +vignette of Haworth churchyard with its white tombstones. Charlotte +Brontė was a kind of prosaic, most demure and orthodox Shelley in the +Victorian literature--with visible genius, an intense personality, +unquenchable fire, an early and tragic death. And all this passion in +a little prim, shy, delicate, proud Puritan girl! + +To this sympathy our great writer, whom she herself called "the first +social regenerator of the day," did full justice in that beautiful +little piece which he wrote in the _Cornhill Magazine_ upon her death +and which is the last of the _Roundabout Papers_ in the twenty-second +volume of Thackeray's collected works. It is called _The Last Sketch_: +it is so eloquent, so true, so sympathetic that it deserves to be +remembered, and yet after forty years it is too seldom read. + + +Of the multitude that have read her books, who has not known and +deplored the tragedy of her family, her own most sad and untimely fate? +Which of her readers has not become her friend? Who that has known her +books has not admired the artist's noble English, the burning love of +truth, the bravery, the simplicity, the indignation at wrong, the eager +sympathy, the pious love and reverence, the passionate honour, so to +speak, of the woman? What a story is that of that family of poets in +their solitude yonder on the gloomy northern moors! + + +He goes on to deplore that "the heart newly awakened to love and +happiness, and throbbing with maternal hope, had ceased to beat." He +speaks of her "trembling little frame, the little hand, the great +honest eyes." He speaks of his recollections of her in society, of +"the impetuous honesty" which seemed the character of the woman-- + + +I fancied an austere little Joan of Arc marching in upon us, and +rebuking our easy lives, our easy morals. She gave me the impression +of being a very pure, and lofty, and high-minded person. A great and +holy reverence of right and truth seemed to be with her always. Such, +in our brief interview, she appeared to me. As one thinks of that life +so noble, so lonely,--of that passion for truth--of those nights and +nights of eager study, swarming fancies, invention, depression, +elation, prayer; as one reads the necessarily incomplete, though most +touching and admirable history of the heart that throbbed in this one +little frame--of this one amongst the myriads of souls that have lived +and died on this great earth--this great earth?--this little speck in +the infinite universe of God--with what wonder do we think of to-day, +with what awe await to-morrow, when that which is now but darkly seen +shall be clear! + + +It is quite natural and right that Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell, indeed all +who have spoken of the author of _Jane Eyre_, should insist primarily +on the personality of Charlotte Brontė. It is this intense personality +which is the distinctive note of her books. They are not so much tales +as imaginary autobiographies. They are not objective presentations of +men and women in the world. They are subjective sketches of a Brontė +under various conditions, and of the few men and women who occasionally +cross the narrow circle of the Brontė world. Of the three stories she +published, two are autobiographies, and the third is a fancy portrait +of her sister Emily. Charlotte Brontė is herself Jane Eyre and Lucy +Snowe, and Emily Brontė is Shirley Keeldar. So in _The Professor_, her +earliest but posthumous tale, Frances Henri again is simply a little +Swiss Brontė. That story also is told as an autobiography, but, though +the narrator is supposed to be one William Crimsworth, it is a woman +who speaks, sees, and dreams all through the book. The four tales, +which together were the work of eight years, are all variations upon a +Brontė and the two Brontė worlds in Yorkshire and Belgium. It is most +significant (but quite natural) that Mrs. Gaskell in her _Life of +Charlotte Brontė_ devotes more than half her book to the story of the +family before the publication of _Jane Eyre_. The four tales are not +so much romances as artistic and imaginative autobiographies. + +To say this is by no means to detract from their rare value. The +romances of adventure, of incident, of intrigue, of character, of +society, or of humour, depend on a great variety of observation and a +multiplicity of contrasts. There is not much of Walter Scott, as a +man, in _Ivanhoe_ or of Alexander Dumas in the _Trois Mousquetaires_; +and Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Bulwer, Miss Edgeworth, Stevenson, +and Meredith--even Miss Austen and George Eliot--seek to paint men and +women whom they conceive and whom we may see and know, and not +themselves and their own home circle. But Charlotte Brontė told us her +own life, her own feelings, sufferings, pride, joy, and ambition. She +bared for us her own inner soul, and all that it had known and desired, +and this she did with a noble, pure, simple, but intense truth. There +was neither egoism, nor monotony, nor commonplace in it. It was all +coloured with native imagination and a sense of true art. There is +ample room in Art for these subjective idealisations of even the +narrowest world. Shelley's lyrics are intensely self-centred, but no +one can find in them either realism or egoism. The field in prose is +far more limited, and the risk of becoming tedious and morbid is +greater. But a true artist can now and then in prose produce most +precious portraits of self and glowing autobiographic fantasies of a +noble kind. + +And Charlotte Brontė was a true artist. She was also more than this; a +brave, sincere, high-minded woman, with a soul, as the great moralist +saw, "of impetuous honesty." She was not seduced, or even moved, by +her sudden fame. She put aside the prospect of success, money, and +social distinction as things which revolted her. She was quite right. +With all her genius it was strictly and narrowly limited; she was +ignorant of the world to a degree immeasurably below that of any other +known writer of fiction; her world was incredibly scanty and barren. +She had to spin everything out of her own brain in that cold, still, +gruesome Haworth parsonage. It was impossible for any genius to paint +a world of which it was as ignorant as a child. Hence, in eight years +she only completed four tales for publication. And she did right. +With her strict limits both of brain and of experience she could not go +further. Perhaps, as it was, she did more than was needed. _Shirley_ +and _Villette_, with all their fine scenes, are interesting now mainly +because Charlotte Brontė wrote them, and because they throw light upon +her brain and nature. _The Professor_ is entirely so, and has hardly +any other quality. We need not groan that we have no more than we have +from her pen. _Jane Eyre_ would suffice for many reputations and alone +will live. + +In considering the gifted Brontė family, it is really Charlotte alone +who finally concerns us. Emily Brontė was a wild, original, and +striking creature, but her one book is a kind of prose _Kubla Khan_--a +nightmare of the superheated imagination. Anne Brontė always seems but +a pale reflection of the family. In any other family she might be +interesting--just as "Barrel Mirabeau" was the good boy and fool of the +Mirabeau family, though in another family he would have been the genius +and the profligate. And so, the poems of the whole three are +interesting as psychologic studies, but have hardly a single stanza +that can be called poetry at all. It is significant, but hardly +paradoxical, that Charlotte's verses are the worst of the three. How +many born writers of musical prose have persisted in manufacturing +verse of a curiously dull and unmelodious quality! The absolute +masters of prose and of verse in equal perfection hardly exceed +Shakespeare and Shelley, Goethe and Hugo. And Charlotte Brontė is an +eminent example of a strong imagination working with freedom in prose, +but which began by using the instrument of verse, and used it in a +manner that never rose for an instant above mediocrity. + +Of the Brontės it is Charlotte only who concerns us, and of Charlotte's +work it is _Jane Eyre_ only that can be called a masterpiece. To call +it a masterpiece, as Thackeray did, is not to deny its manifold and +manifest shortcomings. It is a very small corner of the world that it +gives, and that world is seen by a single acute observer from without. +The plain little governess dominates the whole book and fills every +page. Everything and every one appear, not as we see them and know +them in the world, but as they look to a keen-eyed girl who had hardly +ever left her native village. Had the whole book been cast into the +form of impersonal narration, this limitation, this huge ignorance of +life, this amateur's attempt to construct a romance by the light of +nature instead of observation and study of persons, would have been a +failure. As the autobiography of Jane Eyre--let us say at once of +Charlotte Brontė--it is consummate art. It produces the illusion we +feel in reading _Robinson Crusoe_. In the whole range of modern +fiction there are few characters whom we feel that we know so +intimately as we do Jane Eyre. She is as intensely familiar to us as +Becky Sharp or Parson Adams. Much more than this. Not only do we feel +an intimate knowledge of Jane Eyre, but we see every one by the eyes of +Jane Eyre only. Edward Rochester has not a few touches of the +melodramatic villain; and no man would ever draw a man with such +conventional and Byronic extravagances. If Edward Rochester had been +described in impersonal narrative with all his brutalities, his stage +villain frowns, and his Grand Turk whims, it would have spoiled the +book. But Edward Rochester, the "master" of the little governess, as +seen by the eyes of a passionate, romantic, but utterly unsophisticated +girl, is a powerful character; and all the inconsistencies, the +affectation, the savageries we might detect in him, become the natural +love-dream of a most imaginative and most ignorant young woman. + +A consummate master of style has spoken, we have just seen, of the +"noble English" that Charlotte Brontė wrote. It is true that she never +reached the exquisite ease, culture, and raciness of Thackeray's +English. She lapsed now and then into provincial solecisms; she +"named" facts as well as persons; girls talk of a "beautiful man"; nor +did she know anything of the scientific elaboration of George Eliot or +the subtle grace of Stevenson. But the style is of high quality and +conscientious finish--terse, pure, picturesque, and sound. Like +everything she did, it was most scrupulously honest--the result of a +sincere and vivid soul, resolved to utter what it had most at heart in +the clearest tone. Very few writers of romance have ever been masters +of a style so effective, so nervous, so capable of rising into floods +of melody and pathos. There is a fine passage of the kind in one of +her least-known books, the earliest indeed of all, which no publisher +could be found in her lifetime to print. The "Professor" has just +proposed, has been accepted, and goes home to bed half-crazy and +fasting. A sudden reaction falls on his over-wrought nerves. + + +A horror of great darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by +one I had known formerly, but had thought for ever departed. I was +temporarily a prey to hypochondria. She had been my acquaintance, nay, +my guest, once before in boyhood; I had entertained her at bed and +board for a year; for that space of time I had her to myself in secret; +she lay with me, she ate with me, she walked out with me, showing me +nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and +where she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, +grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom, and +holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would tell me at such +hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she would +discourse to me of her own country--the grave--and again and again +promise to conduct me there ere long; and drawing me to the very brink +of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal +with mound, monument, and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary +than moonlight. "Necropolis!" she would whisper, pointing to the pale +piles, and add, "It contains a mansion prepared for you." + + +Finely imagined--finely said! It has the ring and weird mystery of De +Quincey. There are phrases that Thackeray would not have used, such as +jar on the ear and betray an immature taste. "Necropolis" is a strange +affectation when "City of the Dead" was at hand; and "pointing to the +pale piles" is a hideous alliteration. But in spite of such +immaturities (and the writer never saw the text in type) the passage +shows wonderful power of language and sense of music in prose. How +fine is the sentence, "taking me to her death-cold bosom, and holding +me with arms of bone," and that of the tombstones, "in a glimmer more +hoary than moonlight" Coleridge might have used such a phrase in the +_Ancient Mariner_ or in _Christabel_. Yet these were the thoughts and +the words of a lonely girl of thirty as she watched the dreary +churchyard at Haworth from the windows of its unlovely parsonage. + +This vivid power of painting in words is specially called forth by the +look of nature and the scenes she describes. Charlotte Brontė had, in +the highest degree, that which Ruskin has called the "pathetic +fallacy," the eye which beholds nature coloured by the light of the +inner soul. In this quality she really reaches the level of fine +poetry. Her intense sympathy with her native moors and glens is akin +to that of Wordsworth. She almost never attempts to describe any +scenery with which she is not deeply familiar. But how wonderfully she +catches the tone of her own moorland, skies, storm-winds, secluded hall +or cottage! + + +The charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the +low-gliding and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a +lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in +autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, +but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless +repose. If a breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there +was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn +and hazel bushes were as still as the white worn stones which +causewayed the middle of the path. Far and wide, on each side, there +were only fields, where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown +birds, which stirred occasionally in the hedge, looked like single +russet leaves that had forgotten to drop. . . . From my seat I could +look down on Thornfield: the gray and battlemented hall was the +principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose +against the west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, +and sank crimson and clear behind them. + + +How admirable is this icy hush of nature in breathless expectation of +the first coming of the master of Thornfield--of the master of Jane +herself. And yet, how simple in phrase, how pure, how Wordsworthian in +its sympathy with earth even in her most bare and sober hues! And then +that storm which ushers in the story of the Vampyre woman tearing +Jane's wedding veil at her bedside, when "the clouds drifted from pole +to pole, fast following, mass on mass." And as Jane watches the +shivered chestnut-tree, "black and riven, the trunk, split down the +centre, gasped ghastly"--a strange but powerful alliteration. "The +moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled the +fissure; her disk was blood-red and half overcast; she seemed to throw +on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly +in the deep drift of cloud." An admirable overture to that terrific +scene of the mad wife's visit to the rival's bed. + +Charlotte Brontė is great in clouds, like a prose Shelley. We all +recall that mysterious storm in which _Villette_ darkly closes, and +with it the expected bridegroom of Lucy Snowe-- + + +The wind takes its autumn moan; but--he is coming. The skies hang full +and dark--a rack sails from the west; the clouds cast themselves into +strange forms--arches and broad radiations; there rise resplendent +mornings--glorious, royal, purple as monarch in his state; the heavens +are one flame; so wild are they, they rival battle at its thickest--so +bloody, they shame Victory in her pride. . . . When the sun returned +his light was night to some! + + +And into that night Lucy's master, lover, husband has for ever passed. + +This sympathy with nature, and this power to invest it with feeling for +the human drama of which it is the scene, lifts little Charlotte Brontė +into the company of the poets. No one, however, can enter into all the +art of her landscapes unless he knows those Yorkshire moors, the +straggling upland villages, bare, cold, gray, uncanny, with low, +unlovely stone buildings, and stern church towers and graveyards, +varied with brawling brooks and wooded glens, and here and there a grim +manor-house that had seen war. It is so often that the dwellers in the +least picturesque and smiling countries are found to love their native +country best and to invest it with the most enduring art. And the +pilgrims to Haworth Parsonage have in times past been as ardent as +those who flock to Grasmere or to Abbotsford. + +_Jane Eyre_ is full of this "pathetic fallacy," or aspect of nature +dyed in the human emotions of which it is the mute witness. The storm +in the garden at night when Rochester first offers marriage to his +little governess, and they return to the house drenched in rain and +melted with joy, is a fine example of this power. From first to last, +the correspondence between the local scene and the human drama is a +distinctive mark in _Jane Eyre_. + +If I were asked to choose that scene in the whole tale which impresses +itself most on my memory, I should turn to the thirty-sixth chapter +when Jane comes back to have a look at Thornfield Hall, peeps on the +battlemented mansion which she had loved so well, and is struck dumb to +find it burnt out to a mere skeleton--"I looked with timorous joy +toward a stately house: I saw a blackened ruin." The suddenness of +this shock, its unexpected and yet natural catastrophe, its mysterious +imagery of the loves of Edward Rochester and Jane Eyre, and the intense +sympathy which earth, wood, rookery, and ruin seem to feel for the +girl's eagerness, amazement, and horror, have always seemed to me to +reach the highest note of art in romance. It is now forty-seven years +since I first read that piece; and in all these years I have found no +single scene in later fiction which is so vividly and indelibly burnt +into the memory as is this. The whole of this chapter, and what +follows it, is intensely real and true. And the very dénoūment of the +tale itself--that inevitable bathos into which the romance so often +dribbles out its last inglorious breath--has a manliness and sincerity +of its own: "the sky is no longer a blank to him--the earth no longer a +void." + +The famous scene in the twenty-sixth chapter with the interrupted +marriage, when Rochester drags the whole bridal party into the den of +his maniacal wife, the wild struggle with the mad woman, the despair of +Jane--all this is as powerful as anything whatever in English fiction. +It is even a masterpiece of ingenious construction and dramatic action. +It is difficult to form a cool estimate of a piece so intense, so +vivid, and so artful in its mechanism. The whole incident is conceived +with the most perfect reality; the plot is original, startling, and yet +not wholly extravagant. But it must be confessed that the plot is not +worked out in details in a faultless way. It is undoubtedly in +substance "sensational," and has been called the parent of modern +sensationalism. Edward Rochester acts as a Rochester might; but he too +often talks like the "wicked baronet" of low melodrama. The execution +is not always quite equal to the conception. The affiance of Jane and +Edward Rochester, their attempted marriage, the wild temptation of +Jane, her fierce rebuff of the tempter, his despair and remorse, her +agony and flight--all are consummate in conception, marred here and +there as they are in details by the blue fire and conventional +imprecations of the stage. + +The concluding chapters of the book, when Jane finally rejects St. John +Rivers and goes back to Thornfield and to her "master," are all indeed +excellent. St. John is not successful as a character; but he serves to +produce the crisis and to be foil to Rochester. St. John, it is true, +is not a real being: like Rochester, he is a type of man as he affects +the brain and heart of a highly sensitive and imaginative girl. +Objectively speaking, as men living and acting in a practical world, +St. John and Rochester are both in some degree caricatures of men; and, +if the narrative were a cold story calmly composed by a certain Miss +Brontė to amuse us, we could not avoid the sense of unreality in the +men. But the intensity of the vision, the realism of every scene, the +fierce yet self-governed passion of Jane herself, pouring out, as in a +secret diary, her agonies of love, of scorn, of pride, of +abandonment,--all this produces an illusion on us: we are no longer +reading a novel of society, but we are admitted to the wild musings of +a girl's soul; and, though she makes out her first lover to be a +generous brute and her second lover to be a devout machine, we feel it +quite natural that Jane, with her pride and her heart of fire and her +romantic brain, should so in her diary describe them. + +St. John Rivers, if we take him coolly outside of Jane's portrait +gallery, is little more than a puppet. We never seem to get nearer to +his own mind and heart, and his conduct and language are hardly +compatible with the noble attributes with which he is said to be +adorned. A man of such refined culture, of such high intelligence, of +such social distinction and experience, of such angelic character, does +not treat women with studied insolence and diabolical cynicism. That a +girl, half maddened by disappointed love, should romantically come to +erect his image into that of a sort of diabolic angel, is natural +enough, and her conduct when she leaves Moor House is right and true, +though we cannot say as much for Rivers' words. But the impression of +the whole scene is right. + +In the same way, Edward Rochester, if we take him simply as a cultured +and travelled country gentleman, who was a magnate and great _parti_ in +his county, is barely within the range of possibility. As St. John +Rivers is a walking contradictory of a diabolic saint, so Edward +Rochester is a violent specimen of the heroic ruffian. In Emily +Brontė's gruesome phantasmagoria of _Wuthering Heights_ there is a +ruffian named Heathcliff; and, whatever be his brutalities and +imprecations, we always feel in reading it that _Wuthering Heights_ is +merely a grisly dream, not a novel at all. Edward Rochester has +something of the Heathcliff too. But Rochester is a man of the best +English society, courted by wealth and rank, a man of cultivated +tastes, of wide experience and refined habits, and lastly of most +generous and heroic impulses--and yet such a man swears at his people +like a horse-dealer, teases and bullies his little governess, treats +his adopted child like a dog, almost kicks his brother-in-law in his +rages, plays shocking tricks with his governess at night, offers her +marriage, and attempts to commit bigamy in his own parish with his +living wife still under the same roof! That a man of Rochester's +resource, experience, and forethought, should keep his maniac wife in +his own ancestral home where he is entertaining the county families and +courting a neighbouring peer's sister, and that, after the maniac had +often attempted murder and arson--all this is beyond the range of +probabilities. And yet the story could not go on without it. And so, +Edward Rochester, man of the world as he is, risks his life, his home, +and everything and every one dear to him in order that his little +governess, Jane Eyre, should have the materials for inditing a +thrilling autobiography. It cannot be denied that this is the very +essence of "sensationalism," which means a succession of thrilling +surprises constructed out of situations that are practically impossible. + +Nor, alas! can we deny that there are ugly bits of real coarseness in +_Jane Eyre_. It is true that most of them are the effects of that +portentous ignorance of the world and of civilised society which the +solitary dreamer of Haworth Parsonage had no means of removing. The +fine ladies, the lords and soldiers in the drawing-room at Thornfield +are described with inimitable life, but they are described as they +appeared to the lady's-maids, not to each other or to the world. +Charlotte Brontė perhaps did not know that an elegant girl of rank does +not in a friend's house address her host's footman before his guests in +these words--"Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding." Nor +does a gentleman speak to his governess of the same lady whom he is +thought to be about to marry in these terms--"She is a rare one, is she +not, Jane? A strapper--a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom." +But all these things are rather the result of pure ignorance. +Charlotte Brontė, when she wrote her first book, had hardly ever seen +any Englishmen but a few curates, the villagers, and her degraded +brother, with rare glimpses of lower middle-class homes. But Jane +Eyre's own doings and sayings are hardly the effect of mere ignorance. +Her nocturnal adventures with her "master" are given with delightful +_naļveté_; her consenting to hear out her "master's" story of his +foreign amours is not pleasant. Her two avowals to Edward +Rochester--one before he had declared his love for her, and the other +on her return to him--are certainly somewhat frank. Jane Eyre in truth +does all but propose marriage twice to Edward Rochester; and she is the +first to avow her love, even when she believed he was about to marry +another woman. It is indeed wrung from her; it is human nature; it is +a splendid encounter of passion; and if it be bold in the little woman, +it is redeemed by her noble defiance of his tainted suit, and her +desperate flight from her married lover. + +But Jane Eyre's ignorances and simplicities, the improbabilities of her +men, the violence of the plot, the weird romance about her own life, +are all made acceptable to us by being shown to us only through the +secret visions of a passionate and romantic girl. As the autobiography +of a brave and original woman, who bares to us her whole heart without +reserve and without fear, _Jane Eyre_ stands forth as a great book of +the nineteenth century. It stands just in the middle of the century, +when men were still under the spell of Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, and +Wordsworth, and yet it is not wholly alien to the methods of our latest +realists. + +It is true that a purely subjective work in prose romance, an +autobiographic revelation of a sensitive heart, is not the highest and +certainly not the widest art. Scott and Thackeray--even Jane Austen +and Maria Edgeworth--paint the world, or part of the world, as it is, +crowded with men and women of various characters. Charlotte Brontė +painted not the world, hardly a corner of the world, but the very soul +of one proud and loving girl. That is enough: we need ask no more. It +was done with consummate power. We feel that we know her life, from +ill-used childhood to her proud matronhood; we know her home, her +school, her professional duties, her loves and hates, her agonies and +her joys, with that intense familiarity and certainty of vision with +which our own personal memories are graven on our brain. With all its +faults, its narrowness of range, its occasional extravagances, _Jane +Eyre_ will long be remembered as one of the most creative influences of +the Victorian literature, one of the most poetic pieces of English +romance, and among the most vivid masterpieces in the rare order of +literary "Confessions." + + + + +VIII + +CHARLES KINGSLEY + +In this series of papers I have been trying to note some of the more +definite literary forces which tended to mould English opinion during the +epoch of the present Queen. I can remember the issue of nearly all the +greater products of the Victorian writers, or at least the heyday of +their early fame. I do not speak of any living writer, and confine +myself to the writers of our country. Much less do I permit myself to +speak of those living lights of literature from whom we may yet receive +work even surpassing that of those who are gone. My aim has been not so +much to weigh each writer in the delicate balance of mere literary merit, +but rather, from the point of view of the historian of ideas and of +manners, to record the successive influences which, in the last fifty +years or so, have moulded or reflected English opinion through printed +books, be they of the dogmatic or of the imaginative order. In so doing, +I have to speak of writers whose vogue is passing away with the present +generation, or those of whom we must admit very grave defects and +feebleness. Some of them may be little cared for to-day; though they +have a place in the evolution of British society and thought. + +Charles Kingsley has such a place--not by reason of any supreme work or +any very rare quality of his own, but by virtue of his versatility, his +_verve_, his fecundity, his irrepressible gift of breaking out in some +new line, his strong and reckless sympathy, and above all by real +literary brilliance. Where he failed to impress, to teach, to +inspire--almost even though he stirred men to anger or laughter--Charles +Kingsley for a generation continued to interest the public, to scatter +amongst them ideas or problems; he made many people think, and gave many +people delight. He woke them up in all sorts of ways, about all sorts of +things. He wrote lyrics, songs, dramas, romances, sermons, Platonic +dialogues, newspaper articles, children's fairy books, scientific +manuals, philosophical essays, lectures, extravaganzas, and theological +polemics. Hardly any of these were quite in the first rank, and some of +them were thin, flashy, and almost silly. But most of them had the +saving gift of getting home to the interests, ideas, and tastes of the +great public, and he made them think even when he was very wrong himself. +Such activity, such keenness, such command of literary resources, has to +be reckoned with in a man of warm feeling and generous impulses; and +thus, if Charles Kingsley is no longer with very many either prophet or +master, he was a literary influence of at least the second rank in his +own generation. + +This would not be enough to make a permanent reputation if it stood +alone; but there were moments in which he bounded into the first rank. +It would hardly be safe to call Kingsley a poet of great pretension, +although there are passages in _The Saint's Tragedy_ and in the _Ballads_ +of real power; but he has written songs which, as songs for the voice, +have hardly been surpassed by Tennyson himself. _The Sands of Dee_ and +_The Three Fishers_, if not poetry of quite perfect kind, have that +incommunicable and indescribable element of the _cantabile_ which fits +them to the wail of a sympathetic voice perhaps even better than any +songs of the most finished poetry. A true song must be simple, familiar, +musically suggestive of a single touching idea, and nothing more. And +this is just the mysterious quality of these songs and the source of +their immense popularity. Again, without pretending that Kingsley is a +great novelist, there are scenes, especially descriptive scenes, in +_Hypatia_, in _Westward Ho!_ which belong to the very highest order of +literary painting, and have hardly any superior in the romances of our +era. No romances, except Thackeray's, have the same glow of style in +such profusion and variety; and Thackeray himself was no such poet of +natural beauty as Charles Kingsley--a poet, be it remembered, who by +sheer force of imagination could realise for us landscapes and climates +of which he himself had no sort of experience. Even Scott himself has +hardly done this with so vivid a brush. + +Kingsley was a striking example of that which is so characteristic of +recent English literature--its strong, practical, social, ethical, or +theological bent. It is in marked contrast with French literature. Our +writers are always using their literary gifts to preach, to teach, to +promulgate a new social or religious movement, to reform somebody or +something to illustrate a new doctrine. From first to last, Carlyle +regarded himself even more as preacher than as artist: so does his +follower, Mr. Ruskin. Macaulay seemed to write history in order to prove +the immeasurable superiority of the Whig to the Tory; and Froude and +Freeman write history to enforce their own moral. Disraeli's novels were +the programme of a party and the defence of a cause; and even Dickens and +Thackeray plant their knives deep into the social abuses of their time. +Charles Kingsley was not professed novelist, nor professed man of +letters. He was novelist, poet, essayist, and historian, almost by +accident, or with ulterior aims. Essentially, he was a moralist, a +preacher, a socialist, a reformer, and a theologian. + +To begin with his poetry, and he himself began his literary career with +verses at the age of sixteen, he began to write poetry almost as a child, +and some of his earlier verses are his best. If Kingsley, with all his +literary gifts, was never quite in the first rank in anything, he came +nearest to being a poet of mark. Some of his ballads almost touch the +high-water mark of true ballad poetry, with its abrupt fierce blows of +tragedy and pathos, its simple touches of primitive rude speech, its +reserve of force, its unspoken mysteries. At any rate, Kingsley's best +ballads have no superior in the ballads of the Victorian era in lilt, in +massiveness of stroke, in strange unexpected turns. _The Weird Lady_ is +an astonishing piece for a lad of twenty-one--it begins with, "The +swevens came up round Harold the Earl, Like motes in the sunnčs +beam"--and it ends with the stanza: + + A white dove out of the coffin flew; + Earl Harold's mouth it kist; + He fell on his face, wherever he stood; + And the white dove carried his soul to God + Or ever the bearers wist. + +That little piece is surely a bit of pure and rare ballad poetry. + +A _New Forest Ballad_ is also good, it ends thus-- + + They dug three graves in Lyndhurst yard; + They dug them side by side; + Two yeomen lie there, and a maiden fair, + A widow and never a bride. + +So too is the _Outlaw_, whose last request is this:-- + + And when I'm taen and hangit, mither, + a brittling o' my deer, + Ye'll no leave your bairn to the corbie craws, + to dangle in the air; + But ye'll send up my twa douce brethren, + and ye'll steal me fra the tree, + And bury me up on the brown, brown muirs, + where I aye loved to be. + + +The famous ballad in _Yeast_ might have been a great success if Kingsley +would have limited it to five stanzas instead of twenty. What a ring +there is in the opening lines-- + + The merry brown hares came leaping + Over the crest of the hill-- + +If he could only have been satisfied with the first five stanzas what a +ballad it would have been!--If only he had closed it with the verse-- + + She thought of the dark plantation + And the hares, and her husband's blood, + And the voice of her indignation + Rose up to the throne of God. + +That was enough for a ballad, but not for a political novel. The other +fifteen stanzas were required for his story; they may be vigorous +rhetoric, impressive moralising, but they are too argumentative and too +rhetorical to be ballad poetry. It is curious how much of Kingsley's +work, both poetry and prose, is inspired by his love of sport and his +indignation at game laws! + +His songs, spoiled as they are to our ears by poor music and too often +maudlin voices, are as good songs and as fitted for singing as any in our +time. _The Sands of Dee_, hacknied and vulgarised as it is by the +banalities of the drawing-room, is really (to use a hacknied and +vulgarised phrase) a "haunting" piece of song; and though Ruskin may +pronounce "the cruel crawling foam" to be a false use of the pathetic +fallacy, the song, for what it professes to be, is certainly a thing to +live. I have always felt more kindly toward the East wind since +Kingsley's _Welcome, wild North-Easter_!; and his Church Hymns such +as--_Who will say the world is dying?_ and _The Day of the Lord is at +hand, at hand!_--are far above the level even of the better modern hymns. + +We have not yet touched upon Kingsley's longest and most ambitious +poem--_The Saint's Tragedy_. With all its merits and beauties it is a +mistake. It was avowedly a controversial diatribe against the celibacy +and priestcraft of Romanism, and was originally designed to be in prose. +That is not a safe basis for a dramatic poem, and the poem suffers from +the fact that it is in great part a theological pamphlet. It would have +made a most interesting historical novel as a mediaeval pendant to +_Hypatia_; but it is not a great lyrical drama. As we have had no great +lyrical drama at all since _Manfred_ and _The Cenci_, that is not much in +its dispraise. There are powerful passages, much poetic grace in the +piece; but the four thousand lines of this elaborate polemical poem +rather weary us, and a perfervid appeal to the Protestantism and +uxoriousness of Britons should have been cast into other moulds. + +The long poem of _Andromeda_ almost succeeds in that impossible feat--the +revival of the hexameter in English. It may be a hard saying to the +countrymen of Longfellow, but the truth is that the hexameter is a +metrical monster in our English speech. The paucity of easy dactyls and +the absence of all true spondees in English words, the preponderance of +consonants over vowels, the want of inflected forms, and other +peculiarities in our language--make the hexameter incapable of +transplantation; and this magnificent metre loses with us all its +majesty, its ease, its beauty. The very line can hardly be printed on an +ordinary page, for the immense number of letters in each English verse +causes an unsightly doubling of the lines, chokes the voice, and wearies +the ear. In the hexameter line of Homer there are usually about thirty +letters, of which only twelve are consonants; in the English hexameter +there are often sixty letters, of which nearly forty are consonants. And +the Homeric hexameter will have six words where the English hexameter has +twelve or fourteen.[1] Yet having set himself this utterly hopeless and +thankless task, to write English hexameter, Kingsley produced some five +hundred lines of _Andromeda_, which in rhythm, ease, rapidity, and +metrical correctness are quite amongst the best in the language. It is +very rare to meet with any English hexameter which in rhythm, stress, and +prosody is perfectly accurate. _Andromeda_ contains many such lines, as +for example: + + Violet, asphodel, ivy, and vine-leaves, roses and lilies-- + Nereid, siren, and triton, and dolphin, and arrowy fishes. + +These lines are true hexameters, chiefly because they consist of Latin +and Greek words; and they have little more than forty letters, of which +barely more than half are consonants. They would be almost pure +hexameters, if in lieu of the long a[a-macron]nd, we could put +e[e-breve]t, or _te_ [tau epsilon]. And there are only three Saxon words +in the two lines. But hexameters consisting of purely English words, +especially of Anglo-Saxon words, halt and stammer like a schoolboy's +exercise. The attempt of Kingsley in _Andromeda_ is most ingenious and +most instructive. + +I have dwelt so much upon Kingsley's poetry because, though he was hardly +a "minor poet,"--an order which now boasts sixty members--he wrote a few +short pieces which came wonderfully near being a great success. And +again, it is the imaginative element in all his work, the creative fire +and the vivid life which he threw into his prose as much as his verse, +into his controversies as much as into his fictions, that gave them their +popularity and their savour. Nearly every one of Kingsley's imaginative +works was polemical, full of controversy, theological, political, social, +and racial; and this alone prevented them from being great works. +Interesting works they are; full of vigour, beauty, and ardent +conception; and it is wonderful that so much art and fancy could be +thrown into what is in substance polemical pamphleteering. + +Of them all _Hypatia_ is the best known and the best conceived. +_Hypatia_ was written in 1853 in the prime of his manhood and was on the +face of it a controversial work. Its sub-title was--_New Foes with an +Old Face_,--its preface elaborates the moral and spiritual ideas that it +teaches, the very titles of the chapters bear biblical phrases and +classical moralising as their style. I should be sorry to guarantee the +accuracy of the local colouring and the detail of its elaborate history; +but the life, realism, and pictorial brilliancy of the scenes give it a +power which is rare indeed in an historical novel. It has not the great +and full knowledge of _Romola_, much less the consummate style and +setting of _Esmond_; but it has a vividness, a rapidity, a definiteness +which completely enthral the imagination and stamp its scenes on the +memory. It is that rare thing, an historical romance which does not +drag. It is not one of those romances of which we fail to understand the +incidents, and often forget what it is that the personages are struggling +so fiercely to obtain. No one who has read _Hypatia_ in early life will +fail to remember its chief scenes or its leading characters, if he lives +to old age. After forty years this romance has been cast into a drama +and placed upon the London stage, and it is frequently the subject of +some vigorous pictures. + +In any estimate of _Hypatia_ as a romance, it is right to consider the +curious tangle of difficulties which Kingsley crowded into his task. It +was to be a realistic historical novel dated in an age of which the +public knew nothing, set in a country of which the author had no +experience, but which many of us know under wholly altered conditions. +It was to carry on controversies as to the older and the later types of +Christianity, as to Polytheism, Judaism, and Monotheism; it was to +confute Romanism, Scepticism, and German metaphysics; it was to denounce +celibacy and monasticism, to glorify muscular Christianity, to give +glowing pictures of Greek sensuousness and Roman rascality, and finally +to secure the apotheosis of Scandinavian heroism. And in spite of these +incongruous and incompatible aims, the story still remains a vivid and +fascinating tale. That makes it a real _tour de force_. It is true that +it has many of the faults of Bulwer, a certain staginess, melodramatic +soliloquies, careless incongruities, crude sensationalism--but withal, it +has some of the merits of Bulwer at his best, in _The Last Days of +Pompeii_, _Riensi_, _The Last of the Barons_,--the play of human passion +and adventure, intensity of reproduction however inaccurate in detail; it +has "go," intelligibility, memorability. The characters interest us, the +scenes amuse us, the pictures are not forgotten. The stately beauty of +Hypatia, the seductive fascination of Pelagia, the childlike nature of +Philammon, the subtle cynicism of Raphael Aben-Ezra, the mighty audacity +of the Goths, the fanaticism of Cyril, and the strange clash of three +elements of civilisation,--Graeco-Roman, Christian, Teutonic--give us +definite impressions, leave a permanent imprint on our thoughts. There +are extravagances, theatricalities, impossibilities enough. The Gothic +princes comport themselves like British seamen ashore in Suez or Bombay; +Raphael talks like young Lancelot Smith in _Yeast_; Hypatia is a Greek +Argemone; and Bishop Synesius is merely an African fifth-century Charles +Kingsley, what Sydney Smith called a "squarson," or compound of squire +and parson. Still, after all--bating grandiloquences and incongruities +and "errors excepted," _Hypatia_ lives, moves, and speaks to us; and, in +the matter of vitality and interest, is amongst the very few successes in +historical romance in the whole Victorian literature. + +_West-ward Ho!_ shares with _Hypatia_ the merit of being a successful +historical romance. It is free from many of the faults of _Hypatia_, it +is more mature, more carefully written. It is not laden with the +difficulties of _Hypatia_; it is only in part an historical romance at +all; the English scenery is placed in a country which Kingsley knew +perfectly and from boyhood; and the only controversy involved was the +interminable debate about Jesuit mendacity and Romanist priestcraft. So +that, if _Westward Ho!_ does not present us with the weaknesses and the +dilemmas of _Hypatia_, on the other hand it is not so brilliant or so +rich with interest. But it has real and lasting qualities. The Devon +coast scenery which Kingsley knew and loved, the West Indian and tropical +scenery, which he loved but did not know, are both painted with wonderful +force of imaginative colour. When one recalls all that Kingsley has done +in the landscape of romance,--Alexandria and the desert of the Nile, West +Indian jungles and rivers, Bideford Bay, his own heaths in _Yeast_, the +fever-dens of London in _Alton Locke_,--one is almost inclined to rank +him in this single gift of description as first of all the novelists +since Scott. Compared with the brilliancy and variety of Kingsley's +pictures of country, Bulwer's and Disraeli's are conventional; even those +of Dickens are but local; Thackeray and Trollope have no interest in +landscape at all; George Eliot's keen interest is not so spontaneous as +Kingsley's, and Charlotte Brontė's wonderful gift is strictly limited to +the narrow field of her own experience. But Kingsley, as a landscape +painter, can image to us other continents and many zones, and he carries +us to distant climates with astonishing force of reality. + +_Two Years Ago_ has some vigorous scenes, but it has neither the merits +nor the defects of Kingsley in historical romance. Its scene is too near +for his fine imagination to work poetically, and it is too much of a +sermon and pamphlet to be worth a second, or a third reading; and as to +_Hereward the Wake_, I must confess to not having been able to complete +even a first reading, and that after sundry trials. Of Kingsley's +remaining fanciful pieces it is enough to say that _The Heroes_ still +remains, after forty years, the child's introduction to Greek mythology, +and is still the best book of its class. When we compare it with another +attempt by a romancer of genius, and set it beside the sticky dulness of +_The Tanglewood Tales_, it looks like a group of real Tanagra figurines +placed beside a painted plaster cast. Kingsley's _Heroes_, in spite of +the inevitable sermon addressed in the preface to all good boys and +girls, has the real simplicity of Greek art, and the demi-gods tell their +myths in noble and pure English. _The Water Babies_ is an immortal bit +of fun, which will be read in the next century with _Gulliver_ and _The +Ring and the Rose_, long after we have all forgotten the nonsensical +whims about science and the conventional pulpit moralising which Kingsley +scattered broadcast into everything he said or wrote. + +We have as yet said nothing about that which was Kingsley's most +characteristic and effective work--his political fictions. These were +the pieces by which his fame was first achieved, and no doubt they are +the works which gave him his chief influence on his generation. But, for +that very reason, they suffered most of all his writings as works of art. +_Yeast_ is a book very difficult to classify. It is not exactly a novel, +it is more than a _Dialogue_, it is too romantic for a sermon, it is too +imaginative for a pamphlet, it is too full of action for a political and +social treatise. Incongruous as it is, it is interesting and effective, +and contains some of Kingsley's best work. It has some of his most +striking verses, some of his finest pictures of scenery, many of his most +eloquent thoughts, all his solid ideas, the passion of his youth, and the +first glow of his enthusiasm. It was written before he was thirty, +before he thought himself to be a philosopher, before he professed to be +entrusted with a direct message from God. Its title--_Yeast_--suggests +that it is a ferment thrown into the compound mass of current political, +social, and religious ideas, to make them work and issue in some new +combination. Kingsley himself was a kind of ferment. His mind was +itself destined to cause a violent chemical reaction in the torpid fluids +into which it was projected. His early and most amorphous work of +_Yeast_ did this with singular vigour, in a fresh and reckless way, with +rare literary and poetic skill. + +If I spoke my whole mind, I should count _Yeast_ as Kingsley's typical +prose work. It is full of anomalies, full of fallacies, raising +difficulties it fails to solve, crying out upon maladies and sores for +which it quite omits to offer a remedy. But that is Kingsley all over. +He was a mass of over-excited nerves and ill-ordered ideas, much more +poet than philosopher, more sympathetic than lucid, full of passionate +indignation, recklessly self-confident, cynically disdainful of +consistency, patience, good sense. He had the Rousseau temperament, with +its furious eloquence, its blind sympathies and antipathies, its splendid +sophistries. _Yeast_ was plainly the Christian reverse of the Carlyle +image and superscription, as read in _Sartor_ and _Past and Present_. +Kingsley was always profoundly influenced by Frederick D. Maurice, who +was a kind of spiritual Carlyle, without the genius or the learning of +the mighty _Sartor_, with a fine gift of sympathy instead of sarcasm, +with a genuine neo-Christian devoutness in lieu of an old-Hebrew +Goetheism. Kingsley had some of Carlyle's passion, of his eloquence, of +his power to strike fire out of stones. And so, just because _Yeast_ was +so disjointed as a composition, so desultory in thought, so splendidly +defiant of all the conventions of literature and all the ten commandments +of British society in 1849, I am inclined to rank it as Kingsley's +typical performance in prose. It is more a work of art than _Alton +Locke_, for it is much shorter, less akin to journalism, less spasmodic, +and more full of poetry. _Yeast_ deals with the country--which Kingsley +knew better and loved more than he did the town. It deals with real, +permanent, deep social evils, and it paints no fancy portrait of the +labourer, the squire, the poacher, or the village parson. Kingsley there +speaks of what he knew, and he describes that which he felt with the soul +of a poet. The hunting scenes in Yeast, the river vignettes, the village +revel, are exquisite pieces of painting. And the difficulties overcome +in the book are extreme. To fuse together a Platonic Dialogue and a +Carlyle latter-day pamphlet, and to mould this compound into a rural +romance in the style of _Silas Marner_, heightened with extracts from +University Pulpit sermons, with some ringing ballads, and political +diatribes in the vein of Cobbett's appeals to the People--this was to +show wonderful literary versatility and animation. And, after forty-five +years, _Yeast_ can be read and re-read still! + +_Alton Locke_ was no doubt more popular, more passionately in earnest, +more definite and intelligible than _Yeast_; and if I fail to hold it +quite as the equal of _Yeast_ in literary merit, it is because these very +qualities necessarily impair it as a work of art. It was written, we +well know, under violent excitement and by a terrible strain on the +neuropathic organism of the poet-preacher. It is undoubtedly spasmodic, +crude, and disorderly. A generation which has grown fastidious on the +consummate finish of _Esmond_, _Romola_, and _Treasure Island_, is a +little critical of the hasty outpourings of spirit which satisfied our +fathers in the forties, after the manner of _Sybil_, the _Last of the +Barons_, or _Barnaby Rudge_. The Tennysonian modulation of phrase had +not yet been popularised in prose, and spasmodic soliloquies and +melodramatic eloquence did not offend men so cruelly as they offend us +now. + +As Yeast was inspired by Sartor Resartus, so _Alton Locke_ was inspired +by Carlyle's _French Revolution_. The effect of Carlyle upon Kingsley is +plain enough throughout, down to the day when Carlyle led Kingsley to +approve the judicial murder of negroes in Jamaica. Kingsley himself +tells us, by the mouth of Alton Locke (chap. ix.), "I know no book, +always excepting Milton, which at once so quickened and exalted my +poetical view of man and his history, as that great prose poem, _the +single epic of modern days_, Thomas Carlyle's _French Revolution_." +Kingsley's three masters were--in poetry, Tennyson; in social philosophy, +Carlyle; in things moral and spiritual, Frederick D. Maurice. He had far +more of genius than had Maurice; he was a much more passionate reformer +than Tennyson; he was far more genial and social than Carlyle. Not that +he imitated any of the three. _Yeast_ is not at all copied from Sartor, +either in form or in thought; nor is _Alton Locke_ in any sense imitated +from the _French Revolution_. It is inspired by it; but _Yeast_ and +_Alton Locke_ are entirely original, and were native outbursts from +Kingsley's own fierce imagination and intense human sympathy. + +And in many ways they were amongst the most powerful influences over the +thought of the young of the last generation. In the early fifties we +were not so fastidious in the matter of style and composition as we have +now become. Furious eloquence and somewhat melodramatic incongruities +did not shock us so much, if we found them to come from a really glowing +imagination and from genuine inspiration, albeit somewhat unpruned and +ill-ordered. Now Kingsley "let himself go," in the way of Byron, +Disraeli, Bulwer, and Dickens, who not seldom poured out their +conceptions in what we now hold to be spasmodic form. It is possible +that the genteeler taste of our age may prevent the young of to-day from +caring for _Alton Locke_. But I can assure them that five-and-forty +years ago that book had a great effect and came home to the heart of +many. And the effect was permanent and creative. We may see to-day in +England widespread results of that potent social movement which was +called Christian Socialism, a movement of which Kingsley was neither the +founder nor the chief leader, but of which his early books were the main +popular exponents, and to which they gave a definiteness and a key which +the movement itself sadly lacked. + +I was not of an age to take part in that movement, but in after years at +the Working Men's College, which grew out of it, I gained a personal +knowledge of what was one of the most striking movements of our time. +Nowadays, when leading statesmen assure us "we are all Socialists now," +when the demands of the old "Chartists" are Liberal common form, when +trades-unionism, co-operation, and state-aided benefits are largely +supported by politicians, churchmen, journals, and writers, it is +difficult for us now to conceive the bitter opposition which assailed the +small band of reformers who, five-and-forty years ago, spoke up for these +reforms. Of that small band, who stood alone amongst the literary, +academic, and ecclesiastical class, Charles Kingsley was the most +outspoken, the most eloquent, and assuredly the most effective. I do not +say the wisest, the most consistent, or the most staunch; nor need we +here discuss the strength or the weakness of the Christian Socialist +reform. When we remember how widely this vague initiative has spread and +developed, when we read again _Alton Locke_ and _Yeast_, and note how +much has been practically done in forty years to redress or mitigate the +abuses against which these books uttered the first burning protest, we +may form some estimate of all that the present generation of Englishmen +owes to Charles Kingsley and his friends. + +I have dwelt last and most seriously upon Kingsley's earliest books, +because they were in many respects his most powerful, his typical works. +As he grew in years, he did not develop. He improved for a time in +literary form, but his excitable nerve-system, his impulsive imagination, +drove him into tasks for which he had no gift, and where he floated +hither and thither without sure guide. From the time of his official +success, that is, for the last fifteen years of his life, he produced +nothing worthy of himself, and much that was manifest book-making--the +mere outpouring of the professional preacher and story-teller. Of his +historical and philosophical work I shall not speak at all. His shallow +Cambridge Inaugural Lecture, given by him as Professor of History, was +torn to pieces in the _Westminster Review_ (vol. xix. p. 305, April +1861), it is said, by a brother Professor of History. Much less need we +speak of his miserable duel with Cardinal Newman, wherein he was so +shamefully worsted. For fifteen years he poured out lectures, sermons, +tales, travels, poems, dialogues, children's books, and historical, +philosophical, theological, social, scientific, and sanitary essays--but +the Charles Kingsley of _Yeast_, of _Alton Locke_, of _Hypatia_, of +_Westward Ho!_ of the Ballads and Poems, we never knew again. He burnt +out his fiery spirit at last, at the age of fifty-five, in a series of +restless enterprises, and a vehement outpouring of miscellaneous +eloquence. + +Charles Kingsley was a man of genius, half poet, half controversialist. +The two elements did not blend altogether well. His poetic passion +carried away his reason and often confused his logic. His argumentative +vehemence too often marred his fine imagination. Thus his _Saint's +Tragedy_ is partly a satire on Romanism, and his ballad in _Yeast_ is +mainly a radical pamphlet. Hardly one of his books is without a +controversial preface, controversial titles, chapters, or passages on +questions of theology, churches, races, politics, or society. Indeed, +excepting some of his poems, and some of his popular or children's books +(but not even all of these), all his works are of a controversial kind. +Whatever he did he did with heart, and this was at once his merit and his +weakness. Before all things, he was a preacher, a priest of the English +Church, a Christian minister. He was, indeed, a liberal priest, +sometimes even too free and easy. He brings in the sacred name perhaps +more often than any other writer, and he does so not always in a devout +way. He seemed at last to use the word "God" as if it were an expletive +or mere intensive like a Greek _ge_ [gamma epsilon], meaning "very much" +or "very good," as where he so oddly calls the North-East wind "the wind +of God." And he betrays a most unclerical interest in physical torture +and physical voluptuousness (_Hypatia_, _The Saint's Tragedy_, _Saint +Maura_, _Westward Ho!_), though it is true that his real nature is both +eminently manly and pure. + +As we have done all through these estimates of great writers, we have to +take the great writer at his best and forget his worst. It is a +melancholy reflection that we so often find a man of genius working +himself out to an unworthy close, it is too often feared, in the thirst +of success and even the attraction of gain. But at his best Charles +Kingsley left some fine and abiding influences behind him, and achieved +some brilliant things. Would that we always had men of his dauntless +spirit, of his restless energy, of his burning sympathy, of his keen +imagination! He reminds us somewhat of his own Bishop Synesius, as +described in _Hypatia_ (chap. xxi.), who "was one of those many-sided, +volatile, restless men, who taste joy and sorrow, if not deeply or +permanently, yet abundantly and passionately"--"He lived . . . in a +whirlwind of good deeds, meddling and toiling for the mere pleasure of +action; and as soon as there was nothing to be done, which, till lately, +had happened seldom enough with him, paid the penalty for past excitement +in fits of melancholy. A man of magniloquent and flowery style, not +without a vein of self-conceit; yet withal of overflowing kindliness, +racy humour, and unflinching courage, both physical and moral; with a +very clear practical faculty, and a very muddy speculative one"--and so +on. Charles Kingsley must have been thinking of his own tastes when he +drew the portrait of the "squire-bishop." But he did more than the +Bishop of Cyrene, and was himself a compound of squire-parson-poet. And +in all three characters he showed some of the best sides of each. + + + +[1] Amongst other difficulties it may be observed that such words as +"and," "is," "are," "the," "who," "his," "its," "have," "been"--words +without which few English sentences can be constructed--do not form the +short syllables of a true dactyl. + + + + +IX + +ANTHONY TROLLOPE + +Some of our younger friends who read the name which heads this essay +may incline to think that it ought to be very short indeed, nay, be +limited to a single remark; and, like the famous chapter on the snakes +in Iceland, it should simply run--that Anthony Trollope has no place at +all in Victorian literature. We did not think so in England in the +fifties, the sixties, and the seventies, in the heyday of Victorian +romance; and I do not think we ought to pass that judgment now in this +last quinquennium of our century. I shall have to put our friend +Anthony in a very moderate and prosaic rank; I shall not conceal my +sense of his modest claims and conspicuous faults, of his prolixity, +his limited sphere, his commonplace. But in view of the enormous +popularity he once enjoyed, of the space he filled for a whole +generation, I cannot altogether omit him from these studies of the +Victorian writers. + +I have, too, a personal reason for including him in the series. I knew +him well, knew his subjects, and his stage. I have seen him at work at +the "Megatherium Club," chatted with him at the "Universe," dined with +him at George Eliot's, and even met him in the hunting-field. I was +familiar with the political personages and crises which he describes; +and much of the local colouring in which his romances were framed was +for years the local colouring that I daily saw around me. Most of the +famous writers of whom I have been speaking in this series (with the +exception of Charlotte Brontė) I have often seen and heard speak in +public and in private, but I cannot be said to have known them as +friends. But Anthony Trollope I knew well. I knew the world in which +he lived, I saw the scenes, the characters, the life he paints, day by +day in the same clubs, in the same rooms, and under the same conditions +as he saw them. To re-read some of his best stories, as I have just +done, is to me like looking through a photographic album of my +acquaintances, companions, and familiar reminiscences of some thirty +years ago. I can hear the loud voice, the honest laugh, see the keen +eyes of our old friend as I turn to the admirable vignette portrait in +his posthumous _Autobiography_, and I can almost hear him tell the +anecdotes recounted in that pleasant book. + +Does the present generation know that frank and amusing book--one of +the most brisk and manly autobiographies in our language? Of course it +is garrulous, egoistical, self-complacent in a way. When a famous +writer, at the close of a long career of varied activity, takes up his +pen to tell us how he has lived, and how his books were written, and +what he has loved, seen, suffered, and striven for--it is his business +to be garrulous; we want him to talk about himself, and to give us such +peeps into his own heart and brain as he chooses to unlock. That is +what an "autobiography" means. And never did man do this in a more +hearty, manly, good-tempered spirit, with more good sense, with more +modest _bonhomie_, with a more genial egoism. He has been an enormous +worker; he is proud of his industry. He has fought his way under cruel +hardships to wealth and fame: and he is well satisfied with his +success. He has had millions of readers; he has been well paid; he has +had good friends; he has enjoyed life. He is happy in telling us how +he did it. He does not overrate himself. He believes some of his work +is good: at least it is honest, pure, sound work which has pleased +millions of readers. Much of his work he knows to be poor stuff, and +he says so at once. He makes no pretence to genius; he does not claim +to be a hero; he has no rare qualities--or none but industry and +courage--and he has met with no peculiar sufferings and no cruel and +undeserved rebuffs. He has his own ideas about literary work--you may +think them commonplace, mechanical, mercenary ideas--but that is a true +picture of Anthony Trollope; of his strong, manly, pure mind, of his +clear head, of his average moral sense: a good fellow, a warm friend, a +brave soul, a genial companion. + +With all his artless self-complacency in his own success, Trollope took +a very modest estimate of his own powers. I remember a characteristic +discussion about their modes of writing between Trollope and George +Eliot at a little dinner party in her house.[1] "Why!" said Anthony, +"I sit down every morning at 5.30 with my watch on my desk, and for +three hours I regularly produce 250 words every quarter of an hour." +George Eliot positively quivered with horror at the thought--she who +could write only when she felt in the vein, who wrote, re-wrote, and +destroyed her manuscript two or three times, and as often as not sat at +her table without writing at all. "There are days and days together," +she groaned out, "when I cannot write a line." "Yes!" said Trollope, +"with imaginative work like yours that is quite natural; but with my +mechanical stuff it's a sheer matter of industry. It's not the head +that does it--it's the cobbler's wax on the seat and the sticking to my +chair!" In his _Autobiography_ he has elaborately explained this +process--how he wrote day by day, including Sundays, whatever his +duties, his amusements, or the place; measuring out every page, +counting the words, and exacting the given quantity hour by hour. He +wrote continuously 2500 words in each day, and at times more than +25,000 words in a week. He wrote whilst engaged in severe professional +drudgery, whilst hunting thrice a week, and in the whirl of London +society. He wrote in railway trains, on a sea voyage, and in a town +club room. Whether he was on a journey, or pressed with office +reports, or visiting friends, he wrote just the same. _Dr. Thorne_ was +written whilst he was very sea-sick in a gale at sea, or was +negotiating a treaty with Nubar Pasha; and the day after finishing _Dr. +Thorne_ he began _The Bertrams_. It is one of the most amazing, and +one of the most comical, records of literary activity we have. No one +can suppose that work of a very high class can be so produced at all. +Nor does Trollope pretend that it is of a high class. He says it is +honest work, the best he could do. + +He takes a strange pleasure in recounting these feats of literary +productiveness. He poses as the champion of the age in quantity and +rapidity. This lightning novelist could produce a volume in two or +three weeks; and thus he could easily turn out three novels of three +volumes each in a year. He gives us an exact list of sixty works +produced in about thirty-five years, and a total of about 70,000 pounds +as the earnings of some twenty-four years. He insists that he never +neglected his Post-Office work, but was an invaluable and energetic +public servant; he insists that, much as he enjoyed his literary +profits, he was never misled by the desire of money; and he insists +that he could have done no better work if he had written much less, or +if he had given more time to each book. In all this he does not +convince us. He certainly showed transcendent force of will, of nerve, +and of endurance. "It's dogged as does it!" says Giles Hoggett to Mr. +Crawley, in _The Last Chronicle of Barset_; and if "dogged" could make +a great novelist, Anthony Trollope was pre-eminently "dogged." But a +great novelist needs other gifts. And to tell us that he would not +have done better work if his whole life had been given to his work, if +every book, every chapter of every book, were the fruit of ample +meditation and repeated revision, if he had never written with any +thought of profit, never written but what he could not contain hidden +within him--this is to tell us palpable nonsense. + +Trollope's sixty works no doubt exceed the product of any Englishman of +our age; but they fall short of the product of Dumas, George Sand, and +Scribe. And, though but a small part of the sixty works can be called +good, the inferior work is not discreditable: it is free from +affectation, extravagance, nastiness, or balderdash. It never sinks +into such tawdry stuff as Bulwer, Disraeli, and even Dickens, could +indite in their worst moods. Trollope is never bombastic, or +sensational, or prurient, or grotesque. Even at his worst, he writes +pure, bright, graceful English; he tells us about wholesome men and +women in a manly tone, and if he becomes dull, he is neither ridiculous +nor odious. He is very often dull: or rather utterly commonplace. It +is the fashion with the present generation to assert that he is never +anything but commonplace; but this is the judgment of a perverted +taste. His besetting danger is certainly the commonplace. It is true +that he is almost never dramatic, or powerful, or original. His plots +are of obvious and simple construction; his characters are neither new, +nor subtle, nor powerful; and his field is strictly limited to special +aspects of the higher English society in town and country. But in his +very best work, he has risen above commonplace and has painted certain +types of English men and women with much grace and consummate truth. + +One of Trollope's strong points and one source of his popularity was a +command over plain English almost perfect for his own limited purpose. +It is limpid, flexible, and melodious. It never rises into eloquence, +poetry, or power; but it is always easy, clear, simple, and vigorous. +Trollope was not capable of the sustained mastery over style that we +find in _Esmond_, nor had he the wit, passion, and pathos at +Thackeray's command. But of all contemporaries he comes nearest to +Thackeray in easy conversations and in quiet narration of incidents and +motives. Sometimes, but very rarely, Trollope is vulgar--for good old +Anthony had a coarse vein: it was in the family:--but as a rule his +language is conspicuous for its ease, simplicity, and unity of tone. +This was one good result of his enormous rapidity of execution. His +books read from cover to cover, as if they were spoken in one sitting +by an _improvisatore_ in one and the same mood, who never hesitated an +instant for a word, and who never failed to seize the word he wanted. +This ease and mastery over speech was the fruit of prodigious practice +and industry both in office work and in literary work. It is a mastery +which conceals itself, and appears to the reader the easiest thing in +the world. How few out of many millions have studied that subtle +mechanism of ear and thought which created the melodious ripple of +these fluent and pellucid words. + +His work has one special quality that has not been sufficiently +noticed. It has the most wonderful unity of texture and a perfect +harmony of tone. From the first line to the last, there is never a +sentence or a passage which strikes a discordant note; we are never +worried by a spasmodic phrase, nor bored by fine writing that fails to +"come off." Nor is there ever a paragraph which we need to read over +again, or a phrase that looks obscure, artificial, or enigmatic. This +can hardly be said of any other novelist of this century, except of +Jane Austen, for even Thackeray himself is now and then artificial in +_Esmond_, and the vulgarity of _Yellowplush_ at last becomes fatiguing. +Now Trollope reproduces for us that simplicity, unity, and ease of Jane +Austen, whose facile grace flows on like the sprightly talk of a +charming woman, mistress of herself and sure of her hearers. This +uniform ease, of course, goes with the absence of all the greatest +qualities of style; absence of any passion, poetry, mystery, or +subtlety. He never rises, it is true, to the level of the great +masters of language. But, for the ordinary incidents of life amongst +well-bred and well-to-do men and women of the world, the form of +Trollope's tales is almost as well adapted as the form of Jane Austen. + +In absolute realism of spoken words Trollope has hardly any equal. His +characters utter quite literally the same words, and no more, that such +persons utter in actual life. The characters, it is true, are the +average men and women we meet in the educated world, and the +situations, motives, and feelings described are seldom above or below +the ordinary incidents of modern life. But within this very limited +range of incident, and for this very common average of person and +character, the conversations are photographic or stenographic +reproductions of actual speech. His letters, especially his young +ladies' letters, are singularly real, life-like, and characteristic. +We have long got rid of the artificial eloquence and the studied +witticisms of the older school. Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith, and +Scott put into the mouths of their heroes and heroines elaborate +speeches, poetry, eloquence, and epigrams which are no more like real +speech than the allocutions of kings and queens in Shakespeare are like +natural talk. That has long been discarded. Jane Austen and Thackeray +make their men and women discourse as men and women do. But perhaps +with Thackeray, the talk is too racy, too brilliant, too rich with wit, +humour, and character, to be quite literally truthful. Now, Trollope, +taking a far lower and simpler line, makes his characters talk with +literal truth to nature. + +This photographic realism of conversation is common enough now: but it +has too often the defects of photography; it is bleared, coarse, and +ill-favoured. As we all know, in the new realism a young woman and her +lover talk thus: "Old gal! why so glum?" said he--"It's my luck!" says +she, and flings her straw hat on the floor. That is the new +photographic style, but it does not please us of an older generation. +Now Trollope makes his people utter such phrases as the characters he +presents to us actually use in real life--or rather such phrases as +they did use thirty years ago. And yet, although he hardly ever rises +into eloquence, wit, brilliancy, or sinks into any form of talk either +unnaturally tall, or unnaturally low,--still, the conversations are +just sufficiently pointed, humorous, or characteristic, to amuse the +reader and develop the speaker's character. Trollope in this exactly +hits the happy mean. Like Mr. Woodhouse's gruel, his conversations are +"thin--but not so very thin." He never attempts grandiloquence; but +then he never sinks into the fashionable bathos of--"Sugar in your tea, +dear?"--"Another lump, if you please,"--nor does he fall into the +fashionable realism of--"Dry up, old man!" No! Trollope's characters +speaks with literal nature; and yet with enough of point, humour, +vigour, to make it pleasant reading. + +We may at once confess to his faults and limitations. They are plain +enough, constant, and quite incapable of defence. Out of his sixty +works, I should be sorry to pick more than ten as being worth a second +reading, or twenty which are worth a first reading. Nor amongst the +good books could I count any of the last ten years. The range of +characters is limited to the clergy and professional men of a cathedral +city, to the county families and the respectabilities of a quiet +village, to the life of clubs, public offices, and Parliament in +London, and to the ways of "society" as it existed in England in the +third quarter of the present century. The plots are neither new nor +ingenious; the incidents are rarely more than commonplace; the +characters are seldom very powerful, or original, or complex. There +are very few "psychologic problems," very few dramatic situations, very +few revelations of a new world and unfamiliar natures. There are some +natural scenes in Ireland; now and then a cook-maid, a farmer, a +labourer, or a clerk, come on the stage and play their short parts with +faultless demeanour. But otherwise, the entire company appear in the +frock-coats and crinolines of the period, and every scene is played in +silk hats, bonnets, and regulation evening toilette. + +But within this limited range of life, this uniformity of "genteel +comedy," Trollope has not seldom given us pieces of inimitable +truthfulness and curious delicacy of observation. The dignitaries of +the cathedral close, the sporting squires, the county magnates, the +country doctors, and the rectory home, are drawn with a precision, a +refinement, an absolute fidelity that only Jane Austen could compass. +There is no caricature, no burlesque, nothing improbable or +over-wrought. The bishop, the dean, the warden, the curate, the +apothecary, the duke, the master of fox-hounds, the bishop's wife, the +archdeacon's lady, the vicar's daughter, the governess, the +undergraduate--all are perfectly true to nature. So, too, are the men +in the clubs in London, the chiefs, subordinates, and clerks in the +public offices, the ministers and members of Parliament, the leaders, +and rank and file of London "society." They never utter a sentence +which is not exactly what such men and women do utter; they do and they +think nothing but what such men and women think and do in real life. +Their habits, conversation, dress, and interests are photographically +accurate, to the point of illusion. It is not high art--but it is art. +The field is a narrow one; the actors are ordinary. But the skill, +grace, and humour with which the scenes are caught, and the absolute +illusion of truthfulness, redeem it from the commonplace. + +The stage of Trollope's drama is not a wide one, but it is far wider +than that of Jane Austen. His plots and incidents are sufficiently +trite and ordinary, but they are dramatic and original, if contrasted +with those of _Emma_ or _Mansfield Park_. No one will compare little +Jane's delicate palfrey with Anthony's big-boned hunter; nor would any +one commit the bad taste of treating these quadrupeds as if they were +entered for a race; but a narrow stage and familiar incidents are not +necessarily fatal to true art. If Trollope had done nothing more than +paint ordinary English society with photographic accuracy of detail, it +would not be a great performance. But he has done more than this. In +the Barsetshire series, at any rate, he has risen to a point of drawing +characters with a very subtle insight and delicate intuition. The +warden, the bishop, Mrs. Proudie, Dr. Thorne, Mary Thorne, Lily Dale, +Lady Arabella, and, above all, Mr. Crawley, are characters definitely +conceived, profoundly mastered, and truly portrayed. Trollope +evidently judged Crawley to be his greatest creation, and the _Last +Chronicle of Barset_ to be his principal achievement. In this he was +doubtless right. There are real characters also in the two _Phineas +Finn_ tales. Chiltern, Finn, Glencora Palliser, Laura Kennedy, and +Marie Goesler, are subtly conceived and truly worked out. This is +enough to make a decent reputation, however flat be the interminable +pot-boilers that precede and follow them. + +The list of Trollope's real successes is not very long. The six tales +of the Barsetshire cycle, _The Warden_, _Barchester Towers_, _Doctor +Thorne_, _Framley Parsonage_, _The Small House at Allington_, _The Last +Chronicle of Barset_, are unquestionably his main achievements; and of +these either _Doctor Thorne_ or _The Last Chronicle_ is the best. The +Crawley story is undoubtedly the finest thing Trollope ever did; but +for myself, I enjoy the unity, completeness, and masterly scheme of +_Doctor Thorne_, and I like Mary Thorne better than any of Trollope's +women. If, to the six Barset tales, we add _Orley Farm_, _The +Claverings_, the two _Phineas Finns_, and the _Eustace Diamonds_, we +shall include, perhaps, more than posterity will ever trouble itself +about, and almost exactly one-fifth of the novels he left behind. The +ten or twelve of Trollope's best will continue to be read, and will, in +a future generation, no doubt, regain not a little of their early +vogue. This will be due, in part, to their own inherent merit as +graceful, truthful, subtle observation of contemporary types, clothed +in a style of transparent ease. Partly, it will be due to this: that +these tales will reproduce for the future certain phases of life in the +nineteenth century in England with minute fidelity and the most literal +realism. + +This is no doubt the cause of the revulsion of opinion by which in some +English circles Trollope has suffered of late. If there are fashions, +habits, and tastes which the rising generation is certain to despise, +it is such as were current in the youth of their own parents about +thirty or forty years before them. The collars, the bonnets, the +furniture, the etiquette, the books of that age always seem to the +young to be the last word of all that is awkward and "bad form," +although in two or three generations these very modes regain a certain +quaint charm. And for the moment poor Anthony represents to the +emancipated youth of our time all that was "banal" and prosy some +thirty years ago. The taste of our youth sets hard for a new heaven, +or at least a new earth, and if not that, it may be a new hell. Novels +or poems without conundrums, without psychologic problems, with no +sexual theorems to solve, with no unique idiosyncrasies to fathom, +without anything unnatural, or sickening, without hospital +nastinesses,--are all, we are assured, unworthy the notice of the youth +of either sex who are really up to date. In the style of the new +pornographic and clinical school of art, the sayings and doings of +wholesome men and women who live in drawing-rooms and regularly dress +before dinner are "beastly rot," and fit for no one but children and +old maids. + +But we conservatives of an older school are grateful to Anthony that he +produced for the last generation an immense collection of pleasant +tales without a single foul spot or unclean incident. It was his boast +that he had never written a line which a pure woman could not read +without a blush. This is no doubt one of the grounds on which he is so +often denounced as _passé_. His tales, of course, are full of love, +and the love is not always discreet or virtuous. There are cases of +guilty love, of mad love, of ungoverned and unreasoning passion. But +there is not an impure or prurient passage in the whole library of +tales. Much more than this: in the centre of almost every tale, we are +taken to the heart of a spotless, loving, refined, brave English girl. +In nothing does Anthony Trollope delight more than when he unveils to +us the secret thoughts of a noble-hearted maiden who loves strongly but +who has a spirit as strong as her love, a clear brain and a pure will. +In nothing is he more successful; nowhere is he more subtle, more true, +more interesting. In this fine gift, he surpasses all his +contemporaries, and almost all other English novelists. Mary Thorne, +Lily Dale, Lucy Roberts--I would almost add, Martha Dunstable--may not +be heroines of romance, and are certainly not great creations. But +they are pure, right-minded, delicate, brave women; and it does one +good to be admitted to the sacred confessional of their hearts. + +It must be admitted that they are "young ladies," nurtured in the +conventional refinement of the last generation, high-bred, and trained +in the jealous sensitiveness of what was thought to be "maiden modesty" +thirty or forty years ago. That is their misfortune to-day; it is now +rather silly to be a "young lady" at all, and the old-fashioned "maiden +modesty" of their mothers and grandmothers is become positively +ridiculous. Young women of the present date, we are assured in the +language of our gilded youth, have to be either "jolly girls" or +"crocks"; and Mary Thorne and Lily Dale are certainly not "jolly +girls." Their trials and agonies are not different from those which +may happen in any ordinary family, and the problems they have to solve +are those which may await any girl at any time. But the subtle touches +with which we are admitted to their meditations, the delicate weighing +of competing counsels and motives, the living pulses of heart and +brain, and the essential soundness and reality of the mental and moral +crisis--are all told with an art that may be beneath that of Jane +Austen, but which certainly is akin to hers, and has the same quality +of pure and simple human nature. Pure and simple human nature is, for +the moment, out of fashion as the subject of modern romance. But it +remains a curious problem how the boisterous, brawny, thick-skinned +lump of manhood whom we knew as Anthony Trollope ever came to conceive +so many delicate and sensitive country maidens, and to see so deeply +and so truly into the heart of their maiden meditations. + +Trollope is equally successful with some other social problems and +characters of unstable equilibrium. They are none of them very +profound or exalted studies in psychology; but they are truthful, +natural, and ingenious; and it needed a sure and delicate hand to make +them interesting and life-like. The feeble, solemn, timid, vacillating +bishop, driven to distraction by some clerical scandal in his tea-cup +of a diocese; the pompous ecclesiastic with wounded dignity and family +quarrels; the over-sensitive priest whose conscience is more acute than +his brain; the weak, generous, cowardly owner of an embarrassed estate; +the honest and impulsive youth placed between love and duty; the loving +girl who will not sacrifice dignity to love; the public official who is +torn between conscience and self-interest; the man in a great position +who does not know his own mind; the man with honest principles who is +tempted above his strength by love, ambition, or ruin--all of these +live in the pages of Trollope with perfect truth to nature and reality +of movement. It would be too much to say that any of them are masterly +creations, unless it be Crawley and the Proudies, but they are +absolutely truthful, real, living portraits. The situations are not +very striking, but then they are perfectly natural. And the characters +never say or do a thing which oversteps by a hair's-breadth the +probable and natural conduct of such persons. + +All this is now said to be commonplace, goody-goody, and Philistine. +There are no female acrobats, burglars, gutter-urchins, crapulous +prostitutes, no pathological anatomy of diseased bodies and carious +souls, hardly a single case of adultery in all Trollope. But they who +can exist without these stimulants may find pleasant reading yet in his +best work. _The Last Chronicle of Barset_ is a really good tale which +deserves to live, and the whole Crawley episode rises to the level of +fine imaginative work. _Doctor Thorne_ is a sound, pleasant, ingenious +story from beginning to end. It has perhaps the best plot of all +Trollope's books, and, singularly enough, it is the only plot which he +admits not to be his own. I count Mary Thorne as his best woman and +Doctor Thorne as one of his best men. The unity of _Doctor Thorne_ is +very striking and ingenious. The stage is crowded: there are nearly a +score of well-marked characters and five distinct households; but the +whole series works into the same plot; the scene is constantly varied, +and yet there is no double plot or separate companies. Thus, though +the whole story revolves round the fortunes of a single family, the +interest and the movement never flag for a page. The machinery is very +simple; the characters are of average strength and merit; the incidents +and issues are ordinary enough. And the general effect is wholesome, +manly, womanly, refined, and true to nature. + +The episcopal and capitular group of ecclesiastics round the Cathedral +of Barchester is Trollope's main creation, and is destined to endure +for some time. It is all in its way inimitably true and subtly +graduated from bishop to dean, from dean to canon, and so on through +the whole chapter down to the verger and the porter. The relations of +these dignitaries to each other, the relation of their woman-kind to +each other, the relation of the clerical world to the town world and to +the county world, their conventional etiquette, their jealousies, their +feuds, their scandals, and their entertainments, are all marked with +admirable truth and a refined touch. The relation of the village +respectabilities to the county families, the relation of the county +families to the great ducal magnate, are all given with curious +precision and subtle discrimination. When _The Warden_ appeared just +forty years ago, I happened to be a pupil in the chambers of the late +Sir Henry Maine, then a famous critic of the _Saturday Review_; and I +well remember his interest and delight in welcoming a new writer, from +whom he thought so much might be expected. The relations of London +"Society" to the parliamentary and ministerial world as described in +Trollope's later books are all treated with entire mastery. It is this +thorough knowledge of the organism of English society which specially +distinguishes Trollope. It is a quality in which Thackeray alone is +his equal; and Thackeray himself has drawn no complex social organism +with such consummate completeness as Trollope's Barchester Close. It +is of course purely English, locally true to England only. But it is, +as Nathaniel Hawthorne said, "solid and substantial," "as real as if it +were a great lump out of the earth,"--"just as English as a beefsteak." + +What makes all that so strange is this, that when he began to write +novels, Trollope had far less experience than have most cultivated men +of cathedral closes, rectories, and county families. He had never been +to a college, and till past middle life he never had access to the +higher grades of English society. He never at any time, and certainly +not when the Barchester cycle began, had any footing whatever in +clerical circles, and but little intimate acquaintance with young +ladies of birth and refinement in country homes. He never was much +thrown with the young bloods of the army, of the universities, or of +Parliament. He rarely consorted with dukes or county magnates, and he +never lived in the centre of the political world. Yet this rough, +self-taught busy Post-Office surveyor in Ireland, perpetually +travelling about the country on the inspections of his duty, managed to +see to the very marrow of the prelates of a cathedral, to the inner +histories of the duke's castle and the squire's home, into the secret +musings of the rector's daughter, and into the tangled web of +parliamentary intrigue. He did all this with a perfectly sure and +subtle touch, which was often, it is true, somewhat tame, and is never +perhaps of any very great brilliance, but which was almost faultlessly +true, never extravagant, never unreal. And, to add to the wonder, you +might meet him for an hour; and, however much you might like his bluff, +hearty, resonant personality, you would have said he was the last man +to have any delicate sympathy with bishops, dukes, or young ladies. + +His insight into parliamentary life was surprisingly accurate and deep. +He had not the genius of Disraeli, but his pictures are utterly free +from caricature or distortion of any kind. In his photographic +portraiture of the British Parliament he surpassed all his +contemporaries; and inasmuch as such studies can only have a local and +sectional interest, they have probably injured his popularity and his +art. His conduct of legal intricacies and the ways of lawyers is +singularly correct; and the long and elaborate trial scene in _Phineas +Redux_ is a masterpiece of natural and faithful descriptions of an Old +Bailey criminal trial in which "society" happens to be involved. Yet +of courts of law, as of bishops' palaces, rectory firesides, the +lobbies of Parliament, and ducal "house parties," Trollope could have +known almost nothing except as an occasional and outside observer. The +life of London clubs, the habits and _personnel_ of a public office, +the hunting-field, and the social hierarchy and ten commandments +observed in a country town--these things Trollope knew to the minutest +shade, and he has described them with wonderful truth and zest. + +There was a truly pathetic drollery in his violent passion for certain +enjoyments--hunting, whist, and the smoking-room of his club. I cannot +forget the comical rage which he felt at Professor Freeman's attack on +fox-hunting. I am not a sporting man myself; and, though I may look on +fox-hunting as one of the less deadly sins involved in "sport," I know +nothing about it. But it chanced that as a young man I had been +charged with the duty of escorting a certain young lady to a "meet" of +fox-hounds in Essex. A fox was found; but what happened I hardly +remember; save this, that, in the middle of a hot burst, I found myself +alongside of Anthony Trollope, who was shouting and roaring out +"What!--what are you doing here?" And he was never tired of holding me +up to the scorn of the "Universe" club as a deserter from the +principles of Professor Freeman and John Morley. I had taken no part +in the controversy, but it gave him huge delight to have detected such +backsliding in one of the school he detested. Like other sporting men +who imagine that their love of "sport" is a love of nature, when it is +merely a pleasure in physical exercise, Trollope cared little for the +poetic aspect of nature. His books, like Thackeray's, hardly contain a +single fine picture of the country, of the sea, of mountains, or of +rivers. Compared with Fielding, Scott, Charlotte Brontė, Dickens, +George Eliot, he is a man blind to the loveliness of nature. To him, +as to other fox-hunters, the country was good or bad as it promised or +did not promise a good "run." Though Trollope was a great traveller, +he rarely uses his experiences in a novel, whereas Scott, Thackeray, +Dickens, Bulwer, George Eliot fill their pages with foreign adventures +and scenes of travel. His hard riding as an overgrown heavy-weight, +his systematic whist playing, his loud talk, his burly ubiquity and +irrepressible energy in everything--formed one of the marvels of the +last generation. And that such a colossus of blood and bone should +spend his mornings, before we were out of bed, in analysing the +hypersensitive conscience of an archdeacon, the secret confidences +whispered between a prudent mamma and a love-lorn young lady, or the +subtle meanderings of Marie Goesler's heart--this was a real +psychologic problem. + +There can be no doubt that this constitutional vehemence of his, this +hypertrophy of blood and muscle, injured his work and dimmed his +reputation. Much of his work he ought to have burnt. His classical +studies are worthless, his _Life of Thackeray_ and his _Travels_ are +mere book-making. His novels, even the best, are revised and printed +with scandalous haste. He speaks of a "_toga virile_" and of "_the +husband of his bosom_," for wife; and there are misprints in every +paragraph. When, in his _Autobiography_, he let the public into the +story of his method, of his mechanical writing so many words per hour, +of his beginning a new tale the day after he finished the last, of his +having no particular plot, and hardly thinking about a plot, and all +the little trade secrets of his factory, the public felt some disgust +and was almost inclined to think it had been cheated out of its 70,000 +pounds. + +Anthony Trollope was not a fraud, nor even a mere tradesman. His +reputation may perhaps partially revive, and some of his best work may +be read in the next century. His best work will of course be a mere +residuum of his sixty books, as is the best of nearly all prolific +writers. I am inclined to think the permanent survival may be limited +to the _Barchester_ cycle, with _Orley Farm_ and the two _Phineas +Finns_. In any case, his books will hereafter bear a certain +historical interest, as the best record of actual manners in the higher +English society between 1855 and 1875. That value nothing can take +away, however dull, _connu_, and out of date the books may now seem to +our new youth. It is a curious problem why our new youth persists in +filling its stomach with the poorest trash that is "new"--_i.e._ +published in 1895, whilst it will not look at a book that is "old +"--_i.e._ published in 1865, though both are equally unknown to the +young reader. If our new youth ever could bring itself to take up a +book having 1865 on its title-page, it might find in the best of +Anthony Trollope much subtle observation, many manly and womanly +natures, unfailing purity of tone, and wholesome enjoyment. + + + +[1] This anecdote has been doubted, on the ground that such rapid +composition is impossible. But Trollope in his _Autobiography_ asserts +this fact, exactly as he told George Eliot, except that the first half +hour was occupied by re-reading the work of the previous day. The +average morning's work was thus 2500 words, written in two and a half +hours. + + + + +X + +GEORGE ELIOT + +It will be the duty of the more serious criticism of another generation +in some degree to revive the reputation of George Eliot as an abiding +literary force--a reputation which the taste of the hour is rather +disposed to reduce. Five-and-twenty years ago the tendency was towards +excessive praise: many judges, of trained literary insight, proclaimed +her as the greatest genius of the age, one of the brightest stars of +English literature, nay, said some of them, quite losing control of +their speech--a modern Shakespeare, and so forth. Some cooler heads +looked grave, but none save the inveterate cynics ventured to mock; and +the great public, as usual, thought it best to follow the lead of so +many men and so many women of the higher culture. The inevitable +reaction ensued: when, not only were the grave shortcomings of George +Eliot ruthlessly condemned, but her noble aim and superb qualities were +blindly ignored. + +The taste in popular romance sways hither and thither in sudden +revulsion, like the taste in hats or in frocks, or the verdict of +manhood suffrage. This or that type becomes suddenly the rage, this or +that mannerism is voted an offence, as quickly as fashion runs after a +new tint, or boycotts an obsolete sleeve. Journalism and all the other +forces of the hour stimulate these caprices and carry away the masses +by their volubility and noise. It is the business of serious +criticism, keeping a cooler head, to correct these fervid impulses of +the day--whilst excited audiences in the amphitheatre raise or depress +the fatal thumb, awarding life or death to the combatants in the great +arena. + +The business of criticism is to _judge_--to judge upon the whole +evidence, after hearing counsel on both sides with equal attention, +after weighing every shred of argument and every word that any witness +has to offer, and after patient study of every aspect of the case, to +deliver a complete and reasoned estimate of the whole matter at issue. +The true critic is not a mere juryman, who has nothing to do but to +pronounce a bare verdict of "guilty" or "not guilty." He is a judge of +the supreme court of equity, who may find, in some intricate story +unravelled at his bar, a dozen errors in law and as many mistakes of +fact, and yet may give substantial relief or may decree onerous +penalties. It is easy enough to detect faulty, easy enough to insist +on merits: the thing wanted to guide the public is the cool, +compensated, equitable judgment that is not seduced by any conspicuous +charm, and is not irritated by any incorrigible defect, but which, +missing no point of merit and none of failure, finally and resolutely +strikes the just balance. + +This just balance, with all its intricate adjustments of compensation +and equivalence, is peculiarly needed in the case of George Eliot, and +at the same time is unusually difficult. George Eliot was most +conspicuous as an artist, as a worker in the sphere of imagination and +creation. At the same time, she had very rare powers and a really +unusual learning quite outside of imaginative art. And these +reflective powers and such stores of knowledge are often antagonistic +to creative art, and undoubtedly were so not seldom with her. If +Aristotle himself had written a dull psychological tragedy, we might +read it for his sake, but we should not forgive him, and we ought not +to forgive him. And if Shakespeare himself had written the _Novum +Organum_ or the _Principia_, we should not have had _Hamlet_ and _Lear_ +as we now know them. There is no compensation between philosophy and +poetry. No profundity, no learning, can give beauty to verses which +lack the divine fire. If George Eliot's fame has to be based solely on +her great powers and endowments, her art would not be worth much. +However, it is not so: she was an artist, with true artistic gifts. +Her philosophic power and her scientific attainments often ennoble +these gifts: yet it is too often evident that they seriously mar and +embarrass them. + +Turn it the other way. Until nearly the age of forty, George Eliot was +known only as a critical and philosophical writer. And in reading, in +logical acumen, and in breadth of view, she was the equal of the first +minds of her time. But no one of her contemporaries, eminent in +philosophy and science, approached her, however remotely, in artistic +gifts; and no one of them even attempted to invest ethical and social +ideas with high imagination and beautiful ideals. Thus, George Eliot +was of a far higher mental plane than any contemporary who has used +imaginative prose as an art, and she was also a far greater artist than +any contemporary philosopher. It is quite certain that learning and +wisdom may be lodged in the same brain with the highest poetry, as +Lucretius, Virgil, Dante, Milton, and Goethe may prove. And men of +original power have not seldom used imaginative art with signal success +to convey the ideas with which they were charged; for this has been +done by Cervantes, Rabelais, Swift, Rousseau, Byron, Shelley, and +Goethe. + +It is therefore legitimate and natural that a powerful and teeming mind +should resort to art as its medium, and also that an artist of high +aims should be a systematic thinker and an omnivorous student. The +combination is very rare and success is singularly difficult. To fail +in art is to lose all and to end in utter failure. And to carry +ethical purpose and erudition into art is indeed a perilous +undertaking, wherein but one or two of the greatest have wholly +succeeded. The problem with George Eliot is to judge how far she has +succeeded in the all but impossible task. That her success is far from +complete is but too obvious. That she has had many incidental +successes is also obvious. Her work is not sufficiently spontaneous, +not easy or simple, not buoyant enough. But it has great nobility, +rare distinction. It may not live as perfect art; but it should not +perish as ambitious failures perish. + +If George Eliot were not a writer of romance, she was nothing at all in +the front ranks of Victorian literature. With all her powers of mind, +her mastery of language, her immense stores of knowledge and supreme +culture, she gave to the world nothing of great mark, acknowledged and +known as hers, except her famous romances; for, as we shall presently +see, we cannot count any of the poems as of great mark. But, as a +writer of romance, George Eliot differs essentially and for the worse +from all the other great writers of romance in her own or preceding +generations. Most certainly she was not a born romancer; she had no +spontaneous gift of telling stories, no irrepressible genius that way. +Now all the great romancers have been born to it, as Robinson Crusoe +was born to the sea, or as Turner was born to paint. Though Scott +published novels late, he had begun _Waverley_ at thirty-four; his +earlier works are romantic ballads and metrical romances; and from +boyhood, at home and abroad, he was ever filled with some tale of +adventure and character. Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth "lisped" in +novelettes, as Pope said he "lisped in numbers." Though Charlotte +Brontė published so little, she wrote stories incessantly from +childhood. Lytton, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, invented tales as +part of their daily lives, and from the earliest age. But George Eliot +was thirty-nine when her first tales were published, and she was forty +before she was known to the public as a novelist at all. And so little +was novel-writing her natural gift, that her most intimate friends +never suspected her power, nor did she herself altogether enjoy the +exercise of her art. To the last her periods of mental gestation were +long, painful, and unhopeful. Parturition was a dangerous crisis, and +the long-expected infant was reared with misgivings and a superfluity +of coddling. The romances of George Eliot came like some _enfant de +miracle_, born late in the mother's life, at the cost of infinite pain, +much anxiety, and amidst the wondering trepidation of expectant circles +of friends. + +Even in her best books we never quite get over the sense of almost +painful elaboration, of a powerful mind having rich gifts striving to +produce some rare music with an unfamiliar and uncongenial instrument. +It reminds us of Beethoven evolving his majestic sonatas on an untuned +and dilapidated old piano, the defects of which he could not himself +hear. The conventional critic in _The Vicar of Wakefield_ is told to +say that "the picture would have been better if the artist had taken +more pains." With George Eliot too often we are made to feel that the +picture would have been, at any rate, more enjoyable if the artist had +taken less pains. To study her more ambitious tales is like an attempt +to master some new system of psychology. The metaphysical power, the +originality of conception, the long brooding over anomalies and +objections--these are all there: but the rapid improvisation and easy +invention are not there. Such qualities would indeed be wholly out of +place in philosophy, but they are the essence of romance. In romance +we want to feel that the piece is only brought to an end by time and +our human powers of listening; that there is "plenty more where these +come from"; that the story-teller enjoys telling stories for their own +sake, and would go on with the tales, though the audience were reduced +to a child, an idiot, and a deaf man. + +This explains the paradox that the most popular, and most certainly the +most praised of George Eliot's works, are the simpler and the shorter. +Every one enjoys the _Scenes of Clerical Life_, short stories of a +hundred pages each, with simple plots and a few characters in everyday +life. I have no doubt myself that _Silas Marner_ comes nearer to being +a great success than any of the more elaborate books. Yet _Silas +Marner_ is about one-fifth part of the length of _Middlemarch_; and its +plot, _mise-en-scčne_, and incidents are simplicity itself. There is +no science, no book-learning, and but few ethical problems in it from +beginning to end; and it all goes in one small volume, for the tale +concerns but the neighbours of one quiet village. Yet the quaint and +idyllic charm of the piece, the perfection of tone and keeping, the +harmony of the landscape, the pure, deep humanity of it, all make it a +true and exquisite work of high art. + +Modern English (and I am one of those who hold that the best modern +English is as good as any in our literature) has few pieces of +description more gem-like in its crystalline facets than the opening +chapter that tells of the pale, uncanny weaver of Raveloe in his stone +cottage by the deserted pit. Some of us can remember such house +weavers in such lonesome cottages on the Northern moors, and have heard +the unfamiliar rattle of the loom in a half-ruinous homestead. How +perfect is that vignette of Raveloe--"a village where many of the old +echoes lingered, undrowned by new voices"--with its "strange lingering +echoes of the old demon-worship among the grey-haired peasantry"! The +entire picture of the village and its village life a hundred years ago, +is finished with the musical and reserved note of poetry, such as we +are taught to love in Wordsworth and Tennyson. And for quiet humour +modern literature has few happier scenes than the fireside at the +"Rainbow," with Macey and Winthrop, the butcher and the farrier, over +their pipes and their hot potations, and the quarrel about "seeing +ghos'es," about smelling them! + +Within this most graceful and refined picture of rural life there is a +dominant ethical motive which she herself describes as its aim, "to set +in a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural, human +relations." This aim is perfectly worked out: it is a right and +healthy conception, not too subtle, not too common:--to put it in +simpler words than hers, it is how a lonely, crabbed, ill-used old man +is humanised by the love of a faithful and affectionate child. The +form is poetic: the moral is both just and noble: the characters are +living, and the story is original, natural, and dramatic. The only +thing, indeed, which _Silas Marner_ wants to make it a really great +romance is more ease, more rapidity, more "go." The melody runs so +uniformly in minor keys, the sense of care, meditation, and +introspection is so apparent in every line, the amount of serious +thought lavished by the writer and required of the reader is so +continuous, that we are not carried away, we are not excited, inspired, +and thrilled as we are by _Jane Eyre_ or _Esmond_. We enjoy a +beautiful book with a fine moral, set in exquisite prose, with +consummate literary resources, full of fine thoughts, true, ennobling +thoughts, and with no weak side at all, unless it be the sense of being +over-wrought, like a picture which has been stippled over in every +surface. + +A clever French woman said of George Eliot's conversation--_elle +s'écoute quand elle parle_! Just so, as we read on we seem to see how +she held up each sentence into the light as it fell from her pen, +scrutinised it to see if some rarer phrase might not be compacted, some +subtler thought excogitated. Of all the more important tales, _Silas +Marner_ is that wherein we least feel this excessive thoughtfulness. +And thus it is the best. Perhaps other born romancers would have +thrown into it more life, energy, jollity, or passion. Thackeray would +have made the weaver a serio-comic hermit: Dickens would have made +Eppie a sentimental angel; Charlotte Brontė would have curdled our +blood; Trollope might have made more of Nancy's courting. But no one +of them could have given us a more lofty lesson "of the remedial +influences of pure, natural, human relations." The only doubt is, +whether a novel is the medium for such lessons. On this, opinions are, +and will remain, divided. The lesson and the art ought both to be +faultless. + +When we ask for a romance fully developed and more than a graceful +vignette, _Adam Bede_ must be regarded as the principal, and with the +wider public it is always the typical, work of George Eliot. She said +herself that it seemed to her "impossible that she should ever write +anything so good and true again":--and herein she was no doubt right. +It is the only one of her works in prose or verse which we feel to be +inevitable, spontaneous, written out of the abundance of enjoyment and +experience. It is of all her books the heartiest, the wittiest, the +most cheerful, or rather the least desponding. In that book it may be +that she exhausted herself and her own resources of observation as an +eye-witness. She wrote fine things in other veins, in different +scenes, and she conceived other characters and new situations. But for +all practical purposes _Adam Bede_ was the typical romance, which +everything she had thought or known impelled her to write, in which she +told the best of what she had seen and the most important of what she +had to say. Had she never written anything but _Adam Bede_, she would +have had a special place of her own in English romance:--and I am not +sure that anything else which she produced very materially raised, +enlarged, or qualified that place. + +_The Mill on the Floss_ must always be very interesting to all who knew +George Eliot and loved her work, if for no other reason, for its +autobiographic and personal touches and its revelation of yearnings and +misgivings hardly suspected in life. There are scenes and minor +characters in it which hold their own against _Adam Bede_, but as a +whole it is not so strong or so rich in colour, and it can hardly be +said to occupy new ground. It has not the pathos of _Amos Barton_, nor +the exquisite style of _Silas Marner_, nor the breadth and constructive +merit of _Adam Bede_. And except to the chosen band of Eliotists, it +is not likely to retain any permanent popularity. It is a book to +study for those who have special interest in George Eliot as woman, as +teacher, and as artist--but for my own part I find it rather a book to +reflect upon than a book to read and to re-read. + +With respect to _Romola_, though we must all agree with Mr. Oscar +Browning that it is "replete with learning," "weighed with knowledge in +every page," exquisite in art, and so forth, it is really impossible to +call it with him "the best historical novel ever written." Even in +exact reproduction of another age, it cannot compare with _Esmond_, and +how immeasurably as romance is it beneath the fire and movement of a +dozen historical romances that one could name! The beauty of the +Florentine pictures, the enormous care, thought, and reading, lavished +on the story, the variety of literary resource--all make it a most +memorable work, a work almost _sui generis_, a book which every student +of Italy, every lover of Florence must mark, learn, and inwardly +digest. But to call it a complete success is to go too far. The task +was too great. To frame in a complex background of historical +erudition an ethical problem of even greater complexity and +subtlety--this was a task which might have sorely tried even greater +powers than hers--a task in which Goethe and Scott might have +succeeded, but which Goethe and Scott were too truly the born artists +to attempt without ample care, and too busy with many things to devote +to it the required labour. + +_Romola_ is certainly a wonderful monument of literary accomplishments; +but it remains a _tour de force_, too elaborate, too laboured, too +intricate, too erudite. As the French say, it has _trop de choses_, it +is too long, too full, over-costumed, too studiously mounted on the +stage. We sometimes see nowadays "a Shakespearean revival," with +scenery studied by eminent artists on the spot, costumes +archaeologically accurate, real armour, "properties" from famous +collections, a _mise-en-scčne_ of lavish splendour and indefatigable +research--and then we ask, how can "Hamlet" or "Lear" live up to such +learning, and why is "Romeo" such a melancholy devil? Few men enjoyed +the earlier portions of _Romola_ more than I did. _Italianissimo_ and +_Florentissimo_ as I was, it was an intense treat. But, though I have +read and re-read _Romola_ from time to time, it has always been in +sections. I have never read it straight through at one time; and to +this hour, I am not quite clear about all the ramifications of the plot +and the various cross-purposes of the persons. Could any one say this +about _Quentin Durward_ or _Ivanhoe_, or of the _Last Days of Pompeii_, +or of _Esmond_ or even of _Hypatia_ or _Westward Ho!_ + +_Romola_, we know, tried its author most cruelly in composition, nor +need we wonder at this. "I began it,", she said, "a young woman--I +finished it an old woman." "It ploughed into her," said her husband, +"more than any of her other books." And, in my opinion, it marks the +decline of her genius. I cannot count any of the later books as equal +to her earlier works. Her great period of production reaches at most +over the six years 1858-1863 (aetat. 39-45), in which she produced +_Scenes of Clerical Life_ (1858), _Adam Bede_ (1859), _The Mill on the +Floss_ (1860), _Silas Marner_ (1861), and _Romola_ (1863). If we +measure by strict success in the highest art, this period should not be +extended beyond the four years which closed with _Silas Marner_. +_Romola_ is an ambitious, beautiful, altogether noble essay to fly +skyward like Icarus, whose ingenious mechanism was melted by the +sunlight in mid-career. And I cannot count any of the later pieces, +prose or verse, as anything but inferior to _Romola_. They have great +beauties, fine passages, subtle characters, and high conceptions--but +they are the artificial products of a brain that showed symptoms of +exhaustion, of a great writer who was striving after impossible tasks +without freedom and without enjoyment. + +I cannot at all agree with those admirers of George Eliot's genius who +believe that it grew continuously in power, who even assure us that it +reached its zenith in _Daniel Deronda_. What can they mean? _Daniel +Deronda_, as usual, shows brilliant literary skill in many passages, +and its insight into modern Hebraism is a psychological problem. But +with all its merits and even beauties, _Daniel Deronda_ has the fatal +defect of unpleasant characters who are neither beautiful nor +interesting, terrible situations which bore rather than terrify us, a +plot which is at once preposterous and wearisome. As to +_Middlemarch_--George Eliot's longest, most crowded, and ethically most +elaborated romance--with all its subtlety, its humour, its variety, and +its sardonic insight into provincial Philistinism, it becomes at last +tedious and disagreeable by reason of the interminable maunderings of +tedious men and women, and the slow and reiterated dissection of +disagreeable anatomies. At this moment I cannot, after twenty years, +recall the indefinite, lingering plot, or the precise relations to each +other of the curiously uninteresting families, who talk scandal and +fuss about in Middlemarch town. + +In _Felix Holt_ I was naturally much interested, having read it in +manuscript, and advised upon the point of law, as appears from her +published letters in the _Life_ by J. Cross. There are two or three +lines--the lawyers' "opinion on the case"--which she asked me to +sketch; and I remember telling her when she inserted these lines in the +book, that I should always be able to say that I had written at least a +sentence which was embodied in English literature. _Felix Holt_ +contains some fine characters and scenes, but it cannot be regarded as +equal to _Adam Bede_ and _Silas Marner_. We will not speak of +_Theophrastus Such_, 1879, written just before her death. It was the +work of a woman physically and intellectually exhausted. I feel a +certain guilty sense of disappointment when I think of the book, for I +possibly had some hand in causing it to be written. I had sent her a +long letter pointing out that our literature, with all its wealth of +achievement in every known sphere, was still deficient in one form of +composition in which the French stood paramount and alone. That was +what they called _Pensées_--moral and philosophical reflections in the +form of epigrams or rather aphorisms. I thought, and I still think, +that this form of composition was peculiarly suited to her genius, at +least in her prime. It was not in her prime when she painfully evolved +the sour affectations set forth in _Theophrastus_. + +A word or two must be said about the _Poems_. They have poetic +subjects, ideas, similes: they are full of poetic yearning, crowded +with poetic imagery; they have everything poetry needs, except poetry. +They have not the poet's hall-mark. They are imitation poems, like the +forged "ancient masters" they concoct at Florence, or the Tanagra +statuettes they make in Germany. With all her consummate literary +gifts and tastes, George Eliot never managed to write a poem, and never +could be brought to see that the verses she wrote were not poems. It +was an exaggeration of the defect that mars her prose; and her verses +throw great light on her prose. They are over-laboured; the conception +overpowers the form; they are too intensely anxious to be recognised as +poems. We see not so much poetic passion, as a passionate yearning +after poetic passion. We have--not the inevitable, incalculable, +inimitable phrase of real poetry--but the slowly distilled, calculated, +and imitated effort to reach the spontaneous. + +It is melancholy indeed to have to admit this, after such labour, such +noble conceptions, such mastery over language: but it is the truth. +And it explains much of kindred failure in her prose work. Great +imagination, noble conceptions, mastery over language can do much, but +they cannot make a poet. Nothing can, but being a poet. Nor can these +gifts make a great romancer or poet in prose. Nothing can, but being +born to romance, being a prose poet. As the Gospel has it--"Which of +you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?" George +Eliot had not sufficiently meditated on this scripture. She too often +supposed that by taking thought--by enormous pains, profound thought, +by putting this thought in exquisite and noble words--she might produce +an immortal romance, an immortal poem. + +And yet let us never forget that the _Spanish Gypsy_ is a very grand +conception, that it has some noble scenes, and here and there some +stately lines--even some beautiful passages, could we forget the +artificial alliteration and the tuneless discords to which the poet's +ear seems utterly insensible. The opening lines seem to promise well +and have much of mellow thought, in spite of five hissing sibilants in +the very first verse-- + +[Transcriber's note: In the original book, the letters in the poem +fragments under discussion were bolded. Here, they are delineated with +slashes (/).] + + 'Ti/s/ the warm /S/outh, where Europe /s/pread/s/ her land/s/. + Like fretted leaflets, breathing on the deep: + +And then comes in the fourth line an awful cacophony of +alliteration--and an alliteration in "c." + + A /C/alm earth-goddess /c/rowned with /c/orn and vines. + +Then we have a really pretty but artificial line--an alliteration in +"m." + + On the /M/id Sea that /m/oans with /m/e/m/ories. + +The seventh line again is an alliteration of alternate "p" and "d." + + /P/ant /d/umbly /p/assionate with /d/reams of youth. + +The tenth line is an excruciating alliteration in sibilants. + + /F/eed/s/ the /f/amed /s/tream that water/s/ Andalu/s/. + +But it must be admitted that the next line is graceful-- + + And loiters, amorous of the fragrant air. + +The whole introduction of some 400 lines is full of beautiful images, +fine thoughts, and striking phrases, but it is crowded, artificial, +brocaded to excess with _trop de choses_; and it suddenly breaks into +drama, with dialogue in person. This alternation of dramatic form and +dialogue with epical narrative, interlarding the tragedy in parts with +portentously long explanatory comment, is perhaps the most unlucky +novelty which was ever attempted in verse. What would one say if even +fine passages out of Wordsworth's _Excursion_ had been accidentally +bound up between the pages of Shakespeare's _Hamlet_? + +But it is needless to enlarge on all the metrical and poetic defects of +this medley of nearly 10,000 lines, with its lip-twisting, +ear-torturing lyrics--(was there ever such a cacophony as-- + + O the sweet sweet prime + Of the past spring-time!)-- + +with its strange alternations of action and narration, its soliloquies +of 150 unbroken lines, and all its other incongruities. The important +point is, that it has a really grand scheme, that the characters of +Zarca and of Fedalma are lofty, impressive, and nobly dramatic, that +the whole poem is, in conception, a work of power and true imagination. +Just as Kingsley, who had far greater poetic faculty than George Eliot, +mistook in making the _Saint's Tragedy_ a drama, when he might have +made it a grand historical romance, so George Eliot made a cruel +mistake in writing the _Spanish Gypsy_ as a poem, when she might have +written it as an historical romance--a romance, it may be, much +superior to _Romola_, as the subject and the conception were on grander +lines. + +It is to me a truly melancholy duty to have to admit that so much in +the noble conceptions and rich thought of George Eliot was not a +complete success in ultimate execution--and that, in great measure, +because the conception and aim were so great and the execution so +profoundly conscientious. I knew her well, I was amongst those who had +the deepest regard for her mental power and her moral insight. I +always recognised her as one of the best and most cultured minds of her +time. I had great faith in her judgment, and could respect her courage +even when I repudiated her opinions. But I never was one of those who +exaggerated her gifts as an artist. I never could count anything later +than _Silas Marner_ as a complete and unqualified masterpiece. One may +have the imaginative power shown by Michael Angelo in his Sistine +Chapel, or his Medicean tombs, and yet, if one is not complete master +of the brush and the chisel, no imagination, no thought, will produce a +masterpiece in fresco or in marble. George Eliot was a most thoughtful +artist, but she was more of a thinker than an artist; she was always +more the artist when she was least the thinker; and when she conceived +a work of art in her sublimest aspirations (as notably in _The Spanish +Gypsy_), she almost makes us doubt if she were an artist at all. + +She was an artist; and the younger generations will make an +unpardonable error if they fail to do justice to the permanent survival +of her best and earliest work. They will also be guilty of +unpardonable blindness if they fail to note how completely she stands +above all her contemporary rivals in romance, by thought, by knowledge, +by nobility of aim. She raised the whole art of romance into a higher +plane of thought, of culture, and of philosophic grasp. And when she +failed, it was often by reason of the nobility of her aim itself, of +the volume of her own learning, of the intensity of her own standard of +perfection. Her passages in prose are studied with the care that men +usually bestow on a sonnet; her accessories and landscapes are patient +and conscientious transcripts of actual spots of country and town; her +drama is a problem of ethical teaching, subtly elaborated, and minutely +probed. In these high aims and difficult ambitions, she not seldom +failed, or achieved a somewhat academic and qualified success. But the +task was not seldom such that even to have fallen short of complete +success was a far from ignoble triumph. + +She raised the whole art of romance to a higher plane, I say; and, +although in this ambitious aim she too often sacrificed freshness, +ease, and simplicity, the weight of the limits she imposed on herself +must fairly be counted in the balance. Romance had never before in +England been written with such a sense of responsibility, with such +eager subtlety of form, and with such high ethical purpose. The sense +of responsibility wearies many readers, and at last crushed the writer; +the form became "precious," and at last pedantic; and the ethical +purpose was sometimes more visible than the ethical life. In the +French drama Corneille had great conceptions, noble types of character, +stately verse, and tragic situations; but English readers too often +find him mannered, artificial, dull. Corneille, I freely admit, is not +Shakespeare: I greatly prefer Shakespeare; but I prefer Corneille to +Ibsen. We have plenty of Ibsenites to-day, and rather a plethora than +a dearth of ignoble creatures in squalid situations who expose to us +their mean lives with considerable truth to nature. In such an age, it +is just as well that the lessons of _Adam Bede_, _Romola_, Fedalma and +Zarca, should not be quite forgotten. + +The art of romance, in the widest and loftiest sense of the term, is +even yet in its infancy. Ancient literature, mediaeval literature, +knew nothing of it. Nor indeed did modern literature entirely conceive +it in all its fulness until the days of Le Sage, Richardson, Fielding, +and Goldsmith. Nay, we may say that its power was not quite revealed +before Scott, Goethe, Manzoni, Jane Austen, Balzac, Thackeray, Dickens, +and George Sand. Its subtlety, its flexibility, its capacity for +analytic research, its variety of range, and facility for reaching all +hearts and all minds--all this is simply incalculable. And we may be +sure that the star of romance has not yet reached its zenith. It is +the art of the future--and an art wherein women are quite as likely to +reign as men. It would be treason to Art to pretend that George Eliot +came near to such perfection. But she had certain qualities that none +of her predecessors had quite possessed, and she strove for an ideal +which may one day become something more than a dream--a dream that as +yet eludes and escapes from the mind as it struggles to grasp it and to +fix it. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUDIES IN EARLY VICTORIAN +LITERATURE*** + + +******* This file should be named 18384-8.txt or 18384-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/3/8/18384 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/18384-8.zip b/18384-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3431763 --- /dev/null +++ b/18384-8.zip diff --git a/18384.txt b/18384.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..26ecbea --- /dev/null +++ b/18384.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6084 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Studies in Early Victorian Literature, by +Frederic Harrison + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Studies in Early Victorian Literature + + +Author: Frederic Harrison + + + +Release Date: May 12, 2006 [eBook #18384] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUDIES IN EARLY VICTORIAN +LITERATURE*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +STUDIES IN EARLY VICTORIAN LITERATURE + +by + +FREDERIC HARRISON + + + + + + + +Edward Arnold +London ------ New York +37 Bedford Street ------ 70 Fifth Avenue +1895 +All rights reserved + + + + + +NOTE + +The following essays appeared in the _Forum_ of New York, and +simultaneously in London, during the years 1894-95. They have been +carefully revised and partly re-written, after due consideration of +various suggestions and criticisms both in England and in America. The +aim of the writer was to attempt a mature estimate of the permanent +influence and artistic achievement of some of the principal prose +writers in the earlier half of the reign of our Queen. The work of +living authors has not been touched upon, nor any book of poetry, +philosophy, or science. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTORIAN LITERATURE + II. THOMAS CARLYLE + III. LORD MACAULAY + IV. BENJAMIN DISRAELI + V. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY + VI. CHARLES DICKENS + VII. CHARLOTTE BRONTE + VIII. CHARLES KINGSLEY + IX. ANTHONY TROLLOPE + X. GEORGE ELIOT + + + + +CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTORIAN LITERATURE + +That which in England is conveniently described as the Victorian Age of +literature has a character of its own, at once brilliant, diverse, and +complex. It is an age peculiarly difficult to label in a phrase; but +its copious and versatile gifts will make it memorable in the history +of modern civilisation. The Victorian Age, it is true, has no +Shakespeare or Milton, no Bacon or Hume, no Fielding or Scott--no +supreme master in poetry, philosophy, or romance, whose work is +incorporated with the thought of the world, who is destined to form +epochs and to endure for centuries. Its genius is more scientific than +literary, more historical than dramatic, greater in discovery than in +abstract thought. + +In lyric poetry and in romance our age has names second only to the +greatest; its researches into nature and history are at least equal to +those of any previous epoch; and, if it has not many great +philosophers, it has developed the latest, most arduous, most important +of all the sciences. This is the age of Sociology: its central +achievement has been the revelation of social laws. This social aspect +of thought colours the poetry, the romance, the literature, the art, +and the philosophy of the Victorian Age. Literature has been the +gainer thereby in originality and in force. It has been the loser in +symmetry, in dignity, in grace. + +The Victorian Age is a convenient term in English literature to +describe the period from 1837 to 1895: not that we assign any +sacramental efficacy to a reign, or assume that the Queen has given any +special impulse to the writers of her time. Neither reigns, nor years, +nor centuries, nor any arbitrary measure of time in the gradual +evolution of thought can be exactly applied, or have any formative +influence. A period of so many years, having some well-known name by +which it can be labelled, is a mere artifice of classification. And of +course an Englishman will not venture to include in his survey the +American writers, or to bring them within his national era. The date, +1837, is an arbitrary point, and a purely English point. Yet it is +curious how different a colour may be seen in the main current of the +English literature produced before and after that year. In the year of +the Queen's accession to the throne, the great writers of the early +part of this century were either dead or silent. Scott, Byron, +Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Lamb, Sheridan, Hazlitt, Mackintosh, Crabbe, +and Cobbett, were gone. There were still living in 1837, Wordsworth, +Southey, Campbell, Moore, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, De Quincey, Miss +Edgeworth, Miss Mitford, Leigh Hunt, Brougham, Samuel Rogers:--living, +it is true, but they had all produced their important work at some +earlier date. Carlyle, Dickens, Thackeray, Macaulay, Tennyson, +Browning, had begun to write, but were not generally known. The +principal English authors who belong equally to the Georgian and to the +Victorian Age are Landor, Bulwer, Disraeli, Hallam, and Milman, and +they are not quite in the very first rank in either age. It is a +significant fact that the reign of the Queen has produced, with +trifling exceptions, the whole work of Tennyson, the Brownings, +Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot, Kingsley, Trollope, +Spencer, Mill, Darwin, Ruskin, Grote, Macaulay, Freeman, Froude, Lecky, +Milman, Green, Maine, Matthew Arnold, Symonds, Rossetti, Swinburne, +Morris, John Morley, to say nothing of younger men who are still in +their prime and promise. + +Widely as these differ among themselves, they have characters which +differentiate them from all men of the eighteenth century, and also +from the men of the era of Goethe and Scott. Can we imagine _Sartor +Resartus_ being published in the age of Johnson, or _In Memoriam_ in +that of Byron? How different a land is the Italy which Ruskin sees +from the Italy that Rogers knew! What a new world is that of the +Brontes and George Eliot beside that which was painted by Miss +Edgeworth and Miss Austen! In what things would Southey and John +Morley agree, except about books and pure English? Place Burke _On the +Sublime and Beautiful_ beside Ruskin's _Modern Painters_; compare the +_Stones of Venice_ with Eustace's _Classical Tour_; compare Carlyle's +_French Revolution_ with Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_; compare the _Book +of Snobs_ with Addison's _Spectator_; contrast _The Ring and the Book_ +with Gray's _Elegy_ or Cowper's _Task_. What wholly different types, +ideas, aims! The age of Pope and Addison, of Johnson and Gibbon, clung +to symmetry, "the grand air," the "best models"; it cared much more for +books than for social reforms, and in the world of letters a classical +manner was valued far more than originality of ideas. And when we come +to a later age, what an irrepressible and stormy imagination do we +find! Byron, Shelley, Scott, Coleridge, Campbell, Southey, Landor, +revelled in romance and colour, in battle and phantasmagoria, in +tragedy, mystery, and legend. They boiled over with excitement, and +their visions were full of fight. The roar and fire of the great +revolutionary struggle filled men's brains with fierce and strange +dreams. + +Our Victorian Age is as different from the Virgilian and Ciceronian +style of the age of Gray and Johnson, as it is from the resounding +torrent which was poured forth by Byron and Scott. The social +earnestness of our time colours our literature, and almost distorts our +literature; while, on the other hand, our practical and scientific +genius scorns the melodramatic imagery with which our grandfathers were +delighted. Gibbon would have smiled a cruel epigram, if he had been +expected to thrust a Latter-Day Pamphlet on the social question into +one of his chapters on the Fall of Rome. But Carlyle's _French +Revolution_ is as much political rhapsody and invective as it is +history. Dickens made a series of novels serve as onslaughts on +various social abuses; and George Eliot's heart is ever with Darwin, +Spencer, and Comte, as much as it is with Miss Austen. Ruskin would +sacrifice all the pictures in the world, if society would transform +itself into a Brotherhood of St. George. Tennyson has tried to put the +dilemmas of theological controversy into lyric poetry, and Psychology +is now to be studied, not in metaphysical ethics, but in popular +novels. The aim of the modern historian is to compile a _Times_ +newspaper of events which happened three or four, eight or ten +centuries ago. The aim of the modern philosopher is to tabulate +mountains of research, and to prune away with agnostic _non possumus_ +the ancient oracles of hypothesis and imagination. + +Our literature to-day has many characteristics: but its central note is +the dominant influence of Sociology--enthusiasm for social truths as an +instrument of social reform. It is scientific, subjective, +introspective, historical, archaeological:--full of vitality, +versatility, and diligence:--intensely personal, defiant of all law, of +standards, of convention:--laborious, exact, but often indifferent to +grace, symmetry, or colour:--it is learned, critical, cultured:--with +all its ambition and its fine feeling, it is unsympathetic to the +highest forms of the imagination, and quite alien to the drama of +action. + +It would be a difficult problem in social dynamics to fix anything like +a true date for this change in the tone of literature, and to trace it +back to its real social causes. The historian of English literature +will perhaps take the death of Walter Scott, in 1832, as a typical +date. By a curious coincidence, Goethe died in the same year. Two +years later Coleridge and Lamb died. Within a few years more most of +those who belonged to the era of Byron, Shelley, Scott, and Sheridan +were departed or had sung their last effective note. The exceptions +were Wordsworth and his immediate Lakist followers, Landor and Bulwer, +of whom the latter two continued to produce. The death of Scott +happened in the year of the Reform Act of 1832; and here we reach a +political and social cause of the great change. The reformed +democratic Parliament of 1832 was itself the reaction after the furious +upheaval caused by the Revolution of 1789, and it heralded the social +and legislative revolution of the last sixty years. It was the era +when the steam-power and railway system was founded, and the vast +industrial development which went with it. The last sixty years have +witnessed a profound material revolution in English life; and the +reaction on our literature has been deep and wide. + +The most obvious and superficial change in literature is the extreme +diversity of its form. There is no standard now, no conventional type, +no good "model." It is an age of "Go-as-you-please," and of _tous les +genres sont bons, surtout le genre ennuyeux_. In almost any age of +English literature, or indeed of any other literature, an experienced +critic can detect the tone of the epoch at once in prose or verse. +There is in them an unmistakeable _Zeit-Geist_ in phraseology and form. +The Elizabethan drama, essay, or philosophy could not be mistaken for +the drama, essay, or philosophy of the Restoration; the heroic couplet +reigned from Dryden to Byron; Ciceronian diction reigned from Addison +to Burke; and then the Quarterlies, with Southey, Lamb, Scott, De +Quincey, Coleridge, Sydney Smith, and Leigh Hunt, introduced a simpler, +easier tone of the well-bred _causeur_, as free from classical +mannerism as it was free from subtle mechanism or epigrammatic +brilliance. Down to about the death of Scott and Coleridge, almost any +page of English prose or verse could be certainly attributed to its +proper generation by the mark of its style alone. + +The Victorian literature presents a dozen styles, every man speaking +out what is in him, in the phrases he likes best. Our _Zeit-Geist_ +flashes all across the heavens at once. Let us place a page from +_Sartor Resartus_ beside a page from Macaulay's _History of England_, +or either beside a page from Arnold's _Literature and Dogma_ or one +from the _Stones of Venice_. Here are four typical styles in prose, +each of which has been much admired and imitated; yet they differ as +widely as Shelley from Ovid, or Tennyson from Pope. Again, for verse, +contrast _Paracelsus_ with _The Princess_--poems written about the same +time by friends and colleagues. Compare a poem of William Morris with +one by Lewis Morris. Compare Swinburne's _Songs and Sonnets_ with +Matthew Arnold's _Obermann_; Rudyard Kipling's _Ballads_ with _The +Light of Asia_. Have they any common standard of form, any type of +metre? The purists doubt as to the style of Carlyle as a "model," but +no one denies that the _French Revolution_ and _Hero-Worship_, at least +in certain passages, display a mastery over language as splendid as +anything in our prose literature. Exactly the same might be said also +of _Esmond_, and again of _Silas Marner_, and again of the _Seven Lamps +of Architecture_. Yet all of these differ as widely as one style can +differ from another. _Fifine at the Fair_, and _The Angel in the +House_, have each fervent admirers. No! there is no recognised "model" +either in verse or in prose. + +In truth, we have now both in prose and in verse strongly-contrasted +types, each of which commands admiration and following. Both in prose +and verse we have one type which has carried subtle finish and a purism +studied almost to the point of "preciousness," alongside of another +type which crowds its effects without regard to tone and harmony, and +by its side a third type which trots along breathless in its +shirt-sleeves. Tennyson's _In Memoriam_ has that exquisite polish of +workmanship which we find in such poets as Virgil, Racine, and +Milton--that perfection of phrase which we cannot conceive the poet +capable of improving by any labour. Put aside for the moment any +question about the ideas, inspiration, or power of the poem as a whole, +and consider that, in all those hundreds of stanzas, there is hardly +one line that is either careless, prosaic, or harsh, not a single false +note, nothing commonplace, nothing over-coloured, but uniform harmony +of phrase. This perfection of phrasing is not always to be found even +in the greatest poets, for Aeschylus and Dante at times strike a fierce +discord, and Shakespeare, Calderon, and Goethe sometimes pass into rank +extravaganza. But this scholarly and measured speech has impressed +itself on the poetry of our time--insomuch, that the Tennysonian cycle +of minor poets has a higher standard of grace, precision, and subtlety +of phrase than the second rank of any modern literature:--a standard +which puts to shame the rugosities of strong men like Dryden, Burns, +and Byron. There is plenty of mannerism in this school of our minor +poetry, but no one can call it either slovenly or harsh. + +The friend, contemporary, almost the rival of Tennyson, one whom some +think endowed by nature with even stronger genius, on the other hand, +struck notes of discord harsher, louder, and more frequent than any +poet since Elizabethan times. Whatever we hold about the insight and +imagination of Browning, no one can doubt that he often chose to be +uncouth, crabbed, grotesque, and even clownish, when the humour was on +him. There are high precedents for genius choosing its own instrument +and making its own music. But, whatever were Browning's latent powers +of melody, his method when he chose to play upon the gong, or the +ancient instrument of marrow-bone and cleavers, was the exact +antithesis of Tennyson's; and he set on edge the teeth of those who +love the exquisite cadences of _In Memoriam_ and _Maud_. Browning has +left deep influence, if not a school. The younger Lytton, George +Meredith, Buchanan, here and there Swinburne and William Morris, seem +to break loose from the graceful harmony which the Tennysonians affect, +and to plunge headlong into the obscure, the uncouth, the ghastly, and +the lurid. No one denies originality and power in many of these +pieces: but they are flat blasphemy against the pellucid melody of the +Tennysonian idyll. Our poetry seems to be under two contrary spells: +it is enthralled at one time by the ravishing symmetry of Mozart; at +another time it yearns for the crashing discords that thunder along the +march of the Valkyrie through the air. + +As in poetry, so in prose. We find in our best prose of to-day an +extraordinary mastery over pure, nervous, imaginative language; and all +this, alongside here of a riotous extravagance, and there, of a crude +and garrulous commonplace. Thackeray's best chapters, say in _Vanity +Fair_, _Esmond_, the _Humourists_, contain an almost perfect prose +style--a style as nervous as that of Swift, as easy as that of +Goldsmith, as graceful as that of Addison, as rich as that of Gibbon or +Burke. No English romances have been clothed in a language so chaste +and scholarly--not even Fielding's. Certainly not the Waverley series; +for Scott, as we know, rehearsed his glowing chronicles of the past +with the somewhat conventional verbosity of the _improvisatore_ who +recites but will not pause to write. George Eliot relates her story +with an art even more cultivated than that of Thackeray--though, +doubtless, with an over-elaborated self-consciousness, and perceptible +suggestions of the laboratory of the student. Trollope tells his +artless tales in perfectly pure, natural, and most articulate prose, +the language of a man of the world telling a good story well. And a +dozen living novelists are masters of a style of extreme ease and grace. + +Side by side with this chastened English prose, we have men of genius +who have fallen into evil habits. Bulwer, who knew better, would quite +revel in a stagey bombast; Dickens, with his pathos and his humour, was +capable of sinking into a theatrical mannerism and cockney vulgarities +of wretched taste; Disraeli, with all his wit and _savoir faire_, has +printed some rank fustian, and much slip-slop gossip; and George +Meredith at times can be as jerky and mysterious as a prose Browning. +Charlotte Bronte and Kingsley could both descend to blue fire and +demoniac incoherences. Macaulay is brilliant and emphatic, but we +weary at last of his everlasting _staccato_ on the trumpet; and even +the magnificent symphonies of Ruskin at his best will end sometimes in +a sort of _coda_ of fantasias which suggest limelights and coloured +lenses. Carlyle, if not the greatest prose master of our age, must be +held to be, by virtue of his original genius and mass of stroke, the +literary dictator of Victorian prose. And, though we all know how +wantonly he often misused his mighty gift, though no one now would +venture to imitate him even at a distance, and though Matthew Arnold +was ever taking up his parable--"Flee Carlylese as the very Devil!"--we +are sliding into Carlylese unconsciously from time to time, and even +_Culture_ itself fell into the trap in the very act of warning others. + +Side by side with such chastened literary art as that of Thackeray and +George Eliot, Matthew Arnold and John Morley, Lecky and Froude, Maine +and Symonds, side by side with a Carlylese tendency to extravagance, +slang, and caricature, we find another vein in English prose--the flat, +ungainly, nerveless style of mere scientific research. What lumps of +raw fact are flung at our heads! What interminable gritty collops of +learning have we to munch! Through what tangles of uninteresting +phenomena are we not dragged in the name of Research, Truth, and the +higher Philosophy! Mr. Mill and Mr. Spencer, Mr. Bain and Mr. +Sidgwick, have taught our age very much; but no one of them was ever +seen to smile; and it is not easy to recall in their voluminous works a +single irradiating image or one monumental phrase. + +There are eminent historians to-day who disdain the luminous style of +Hume and Robertson, and yet deride the colour and fire of Gibbon. +Grote poured forth the precious contents of his portentous notebooks +with as little care for rhythm and as little sense of proportion as a +German professor. Freeman and Gardiner have evidently trained +themselves in the same school of elaborate learning, till they would +appear to count the graceful English of Froude, Lecky, and Green as +hardly becoming the dignity of history. It would seem as if the charge +which some of our historians are most anxious to avoid is the charge of +being "readable," and of keeping to themselves any fact that they know. + +The men who are rather pleased than pained to hear themselves called by +the barbarous term of "scientists" seem to think that it matters +nothing how ill-digested be their book, or how commonplace be their +language. They are accustomed to lecture to students in the laboratory +in their shirt-sleeves with their hands in their pockets; and they +believe that immortality may be achieved if they can pile up enough +facts and manufacture an adequate number of monographs. And they do +this, in the teeth of excellent examples to the contrary. Huxley and +Tyndall have given their brethren in science fine examples of a pure, +vigorous, and well-knit style. Yet, how many of them are still quite +content to go rumbling along with an interminable rigmarole of dry +"memoirs." Our ponderous biographies of third-rate people tend to +become mere bags of letters and waste-paper baskets. And all this with +such consummate models before us, and so very high a standard of +general cultivation. We have had in this age men who write an English +as pure and powerful as any in the whole range of our literature; we +have tens of thousands of men and women who write a perfectly correct +and intelligent prose. And yet out of a million books, we find so very +few which even aim at being works of art in the sense that _Tom Jones_ +is a work of art, and the _Decline and Fall_ is a work of art. + +It is, no doubt, this preponderance of the practical, scientific, and +social energies which has checked in our Victorian Age the highest +imaginative and dramatic genius. With all its achievements in lyric +and psychologic poetry, it has hardly attempted to scale the empyrean +of song. In the seventy-six years that have passed since Shelley +conceived his _Prometheus_, as he sat gazing over the sombre ruins of +the Campagna, no one has ever ventured into that seventh heaven of +invention. Since the _School for Scandal_ (1777) no English drama has +been produced which has anything like the same hold on the stage. For +more than sixty years the English stage has not known one consummate +actor. Though men of real genius have in these sixty years laboured at +the higher drama, they have hardly achieved even such measures of +success as fell to Byron and Shelley with _Manfred_ and the _Cenci_. +With all its lyric and psychologic power, with all its energy and its +learning, the Victorian Age has not quite equalled the age of Goethe. +It is as if its scientific spirit checked the supreme imagination: as +if its social earnestness produced a distaste for merely dramatic +passion. + +One of the most striking facts about our modern literature is the +preponderance of the "subjective" over the "objective." The interest +in external events, as the subject of imaginative work, quite pales +before the interest in analysis of mental and moral impulse. +Wordsworth, Coleridge, Jane Austen, have completely dominated our age, +and have displaced the epic and legendary themes of Scott, Byron, +Campbell, and Southey. _The Two Voices_, _In Memoriam_, _The Ring and +the Book_, _Silas Marner_, _Vanity Fair_, _Bleak House_, dissect brain +and heart, but do not make their prime motive in any thrilling history. +The crisis of modern romance goes on in the conscience, not in the +outside world. Hence the enormous multiplication of the psychologic +novel, a form of art which the eighteenth century would have viewed +with wonder and perplexity. The curious part of this is the striking +abatement of taste for the historical romance, in spite of the immense +extension of historical study and archaeological revival. We know far +more about the past, both within and without, than did our fathers; and +we are always seeking to realise to ourselves the habits, ideas, +aspect, the very clothes and furniture of ages of old, which we study +with sympathetic zeal and in the minutest detail. Yet the historical +romance appears only at intervals. _Harold_ and _Esmond_ are both more +than forty years old, _Romola_ more than thirty years old. They are +none of them quite unqualified successes; and no later historical +romance has approached these three in power and interest. Why is it, +that, in an age pre-eminently historical, in an age so redundant of +novels, the historical novel is out of fashion? Partly, no doubt, our +romancers shun comparison with the mighty Wizard of the North; partly, +the analytic genius of our time so greatly exceeds its synthetic +genius; and mainly, the range of our historical learning inclines us to +restore the past by exact scholarship and not by fiction without +authority. George Eliot was so anxious to have her local colour +accurate that she ended by becoming somewhat fatiguing. Some day, no +doubt, the genius of romance will return to this inexhaustible field +with enthusiasm equal to Scott's, with a knowledge far more accurate +than his, and a spirit quite purged from political and social bias. + +From the death of Scott in 1832 until 1894 are sixty-two years; and if +we divide this period into equal parts at the year 1863 (it was the +year of Thackeray's death), we shall be struck with the fact that the +purely literary product of the first period of thirty-one years +(1832-1863) is superior to the purely literary product of the second +period of thirty-one years (1863-1894). The former period gives us all +that was best of Tennyson, the Brownings, Carlyle, Thackeray, Dickens, +Bulwer, the Brontes, Mrs. Gaskell, Trollope, George Eliot, Kingsley, +Disraeli, Dr. Arnold, Thirlwall, Grote, Hallam, Milman, Macaulay, Mill, +Froude, Layard, Kinglake, Ruskin. The second period gave us in the +main, Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, G. H. Lewes, Maine, Leslie Stephen, John +Morley, Matthew Arnold, Lecky, Freeman, Stubbs, Bryce, Green, Gardiner, +Symonds, Rossetti, Morris, Swinburne. Poetry, romance, the critical, +imaginative, and pictorial power, dominate the former period: +philosophy, science, politics, history are the real inspiration of the +latter period. + +The era since the death of Scott is essentially a scientific age, a +sociologic age; and this is peculiarly visible in the second half of +this era of sixty-two years. About the middle of the period we see how +the scientific and sociologic interest begins to over-shadow, if not to +oust, the literary, poetic, and romantic interest. Darwin's _Origin of +Species_ was published in 1859; and its effect on thought became marked +within the next few years. In 1862, Herbert Spencer commenced to issue +his great encyclopaedic work, _Synthetic Philosophy_, still, we trust, +to be completed after more than thirty years of devoted toil. Darwin's +later books appeared about the same period, as did a large body of +scientific works in popular form by Huxley, Tyndall, Wallace, Lewes, +Lubbock, Tylor, and Clifford. It is only needful here to refer to such +scientific works as directly reacted on general literature. About the +same time the later speculations of Comte began to attract public +attention in England, and the _Positive Polity_ was translated in 1875. +Between the years 1860-1875, there grew up in England an absorbing +interest in Social Philosophy, and a conviction that the idea of +invariable law offered a solution of the progress of society. +Evolution as an idea was in the air, and it was applied to Man as much +as to Nature. It is no part of our present purpose to trace its growth +from the scientific aspect. It is enough to note how it acted and +reacted on general literature. + +Poetry began to hover round the problem of Evolution. It wrapped it in +mystery, denounced it with fine indignation, and took it for the text +of some rather prosaic homilies. Criticism fell into the prevailing +theory: so did history, and even romance. Philosophy and Science are +not the best foster-mothers of Poetry and Romance. Philosophy and +Science grew more solemn than ever; and Poetry and Romance lost +something of their wilder fancy and their light heart. Literature grew +less spontaneous, more correct, more learned, and, it may be, more +absorbed in its practical purpose of modifying social life. + +The old notion of literature being a business apart from affairs, of +men of letters being an order, of an absorption in books being ample +work for a life--all this is far from the rule. At least twenty +members of the present and late Governments have been copious writers; +Mr. Gladstone and at least three or four of his late colleagues are +quite in the front rank of living authors--nay, several of them began +their career as literary men. It would be difficult to name an +important writer of the Victorian Age who has not at times flung +himself with ardour into the great social, political, or religious +battles of his time. Thackeray, Trollope, Green, Symonds, are possible +exceptions--examples of bookmen who passed their lives with books, and +who never wrote to promote "a cause." But all the rest have entered on +the "burning questions" of their age, and most of them with the main +part of their force. As a consequence "learning," as it was understood +by Casaubon, Scaliger, Bentley, Johnson, and Gibbon, as it was +understood by Littre, Doellinger, and Mommsen, may be said to have +disappeared in England. Cardinal Newman, Mark Pattison, Dr. Pusey, +were said to be very learned, but it was a kind of learning which kept +very much to itself. For good or for evil, our literature is now +absorbed in the urgent social problem, and is become but an instrument +in the vast field of Sociology--the science of Society. + +This predominance of Sociology, the restless rapidity of modern life, +the omnipresence of material activity, fully account for the special +character of modern literature. Literature is no longer "bookish"--but +practical, social, propagandist. It is full of life--but it is a +dispersive, analytic, erratic form of vitality. It has a most +fastidious taste in form--but it often flings the critical spirit aside +in its passion for doing, in its ardour to convince and to inspire. It +is industrious, full of learning and research--but it regards its +learning as an instrument of influence, not as an end of thought. It +can work up a poem or an essay, as carefully as Mieris or Breughel +polished a cabinet picture--and it can "tear a passion to tatters," or +tumble its note-books into a volume all in a heap. It has no +"standard," no "model," no "best writer"--and yet it has a curious +faculty for reviving every known form and imitating any style. It is +intensely historical, but so accurately historical that it is afraid to +throw the least colour of imagination around its history. It has +consummate poetic feeling, and copious poetic gifts--but it has now no +single poet of the first rank. It has infinite romantic resources, and +an army of skilful novelists--and yet it has no single living writer +worthy to be named beside the great romancers of the nineteenth century. + +This rich, many-sided, strenuous literature, which will place the name +of Victoria higher than that of Elizabeth in the history of our +language, would form a splendid subject hereafter for some one of our +descendants who was equal to the task of treating our Victorian +literature as a whole. In the meantime, it may be worth while for the +men and women of to-day, who are full of all the excellent work around +us, to be reminded of the good things produced now nearly sixty years +ago. As one who can remember much that was given to the world in a +former generation, I shall endeavour in these little sketches to mark +some of the characteristics of the best writers in the early Victorian +Age, confining myself for the present to prose literature of the +imaginative kind. + +It is now some time since the country of Shakespeare and of Milton has +been without its poet laureate, and to the non-poetical world the +absence of that court functionary is hardly perceptible. Nay, the +question has begun to arise, If there is to be a laureate in poetry, +why not a laureate also in prose romance? And if there were a laureate +in prose romance, whom should we choose? + +The same phenomenon meets us in the realm of prose fiction as in +poetry: that we have vast quantities of thoughtful work produced, an +army of cultivated workers, a great demand, an equally great supply, a +very high average of merit--and yet so little of the very first rank. +For the first time in the present century, English literature is +without a single living novelist of world-wide reputation. The +nineteenth century opened with _Castle Rackrent_ and the admirably +original tales of Maria Edgeworth. Jane Austen followed in the same +field. And since _Waverley_ appeared, in 1814, we have had a +succession of fine romances in unbroken line. Fenimore Cooper's work +is nearly contemporary with the best of Scott's. At Sir Walter's death +Bulwer-Lytton was in full career. And Lytton, Disraeli, Hawthorne, the +Brontes, Dickens, Thackeray, and Trollope were all at their best nearly +together. During the last twenty years or so of this splendid period +they had been joined by George Eliot; and of the whole band Anthony +Trollope was the survivor. With him our language lost the last of +those companions of the fireside in mansion and cottage whose names are +household words, whose books are in every hand, where the English +tongue is heard. + +We need not engage in any critical estimate of these writers: we are +but too well aware of their failures and defects. Lytton indited not a +little bombast, Dickens had his incurable mannerisms, and Thackeray his +conventional cynicisms. There are passages in George Eliot's romances +which read like sticky bits from a lecture on comparative +palaeontology; and Disraeli, who for fifty years threw off most +readable tales in the intervals of politics, seems always to be +laughing at the public behind his mask. Yet the good sense of mankind +remembers the best and forgets the worst, even if the worst be +four-fifths of the whole. + +The place of genius is decided by its inimitable hits, and its misses +evermore drop out of memory as time goes on. The world loves its +bright spirits for what they give it, and it does not score their blots +like an examiner marking a student's paper. Thus the men and women of +the first rank still hold the field in the million homes where English +tales are a source of happiness; and it would be perverse to maintain +that any living men have reached that level. We can see no trace that +Pickwick or Emma, Natty Bumppo or Uncas, are losing their hold on the +imagination of men and women, any more than Jeanie Deans and the +Antiquary. _Oliver Twist_, the _Last Days of Pompeii_, _Vanity Fair_, +_Jane Eyre_, have more readers than ever. And I find the Last +Chronicle of _Barset_, _Lothair_, and _Silas Marner_ as fresh as they +were a quarter of a century ago. + +We all admit that there are delightful writers still. I am not about +to decry our living romancers, and certainly not to criticise them. If +any man choose to maintain that there is more poetry in Tess than in +the entire _Barsetshire_ series, that Dickens could not have bettered +the _Two Drummer Boys_ of Rudyard Kipling, that _Treasure Island_ has a +realism as vivid as _Robinson Crusoe_, that Mrs. Wood's _Village +Tragedy_ may rank with _Silas Marner_, that Howells and Besant, Ouida +and Rhoda Broughton, Henry James and Mrs. Burnett, are as good reading +as we need, that Bret Harte has struck a line as original as that of +Dickens, and that George Meredith has an eye for character which +reminds us not seldom of Thackeray and Fielding--I do not dispute it. +I am no one-book man or one-style man, but enjoy what is good in all. +But I am thinking of the settled judgment and the visible practice of +the vast English-speaking and English-reading world. And judging by +that test, we cannot shut our eyes to this, that we have no living +romancer who has yet achieved that world-wide place of being read and +welcomed in every home where the language is heard or known. George +Meredith has been a prolific writer for thirty years and Stevenson for +twenty years; but their most ardent admirers, among whom I would be +counted, can hardly claim for them a triumph so great. + +We come, then, to this, that for the first time during this whole +century now ending, English literature can count no living novelist +whom the world, and not merely the esoteric circle of cultured +Englishmen, consents to stamp with the mark of accepted fame. One is +too eccentric, obscure, and subtle, another too local and equal, a +third too sketchy, this one too unreal, that one far too real, too +obvious, too prosaic, to win and to hold the great public by their +spell. Critics praise them, friends utter rhapsodies, good judges +enjoy them--but their fame is partial, local, sectional, compared to +the fame of Scott, Dickens, or Thackeray. + +What is the cause? I do not hesitate to say it is that we have +over-trained our taste, we are overdone with criticism, we are too +systematically drilled, there is far too much moderate literature and +far too fastidious a standard in literature. Everyone is afraid to let +himself go, to offend the conventions, or to raise a sneer. It is the +inevitable result of uniformity in education and discipline in mental +training. Millions can write good grammar, easy and accurate +sentences, and imitate the best examples of the age. Education has +been driven at high pressure into literary lines, and a monotonous +correctness in literary taste has been erected into a moral code. Tens +of thousands of us can put the finger on a bit of exaggeration, or a +false light in the local colour, or a slip in perfect realism. The +result is a photographic accuracy of detail, a barren monotony of +commonplace, and the cramping of real inventive genius. It is the +penalty of giving ourselves up to mechanical culture. + +If another Dickens were to break out to-morrow with the riotous +tomfoolery of Pickwick at the trial, or of Weller and Stiggins, a +thousand lucid criticisms would denounce it as vulgar balderdash. +Glaucus and Nydia at Pompeii would be called melodramatic rant. The +_House of the Seven Gables_ would be rejected by a sixpenny magazine, +and _Jane Eyre_ would not rise above a common "shocker." Hence the +enormous growth of the _Kodak_ school of romance--the snap-shots at +everyday realism with a hand camera. We know how it is done. A woman +of forty, stout, plain, and dull, sits in an ordinary parlour at a +tea-table, near an angular girl with a bad squint. "Some tea?" said +Mary, touching the pot. "I don't mind," replied Jane in a careless +tone; "I am rather tired and it is a dull day." "It is," said Mary, as +her lack-lustre eyes glanced at the murky sky without. "Another cup?" +And so the modern _romance_ dribbles on hour by hour, chapter by +chapter, volume by volume, recording, as in a phonograph, the minute +commonplace of the average man and woman in perfectly real but entirely +common situations. To this dead level of correctness literary purism +has brought romance. The reaction against the photographic style, on +the other hand, leads to spasmodic efforts to arouse the jaded interest +by forced sensationalism, physiological bestialities, and a crude form +of the hobgoblin and bogey business. + +In all the ages of great productive work there were intense +individuality, great freedom, and plenty of failures. _Tom Jones_ +delighted the town which was satiated with gross absurdities, some of +them, alas! from the pen of Fielding himself. Shakespeare wrote +happily before criticism had invented the canons of the drama, and Sir +Walter's stories had no reviews to expose his historical blunders. In +the great romance age which began to decline some forty years ago, +there was not a tithe of such good average work as we get now; +criticism had not become a fine art; every one was free to like what he +pleased, and preposterous stuff was written and enjoyed. Of course it +cannot be good to like preposterous stuff, and an educated taste ought +to improve literature. But it is almost a worse thing when general +culture produces an artificial monotony, when people are taught what +they ought to like, when to violate the canons of taste is far worse +than to laugh at the Ten Commandments. + +With a very high average of fairly good work, an immense mass of such +work, and an elaborate code of criticism, the production of brilliant +and inimitable successes is usually arrested in every field. Having +thousands of graceful verse-writers, we have no great poet; in a +torrent of skilful fiction, we have no great novelist; with many +charming painters, who hardly seem to have a fault, we have no great +artist; with _mises-en-scene_, make-up costumes, and accessories for +our plays such as the world never saw before, we have no great actor; +and with ten thousand thoughtful writers, we have not a single genius +of the first rank. Elaborate culture casts chill looks on original +ideas. Genius itself is made to feel the crudeness and extravagance of +its first efforts and retires with shame to take a lower place. We are +all so fastidious about form and have got such fixed regulation views +about form, we are so correct, so much like one another, such good boys +and girls, that the eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of the inventive +spirit are taught from childhood to control themselves and to conform +to the decorum of good society. A highly organised code of culture may +give us good manners, but it is the death of genius. + +There are other things which check the flow of a really original +literature, though perhaps a high average culture and a mechanical +system of education may be the most potent. Violent political +struggles check it: an absorption in material interests checks it: +uniformity of habits, a general love of comfort, conscious +self-criticism, make it dull and turbid. Now our age is marked by all +of these. From the age of Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau, the French +genius produced almost no imaginative work of really European +importance until it somewhat revived again with Chateaubriand in the +present century. Nor in England can we count anything of a like kind +from the death of Goldsmith until we reach Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth +after an interval of forty years. In the United States the great eras +of imaginative production have been those which were free from +political and military struggles. + +The case of France is indeed conclusive proof how suddenly political +turmoil kills imaginative work. French literature, which during the +greater part of the eighteenth century had shown amazing activity, +suddenly seems arrested with Rousseau; and in the latter years of the +eighteenth century there is absolutely nothing of even moderate quality +in the field of art. The same is true of England for the last thirty +years of the same century. Shakespeare's dramas were not produced till +his country had victoriously passed through the death-struggle of the +religious wars in the sixteenth century. The civil war of the Puritans +arrested poetry, so that for nearly thirty years the muse of Milton +himself withdrew into her solitary cell. Dryden carried on the torch +for a time. But prose literature did not revive in England until the +Hanoverian settlement. Political ferment kills literature: prolonged +war kills it: social agitation unnerves it; and still more the uneasy +sense of being on the verge of great and unknown change. + +Take our Queen's reign of now some fifty-eight years (1837-1895) and +divide it in half at the year 1866. It is plain that by far the +greater part of the "Victorian" literature was produced in the former +half and quite the inferior part of it was produced in the latter half. +By the year 1866 we had already got all, or all that was best, of +Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, Ruskin, Lytton, Thackeray, Dickens, +Trollope, George Eliot, Disraeli, Kingsley, and others who lived after +that date. In 1865 Lord Palmerston died, and with him died the old +Parliamentary era. In the same year died Abraham Lincoln in the great +crisis of the reconstruction of the American Constitution. We attach +no peculiar importance to that date. But it is certain that both +English and American people have been in this last twenty-nine years +absorbed in constitutional agitations which go deep down into our +social system. We in England have passed from one constitutional +struggle to another, and we are now in the most acute stage of all this +period. Parliamentary reform, continental changes, colonial wars, +military preparations, Home Rule, have absorbed the public mind and +stunned it with cataracts of stormy debate. We are all politicians, +all party-men now. + +There is upon us also, both in England and in America, a social ferment +that goes deeper than any mere constitutional struggle. It is the +vague, profound, multiform, and mysterious upheaval that is loosely +called Socialism--not Socialism in any definite formula, but the +universal yearning of the millions for power, consideration, material +improvement, and social equality. The very vagueness, universality, +and unbounded scope of the claim they make constitute its power. All +orders and classes are concerned in it: all minds of whatever type are +affected by it: every political, social, or industrial axiom has to be +reconsidered in the light of it: it appeals to all men and it enters +into life at every corner and pore. We are like men under the glamour +of some great change impending. The spell of a new order holds us +undecided and expectant. There is something in the air, and that +something is a vague and indescribable sense that a new time is coming. +Men felt it in France, and indeed all over Europe, from 1780 till 1790. +It was an uncertain and rather pleasing state of expectancy. It did +not check activity, nor enjoyment, nor science. But it diverted the +profounder minds from the higher forms of imaginative work. + +There is no reason to assume that Socialism or the ideals of Socialism +are at all hostile to literature or even imaginative poetry, provided +they are not too close, not actually causing direct agitation. But +when men are debating bills in heated meetings, they do not often see +these questions in the halo of romance. Rousseau's _Heloise_ and +Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_ were quite a generation before the +Revolution, at a time when franchise and agrarian politics had hardly +begun. The poetry and the romance of a great social reformation are +never visible to men in the midst of it, who are ready to tear each +other's eyes out in the name of Eight-Hours Bills and Land +Nationalisation. When men have got to this stage they want lighter +matter to amuse them at home; but they can hardly appreciate, even if +they could find, the loftier flights of social romance. Sam Weller +to-day has joined a union, and reads his Henry George. Rawdon Crawley +of our own generation is a mere drunken ruffian, only fit to point the +moral in a lecture on the drink traffic. And Becky Sharp is voted to +be a stupid libel on the social destiny of the modern school "marm." + +The great advance in the material comfort and uniformity of life and +manners dries up the very sources of prose romance, even more than it +ruins poetry. The poet is by nature an isolated spirit dwelling in an +ideal world of his own. But the prose novelist draws life as he sees +it in the concrete from intimate knowledge of real men and women. How +intensely did Fielding, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Miss Austen, Miss +Edgeworth know by experience the characters they drew! A romance +cannot be constructed out of the novelist's inner consciousness as +_Paradise Lost_, Shelley's _Prometheus_, and Wordsworth's _Excursion_ +were constructed. Even Scott becomes grave and melodramatic when he +peoples his stage with those whose like he never saw. But how vastly +more romantic was the Scotland of Scott than is the Scotland of +Stevenson! The Vicar of Wakefield and Squire Western are not to be +found in an age that is busy with railways and telegraphs and the +_Review of Reviews_. Pickwick and Oliver Twist have been improved off +the face of the earth by cheap newspapers and sanitary reform. The fun +has gone out of Vanity Fair, and the House of the Seven Gables is an +hotel with seven hundred beds. + +Comfort, electric light, railway sleeping-cars, and equality are +excellent things, but they are the death of romance. The essence of +romance is variety, contrast, individuality, the eccentric, the +unconventional. Level up society, put nineteen out of every twenty on +fairly equal terms, popularise literature, and turn the Ten +Commandments into a code of decorum, and you cut up by the roots all +romantic types of life. The England of Fielding and the Scotland of +Scott were breezy, boisterous, disorderly, picturesque, and jolly +worlds, where gay and hot spirits got into mischief and played mad +pranks as, in the words of the old song, "They powlered up and down a +bit and had a rattling day." Laws, police, total abstinence, general +education, and weak digestions have put an end to pranks, as we are all +proud to say. The result is that Romance, finding little of romance in +the real world, has taken two different lines in the desperate effort +to amuse us somehow. The virtuous line is the phonographic +reproduction of everyday life in ordinary situations. The disreputable +line is Zolaesque bestiality, and forced, unreal, unlovely, and +hysterical sensationalism. + +It cannot be more than a paradox to pretend that _fin de siecle_ has +anything to do with it. But it is a curious coincidence how the last +decade of modern centuries seems to die down in creative fertility. +The hundred millions who speak our English tongue have now no accepted +living master of the first rank, either in verse or in prose. In 1793 +there was not one in all Europe. In 1693, though Dryden lingered in +his decline, it was one of the most barren moments in English +literature. And so in 1593, though the _Faery Queen_ was just printed, +and Shakespeare had begun to write, there were nothing but the first +streaks which herald the dawn. But this is obviously a mere +coincidence; nor can an artificial division of time affect the rise or +fall of genius. It may be that, in these latter days, when our age is +the victim of self-conscious introspection, the close of a century +which has shown such energy may affect us in some unconscious way. +Perhaps there is a vague impression that the world is about to turn +over a new page in the mighty ledger of mankind, that it is now too +late to do much with the nineteenth century, and that we will make a +new start with the twentieth. + +The world is growing less interesting, less mysterious, less manifold, +at any rate to the outer eye. The _mise-en-scene_ of external life is +less rich in colour and in contrast. Magnificence, squalor, oddity, +historic survivals, and picturesque personalities grow rarer year by +year. Everybody writes a grammatical letter in conventional style, +wears the clothes in fashion, and conforms to the courtesies of life. +It is right, good, and wise: but a little dull. It is the lady-like +age, the epoch of the dress-coat, of the prize lad and the girl of the +period. Mr. Charles Pearson, in his remarkable forecast of _National +Life and Character_, warned us how the universal levelling of modern +democracy must end in a certain monotony and a lowered vitality. We +live longer, but in quiet, comfortable, orderly ways. This is not at +all injurious to morality, politics, industry, science, philosophy, or +religion. It is not necessarily injurious to poetry, at least of the +lower flight. But it is adverse to high art. And it is asphyxiating +to romance. + +The novelist must draw from the living model and he must address the +people of his own age. He cannot write for posterity, nor can he live +in a day-dream world of his own. The poet is often lost to his own +contemporaries. It may need two or three, five or six, generations to +reveal him, as Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, and Wordsworth may remind +us. But the novelist must live in his generation, be of it most +intensely, and if he is to delight at all, like the actor, he must +delight his own age. What sons of their own time were Fielding, Scott, +Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope: how intensely did they drink with both +hands from the cup of life. George Eliot, George Meredith, Louis +Stevenson, Howells, James, look on life from a private box. We see +their kid gloves and their opera-glass and we know that nothing could +ever take them on to the stage and ruffle it with the world of the day, +like men of the world who mean to taste life. There is no known +instance of a great novelist who lived obscure in a solitary retreat or +who became famous only after the lapse of many generations. + +It is the lady-like age: and so it is the age of ladies' novels. Women +have it all their own way now in romance. They carry off all the +prizes, just as girl students do in the studios of Paris. Up to a +certain point, within their own limits, they are supreme. Half the +modern romance, and many people think the better half, is written by +women. That is perfectly natural, an obvious result of modern society. +The romance to which our age best lends itself is the romance of +ordinary society, with delicate shades of character and feeling in +place of furious passion or picturesque incident. Women are by nature +and training more subtle observers of these social _nuances_ and +refined waverings of the heart than any others but men of rare genius. +The field is a small and home-like area, the requirements are mainly +those of graceful intuition, the tone must be pure, lady-like, subdued. +In this sphere it is plain that women have a marked superiority; it is +the sphere in which Jane Austen is the yet unapproached queen. But we +may look for more Jane Austens, and on wider fields with a yet deeper +insight into far grander characters. The social romance of the future +is the true poetic function of women. It is their own realm, in which +they will doubtless achieve yet unimagined triumphs. Men, revolting +from this polite and monotonous world, are trying desperate expedients. +But they are all wrong; the age is against it. Try to get out of +modern democratic uniformity and decorum and you may as well try to get +out of your skin. Mr. Stevenson was driven to playing at Robinson +Crusoe in the Pacific, and Mr. Rudyard Kipling once seemed bent on +dying in a tussle with Fuzzy-Wuzzy in the Soudan. But it is no good. +A dirty savage is no longer a romantic being. And as to the romance of +the wigwam, it reminds me of the Jews who keep the Feast of Tabernacles +by putting up some boughs in a back yard. + +Let us have no nonsense, no topsy-turvy straining after new effects, +which is so wearisome to those who love the racy naturalism of Parson +Adams and Edie Ochiltree. But let us have no pessimism also. The age +is against the romance of colour, movement, passion, and jollity. But +it is full of the romance of subtle and decorous psychology. It is not +the highest art: it is indeed a very limited art. But it is true art: +wholesome, sound, and cheerful. The world does not exist in order to +supply brilliant literature; and the march of democratic equality and +of decorous social uniformity is too certain a thing, in one sense too +blessed a thing, to be denied or to be denounced. An age of colour, +movement, variety, and romantic beauty will come again one day, we know +not how. There will be then a romance of passion and incident, of +strenuous ambition and mad merriment. But not to-day nor to-morrow. +Let us accept what the dregs of the nineteenth century can give us, +without murmuring and repining for what it cannot give and should not +seek to give. + +In this little series of studies, I shall make no attempt to estimate +the later literature of the Victorian Age, nor will I at all refer to +any living writer. Nor shall I deal with social and moral philosophy, +poetry, art, or religion. I propose to look back, from our present +point of view, on the literature, in the narrower sense of the term, +produced in the earlier part of the Queen's reign. + + + + +II + +THOMAS CARLYLE + +It is now for about half a century that the world has had all that is +most masterly in the work of Thomas Carlyle. And a time has arrived +when we may very fairly seek to weigh the sum total of influence which +he left on his own and on subsequent generations. We are now far +enough off, neither to be dazzled by his eloquence nor irritated by his +eccentricities. The men whom he derided and who shook their heads at +him are gone: fresh problems, new hopes, other heroes and prophets whom +he knew not, have arisen. Our world is in no sense his world. And it +has become a very fair question to ask--What is the residuum of +permanent effect from these great books of his, which have been +permeating English thought for half a century and more? + +It is a rare honour for any writer--at least for one who is neither +poet nor novelist--to have his productions live beyond two generations, +and to continue to be a great literary force, when fifty years have +altered all the conditions in which he wrote and the purposes and ideas +which he treated. It cannot be said that Carlyle's effective influence +is less now than it was a generation ago. It has lived through the +Utilitarian and Evolution movements and has not been extinguished by +them. And Thomas Carlyle bids fair to enter into that sacred band +whose names outlive their own century and give some special tone to +their national literature. + +The survival of certain books and names from generation to generation +does not depend on merit alone. Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is +immortal: though we do not rank "Bozzy" as a hero or a genius. Hume's +_History of England_ is a classic: though it can hardly be said to be +an adequate account of our country. Few books have ever exercised so +amazing an influence as Rousseau's _Social Contract_; yet the loosest +mind of to-day can perceive its sophistry. Burke's diatribes on the +French Revolution affected the history of Europe; though no one denies +that they were inspired by passion and deformed by panic. Hobbes has +very few readers to-day; but the _Leviathan_ may last as long as More's +_Utopia_, which has hardly more readers in our age. Books which exert +a paramount influence over their contemporaries may die down and be +known only in the history of literature. And books, again, of very +moderate value, written by men of one-sided intellect or founded on +somewhat shallow theories, may, by virtue of some special quality, or +as embodying some potent idea, attain to a permanent place in the world +of letters. Many a great book ceases very early to command readers: +and many books continue to be read although they are far from great. + +The first question that arises is this:--Do the chief works of Carlyle +belong to that class of books which attain an enduring and increasing +power, or to that class which effect great things for one or two +generations and then become practically obsolete? It would not be safe +to put his masterpieces in any exclusive sense into either of these +categories; but we may infer that they will ultimately tend to the +second class rather than the first. Books which attain to an enduring +and increasing power are such books as the _Ethics_, the _Politics_, +and the _Republic_, the _Thoughts_ of Marcus Aurelius and of +Vauvenargues, the _Essays_ of Bacon and of Hume, Plutarch's _Lives_ and +Gibbon's _Rome_. In these we have a mass of pregnant and ever-fertile +thought in a form that is perennially luminous and inspiring. It can +hardly be said that even the masterpieces of Carlyle--no! not the +_Revolution_, _Cromwell_, or the _Heroes_--reach this point of immortal +wisdom clothed with consummate art. The "personal equation" of +Teufelsdroeckhian humour, its whimsies, and conundrums, its wild +outbursts of hate and scorn, not a few false judgments, and perverse +likes and dislikes--all this is too common and too glaring in the +Carlylean cycle, to permit its master to pass into the portals where +dwell the wise, serene, just, and immortal spirits. Not of such is the +Kingdom of the literary Immortals. + +On the other hand, if these masterpieces of sixty years ago are not +quite amongst the great books of the world, it would be preposterous to +regard them as obsolete, or such as now interest only the historian of +literature. They are read to-day practically as much as ever, and are +certain to be read for a generation or two to come. But they are not +read to-day with the passionate delight in the wonderful originality, +nor have they the commanding authority they seemed to possess for the +faithful disciples of the forties and the fifties. Nor can any one +suppose that the next century will continue to read them, except with +an open and unbiassed mind, and a willingness to admit that even here +there is much dead wood, gross error, and pitiable exaggeration. When +we begin to read in that spirit, however splendid be the imagination, +and however keen the logic, we are no longer under the spell of a +master: we are reading a memorable book, with a primary desire to learn +how former generations looked upon things. + +Thomas Carlyle, like all other voluminous writers, wrote very much that +cannot be called equal to his best: and it cannot be denied that the +inferior pieces hold a rather large proportion of the whole. Nothing +is less fatal to true criticism than the popular habit of blindly +overvaluing the inferior work of men of genius, unless it be the habit +of undervaluing them by looking at their worst instead of at their +best. Great men are to be judged by their highest; and it is not of +very great consequence if this highest forms a moderate part of the +total product. Now, what are the masterpieces of Thomas Carlyle? In +the order of their production they are _Sartor Resartus_, 1831; _French +Revolution_, 1837; _Hero-Worship_, 1840; _Past and Present_, 1843; +_Cromwell_, 1845. We need not be alarmed if this list forms but a +third of the thirty volumes (not including translations); and if it +omits such potent outbursts as _Chartism_, 1839; and _Latter-Day +Pamphlets_, 1850; or such a wonderful piece of history as _Friedrich +the Second_, 1858-1865. _Chartism_ and the _Latter-Day Pamphlets_ are +full of eloquence, insight, indignation, and pity, and they exerted a +great and wholesome effect on the generation whom they smote as with +the rebuke and warning of a prophet. But, as we look back on them +after forty or fifty years of experience, we find in them too much of +passionate exaggeration, at times a ferocious wrong-headedness, and +everywhere so little practical guidance or fruitful suggestion, that we +cannot reckon these magnificent Jeremiads as permanent masterpieces. + +As to _Friedrich_, it is not a book at all, but an encyclopaedia of +German biographies in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Who +reads every word of these ten volumes? Who cares to know how big was +the belly of some court chamberlain, or who were the lovers of some +unendurable Frau? What a welter of dull garbage! In what dust-heaps +dost thou not smother us, Teufelsdroeckh! O, Thomas, Thomas, what +Titania has bewitched thee with the head of Dryasdust on thy noble +shoulders? Compare _Friedrich_ with _Cromwell_. In the Life of the +Puritan hero we have a great purpose, a prolonged homily, a magnificent +appeal against an unjust sentence passed two hundred years before by +ignorance, bigotry, and passion. The literary interest never +overpowers the social and political, the moral and the religious +purpose. Twenty years later, when he takes up the German _Friedrich_, +the literary interest overpowers the historical. Half of the ten +volumes of _Friedrich_ are taken up with tiresome anecdotes about the +ordinary appendages of a German court. Even the true greatness of +Frederick--his organisation of a model civil administration--is +completely obscured in the deluge of court gossip and _Potsdamiana_. +_Friedrich_ is a wonderful work, highly valuable to the student, a +memorable result of Teufelsdroeckhian industry and humour--but it is not +a masterpiece: judged by the standard of Carlyle's own masterpieces, it +is really a failure. _Cromwell_ is the life of a hero and a statesman; +_Friedrich_ consists of miscellaneous memoirs of the court and camp of +the greatest of modern rulers. + +On the whole, we may count the _Cromwell_ as the greatest of Carlyle's +effective products. With his own right hand, alone and by a single +stroke, he completely reversed the judgment of the English nation about +their greatest man. The whole weight of Church, monarchy, aristocracy, +fashion, literature, and wit had for two centuries combined to falsify +history and distort the character of the noblest of English statesmen. +And a simple man of letters, by one book, at once and for ever reversed +this sentence, silenced the allied forces of calumny and rancour, and +placed Oliver for all future time as the greatest hero of the +Protestant movement. There are few examples in the history of +literature of so great and so sudden a triumph of truth and justice. +At the same time, it is well to remember that the _Cromwell_ is not a +literary masterpiece, in the sense of being an organic work of high +art. It is not the "Life" of Cromwell: it was not so designed, and was +never so worked out. It is his "Letters and Speeches," illustrated by +notes. A work so planned cannot possibly be a work of art, or a +perfect piece of biography. The constant passage from text to +commentary, from small print to large, from Oliver's Puritan +sermonising to Carlyle's Sartorian eccentricities, destroys the +artistic harmony of the book as an organic work of art. The "Life" of +Cromwell was in fact never written by Carlyle; and has yet to be +written. Never yet was such splendid material for a "Life" prepared by +a great historian. + +_Sartor Resartus_ (1831), the earliest of his greater works, is +unquestionably the most original, the most characteristic, the deepest +and most lyrical of his productions. Here is the Sage of +Craigenputtock at his best, at his grimmest, and, we must add, in his +most incoherent mood. To make men think, to rouse men out of the +slough of the conventional, the sensual, the mechanical, to make men +feel, by sheer force of poetry, pathos, and humour, the religious +mystery of life and the "wretchlessness of unclean living"--(as our +Church article hath it)--nothing could be more trumpet-tongued than +_Sartor_. The Gospel according to Teufelsdroeckh is, however, a +somewhat Apocalyptic dispensation, and few there be who can "rehearse +the articles of his belief" with anything like precision. Another and +a more serious difficulty is this. How many a "general reader" +steadily reads through _Sartor_ from cover to cover? And of such, how +many entirely understand the inner Philosophy of Clothes, and follow +all the allusions, quips, and nicknames of Sartorian subjectivity. It +would be a fine subject for some Self-Improvement Circle of readers to +write examination papers upon questions as to the exact meaning of all +the inward musings of Teufelsdroeckh. The first class of successful +candidates, one fears, would be small. A book--not of science or of +pure philosophy, or any technical art whatever--but a book addressed to +the general reader, and designed for the education of the public, and +which can be intelligently digested and assimilated by so very few of +the public, can hardly be counted as an unqualified success. And the +adepts who have mastered the inwardness of _Sartor_ are rare and few. + +The _French Revolution_, however, is far more distinctly a work of art +than _Cromwell_, and far more accessible to the great public than +_Sartor_. Indeed the _French Revolution_ is usually, and very +properly, spoken of and thought of, as a prose poem, if prose poem +there can be. It has the essential character of an epic, short of +rhythm and versification. Its "argument" and its "books"; its +contrasts and "episodes"; its grouping of characters and +_denoument_--are as carefully elaborated as the _Gerusalemme_ of Tasso, +or the _Aeneid_ of Virgil. And it produces on the mind the effect of a +poem with an epic or dramatic plot. It is only a reader thoroughly at +home in the history of the time, who can resist the poet's spell when, +at the end of Part III., Book VII., he is told that the Revolution is +"ended," and the curtain falls. As a matter of real history, this is +an arbitrary invention. For the street fight on the day named in the +Revolutionary Calendar--13 _Vendemiaire, An 4_ (5th October 1795), is +merely a casual point in a long movement, at which the poet finds it +artistic to stop. But the French Revolution does not stop there, nor +did the "Whiff of Grapeshot" end it in any but an arbitrary sense. +When the poet tells us that, upon Napoleon's defeating the sections +around the Convention, "the hour had come and the Man," and that the +thing called the French Revolution was thereby "blown into space," +nothing more silly, mendacious, and "phantasmic" was ever stated by +sober historian. The Convention was itself the living embodiment and +product of the Revolution, and Bonaparte's smart feat in protecting it, +increased its authority and confidence. If Carlyle's _French +Revolution_ be trusted as real history, it lands us in as futile a _non +sequitur_ as ever historian committed. + +Viewed as an historical poem, the _French Revolution_ is a splendid +creation. Its passion, energy, colour, and vast prodigality of +ineffaceable pictures place it undoubtedly at the head of all the +pictorial histories of modern times. And the dramatic rapidity of its +action, and the inexhaustible contrasts of its scenes and +tableaux--things which so fatally pervert its truthfulness as authentic +history--immensely heighten the effect of the poem on the reader's +mind. Not that Carlyle was capable of deliberately manufacturing an +historical romance in the mendacious way of Thiers and Lamartine. But, +having resolved to cast the cataclysm of 1789 and the few years before +and after it into a dramatic poem, he inevitably, and no doubt +unconsciously, treated certain incidents and certain men with a poet's +license or with a distorted vision. This too is more apparent toward +the close of his work, when he begins to show signs of fatigue and +exhaustion. Nay, it is to be feared that we are still suffering from +the outrage committed on Victorian literature by Mr. Mill's incendiary +housemaid. We may yet note marks of arson in the restored volume. At +the same time, there are large parts of his work which are as true +historically as they are poetically brilliant. Part I.--"The +Bastille"--is almost perfect. The whole description of Versailles, its +court, and government, of the effervescence of Paris--from the death of +Louis XV. to the capture of Versailles--is both powerful and true. +Part II.--"The Constitution"--is the weakest part of the whole from the +point of view of accurate history. And Part III.--"The Terror"--is +only trustworthy in separate pictures and episodes, however splendid +its dramatic power. + +It would need an essay, or rather a volume, on the French Revolution to +enumerate all the wrong judgments and fallacies of Carlyle's book, if +we bring it to the bar of sober and authentic history. First and +foremost comes his fundamental misconception that the Revolution was an +anarchical outburst against corruption and oppression, instead of +being, as it was, the systematic foundation of a new order of society. +Again, he takes it to be a purely French, local, and political +movement, instead of seeing that it was an European, social, spiritual +movement toward a more humane civilisation. And next, he regards the +Revolution as taking place in the six years between the taking of the +Bastille and the defeat of the Sections by Bonaparte; whereas the +Revolution was preparing from the time of Louis XIV., and is not yet +ended in the time of President Faure. Next to the capital mistake of +misconceiving the entire character and result of the Revolution, comes +the insolence which treats the public men of France during a whole +generation as mere subjects for ribaldry and caricature. From this +uniform mockery, Mirabeau and Bonaparte, two of the least worthy of +them, are almost alone exempted. This is a blunder in art, as well as +a moral and historical offence. Men like Gondorcet, Danton, Hoche, +Carnot, not to name a score of other old Conventionels, soldiers, and +leaders were pure, enlightened, and valorous patriots--with a breadth +of soul and social sympathies and hopes that tower far above the +insular prejudices and Hebrew traditions of a Scotch Cameronian +_litterateur_--poet, genius, and moralist though he also was himself. + +But though the _French Revolution_ is not to be accepted as +historical authority, it is profoundly stimulating and instructive, +when we look on it as a lyrical apologue. It is an historical +phantasmagoria--which, though hardly more literally true than +Aristophanes' _Knights_ or _Clouds_, may almost be placed beside these +immortal satires for its imagination, wisdom, and insight. The +personages and the events of the French Revolution in fact succeeded +each other with such startling rapidity and such bewildering variety, +that it is difficult for any but the most patient student to keep the +men and the phases steadily before the eye without confusion and in +distinct form. This Carlyle has done far better than any other +historian of the period, perhaps even better than any historian +whatever. That so many Englishmen are more familiar with the scenes +and the men and women of the French Revolution than they are with the +scenes and the men and women of their own history, is very largely the +work of Carlyle. And as to the vices and weakness of the Old Regime, +the electric contagion of the people of Paris, the indomitable +elasticity of the French spirit, the magnetic power of the French +genius, the famous _furia francese_, and the terrible rage into which +it can be lashed--all this Carlyle has told with a truth and insight +that has not been surpassed by any modern historian. + +It being then clearly understood that Carlyle did not leave us the +trustworthy history of the French Revolution, in the way in which +Thucydides gave us the authentic annals of the Peloponnesian war, or +Caesar the official despatches of the Conquest of Gaul, we must +willingly admit that Carlyle's history is one of the most fruitful +products of the nineteenth century. No one else certainly has written +the authentic story of the French Revolution at large, or of more than +certain aspects and incidents of it. In spite of misconceptions, and +such mistaken estimates as those of Mirabeau and Bonaparte, such +insolent mockery of good and able men, such ridiculous caricatures as +that of the "Feast of Pikes" and the trial of the King, such ribald +horse-play as "Grilled Herrings" and "Lion Sprawling," in spite of +blots and blunders in every chapter--the _French Revolution_ is +destined to live long and to stand forth to posterity as the typical +work of the master. It cannot be said to have done such work as the +_Cromwell_; for it is far less true and sound as history, and it is +only one out of scores of interpreters of the Revolution, whereas in +the Cromwell Carlyle worked single-handed. But being far more organic, +far more imaginative, indeed more powerful than the _Cromwell_ in +literary art, the _French Revolution_--produced, we may remember, +exactly in the middle of the author's life--will remain the enduring +monument of Carlyle's great spirit and splendid brain. + +The book entitled _Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History_ +(1840), to give it its full and original title, comes next in order of +time, and perhaps of abiding value. It is a book rather difficult for +us now to estimate after more than half a century, for so very much has +been done in the interval to build upon these foundations, to enlarge +our knowledge of these very heroes, and the estimates of Carlyle in the +first half of this century are for the most part so completely the +commonplaces of the English-speaking world at the close of the century, +that when we open the _Heroes_ again it is apt to seem obvious, +_connu_, the emphatic assertion of a truism that no one disputes. How +infinitely better do we now, in 1895, know Dante and Shakespeare, +Cromwell and Napoleon, than did our grandfathers in 1840! Who, +nowadays, imagines Mahomet to have been an impostor, or Burns to have +been a mere tipsy song-writer? What a copious literature has the last +half-century given us on Dante, on Islam and its spirit, on Rousseau, +on Burns, on the English and the French revolutions! But in 1840 the +true nature of these men was very faintly understood. Few people but +soldiers had the least chance of being called "heroes," and the "heroic +in history" was certainly not thought to include either poets, +preachers, or men of letters. _Heroes and Hero-Worship_, like the +_Cromwell_, has, in fact, done its work so completely that we find it a +little too familiar to need any constant reading or careful study. + +To judge fairly all that Carlyle effected by his book on Heroes we must +put ourselves at the point of view of the time when it was written, the +days of Wellington and Melbourne, Brougham and Macaulay, Southey and +Coleridge. None of these men understood the heroic in Norse mythology, +or the grandeur of Oliver Cromwell, or the supreme importance of the +_Divina Commedia_ as the embodiment of Catholic Feudalism. All this +Carlyle felt as no Englishman before him had felt, and told us in a +voice which has since been accepted as conclusive. How far deeper is +the view of Carlyle about some familiar personality like Johnson than +is that of Macaulay, how much farther does Carlyle see into the +Shakesperean firmament than even Coleridge! How far better does he +understand Rousseau and Burns than did Southey, laureate and critic as +he was hailed in his time. The book is a collection of Lectures, and +we now know how entirely Carlyle loathed that kind of utterance, how +much he felt the restraints and limits it involved. And for that +reason, the book is the simplest and most easily legible of his works, +with the least of his mannerism and the largest concessions to the +written language of sublunary mortals. Nearly all the judgments he +passes are not only sound, but now almost universally accepted. To +deal with the heroic in history, he needed, as he said, six months +rather than six days. It was intended, he told his hearers, "to break +ground," to clear up misunderstandings. It has done this: and a rich +crop has resulted from his ploughshare. + +Nothing but a few sketches could be compressed into six hours. But it +is curious how many things seem omitted in this survey of the heroic. +At the age of forty-five Carlyle had not recognised Friedrich at all, +for he does not figure in the "Hero as King." Napoleon takes his +place, though Bonaparte was a "hero" only in the bad sense of hero +which Carlyle was seeking to explode. It is well that, since he +finished the _French Revolution_, Carlyle seems to have found out that +Bonaparte "parted with Reality," and had become a charlatan, a sham. +Still for all that, he remains "our last great man." Mazzini was +present at the delivery of these lectures: and when he had listened to +this last, he went up to Carlyle and told him that he had undone his +Hero-Worship and had fallen from the truth; and from that hour Mazzini +would hold no terms with the gospel of One-Man. To make Hero-Worship +close with the installation of Napoleon as "our last great man," was to +expose the inherent weakness of the Sartorian creed--that humanity +exists for the sake of its great men. The other strange delusion is +the entire omission from the "Hero as Priest" of any Catholic hero. +Not only are St. Bernard, and St. Francis, Becket and Lanfranc--all the +martyrs and missionaries of Catholicism--consigned to oblivion:--but +not a word is said of Alfred, Godfrey, St. Louis, St. Ferdinand, and +St. Stephen. In a single volume there must be selection of types. But +the whole idea of Hero-Worship was perverted in a plan which had no +room for a single Catholic chief or priest. + +This perverse exaggeration of Puritan religion, and the still more +unjust hatred of Catholic religion, unfortunately runs through all +Carlyle's work, and perhaps nowhere breaks out in so repulsive a form +as in the piece called "Jesuitism" (1850), in the _Latter-Day +Pamphlets_ (No. VIII.). Discarding the creed, the practice, and the +language of Puritanism, Carlyle still retained its narrowness, its +self-righteousness, its intolerance, and its savagery. The moralist, +to whom John Knox was a hero, but St. Bernard was not, but only a +follower of the "three-hatted Papa," and an apostle of "Pig's-wash," +was hardly the man to exhaust the heroic in history. In the "Hero as +Man-of-Letters," Carlyle was at home. If ever pure letters produced a +hero, the sage of Chelsea was one. With Johnson, with Rousseau, he is +perfectly rational, and the mass of literature which has accumulated +round the names of these two, only tends to confirm the essential +justice of Carlyle's estimate. Nor need we dispute his estimate of the +vigour and manliness of Burns. It is only when Carlyle describes him +as "the most gifted British soul" in the eighteenth century--the +century of Hume, Adam Smith, Fielding, and Burke--that we begin to +smile. Burns was a noble-hearted fellow, as well as a born poet. But +perhaps the whole cycle of Sartorian extravaganza contains no saying so +futile as the complaint, that the British nation in the great war with +France entrusted their destinies to a phantasmic Pitt, instead of to +"the Thunder-god, Robert Burns." Napoleon would no doubt have welcomed +such a change of ministry. It is incoherences of this sort which undo +so much of the splendid service that Carlyle gave to his age. + +But we are not willing to let the defects of Carlyle's philosophy drive +out of mind the permanent and beautiful things in his literary work. +_Past and Present_ (1843) is certainly a success--a happy and true +thought, full of originality, worked out with art and power. The idea +of embedding a living and pathetic picture of monastic life in the +twelfth century, and a minute study of the labours of enlightened +churchmen in the early struggles of civilisation--the idea of embedding +this tale, as if it were the remains of some disinterred saint, in the +midst of a series of essays on the vices and weaknesses of modern +society--was a highly original and instructive device, only to be +worked to success by a master. And the master brought it to a +delightful success. In all his writings of thirty volumes there are +few pages more attractive than the story of Jocelin of Brakelond, Abbot +Hugo, Abbot Samson, and the festival of St. Edmund, which all pass away +as in a vision leaving "a mutilated black ruin amidst green +expanses"--as we so often see in our England to-day after the trampling +of seven centuries over the graves of the early monks. + +And then, when the preacher passes suddenly from the twelfth century to +the nineteenth, from toiling and ascetic monks to cotton spinners and +platform orators--the effect is electric--as though some old +Benedictine rose from the dead and began to preach in the crowded +streets of a city of factories. Have we yet, after fifty years of this +time of tepid hankering after Socialism and Theophilanthropic +experiments, got much farther than Thomas Carlyle in his preaching in +Book IV. on "Aristocracies," "Captains of Industry," "The Landed," "The +Gifted"? What truth, what force in the aphorism:--"To predict the +Future, to manage the Present, would not be so impossible, had not the +Past been so sacrilegiously mishandled; effaced, and what is worse, +defaced!"--"Of all Bibles, the frightfulest to disbelieve in is this +'Bible of Universal History'"--"The Leaders of Industry, if Industry is +ever to be led, are virtually the Captains of the World." What new +meaning that phrase has acquired in these fifty years! "Men of letters +may become a 'chivalry,' an actual instead of a virtual Priesthood." +Well! not men of letters exactly: but perhaps philosophers, with an +adequate moral and scientific training. Here, as so often, Carlyle +just missed a grand truth to which his insight and nobility of soul had +led him, through his perverse inability to accept any systematic +philosophy, and through his habit to listen to the whispering of his +own heart as if it were equivalent to scientific certainty. But the +whole book, _Past and Present_, is a splendid piece and has done much +to mould the thought of our time. It would impress us much more than +it does, were it not already become the very basis of all sincere +thought about social problems and the future conditions of industry. + +Of the _Cromwell's Letters and Speeches_ (1845) we have already spoken, +as the greatest of our author's effective products, inasmuch as it +produced the most definite practical result in moulding opinion, and a +result of the highest importance. But it is not, as we have seen, a +work of art, or even an organic work at all, and it cannot compare in +literary charm with some other of the author's works. We do not turn +to the _Cromwell_ again and again, as we do to the _French Revolution_, +or to _Sartor_, which we can take up from time to time as we do a poem +or a romance. Many of the great books of the world are not read and +re-read by the public, just as none but special students continually +resort to the _Novum Organum_, or the _Wealth of Nations_. For similar +reasons, the _Cromwell_ will never be a favourite book with the next +century, as it cannot be said to have been with ours. It has done its +work with masterly power; and its work will endure. And some day +perhaps, from out these materials, and those collected by Mr. Gardiner, +and by [Transcriber's note: next two words transliterated from Greek] +_oi peri_ Gardiner, a _Life of Cromwell_ may be finally composed. + +It is true that Carlyle's determination to force Oliver upon us as +perfect saint and infallible hero is irritating and sometimes +laughable; it is true that his zeal to be-dwarf every one but Cromwell +himself is unjust and untrue; and the depreciation of every man who +declines to play into Oliver's hands is too often manifest. But, on +the whole, the judgments are so sound, the supporting authorities are +so overwhelming, the work of verification is so thorough, so +scrupulous, so perfectly borne out by all subsequent research--that the +future will no doubt look on the _Cromwell_, not only as the most +extraordinary, but the most satisfactory and effective of all Carlyle's +work; although for the reasons stated, it can never have the largest +measure of his literary charm or possess the full afflatus of his +poetic and mystical genius. + +By the time that _Cromwell_ was published, Thomas Carlyle was turned of +fifty, and had produced nearly two-thirds of his total work. It may be +doubted if any later book will be permanently counted amongst his +masterpieces. _Friedrich_, for reasons set forth, was an attempt in +late life to repeat the feat of the _Cromwell_: it was a much less +urgent task: and it was not so well performed. The _Latter-Day +Pamphlets_ (1850) do not add much that is new to _Past and Present_ +(1843) or to _Sartor_ (1831); and little of what they add is either +needful or true. The world had been fully enlightened about Wind-bags, +Shams, the approach to Tophet, Stump-orators, Palaver-Parliaments, +Phantasm-Captains, and the rest of the Sartorian puppet-pantomime. +There was a profound truth in all of these invectives, warnings, and +prophecies. But the prophet's voice at last got so shrieky and +monotonous, that instead of warning and inspiring a second generation, +these terrific maledictions began to pall upon a practical world. An +ardent admirer of the prophet has said that, when he first heard +Carlyle speak face to face, he could hardly resist the impression that +he was listening to an actor personating the Sage of Chelsea, and +mimicking the stock phrases of the _Latter-Day Pamphlets_. Certainly +no man of sense can find any serious guidance on any definite social +problem from these "Pamphlets" of his morbid decline. Carlyle at last +sat eating his heart out, like Napoleon on St. Helena. His true +friends will hasten to throw such a decent covering as Japhet and Shem +threw around Noah, over the latest melancholy outbursts about Negroes, +Reformers, Jamaica massacres, and the anticipated conflagration of +Paris by the Germans. It is pitiful indeed to find in "the collected +and revised works," thirty-six volumes, the drivel of his Pro-Slavery +advocacy, and of ill-conditioned snarling at honest men labouring to +reform ancient abuses. + +It is perilous for any man, however consummate be his genius, to place +himself on a solitary rock apart from all living men and defiant of all +before him, as the sole source of truth out of his own inner +consciousness. It is fatal to any man, however noble his own spirit, +to look upon this earth as "one fuliginous dust-heap," and the whole +human race as a mere herd of swine rushing violently down a steep place +into the sea. Nor can the guidance of mankind be with safety entrusted +to one who for eighty-six years insisted on remaining by his own +hearth-stone a mere omnivorous reader and omnigenous writer of books. +Carlyle was a true and pure "man of letters," looking at things and +speaking to men, alone in his study, through the medium of printed +paper. All that a "man of letters," of great genius and lofty spirit, +could do by consuming and producing mere printed paper, he did. And as +the "supreme man of letters" of his time he will ever be honoured and +long continue to be read. He deliberately cultivated a form of speech +which made him unreadable to all except English-speaking readers, and +intelligible only to a select and cultivated body even amongst them. +He wrote in what, for practical purposes, is a local, or rather +personal, dialect. And thus he deprived himself of that world-wide and +European influence which belongs to such men as Hume, Gibbon, Scott, +Byron--even to Macaulay, Tennyson, Dickens, Ruskin, and Spencer. But +his name will stand beside theirs in the history of British thought in +the nineteenth century; and a devoted band of chosen readers, wherever +the Anglo-Saxon tongue is heard, will for generations to come continue +to drink inspiration from the two or three masterpieces of the +Annandale peasant-poet. + + + + +III + +LORD MACAULAY + +Macaulay, who counted his years of life by those of this century, may +fairly claim to have had the greatest body of readers, and to be the +most admired prose-writer of the Victorian Age. It is now some seventy +years since his first brilliant essay on "Milton" took the world by +storm. It is half a century since that fascinating series of _Essays_ +was closed, and little short of that time since his famous _History_ +appeared. The editions of it in England and in America are counted by +thousands; it has six translations into German, and translations into +ten other European languages. It made him rich, famous, and a peer. +Has it given him a foremost place in English literature? + +Here is a case where the judgment of the public and the judgment of +experts is in striking contrast. The readers both of the Old and of +the New World continue to give the most practical evidence that they +love his books. Macaulay is a rare example of a writer all of whose +works are almost equally popular, and believed by many to be equally +good. _Essays, Lays, History, Lives_--all are read by millions: as +critic, poet, historian, biographer, Macaulay has achieved world-wide +renown. And yet some of our best critics deny him either fine taste, +or subtlety, or delicate discrimination, catholic sympathies, or serene +judgment. They say he is always more declaimer than thinker--more +advocate than judge. The poets deny that the _Lays_ are poetry at all. +The modern school of scientific historians declare that the _History_ +is a splendid failure, and it proves how rotten was the theory on which +it is constructed. The purists in style shake their heads over his +everlasting antitheses, the mannerism of violent phrases and the +perpetual abuse of paradox. His most indulgent friends admit the force +of these defects, which they usually speak of as his "limitations" or +his "methods." Here, indeed, is an opportunity for one of those +long-drawn antitheses of which Macaulay was so great a master. How he +would himself have revelled in the paradox--"that books which were +household words with every cow-boy in Nevada, and every Baboo in +Bengal, were condemned by men of culture as the work of a Philistine +and a mannerist"; "how ballads which were the delight of every child +were ridiculed by critics as rhetorical jingles that would hardly win a +prize in a public school"; "how the most famous of all modern reviewers +scarcely gave us one example of delicate appreciation or subtle +analysis"; how it comes about "that the most elaborate of modern +histories does not contain an idea above the commonplaces of a +crammer's textbook"--and so forth, in the true Black-and-White style +which is so clear and so familiar. But let us beware of applying to +Macaulay himself that tone of exaggeration and laborious antithesis +which he so often applied to others. Boswell, he says, was immortal, +"_because_ he was a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb." It would be a +feeble parody to retort that Macaulay became a great literary power +"because he had no philosophy, little subtlety, and a heavy hand." For +my part, I am slow to believe that the judgment of the whole +English-speaking race, a judgment maintained over more than half a +century, can be altogether wrong; and the writer who has given such +delight, has influenced so many writers, and has taught so much to so +many persons, can hardly have been a shallow mannerist, or an +ungovernable partisan. No one denies that Macaulay had a prodigious +knowledge of books; that in literary fecundity and in varied +improvisation he has rarely been surpassed; that his good sense is +unfailing, his spirit manly, just, and generous; and lastly, that his +command over language had unequalled qualities of precision, energy, +and brilliance. These are all very great and sterling qualities. And +it is right to acknowledge them with no unstinted honour--even whilst +we are fully conscious of the profound shortcomings and limitations +that accompanied but did not destroy them. + +In a previous paper we discussed the permanent contribution to English +literature of Thomas Carlyle; and it is curious to note how complete a +contrast these two famous writers present. Carlyle was a simple, +self-taught, recluse man of letters: Macaulay was legislator, cabinet +minister, orator, politician, peer--a pet of society, a famous talker, +and member of numerous academies. Carlyle was poor, despondent, +morbid, and cynical: Macaulay was rich, optimist, overflowing with +health, high spirits, and good nature. The one hardly ever knew what +the world called success: the other hardly ever knew failure. Carlyle +had in him the elements that make the poet, the prophet, the apostle, +the social philosopher. In Macaulay these were singularly wanting; he +was the man of affairs, the busy politician, the rhetorician, the +eulogist of society as it is, the believer in material progress, in the +ultimate triumph of all that is practical and commonplace, and in the +final discomfiture of all that is visionary and Utopian. The +Teufelsdroeckhian dialect is obscure even to its select students: the +Macaulay sentence is plain as that of Swift himself. Carlyle's gospel +is full of passion, novelty, suggestion, theory, and social problems. +Macaulay turned his back on social problems and disdained any kind of +gospel. He had no mission to tell the world how bad it is; on the +contrary, he was never wearied with his proofs that it ought to be well +satisfied with its lot and its vast superiority in all things to its +ancestors. + +The great public, wherever English books penetrate, from the White Sea +to Australia, from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, loves the +brilliant, manly, downright optimist; the critics and the philosophers +care more for the moody and prophetic pessimist. But this does not +decide the matter; and it does not follow that either public or critic +has the whole truth. If books were written only in the dialect, and +with the apocalyptic spirit of _Sartor_, it is certain that millions +would cease to read books, and could gain little from books if they +did. And if the only books were such "purple patches" of history as +Macaulay left us, with their hard and fast divisions of men into sheep +and goats, and minute biographies of fops, pedants, and grandees, +narrated in the same resonant, rhetorical, unsympathetic, and falsely +emphatic style--this generation would have a very patchwork idea of +past ages and a narrow sense of the resources of our English language. +There is room for both literary schools, and we need teachers of many +kinds. We must not ask of any kind more than they can give. Macaulay +has led millions who read no one else, or who never read before, to +know something of the past, and to enjoy reading. He will have done +them serious harm if he has persuaded them that this is the best that +can be done in historical literature, or that this is the way in which +the English language can be most fitly used. Let us be thankful for +his energy, learning, brilliance. He is no priest, philosopher, or +master. Let us delight in him as a fireside companion. + +In one thing all agree--critics, public, friends, and opponents. +Macaulay's was a life of purity, honour, courage, generosity, +affection, and manly perseverance, almost without a stain or a defect. +His life, it was true, was singularly fortunate, and he had but few +trials, and no formidable obstacles. He was bred up in the comfortable +egoism of the opulent middle classes; the religion of comfort, +_laisser-faire_, and social order was infused into his bones. But, so +far as his traditions and temper would permit, his life was as +honourable, as unsullied, and as generous, as ever was that of any man +who lived in the fierce light that beats upon the famous. We know his +nature and his career as well as we know any man's; and we find it on +every side wholesome, just, and right. He has been fortunate in his +biographers, and amply criticised by the best judges. His nephew, Sir +George Trevelyan, has written his life at length in a fine book. Dean +Milman and Mark Pattison have given us vignettes; Cotter Morison has +adorned the _Men of Letters_ series with a delightful and sympathetic +sketch; and John Morley and Leslie Stephen have weighed his work in the +balance with judicial acumen and temperate firmness. There is but one +voice in all this company. It was a fine, generous, honourable, and +sterling nature. His books deserve their vast popularity and may long +continue to maintain it. But Macaulay must not be judged amongst +philosophers--nor even amongst the real masters of the English +language. And, unless duly corrected, he may lead historical students +astray and his imitators into an obtrusive mannerism. + +Let us take a famous passage from one of his most famous essays, +written in the zenith of his powers after his return from India, at the +age of forty--an essay on a grand subject which never ceased to +fascinate his imagination, composed with all his amazing resources of +memory and his dazzling mastery of colour. It is the third paragraph +of his well-known review of Von Ranke's _History of the Popes_. The +passage is familiar to all readers, and some of its phrases are +household words. It is rather long as well as trite; but it contains +in a single page such a profusion of historical suggestion; it is so +vigorous, so characteristic of Macaulay in all his undoubted resources +as in all his mannerism and limitations; it is so essentially true, and +yet so thoroughly obvious; it is so grand in form, and yet so meagre in +philosophic logic, that it may be worth while to analyse it in detail; +and for that purpose it must be set forth, even though it convey to +most readers little more than a sonorous truism. + + +There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy +so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The +history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human +civilisation. No other institution is left standing which carries the +mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the +Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian +amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday when +compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace +back in unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the +nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far +beyond Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the +twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But +the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and +the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy +remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and +youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth, to the +farthest ends of the world, missionaries as zealous as those who landed +in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the +same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her +children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the +New World have more than compensated her for what she has lost in the +Old. Her spiritual ascendancy extends over the vast countries which +lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which, +a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as +that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are +certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be +difficult to show that all the other Christian sects united amount to a +hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates +that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the +commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical +establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance +that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and +respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank +had crossed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in +Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And +she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New +Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a +broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. + + +Here we have Macaulay in all his strength and all his limitations. The +passage contains in the main a solid truth--a truth which was very +little accepted in England in the year 1840--a truth of vast import and +very needful to assert. And this truth is clothed in such pomp of +illustration, and is hammered into the mind with such accumulated +blows; it is so clear, so hard, so coruscating with images, that it is +impossible to escape its effect. The paragraph is one never to be +forgotten, and not easy to be refuted or qualified. No intelligent +tiro in history can read that page without being set a-thinking, +without feeling that he has a formidable problem to solve. Tens of +thousands of young minds must have had that deeply-coloured picture of +Rome visibly before them in many a Protestant home in England and in +America. Now, all this is a very great merit. To have posed a great +historical problem, at a time when it was very faintly grasped, and to +have sent it ringing across the English-speaking world in such a form +that he who runs may read--nay, he who rides, he who sails, he who +watches sheep or stock _must_ read--this is a real and signal service +conferred on literature and on thought. Compare this solid sense with +Carlyle's ribaldry about "the three-hatted Papa," "pig's wash," +"servants of the Devil," "this accursed nightmare," and the rest of his +execrations--and we see the difference between the sane judgment of the +man of the world and the prejudices of intolerant fanaticism. + +But, unfortunately, Macaulay, having stated in majestic antitheses his +problem of "the unchangeable Church," makes no attempt to provide us +with a solution. This splendid eulogium is not meant to convert us to +Catholicism--very far from it. Macaulay was no Catholic, and had only +a sort of literary admiration for the Papacy. As Mr. Cotter Morison +has shown, he leaves the problem just where he found it, and such +theories as he offers are not quite trustworthy. He does not suggest +that the Catholic Church is permanent because it possesses truth: but, +rather, because men's ideas of truth are a matter of idiosyncrasy or +digestion. The whole essay is not a very safe guide to the history of +Protestantism or of Catholicism, though it is full of brilliant points +and sensible assertions. And in the end our essayist, the rebel from +his Puritan traditions, and the close ally of sceptical Gallios, after +forty pages of learned _pros_ and _cons_, declares that he will not say +more for fear of "exciting angry feelings." He rather sneers at +Protestant fervour: he declaims grand sentences about Catholic fervour. +He will not declare for either of them; and it does not seem to matter +much in the long run for which men declare, provided they can be kept +well in hand by saving common-sense. In the meantime the topic is a +mine of paradox to the picturesque historian. This is not philosophy, +it is not history, but it is full of a certain rich literary seed. + +The passage, though a truism to all thoughtful men, was a striking +novelty to English Protestants fifty years ago. But it will hardly +bear a close scrutiny of these sweeping, sharp-edged, "cock-sure" +dogmas of which it is composed. The exact propositions it contains may +be singly accurate; but as to the most enduring "work of human policy," +it is fair to remember that the Civil Law of Rome has a continuous +history of at least twenty-four centuries; that the Roman Empire from +Augustus to the last Constantine in New Rome endured for fifteen +centuries; and from Augustus to the last Hapsburg it endured for +eighteen centuries. There is a certain ambiguity between the way in +which Macaulay alternates between the Papacy and the Christian Church, +which are not at all the same thing. The Papacy, as a European or +cosmical institution, can hardly be said to have more than twelve +centuries of continuous history on the stage of the world. The +religion and institutions of Confucius and of Buddha have twice that +epoch; and the religion and institutions of Moses have thirty +centuries; and the Califate in some form or other is nearly coeval with +the Papacy. The judicious eulogist has guarded himself against denying +in words any of these facts; but a cool survey of universal history +will somewhat blunt the edge of Macaulay's trenchant phrases. After +all, we must admit that the passage as a whole, apart from the +superlatives, is substantially true, and contains a most valuable and +very striking thought. + +Passing from the thought to the form of this famous passage, with what +a wealth of illustration is it enforced, with what telling contrasts, +with what gorgeous associations! How vivid the images, how stately the +personages, who are called up to heighten the lights of the tableau of +the Vatican! Ancient and modern civilisation are joined by it; it +recalls the Pantheon and the Colosseum; it gave sanction to the Empire +of Charlemagne and to that of Napoleon, it inspired Augustin, and +confronted Attila; Venice is a mere modern foundation; the Church is +older than Hengist and Horsa, Clovis, or Mahomet; yet it stretches over +the Atlantic continent from Missouri to Cape Horn, and still goes on +conquering and to conquer. And the climax of this kaleidoscopic +"symphony in purple and gold"--the New Zealander sketching the ruins of +St. Paul's from a broken arch of London Bridge--has become a proverb, +and is repeated daily by men who never heard of Macaulay, much less of +Von Ranke, and is an inimitable bit of picturesque colouring. It is +very telling, nobly hyperbolic, no man can misunderstand it, or forget +it. The most practised hand will not find it easy to "go one better +than" Macaulay in a swingeing trope. It is a fascinating literary +artifice, and it has fascinated many to their ruin. In feebler hands, +it degenerates into what in London journalistic slang is known as +"telegraphese." A pocket encyclopaedia and a copious store of +adjectives have enabled many a youth to roar out brilliant articles "as +gently as a sucking dove." But all men of power have their imitators, +and are open to parody and spurious coining. Now, Macaulay, however +brilliant and kaleidoscopic, is always using his own vast reading, his +own warm imagination, his unfailing fecundity, and his sterling good +sense. + +Turn to the style of the passage--it is perfectly pellucid in meaning, +rings on the ear like the crack of a rifle, is sonorous, rich, and +swift. One can fancy the whole passage spoken by an orator; indeed it +is difficult to resist the illusion that it was "declaimed" before it +was written. We catch the oratorial tags and devices, the repeated +phrase, the incessant antithesis, the alternate rise and fall of +eloquent speech. It is declamation--fine declamation--but we miss the +musical undertones, the subtle involutions, the unexpected bursts, and +mysterious cadences of really great written prose. The term "the +Republic of Venice" is repeated three times in three lines: the term +"the Papacy" is repeated three times in two lines. Any other writer +would substitute a simple "it" for most of these; and it is difficult +to see how the paragraph would lose. The orator aids his hearers by +constant repetition of the same term; the writer avoids this lest he +prove monotonous. The short sentences of four or five words interposed +to break the torrent--the repetition of the same words--the see-saw of +black and white, old and young, base and pure--all these are the +stock-in-trade of the rhetorician, not of the master of written prose. +Now, Macaulay was a rhetorician, a consummate rhetorician, who wrote +powerful invectives or panegyrics in massive rhetoric which differed +from speeches mainly in their very close fibre, in their chiselled +phrasing, and above all in their dazzling profusion of literary +illustration. If it was oratory, it was the oratory of a speaker of +enormous reading, inexhaustible memory, and consummate skill with words. + +There is nothing at all exceptional about this passage which has been +chosen for analysis. It is a fair and typical piece of Macaulay's best +style. Indeed his method is so uniform and so mechanical that any page +of his writing exhibits the same force and the same defects as any +other. Take one of the most famous of his scenes, the trial of Warren +Hastings, toward the end of that elaborate essay, written in 1841. +Every one knows the gorgeous and sonorous description of Westminster +Hall, beginning--"The place was worthy of such a trial." In the next +sentence the word "hall" recurs five times, and the relative "which" +occurs three times, and is not related to the same noun. Ten sentences +in succession open with the pronoun "there." It is a perfect galaxy of +varied colour, pomp, and illustration; but the effect is somewhat +artificial, and the whole scene smells of the court upholsterer. The +"just sentence of Bacon" pairs off with "the just absolution of +Somers"; the "greatest painter" sits beside the "greatest scholar of +the age"; ladies have "lips more persuasive than those of Fox"; there, +too, is "the beautiful mother of a beautiful race." And in the midst +of these long-drawn superlatives and glittering contrasts come in short +martial phrases, as brief and sharp as a drill-sergeant's word of +command. "Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting"--"The avenues +were lined with grenadiers"--"The streets were kept clear by cavalry." +No man can forget these short, hard decisive sentences. + +The artificial structure of his paragraphs grew upon Macaulay with age. +His _History of England_ opens with a paragraph of four sentences. +Each of these begins with "I purpose," "I shall"; and the last sentence +of the four has ten clauses each beginning with "how." The next +paragraph has four successive sentences beginning "It will be +seen"--and the last sentence has again three clauses each beginning +with "how." The fourth paragraph contains the word "I" four times in +as many lines. This method of composition has its own merits. The +repetition of words and phrases helps the perception and prevents the +possibility of misunderstanding. Where effects are simply enumerated, +the monotony of form is logically correct. Every successive sentence +heralded by a repeated "how," or "there," or "I," adjusts itself into +its proper line without an effort of thought on the reader's part. It +is not graceful; it is pompous, and distinctly rhetorical. But it is +eminently clear, emphatic, orderly, and easy to follow or to remember. +Hence it is unpleasing to the finely-attuned ear, and is counted +somewhat vulgar by the trained lover of style, whilst it is immensely +popular with those who read but little, and is able to give them as +much pleasure as it gives instruction. + +The famous passage about Westminster Hall, written in 1841, may be +compared with the equally known passage on the Chapel in the Tower +which occurs in the fifth chapter of the _History_, written in 1848. +It begins as all lovers of English remember--"In truth there is no +sadder spot on the earth than this little cemetery." The passage +continues with "there" and "thither" repeated eight times; it bristles +with contrasts, graces and horrors, antithesis, climax, and sonorous +heraldries. "Such was the dust with which the dust of Monmouth +mingled." It is a fine paragraph, which has impressed and delighted +millions. But it is, after all, rather facile moralising; its +rhetorical artifice has been imitated with success in many a prize +essay and not a few tall-talking journals. How much more pathos is +there in a stanza from Gray's _Elegy_, or a sentence from Carlyle's +_Bastille_, or Burke's _French Revolution_! + +The habit of false emphasis and the love of superlatives is a far worse +defect, and no one has attempted to clear Macaulay of the charge. It +runs through every page he wrote, from his essay on Milton, with which +he astonished the town at the age of twenty-five, down to the close of +his _History_ wherein we read that James II. valued Lord Perth as +"author of the last improvements on the thumb-screw." Indeed no more +glaring example of Macaulay's _megalomania_ or taste for exaggeration +can be found than the famous piece in the _Milton_ on the Restoration +of Charles II. + + +Then came those days, never to be recalled without a blush, the days of +servitude without loyalty and sensuality without love, of dwarfish +talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow +minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The +king cringed to his rival that he might trample on his people, sank +into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her +degrading insults, and her more degrading gold. The caresses of +harlots and the jests of buffoons regulated the policy of the State. +The government had just ability enough to deceive and just religion +enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the scoff of every +grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. +In every high place, worship was paid to Charles and James, Belial and +Moloch; and England propitiated these obscene and cruel idols with the +blood of her best and bravest children. Crime succeeded to crime, and +disgrace to disgrace, till the race, accursed of God and man, was a +second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and to be +a by-word and a shaking of the head to the nations. + + +This is vigorous invective, in the style of Cicero against Catiline, or +Junius attacking a duke; it is brilliant rhetoric and scathing satire. +At bottom it has substantial truth, if the attention is fixed on +Whitehall and the scandalous chronicle of its frequenters. It differs +also from much in Macaulay's invectives in being the genuine hot-headed +passion of an ardent reformer only twenty-five years old. It is +substantially true as a picture of the Court at the Restoration: +but in form how extravagant, even of that! Charles II. is Belial; +James is Moloch; and Charles is _propitiated_ by the blood of +Englishmen!--Charles, easy, courteous, good-natured, profligate +Charles. And all this of the age of the _Paradise Lost_ and the +_Morning Hymn_, of Jeremy Taylor, Izaak Walton, Locke, Newton, and +Wren! Watch Macaulay banging on his antithetic drum--"servitude +without loyalty and sensuality without love"--"dwarfish talents and +gigantic vices"--"ability enough to deceive"--"religion enough to +persecute." Every phrase is a superlative; every word has its +contrast; every sentence has its climax. And withal let us admit that +it is tremendously powerful, that no one who ever read it can forget +it, and few even who have read it fail to be tinged with its fury and +contempt. And, though a tissue of superlatives, it bears a solid +truth, and has turned to just thoughts many a young spirit prone to be +fascinated by Charles's good-nature, and impressed with the halo of the +divine consecration of kings. + +But the savage sarcasms which are tolerable in a passionate young +reformer smarting under the follies of George IV., are a serious defect +in a grave historian, when used indiscriminately of men and women in +every age and under every condition. In his _Machiavelli_, Macaulay +hints that the best histories are perhaps "those in which a little of +fictitious narrative is judiciously employed." "Much," he says, "is +gained in effect." It is to be feared that this youthful indiscretion +was never wholly purged out of him. Boswell, we know, was "a dunce, a +parasite, and a coxcomb"--_and therefore_ immortal. He was one of "the +smallest men that ever lived," of "the meanest and feeblest intellect," +"servile," "shallow," "a bigot and a sot," and so forth--and yet, "a +great writer, _because_ he was a great fool." We all know what is +meant; and there is a substratum of truth in this; but it is tearing a +paradox to tatters. How differently has Carlyle dealt with poor dear +Bozzy! Croker's _Boswell's Johnson_ "is as bad as bad can be," full of +"monstrous blunders"--(he had put 1761 for 1766) "gross mistakes"--"for +which a schoolboy would be flogged." Southey is "utterly destitute of +the power of discerning truth from falsehood." He prints a joke which +"is enough to make us ashamed of our species." Robert Montgomery pours +out "a roaring cataract of nonsense." One of his tropes is "the worst +similitude in the world." And yet Macaulay can rebuke Johnson for "big +words wasted on little things"! + +Neither Cicero, Milton, Swift, nor Junius ever dealt in more furious +words than Macaulay, who had not the excuse of controversy or passion. +Frederick William of Prussia was "the most execrable of fiends, a cross +between Moloch and Puck"; "his palace was hell"; compared with the +Prince, afterwards Frederick the Great, "Oliver Twist in the workhouse, +and Smike at Dotheboys Hall were petted children." It would be +difficult for Mark Twain to beat that. "The follies and vices of King +John _were the salvation_ of England." Cranmer was peculiarly fitted +to organise the Church of England by being "unscrupulous, indifferent, +a coward, and a time-server." James I. was given to "stammering, +slobbering, shedding unmanly tears," alternating between the buffoon +and the pedagogue. James II. "amused himself with hearing Covenanters +shriek"; he was "a libertine, singularly slow and narrow in +understanding, obstinate, harsh, and unforgiving." The country +gentleman of that age talked like "the most ignorant clown"; his wife +and daughter were in taste "below a stillroom maid of the present day." +The chaplain was a mere servant, and was expected to marry a servant +girl whose character had been blown upon. + +But it ought to be remembered that all of these descriptions are +substantially true. Macaulay's pictures of the Stuarts, of Cromwell, +of the Restoration and its courtiers, of Milton, of William III., are +all faithful and just; Boswell _was_ often absurd; Southey _was_ +shallow; Montgomery _was_ an impostor; Frederick William _did_ treat +his son brutally; the country squire and the parson two centuries ago +were much rougher people than they are to-day. And if Macaulay had +simply told us this in measured language of this kind, he would have +failed in beating his lesson into the mind. Not only was "a little of +fictitious narrative judiciously employed," but not a little of +picturesque exaggeration and redundant superlatives. Carlyle is an +even worse offender in this line. Did he not call Macaulay himself +"squat, low-browed, commonplace"--"a poor creature, with his dictionary +literature and his saloon arrogance"--"no vision in him"--"will neither +see nor do any great thing"?[1] Ruskin, Freeman, Froude, and others +have been tempted to deal in gross superlatives. But with all these it +has been under the stimulus of violent indignation. With Macaulay the +superlatives pour out as his native vernacular without heat or wrath, +as a mere rhetorician's trick, as the favourite tones of a great +colourist. And though the trick, like all literary tricks, grows upon +the artist, and becomes singularly offensive to the man of taste, it +must always be remembered that, with Macaulay, the praise or blame is +usually just and true; he is very rarely grossly unfair and wrong, as +Carlyle so often is; and if Macaulay resorts too often to the +superlative degree, he is usually entitled to use the comparative +degree of the same adjective. + +The style, with all its defects, has had a solid success and has done +great things. By clothing his historical judgments and his critical +reflections in these cutting and sonorous periods, he has forced them +on the attention of a vast body of readers wherever English is read at +all, and on millions who have neither time nor attainments for any +regular studies of their own. How many men has Macaulay succeeded in +reaching, to whom all other history and criticism is a closed book, or +a book in an unknown tongue! If he were a sciolist or a wrong-headed +fanatic, this would be a serious evil. But, as he is substantially +right in his judgments, brimful of saving common-sense and generous +feeling, and profoundly well read in his own periods and his favourite +literature, Macaulay has conferred most memorable services on the +readers of English throughout the world. He stands between philosophic +historians and the public very much as journals and periodicals stand +between the masses and great libraries. Macaulay is a glorified +journalist and reviewer, who brings the matured results of scholars to +the man in the street in a form that he can remember and enjoy, when he +could not make use of a merely learned book. He performs the office of +the ballad-maker or story-teller in an age before books were known or +were common. And it is largely due to his influence that the best +journals and periodicals of our day are written in a style so clear, so +direct, so resonant. We need not imitate his mannerism; we may all +learn to be outspoken, lucid, and brisk. + +It is the very perfection of his qualities in rousing the interest of +the great public which has drawn down on Macaulay the grave rebukes of +so many fine judges of the higher historical literature. Cotter +Morison, Mark Pattison, Leslie Stephen, and John Morley all agree that +his style has none of the subtler charms of the noblest prose, that his +conception of history is radically unsound, that, in fact, it broke +down by its own unwieldy proportions. Mr. Morison has very justly +remarked that if the _History of England_ had ever been completed on +the same scale for the whole of the period as originally designed, it +would have run to fifty volumes, and would have occupied in composition +one hundred and fifty years. As it is, the eight duodecimo volumes +give us the events of sixteen years, from 1685 to 1701; so that the +history of England from Alfred would require five hundred similar +volumes. Now, Gibbon's eight octavo volumes give us the history of the +world for thirteen centuries; that is to say, Gibbon has recounted the +history of a century in nearly the same space that Macaulay records the +history of a year. There cannot be a doubt that Gibbon's _Decline and +Fall_ is immeasurably superior to Macaulay's fragment, in thought, in +imagination, in form, in all the qualities of permanent history; it +stands on a far higher plane; it will long outlast and overshadow it. +Compared with this, Macaulay's delightful and brilliant pictures are +mere glorified journalism. + +Macaulay, who was no braggart, has put it on record that his conception +of history was more just than that of Hume, Robertson, Voltaire, and +Gibbon. It is perfectly true that his conception was different from +theirs, his execution was different, and he does not address the same +class of readers. But his conception of history was not just; it was a +mistake. His leading idea was to make history a true romance. He has +accomplished this; and he has given us _a historical novel drawn from +authentic documents_. This is, no doubt, a very useful thing to do, a +most interesting book to read; it is very pleasant literature, and has +a certain teaching of its own to a certain order of readers. But it is +not history. It sacrifices the breadth of view, the organic life, the +philosophy, the grand continuity of human society. It must be a +sectional picture of a very limited period in a selected area; it can +give us only the external; it inevitably tends to trivial detail and to +amusing personalities; it necessarily blinds us to the slow sequence of +the ages. Besides this, it explains none of the deeper causes of +movement; for, to make a picture, the artist must give us the visible +and the obvious. History, in its highest sense, is the record of the +evolution of humanity, in whole or in part. To compose an historical +novel from documents is to put this object aside. History, said +Macaulay in his _Hallam_, "is a compound of poetry and philosophy." But +in practice, he substituted word-painting for poetry, and anecdote for +philosophy. His own delightful and popular _History of England_ is a +compound of historical romance and biographical memoir. + +Macaulay's strong point was in narrative, and in narrative he has been +surpassed by hardly any historian and even by few novelists. Scott and +Victor Hugo have hardly a scene more stirring than Macaulay's death of +Charles II., Monmouth's rebellion, the flight of James II., the trial +of Titus Gates, the inner life of William III. This is a very great +quality which has deservedly made him popular. And if Macaulay had +less philosophy than almost any historian of the smallest pretension, +he has a skill in narration which places him in a fair line with the +greatest. Unfortunately, this superb genius for narration has rarely +been devoted to the grander events and the noblest chiefs in history. +Even his hero William III. hardly lives in his canvas with such a +glowing light as Charles II., Monmouth, and Jeffreys. The expulsion of +James II. was a very poor affair if compared with the story of Charles +I. and the Parliament. If Macaulay had painted for us the Council +Chamber of Cromwell as he has painted the Whitehall of Charles II.; if +he had described the battle of Naseby as well as he has pictured the +fight of Sedgemoor; if he had narrated the campaigns of Marlborough as +brilliantly as he has told that which ended at the Boyne--how much +should we have had! + +But it could not be. His own conception of history made this +impossible. It is well said that he planned his history "on the scale +of an ordnance map." He did what a German professor does when he tries +to fathom English society by studying the _Times_ newspaper day by day. +The enormous mass of detail, the infinitesimal minuteness of view, beat +him. As he complained about Samuel Johnson, he runs into "big words +about little things." Charles's mistress, her pug-dog, the page-boy +who tended the dog, nay, the boy's putative father, occupy the +foreground: and the poet, the statesman, and the hero retire into the +middle distance or the background. What would we not have given to +have had Macaulay's _History of England_ continued down to his own +time, the wars of Marlborough, the reign of Anne, the poets, wits, +romancers, inventors, reformers, and heroes of the eighteenth century, +the careers of Walpole, Chatham, Pitt, Burke, Fox, Nelson, Wellington, +Brougham, Bentham, and Canning--the formation of the British +Empire--the great revolutionary struggle in Europe! The one thought +which dims our enjoyment of this fascinating collection of memoirs, and +these veracious historical romances, is the sense of what we might have +had, if their author had been a great historian as well as a +magnificent literary artist. + + + +[1] Froude's _Carlyle_, i. 192. + + + + +IV + +BENJAMIN DISRAELI + +In the blaze of the political reputation of the Earl of Beaconsfield we +are too apt to overlook the literary claims of Benjamin Disraeli. But +many of those who have small sympathy with his career as a statesman +find a keen relish in certain of his writings; and it is hardly a +paradox to augur that in a few generations more the former chief of the +new Tory Democracy may have become a tradition, whilst certain of his +social satires may continue to be widely read. Bolingbroke, Swift, +Sheridan, and Macaulay live in English literature, but are little +remembered as politicians; and Burke, the philosopher, grows larger in +power over our thoughts, as Burke, the party orator, becomes less and +less by time. We do not talk of Viscount St. Albans, the learned +Chancellor: we speak only of Bacon, the brilliant writer, the potent +thinker. And so perhaps in the next century, we shall hear less of +Lord Beaconsfield, the Imperial Prime Minister: but Benjamin Disraeli's +pictures of English society and the British Parliament may still amuse +and instruct our descendants. + +It is true that the permanent parts of his twenty works may prove to be +small. Pictures, vignettes, sketches, epigrams will survive rather +than elaborate works of art; these gems of wit and fancy will have to +be picked out of a mass of rubbish; and they will be enjoyed for their +vivacious originality and Voltairean pungency, not as masterpieces or +complete creations. That Disraeli wrote much stuff is true enough. +But so did Fielding, so did Swift, and Defoe, and Goldsmith. Writers +are to be judged by their best; and it does not matter so very much if +that best is little in bulk. Disraeli's social and political satires +have a peculiar and rare flavour of their own, charged with an insight +and a vein of wit such as no other man perhaps in this century has +touched--so that, even though they be thrown off in sketches and +sometimes in mere _jeux d'esprit_, they bring him into the company of +Swift, Voltaire, and Montesquieu. He is certainly inferior to all +these mighty satirists both in wit and passion, and also in definite +purpose. But he has touches of their lightning-flash irradiating +contemporary society. And it seems a pity that the famous _Men of +Letters_ series which admits (and rightly admits) Hawthorne and De +Quincey, could find no room for the author of _Ixion in Heaven_, _The +Infernal Marriage_, _Coningsby_, and _Lothair_. + +Disraeli's literary reputation has suffered much in England by the +unfortunate circumstance of his having been the leader of a political +party. As the chief of a powerful party which he transformed with +amazing audacity, as the victorious destroyer of the old Whig oligarchy +and the founder of the new Tory democracy, as a man of Jewish birth and +alien race, as a man to whom satire was the normal weapon and bombastic +affectation a deliberate expedient for dazzling the weak--Disraeli, +even in his writings, has been exposed in England to a bitter system of +disparagement which blinds partisans to their real literary merit. His +political opponents, and they are many and savage, can see little to +admire in his strange romances: his political worshippers and +followers, who took him seriously as a great statesman, are not fond of +imagining their hero as an airy satirist. His romances as well as his +satires are wholly unlike anything English; and though he had brilliant +literary powers, he never acquired any serious literary education. +Much as he had read, he had no learning, and no systematic knowledge of +any kind. He was never, strictly speaking, even an accurate master of +literary English. He would slip, as it were, unconsciously, into +foreign idioms and obsolete words. In America, where his name arouses +no political prejudice, he is better judged. To the Englishman, at +least to the pedant, he is still a somewhat elaborate jest. + +Let us put aside every bias of political sympathy and anything that we +know or suspect of the nature of the man, and we may find in the +writer, Benjamin Disraeli, certain very rare qualities which justify +his immense popularity in America, and which ought to maintain it in +England. In his preface to _Lothair_ (October 1870), he proudly said +that it had been "more extensively read both by the people of the +United Kingdom and the United States than any work that has appeared +for the last half century." This singular popularity must have a +ground. Disraeli, in truth, belongs to that very small group of real +political satirists of whom Swift is the type. He is not the equal of +the terrible Dean; but it may be doubted if any Englishman since Swift +has had the same power of presenting vivid pictures and decisive +criticisms of the political and social organism of his times. It is +this Aristophanic gift which Swift had. Voltaire, Montesquieu, +Rabelais, Diderot, Heine, Beaumarchais had it. Carlyle had it for +other ages, and in a historic spirit. There have been far greater +satirists, men like Fielding and Thackeray, who have drawn far more +powerful pictures of particular characters, foibles, or social +maladies. But since Swift we have had no Englishman who could give us +a vivid and amusing picture of our political life, as laid bare to the +eye of a consummate political genius. + +It must be admitted that, with all the rare qualities of Disraeli's +literary work, he hardly ever took it quite seriously, or except as an +interlude and with some ulterior aim. In his early pieces he simply +sought to startle the town and to show what a wonderfully clever young +fellow had descended upon it. In his later books, such as _Coningsby_, +_Sybil_, and _Tancred_, he wished to propound a new party programme. +_Lothair_ was a picture of British society, partly indulgent and +sympathetic, partly caustic or contemptuous, but presented all through +with a vein of _persiflage_, mockery, and extravaganza. All this was +amusing and original; but every one of these things is fatal to +sustained and serious art. If an active politician seeks to galvanise +a new party by a series of novels, the romances cannot be works of +literary art. If a young man wants only to advertise his own +smartness, he will not produce a beautiful thing. And if a statesman +out of office wishes to amuse himself by alternate banter and laudation +of the very society which he has led and which looks to him as its +inspiration, the result will be infinitely entertaining, but not a +great work of art. Disraeli therefore with literary gifts of a very +high order never used them in the way in which a true artist works, and +only resorted to them as a means of gaining some practical and even +material end. + +But, if Disraeli's ambition led him to political and social triumphs, +for which he sacrificed artistic success and literary honours, we ought +not to be blind to the rare qualities which are squandered in his +books. He did not produce immortal romances--he knew nothing of an +ingenious plot, or a striking situation, or a creative character--but +he did give us inimitable political satires and some delicious social +pantomimes; and he presented these with an original wit in which the +French excel, which is very rare indeed in England. Ask not of +Disraeli more than he professes to give you, judge him by his own +standard, and he will still furnish you with delightful reading, with +suggestive and original thoughts. He is usually inclined to make game +of his reader, his subject, and even of himself; but he lets you see +that he never forgets this, and never attempts to conceal it. He is +seldom dull, never sardonic or cruel, and always clean, healthy, and +decent. His heroines are ideal fairy queens, his heroes are all +visionary and chivalrous nincompoops; and even, though we know that +much of it is whimsical banter and nonsensical fancy, there is an air +of refined extravaganza in these books which may continue to give them +a lasting charm. + +The short juvenile drolleries of his restless youth are the least +defective as works of art; and, being brief and simple _jeux d'esprit_ +of a rare order, they are entirely successful and infinitely amusing. +_Ixion in Heaven_, _The Infernal Marriage_, and _Popanilla_, are +astonishing products of a lad of twenty-three, who knew nothing of +English society, and who had had neither regular education nor social +opportunities. They have been compared with the social satirettes of +Lucian, Swift, and Voltaire. It is true they have not the fine touch +and exquisite polish of the witty Greek of Samosata, nor the subtle +irony of Voltaire and Montesquieu, nor the profound grasp of the Dean. +But they are full of wit, observation, sparkle, and fun. The style is +careless and even incorrect, but it is full of point and life. The +effects are rather stagey, and the smartness somewhat strained--that +is, if these boyish trifles are compared with _Candide_ and the +_Lettres Persanes_. As pictures of English society, court, and manners +in 1827 painted in fantastic apologues, they are most ingenious, and +may be read again and again. The _Infernal Marriage_, in the vein of +the _Dialogues of the Dead_, is the most successful. _Ixion_ is rather +broader, simpler, and much more slight, but is full of boisterous fun. +_Popanilla_, a more elaborate satire in direct imitation of _Gulliver's +Travels_, is neither so vivacious nor so easy as the smaller pieces, +but it is full of wit and insight. Nothing could give a raw Hebrew lad +the sustained imagination and passion of Jonathan Swift; but there are +few other masters of social satire with whom the young genius of +twenty-three can be compared. These three satires, which together do +not fill 200 pages, are read and re-read by busy and learned men after +nearly seventy years have passed. And that is in itself a striking +proof of their originality and force. + +It is not fair to one who wrote under the conditions of Benjamin +Disraeli to take any account of his inferior work: we must judge him at +his best. He avowedly wrote many pot-boilers merely for money; he +began to write simply to make the world talk about him, and he hardly +cared what the world might say; and he not seldom wrote rank bombast in +open contempt for his reader, apparently as if he had made a bet to +ascertain how much stuff the British public would swallow. _Vivian +Grey_ is a lump of impudence; _The Young Duke_ is a lump of +affectation; _Alroy_ is ambitious balderdash. They all have passages +and epigrams of curious brilliancy and trenchant observation; they have +wit, fancy, and life scattered up and down their pages. But they are +no longer read, nor do they deserve to be read. _Contarini Fleming_, +_Henrietta Temple_, _Venetia_, are full of sentiment, and occasionally +touch a poetic vein. They had ardent admirers once, even amongst +competent judges. They may still be read, and they have scenes, +descriptions, and detached thoughts of real charm, and almost of true +beauty. They are not, in any sense, works of art; they are ill +constructed, full of the mawkish gush of the Byronic fever, and never +were really sincere and genuine products of heart and brain. They were +show exercises in the Byronic mode. And, though we may still take them +up for an hour for the occasional flashes of genius and wit they +retain, no one believes that they can add much permanent glory to the +name of Benjamin Disraeli. + +Apart from the three early burlesques of which we have spoken--trifles +indeed and crude enough, but trifles that sparkle with penetration and +wit--the books on which Disraeli's reputation alone can be founded are +_Coningsby_, _Sybil_, and _Lothair_. These all contain many striking +epigrams, ingenious theories, original suggestions, vivacious +caricatures, and even creative reflections, mixed, it must be admitted, +with not a little transparent nonsense. But they are all so charged +with bright invention, keen criticism, quaint paradox, they are so +entirely unlike anything else in our recent literature, and they +pierce, in a Voltairean way, so deeply to the roots of our social and +political fabric, that they may long continue to be read. In the +various prefaces, and especially in the general preface to _Lothair_ +(of October 1870), Disraeli has fully explained the origin and aim of +these and his other works. It is written, as usual, with his tongue in +his cheek, in that vein of semi-bombastic paradox which was designed to +mystify the simple and to amuse the acuter reader. But there is an +inner seriousness in it all; and, as it has a certain correspondence +with his public career and achievements, it must be taken as +substantially true. _Coningsby_ (1844) and _Sybil_ (1845) were written +in the vigour of manhood and the early days of his political ambition, +with an avowed purpose of founding a new party in Parliament. It must +be admitted that they did to some extent effect their purpose--not +immediately or directly, and only as part of their author's schemes. +But the Primrose League and the New Tory Democracy of our day bear +witness to the vitality of the movement which, fifty years ago, +Disraeli propounded to a puzzled world. _Lothair_ (1870) came +twenty-five years later--when he had outlived his illusions; and in +more artistic and more mellow tones he painted the weaknesses of a +society that he had failed to inspire, but which it gratified his pride +to command. + +"_Coningsby_, _Sybil_, and _Tancred_," says he, in his grandiose way, +"form a real Trilogy." "The derivation and character of political +parties,"--he goes on to explain--"was the subject of _Coningsby_." +"The condition of the people which had been the consequence of +them"--was the subject of _Sybil_. "The duties of the Church as a main +remedial agency" and "the race who had been the founders of +Christianity" [although, surely, friend Benjamin, if we are to believe +the Gospels, the murderers and persecutors of Christ and His +Apostles]--were the subjects of _Tancred_ (1847). _Tancred_, though it +has some highly amusing scenes, may be dismissed at once. Disraeli +fought for the Chosen Race, their endowments and achievements, with +wonderful courage and ingenuity. It was perhaps the cause which he had +most deeply at heart, from its intimate relation to his own superb +ambition and pride. But it has made no real way, nor has it made any +converts, unless we count _Daniel Deronda_ as amongst them. +Thackeray's "Codlingsby" has almost extinguished "Sidonia." And the +strange phantasmagoria of the Anglican Church, revivified by the +traditions of Judaism, and ascending to the throne of St. Peter, is +perhaps the most stupendous joke which even Disraeli had ever dared to +perpetrate. In the preface to _Lothair_ we read:-- + + +The tradition of the Anglican Church was powerful. Resting on the +Church of Jerusalem, modified by the divine school of Galilee, it would +have found that rock of truth which Providence, by the instrumentality +of the Semitic race, had promised to St. Peter. + + +Whatever this jargon may mean, the public has allowed it to fall flat. +It seems to suggest that the Archbishop of Canterbury, by resuming the +tradition of Caiaphas, as "modified" by the Sermon on the Mount, might +oust the Pope of Rome as was foretold by the Divine young Jewish +reformer when he called the fishermen of Galilee. It is difficult to +believe that Disraeli himself was serious in all this. In the last +scene, as Tancred is proposing to the lovely Jewess, their privacy is +disturbed by a crowd of retainers around the papa and mamma of the +young heir. The last lines of _Tancred_ are these:--"The Duke and +Duchess of Bellamont had arrived at Jerusalem." This is hardly the way +in which to preach a New Gospel to a sceptical and pampered generation. + +But, if the regeneration of the Church of England by a re-Judaising +process and by return to the Targum of the Pharisees has proved +abortive, it must be admitted that, from the political point of view, +the conception announced in the "trilogy," and rhapsodically +illustrated in _Tancred_--the conception of the Anglican Church +reviving its political ascendancy and developing "the most efficient +means of the renovation of the national spirit"--has not proved quite +abortive. It shows astonishing prescience to have seen fifty years ago +that the Church of England might yet become a considerable political +power, and could be converted, by a revival of Mediaeval traditions, +into a potent instrument of the New Tory Democracy. Whatever we may +think about the strengthening of the Established Church from the point +of view of intellectual solidity or influence with the nation, it can +hardly be doubted that in the fifty years that have passed since the +date of the "trilogy," the Church as a body has rallied to one party in +the State, and has proved a potent ally of militant Imperialism and +Tory Democracy. Lord Beaconsfield lived to witness that great +transformation in the Church of the High and Dry Pluralists and the +Simeonite parsons, which he had himself so powerfully organised in +Parliament, in society, and on the platform. His successor to-day can +count on no ally so sure and loyal as the Church. But it was a +wonderful inspiration for a young man fifty years ago to perceive that +this could be done--and to see the way in which it might be done. + +_Coningsby_ and _Sybil_ at any rate were active forces in the formation +of a definite political programme. And this was a programme which in +Parliament and in the country their author himself had created, +organised, and led to victory. It cannot be denied that they largely +contributed to this result. And thus these books have this very +remarkable and almost unique character. It would be very difficult to +mention anything like a romance in any age or country which had ever +effected a direct political result or created a new party. _Don +Quixote_ is said to have annihilated chivalry; _Tartuffe_ dealt a blow +at the pretensions of the Church; and the _Marriage of Figaro_ at those +of the old _noblesse_. It is possible that _Bleak House_ gave some +impulse to law reform, and _Vanity Fair_ has relieved us of a good deal +of snobbery. But no novel before or since ever created a political +party and provided them with a new programme. _Coningsby_ and _Sybil_ +really did this; and it may be doubted if it could have been done in +any other way. "Imagination, in the government of nations" (we are +told in the preface to _Lothair_) "is a quality not less important than +reason." Its author trusts much "to a popular sentiment which rested +on a heroic tradition and which was sustained by the high spirit of a +free aristocracy." + +Now this is a kind of party programme which it was almost impossible to +propound on the platform or in Parliament. These imaginative and +somewhat Utopian schemes of "changing back the oligarchy into a +generous aristocracy round a real throne," of "infusing life and +vigour into the Church as the trainer of the nation," of recalling +the popular sympathies "to the principles of loyalty and religious +reverence"--these were exactly the kind of new ideas which it would be +difficult to expound in the House of Commons or in a towns-meeting. In +the preface to _Coningsby_ the author tells us that, after reflection, +the form of fiction seemed to be the best method of influencing +opinion. These books then present us with the unique example of an +ambitious statesman resorting to romance as his means of reorganising a +political party. + +There is another side to this feature which is also unique and +curiously full of interest. These romances are the only instances in +which any statesman of the first rank, who for years was the ruling +spirit of a great empire, has thrown his political conceptions and +schemes into an imaginative form. And these books, from _Vivian Grey_ +(1825) to _Endymion_ (1880), extend over fifty-five years; some being +published before his political career seemed able to begin, some in the +midst of it, and the later books after it was ended. In the +grandiloquent style of the autobiographical prefaces, we may say that +they recall to us the _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius, the _Political +Testament_ of Richelieu, and the _Conversations_ of Napoleon at St. +Helena. + +In judging these remarkable works, we ought to remember that they are +not primarily romances at all, that they do not compete with genuine +romances, and they ought to be read for the qualities they have, not +for those in which they fail. They are in part autobiographical +sketches, meditations on society, historical disquisitions, and +political manifestoes. They are the productions of a statesman aiming +at a practical effect, not of a man of letters creating a work of +imaginative art. The creative form is quite subsidiary and +subordinate. It would be unreasonable to expect in them elaborate +drawing of character, complex plot, or subtle types of contemporary +life. Their aim is to paint the actual political world, to trace its +origin, and to idealise its possible development. And this is done, +not by an outside man of letters, but by the very man who had conquered +a front place in this political world, and who had more or less +realised his ideal development. They are almost the only pictures of +the inner parliamentary life we have; and they are painted by an artist +who was first and foremost a great parliamentary power, of consummate +experience and insight. If the artistic skill were altogether absent, +we should not read them at all, as nobody reads Lord Russell's dramas +or the poems of Frederick the Great. But the art, though unequal and +faulty, is full of vigour, originality, and suggestion. Taken as a +whole, they are quite unique. + +_Coningsby; or, the New Generation_, was the earliest and in some ways +the best of the trilogy. It is still highly diverting as a novel, and, +as we see to-day, was charged with potent ideas and searching +criticism. It was far more real and effective as a romance than +anything Disraeli had previously written. There are scenes and +characters in the story which will live in English literature. +Thackeray could hardly have created more living portraits than "Rigby," +"Tadpole," and "Taper," or "Lord Monmouth." These are characters which +are household words with us like "Lord Steyne" and "Rawdon Crawley." +The social pictures are as realistic as those of Trollope, and now and +then as bright as those of Thackeray. The love-making is tender, +pretty, and not nearly so mawkish as that of "Henrietta Temple" and +"Venetia." There is plenty of wit, epigram, squib, and _bon mot_. +There is almost none of that rhodomontade which pervades the other +romances, except as to "Sidonia" and the supremacy of the Hebrew +race--a topic on which Benjamin himself was hardly sane. _Coningsby_, +as a novel, is sacrificed to its being a party manifesto and a +political programme first and foremost. But as a novel it is good. It +is the only book of Disraeli's in which we hardly ever suspect that he +is merely trying to fool us. It is not so gay and fantastic as +_Lothair_. But, being far more real and serious, it is perhaps the +best of Disraeli's novels. + +As a political manifesto, Coningsby has been an astonishing success. +The grand idea of Disraeli's life was to struggle against what he +called the "Venetian Constitution," imposed and maintained by the "Whig +Oligarchy." As Radical, as Tory, as novelist, as statesman, his ruling +idea was "to dish the Whigs," in Lord Derby's historic phrase. And he +did "dish the Whigs." The old Whigs have disappeared from English +politics. They have either amalgamated with the Tories, become +Unionist Conservatives, henchmen of Lord Salisbury, or else have become +Gladstonians and Radicals. The so-called Whigs of 1895, if any +politicians so call themselves, are far more Tory than the Whigs of +1844, and the Tories of 1895 are far more democratic than the Whigs of +1844. This complete transformation is very largely due to Disraeli +himself. + +Strictly speaking, Disraeli has eliminated from our political arena +both "Whig" and "Tory," as understood in the old language of our party +history. And the first sketch of the new policy was flung upon an +astonished public in _Coningsby_, just fifty years ago. No doubt, the +arduous task of educating the Conservative Party into the new faith of +Tory Democracy was not effected by _Coningsby_ alone. But it may be +doubted if Mr. Disraeli would have accomplished it by his speeches +without his writings. As a sketch of the inner life of the +parliamentary system of fifty years ago, _Coningsby_ is perfect and has +never been approached. Both Thackeray and Trollope have painted +Parliament and public life so far as it could be seen from a London +club. But Disraeli has painted it as it was known to a man who threw +his whole life into it, and who was himself a consummate parliamentary +leader. + +_Sybil; or, the Two Nations_, the second of the trilogy (1845), was +devoted, he tells us, "to the condition of the people," that dismal +result of the "Venetian Constitution" and of the "Whig Oligarchy" which +he had denounced in _Coningsby_. _Sybil_ was perhaps the most +genuinely serious of all Disraeli's romances; and in many ways it was +the most powerful. Disraeli himself was a man of sympathetic and +imaginative nature who really felt for the suffering and oppressed. He +was tender-hearted as a man, however sardonic as a politician. He had +seen and felt the condition of the people in 1844. It was a time of +cruel suffering which also stirred the spirits of Carlyle, Mill, +Cobden, and Bright. It led to the new Radicalism of which Mr. +Gladstone and Mr. John Morley are eminent types. But the genius of +Disraeli saw that it might also become the foundation of a new Toryism; +and _Sybil_ was the first public manifesto of the new departure. The +political history of the last fifty years is evidence of his insight +that, to recover their political ascendancy, a Conservative Party must +take in hand "the condition of the people," under the leadership of "a +generous aristocracy," and in alliance with a renovated Church. These +are the ideas of _Sybil_, though in the novel they are adumbrated in a +dim and fantastic way. As a romance, _Sybil_ is certainly inferior to +_Coningsby_. As a political manifesto, it has had an almost greater +success, and the movement that it launched is far from exhausted even +yet. One of Disraeli's comrades in the new programme of 1844-5 was a +member of the last Conservative cabinet. And when we consider all the +phases of Tory Democracy, Socialistic Toryism, and the current type of +Christian Socialism, we may come to regard the ideas propounded in +_Sybil_ as not quite so visionary as they appeared to the Whigs, +Radicals, Free Traders, and Benthamites of fifty years ago. + +In _Lothair_, which did not appear until twenty-five years after +_Sybil_, we find an altered and more mellow tone, as of a man who was +playing with his own puppets, and had no longer any startling theories +to propound or political objects to win. For this reason it is in some +ways the most complete and artistic of Disraeli's romances. The plot +is not suspended by historical disquisitions on the origin of the Whig +oligarchy, by pictures of the House of Commons that must weary those +who know nothing about it, and by enthusiastic appeals to the younger +aristocracy to rouse itself and take in hand the condition of the +people. In 1870, Mr. Disraeli had little hope of realising his earlier +visions, and he did not write _Lothair_ to preach a political creed. +The tale is that he avowed three motives, the first to occupy his mind +on his fall from power, the second to make a large sum which he much +needed, and the third to paint the manners of the highest order of rank +and wealth, of which he alone amongst novelists had intimate knowledge. +That is exactly what we see in _Lothair_. It is airy, fantastic, pure, +graceful, and extravagant. The whole thing goes to bright music, like +a comic opera of Gilbert and Sullivan. There is life and movement; but +it is a scenic and burlesque life. There is wit, criticism, and +caricature;, but it does not cut deep, and it is neither hot nor +fierce. There is some pleasant tom-foolery; but at a comic opera we +enjoy this graceful nonsense. We see in every page the trace of a +powerful mind; but it is a mind laughing at its own creatures, at +itself, at us. _Lothair_ would be a work of art, if it were explicitly +presented as a burlesque, such as was _The Infernal Marriage_, or if we +did not know that it was written to pass the time by one who had ruled +this great empire for years, and who within a few years more was +destined to rule it again. It was a fanciful and almost sympathetic +satire on the selfish fatuity of the noble, wealthy, and governing +orders of British society. But then the author of this burlesque was +himself about to ask these orders to admit him to their select ranks, +and to enthrone him as their acknowledged chief. + +As the rancour of party feeling that has gathered round the personality +of Beaconsfield subsides, and as time brings new proofs of the sagacity +of the judgments with which Benjamin Disraeli analysed the political +traditions of British society, we may look for a fresh growth of the +popularity of the trilogy and _Lothair_. England will one day be as +just, as America has always been, to one of our wittiest writers. He +will one day be formally admitted into the ranks of the Men of Letters. +He has hitherto been kept outside, in a sense, partly by his being a +prominent statesman and party chief, partly by his incurable tone of +mind with its Semitic and non-English ways, partly by his strange +incapacity to acquire the _nuances_ of pure literary English. No +English writer of such literary genius slips so often into vulgarisms, +solecisms, archaisms, and mere slip-shod gossip. But these are after +all quite minor defects. His books, even his worst books, abound in +epigrams, pictures, characters, and scenes of rare wit. His painting +of parliamentary life in England has neither equal nor rival. And his +reflections on English society and politics reveal the insight of vast +experience and profound genius. + + + + +V + +W. M. THACKERAY + +The literary career of William Makepeace Thackeray has not a few +special features of its own that it is interesting to note at once. Of +all the more eminent writers of the Victorian Age, his life was the +shortest: he died in 1863 at the age of fifty-two, the age of +Shakespeare. His literary career of twenty-six years was shorter than +that of Carlyle, of Macaulay, Disraeli, Dickens, Trollope, George +Eliot, Froude, or Ruskin. It opened with the reign of the Queen, +almost in the very year of _Pickwick_, whose author stood beside his +grave and lived and wrote for some years more. But these twenty-six +years of Thackeray's era of production were full of wonderful activity, +and have left us as many volumes of rich and varied genius. And the +most striking feature of all is this--that in these twenty-six full +volumes in so many modes, prose, verse, romance, parody, burlesque, +essay, biography, criticism, there are hardly more than one or two +which can be put aside as worthless and as utter failures; very few +fail in his consummate mastery of style; few can be said to be irksome +to read, to re-read, and to linger over in the reading. + +This mastery over style--a style at once simple, pure, nervous, +flexible, pathetic, and graceful--places Thackeray amongst the very +greatest masters of English prose, and undoubtedly as the most certain +and faultless of all the prose writers of the Victorian Age. Without +saying that he has ever reached quite to the level of some lyrical and +apocalyptic descants that we may find in Carlyle and in Ruskin, +Thackeray has never fallen into the faults of violence and turgidity +which their warmest admirers are bound to confess in many a passage +from these our two prose-poets. Carlyle is often grotesque; Macaulay +can be pompous; Disraeli, Bulwer, Dickens, are often slovenly and +sometimes bombastic; George Eliot is sometimes pedantic, and Ruskin has +been stirred into hysterics. But Thackeray's English, from the first +page of his first volume to the last page of his twenty-sixth volume, +is natural, scholarly, pure, incisive, and yet gracefully and easily +modulated--the language of an English gentleman of culture, wit, +knowledge of the world, and consummate ease and self-possession. It is +the direct and trenchant language of Swift: but more graceful, more +flexible, more courteous. + +And what is a truly striking fact about Thackeray's mastery of style is +this--that it was perfectly formed from the beginning; that it hardly +ever varied, or developed, or waned in the whole course of his literary +career; that his first venture as a very young man is as finished and +as ripe as his very latest piece, when he died almost in the act of +writing the words--"_and his heart throbbed, with an exquisite bliss_." +This prodigious precocity in style, such uniform perfection of exact +composition, are perhaps without parallel in English literature. At +the age of twenty-six Thackeray wrote _The History of Samuel Titmarsh_ +and the _Great Hoggarty Diamond_. It was produced under very +melancholy conditions, in the most unfavourable form of publication, +and it was mangled by editorial necessities. And yet it can still be +read and re-read as one of Thackeray's masterpieces, trifling and +curtailed as it is (for it may be printed in one hundred pages); it is +as full of wit, humour, scathing insight, and fine pathos in the midst +of burlesque, as is _Vanity Fair_ itself. It is already Thackeray in +all his strength, with his "Snobs," his "Nobs," his fierce satire, and +his exquisite style. + +Modern romance has no purer, more pathetic, or simpler page than the +tale of the death of poor Samuel Titmarsh's first child. Though it is, +as it deserves to be, a household word, the passage must be quoted here +as a specimen of faultless and beautiful style. + + +It was not, however, destined that she and her child should inhabit +that little garret. We were to leave our lodgings on Monday morning; +but on Saturday evening the child was seized with convulsions, and all +Sunday the mother watched and prayed for it: but it pleased God to take +the innocent infant from us, and on Sunday, at midnight, it lay a +corpse in its mother's bosom. Amen. We have other children, happy and +well, now round about us, and from the father's heart the memory of +this little thing has almost faded; but I do believe that every day of +her life the mother thinks of her first-born that was with her for so +short a while: many and many a time she has taken her daughters to the +grave, in Saint Bride's, where he lies buried; and she wears still at +her neck a little, little lock of gold hair, which she took from the +head of the infant as he lay smiling in his coffin. It has happened to +me to forget the child's birthday, but to her never; and often in the +midst of common talk, comes something that shows she is thinking of the +child still,--some simple allusion that is to me inexpressibly +affecting. + + +Could words simpler, purer, more touching be found to paint a terrible, +albeit very common sorrow! Not a needless epithet, not a false note, +not a touch over-wrought! And this is the writing of an unknown, +untried youth! + +This exquisitely simple, easy, idiomatic, and nervous style marks all +Thackeray's work for his twenty-six years of activity, and is equally +perfect for whatever purpose it is used, and in whatever key he may +choose to compose. It naturally culminates in _Vanity Fair_, written +just in the middle of his literary career. Here not a word is wasted: +the profoundest impressions are made by a quiet sentence or a dozen +plain words that neither Swift nor Defoe could have surpassed. I know +nothing in English literature more powerful than those last lines of +the thirty-second chapter of _Vanity Fair_. For thirty-two chapters we +have been following the loves, sorrows, and anxieties of Amelia Sedley +and George Osborne. For four chapters the story has pictured the scene +in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo. The women and non-combatants are +trembling with excitement, anxiety, fear; the men are in the field, +whilst the cannon roar all day in the distance--Amelia half distracted +with love, jealousy, and foreboding. And the wild alternations of +hope, terror, grief, and agony are suddenly closed in the last +paragraph of Chapter XXXII. + + +No more firing was heard at Brussels--the pursuit rolled miles away. +Darkness came down on the field and city: and Amelia was praying for +George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his +heart. + + +Take all the great critical scenes in the book, and note how simple, +and yet how full of pathos and of power, is the language in which they +are described. There is the last parting of George and Amelia as the +bugle rings to arms. + + +George came in and looked at her again, entering still more softly. By +the pale night-lamp he could see her sweet, pale face--the purple +eyelids were fringed and closed, and one round arm, smooth and white, +lay outside of the coverlet. Good God! how pure she was; how gentle, +how tender, and how friendless! and he, how selfish, brutal, and black +with crime! Heart-stained and shame-stricken, he stood at the bed's +foot, and looked at the sleeping girl. How dared he--who was he, to +pray for one so spotless! God bless her! God bless her! He came to +the bed-side, and looked at the hand, the little soft hand, lying +asleep; and he bent over the pillow noiselessly towards the gentle pale +face. + + +The whole tragedy of their lives is given in miniature in this touching +scene; and yet how natural and commonplace are all the effects of which +it is composed, how few and simple the words which describe such love +and such remorse. It is hard to judge in _Vanity Fair_ which are the +more perfect in style, the pathetic and tragic scenes or those which +are charged with humour and epigram. + +And the scene after George's marriage, when old Osborne burns his will +and erases his son's name from the family Bible--and the scene when +Osborne receives his son's last letter--"Osborne trembled long before +the letter from his dead son"--"His father could not see the kiss +George had placed on the superscription of his letter. Mr. Osborne +dropped it with the bitterest, deadliest pang of balked affection and +revenge. His son was still beloved and unforgiven." And the scene of +"the widow and mother," when young Georgy is born, and the wonderful +scene when Sir Pitt proposes marriage to the little green-eyed +governess and she is scared into confessing her great secret, and the +most famous scene of all, when Rawdon Crawley is released from the +sponging-house and finds Lord Steyne with Rebecca alone. It is but a +single page. The words spoken are short, brief, plain--not five +sentences pass--"I am innocent," said she--"Make way, let me pass," +cried My Lord--"You lie, you coward and villain!" said Rawdon. There +is in all fiction no single scene more vivid, more true, more burnt +into the memory, more tragic. And with what noble simplicity, with +what incisive reticence, with what subtle anatomy of the human heart, +is it recorded. + +_Vanity Fair_ was written, it is true, under the strain of serial +publication, haste, and anxiety, but it is perhaps, even in style, the +most truly complete. The wonderful variety, elasticity, and freshness +of the dialogue, the wit of the common scenes, the terrible power of +the tragic scenes, the perfection of the _mise-en-scene_--the rattle, +the fun, the glitter of the Fair, are sustained from end to end, from +the first words of the ineffable Miss Pinkerton to the _Vanitas +Vanitatum_ when the showman shuts up his puppets in their box. There +is not in all _Vanity Fair_ a single dull page that we skip, not a bit +of padding, no rigmarole of explanation whilst the action stands still. +Of what other fiction can this be said? Richardson and even Fielding +have their _longueurs_. Miss Austen is too prone to linger over the +tea-table beyond all human patience. And even Scott's descriptions of +his loved hills grow sometimes unreadable, especially when they are +told in a flaccid and slovenly style. But _Vanity Fair_ is kept up +with inexhaustible life and invention, with a style which, for purity +and polish, was beyond the reach of Fielding, Richardson, or Scott. + +_Esmond_ was composed with even greater care than _Vanity Fair_, and in +the matter of style is usually taken to be Thackeray's greatest +masterpiece. Its language is a miracle of art. But it is avowedly a +_tour de force_--an effort to reproduce an entire book in the form and +speech of a century and a half preceding. As a _tour de force_ it is +wonderful; but in so long a book the effort becomes at last too +visible, and undoubtedly it somewhat cramps the freedom of the author's +genius. Thackeray was not a born historical romancist, as were Scott +and Dumas; nor was he a born historian at all. And when he undertook +to produce an elaborate romance in the form and with the colouring of a +past age, like George Eliot, he becomes rather too learned, too +conscientious, too rigidly full of his authorities; and if as an +historian he enters into rivalry with Macaulay, he somewhat loses his +cunning as a novelist. Thackeray's force lay in the comedy of manners. +In the comedy of manners we have nothing but _Tom Jones_ to compare +with _Vanity Fair_. And though Thackeray is not equal to the "prose +Homer of human nature," he wrote an English even finer and more racy. + +In _Esmond_ we are constantly pausing to admire the wonderful ingenuity +and exquisite grace of the style, studying the language quite apart +from the story; and we feel, as we do when we read Milton's Latin poems +or Swinburne's French sonnets, that it is a surprising imitation of the +original. But at the same time _Esmond_ contains some of the noblest +passages that Thackeray ever wrote, scenes and chapters which in form +have no superior in English literature. That sixth chapter of the +second book, in the cathedral, when Henry Esmond returns to his +mistress on the 29th of December, on his birthday. "Here she was +weeping and happy. She took his hand in both hers; he felt her tears. +It was a rapture of reconciliation"--"so for a few moments Esmond's +beloved mistress came to him and blessed him." To my mind, there is +nothing in English fiction which has been set forth in language of such +exquisite purity and pathos. + +_Esmond_, too, which may be said to be one prolonged parody of the +great Queen-Anne essayists, contains that most perfect of all parodies +in the English language--"The paper out of the _Spectator_"--in chapter +third of the third book. It is of course not a "parody" in the proper +sense, for it has no element of satire or burlesque, and imitates not +the foibles but the merits of the original, with an absolute illusion. +The 341st number of the _Spectator_, dated Tuesday, April 1, 1712, is +so absolutely like Dick Steele at his best, that Addison himself would +have been deceived by it. Steele hardly ever wrote anything so bright +and amusing. It is not a "parody": it is a forgery; but a forgery +which required for its execution the most consummate mastery over all +the subtleties and mysteries of style. + +In parody of every kind, from the most admiring imitation down to the +most boisterous burlesque, Thackeray stands at the head of all other +imitators. The _Rejected Addresses_ of James and Horace Smith (1812) +is usually regarded as the masterpiece in this art; and Scott +good-humouredly said that he could have mistaken the death of +Higginbottom for his own verses. But Thackeray's _Novels by Eminent +Hands_ are superior even to the _Rejected Addresses_. _Codlingsby_, +the parody of Disraeli's _Coningsby_, may be taken as the most +effective parody in our language: intensely droll in itself, it +reproduces the absurdities, the affectations, the oriental imagination +of Disraeli with inimitable wit. Those ten pages of irrepressible +fooling are enough to destroy Disraeli's reputation as a serious +romancer. No doubt they have unfairly reacted so as to dim our sense +of Disraeli's real genius as a writer. When we know _Codlingsby_ by +heart, as every one with a sense of humour must do, it is impossible +for us to keep our countenance when we take up the palaver about +Sidonia and the Chosen Race. The _Novels by Eminent Hands_ are all +good: they are much more than parodies; they are real criticism, sound, +wise, genial, and instructive. Nor are they in the least unfair. If +the balderdash and cheap erudition of Bulwer and Disraeli are covered +with inextinguishable mirth, no one is offended by the pleasant +imitations of Lever, James, and Fenimore Cooper. + +All the burlesques are good, and will bear continual re-reading; but +the masterpiece of all is _Rebecca and Rowena_, the continuation in +burlesque of _Ivanhoe_. It is one of the mysteries of literature that +we can enjoy both, that the warmest admirers of Scott's glorious +genius, and even those who delight in _Ivanhoe_, can find the keenest +relish in _Rebecca and Rowena_, which is simply the great romance of +chivalry turned inside out. But Thackeray's immortal burlesque has +something of the quality of Cervantes' _Don Quixote_--that we love the +knight whilst we laugh, and feel the deep pathos of human nature and +the beauty of goodness and love even in the midst of the wildest fun. +And this fine quality runs through all the comic pieces, ballads, +burlesques, pantomimes, and sketches. What genial fun in the _Rose and +the Ring_, in _Little Billee_, in _Mrs. Perkins' Ball_, in the _Sketch +Book_, in _Yellowplush_. It is only the very greatest masters who can +produce extravaganzas, puerile tomfooleries, drolleries to delight +children, and catchpenny songs, of such a kind that mature and +cultivated students can laugh over them for the fiftieth time and read +them till they are household words. This is the supreme merit of _Don +Quixote_, of _Scapin_, of _Gulliver_, of _Robinson Crusoe_. And this +quality of immortal truth and wit we find in _Rebecca and Rowena_, in +the _Rose and the Ring_, in _Little Billee_, in _Codlingsby_, and +_Yellowplush_. The burlesques have that Aristophanic touch of beauty, +pathos, and wisdom mingled with the wildest pantomime. + +A striking example of Thackeray's unrivalled powers of imitation may be +seen in the letters which are freely scattered about his works. No one +before or since ever wrote such wonderfully happy illustrations of the +epistolary style of boy or girl, old maid or illiterate man. There +never were such letters as those of George Osborne in _Vanity +Fair_--that letter from school describing the fight between Cuff and +Figs is a masterpiece--the letters of Becky, of Rawdon, of Amelia--all +are perfect reproductions of the writer, as are scores of letters +scattered up and down the twenty-six volumes. Nor must we omit, as +part of the style, the author's own illustrations. They are really +part of the book; they assist us to understand the characters; they are +a very important portion of the writer's method. None of our great +writers ever had this double instrument: and Thackeray has used it with +consummate effect. The sketches in _Vanity Fair_ and in _Punch_, +especially the minor thumb-nail drolleries, are delightful--true +caricatures--real portraits of character. It is true they are ill +drawn, often impossible, crude, and almost childish in their +incorrectness and artlessness. But they have in them the soul of a +great caricaturist. They have the Hogarthian touch of a great comic +artist. + +One is tempted to enlarge at length on the merits of Thackeray's style, +because it is in his mastery over all the resources of the English +language that he surpasses contemporary prose writers. And it is a +mastery which is equally shown in every form of composition. There is +a famous bit of Byron's about Sheridan to the effect that he had +written the best comedy, made the finest speech, and invented the +drollest farce in the English language. And it is hardly extravagant +to say of Thackeray that, of all the Englishmen of this century, he has +written the best comedy of manners, the best extravaganza, the best +burlesque, the best parody, and the best comic song. And to this some +of his admirers would add--the best lectures, and the best critical +essays. It is of course true that he has never reached or attempted to +reach the gorgeous rhapsodies of De Quincey or the dithyrambic melodies +of Ruskin. But these heaven-born Pegasi cannot be harnessed to the +working vehicles of our streets. The marvel of Thackeray's command +over language is this--that it is unfailing in prose or in verse, in +pathos or in terror, in tragedy or in burlesque, in narrative, in +repartee, or in drollery: and that it never waxes or flags in force and +precision throughout twenty-six full volumes. + +Of Thackeray's style--a style that has every quality in perfection: +simplicity, clearness, ease, force, elasticity, and grace--it is +difficult to speak but in terms of unstinted admiration. When we deal +with the substance and effective value of his great books we see that, +although Thackeray holds his own with the best writers of this century, +he cannot be said to hold the same manifest crown of supremacy. One of +his strongest claims is the vast quantity and variety of his best work, +and the singularly small proportion of inferior work. Fielding himself +wrote pitiful trash when he became, as he said, a mere "hackney +writer"; Richardson's _Grandison_ overcomes most readers; Scott at last +broke down; Carlyle, Disraeli, Dickens, and Ruskin have written many +things which "we do not turn over by day and turn over by night," to +put it as gently as one can. But Thackeray is hardly ever below +himself in form, and rarely is he below himself in substance. +_Pendennis_ is certainly much inferior to _Vanity Fair_, and _Philip_ +is much inferior to _Pendennis_. _The Virginians_ is far behind +_Esmond_. But of the more important books not one can be called in any +sense a failure unless it be _Lovel the Widower_, and _The Adventures +of Philip_. + +Thackeray's masterpiece beyond question is _Vanity Fair_--which as a +comedy of the manners of contemporary life is quite the greatest +achievement in English literature since _Tom Jones_. It has not the +consummate plot of _Tom Jones_; it has not the breadth, the +Shakespearean jollity, the genial humanity of the great "prose Homer"; +it has no such beautiful character as Sophia Western. It is not the +overflowing of a warm, genial, sociable soul, such as that of Henry +Fielding. But _Vanity Fair_ may be put beside _Tom Jones_ for variety +of character, intense reality, ingenuity of incident, and profusion of +wit, humour, and invention. It is even better written than _Tom +Jones_; has more pathos and more tragedy; and is happily free from the +nauseous blots into which Harry Fielding was betrayed by the taste of +his age. It is hard to say what scene in _Vanity Fair_, what part, +what character, rests longest in the memory. Is it the home of the +Sedleys and the Osbornes, is it Queen's Crawley, or the incidents at +Brussels, or at Gaunt House:--is it George Osborne, or Jos, or Miss +Crawley, the Major or the Colonel,--is it Lord Steyne or Rebecca? All +are excellent, all seem perfect in truth, in consistency, in contrast. + +The great triumph of _Vanity Fair_--the great triumph of modern +fiction--is Becky Sharp: a character which will ever stand in the very +foremost rank of English literature, if not with Falstaff and Shylock, +then with Squire Western, Uncle Toby, Mr. Primrose, Jonathan Oldbuck, +and Sam Weller. There is no character in the whole range of literature +which has been worked out with more elaborate completeness. She is +drawn from girlhood to old age, under every conceivable condition, and +is brought face to face with all kinds of persons and trials. In all +circumstances Becky is true to herself; her ingenuity, her wit, her +selfishness, her audacity, her cunning, her clear, cool, alert brain, +even her common sense, her spirit of justice, when she herself is not +concerned, and her good-nature, when it could cost her nothing--all +this is unfailing, inimitable, never to be forgotten. Some good people +cry out that she is so wicked. Of course she is wicked: so were Iago +and Blifil. The only question is, if she be real? Most certainly she +is, as real as anything in the whole range of fiction, as real as +Tartuffe, or Gil Blas, Wilhelm Meister, or Rob Roy. No one doubts that +Becky Sharps exist: unhappily they are not even very uncommon. And +Thackeray has drawn one typical example of such bad women with an +anatomical precision that makes us shudder. + +And if Becky Sharp be the masterpiece of Thackeray's art amongst the +characters, the scene of her husband's encounter with her paramour is +the masterpiece of all the scenes in _Vanity Fair_, and has no +superior, hardly any equal, in modern fiction. Becky, Rawdon Crawley, +and Lord Steyne--all are inimitably true, all are powerful, all are +fearful in their agony and rage. The uprising of the poor rake almost +into dignity and heroism, and his wife's outburst of admiration at his +vengeance, are strokes of really Shakespearean insight. It was with +justice that Thackeray himself felt pride in that touch. "_She stood +there trembling before him. She admired her husband, strong, brave, +victorious_." It is these touches of clear sight in Becky, her respect +for Dobbin, her kindliness to Amelia apart from her own schemes, which +make us feel an interest in Becky, loathsome as she is. She is always +a woman, and not an inhuman monster, however bad a woman, cruel, +heartless, and false. + +There remains always the perpetual problem if _Vanity Fair_ be a +cynic's view of life, the sardonic grin of a misanthrope gloating over +the trickery and meanness of mankind. It is well to remember how many +are the scenes of tenderness and pathos in _Vanity Fair_, how +powerfully told, how deeply they haunt the memory and sink into the +heart. The school life of Dobbin, the ruin of old Sedley and the +despair of Amelia, the last parting of Amelia and George, Osborne +revoking his will, Sedley broken down, Rawdon in the sponging-house, +the birth and boyhood of Georgy Osborne, the end of old Sedley, the end +of old Osborne, are as pathetic and humane as anything in our +literature. Mature men, who study fiction with a critical spirit and a +cool head, admit that the only passages in English romance that they +can never read again without faltering, without a dim eye and a +quavering voice, are these scenes of pain and sorrow in _Vanity Fair_. +The death of old Sedley, nursed by his daughter, is a typical +piece--perfect in simplicity, in truth, in pathos. + + +One night when she stole into his room, she found him awake, when the +broken old man made his confession. "O, Emmy, I've been thinking we +were very unkind and unjust to you," he said, and put out his cold and +feeble hand to her. She knelt down and prayed by his bed-side, as he +did too, having still hold of her hand. When our turn comes, friend, +may we have such company in our prayers. + + +And this is the arch-cynic and misanthrope, grinning at all that is +loveable and tender! + +It is too often forgotten that _Vanity Fair_ is not intended to be +simply the world: it is society, it is fashion, the market where +mammon-worship, folly, and dissipation display and barter their wares. +Thackeray wrote many other books, and has given us many worthy +characters. Dobbin, Warrington, Colonel Newcome, Ethel Newcome, Henry +Esmond are generous, brave, just, and true. Neither _Esmond_, nor _The +Newcomes_, nor _The Virginians_ are in any sense the work of a +misanthrope. And where Thackeray speaks in his own person, in the +lectures on the _English Humourists_, he is brimful of all that is +genial, frank, lenient, and good-hearted. What we know of the man, who +loved his friends and was loved by them, and who in all his critical +and personal sketches showed himself a kindly, courteous, and +considerate gentleman, inclines us to repel this charge of cynicism. +We will not brand him as a mere satirist, and a cruel mocker at human +virtue and goodness. + +This is, however, not the whole of the truth. The consent of mankind, +and especially the consent of women, is too manifest. There is +something ungenial, there is a bitter taste left when we have enjoyed +these books, especially as we lay down _Vanity Fair_. It is a long +comedy of roguery, meanness, selfishness, intrigue, and affectation. +Rakes, ruffians, bullies, parasites, fortune-hunters, adventurers, +women who sell themselves, and men who cheat and cringe, pass before us +in one incessant procession, crushing the weak, and making fools of the +good. Such, says our author, is the way of Vanity Fair--which we are +warned to loathe and to shun. Be it so:--but it cannot be denied that +the rakes, ruffians, and adventurers fill too large a canvas, are too +conspicuous, too triumphant, too interesting. They are more +interesting than the weak and the good whom they crush under foot: they +are drawn with a more glowing brush, they are far more splendidly +endowed. They have better heads, stronger wills, richer natures than +the good and kind ones who are their butts. Dobbin, as the author +himself tells us, "is a spooney." Amelia, as he says also, "is a +little fool." Peggy O'Dowd, dear old goody, is the laughing-stock of +the regiment, though she is also its grandmother. _Vanity Fair_ has +here and there some virtuous and generous characters. But we are made +to laugh at every one of them to their very faces. And the evil and +the selfish characters bully them, mock them, thrust them aside at +every page--and they do so because they are more the stuff of which men +and women of any mark are made. + +There are evil characters in Shakespeare, in Fielding, in Goldsmith, in +Scott: we find ruffians, rakes, traitors, and parasites. But they are +not paramount, not universal, not unqualified. Iago is utterly +overshadowed by Othello, Blifil by Alworthy, Tom Jones by Sophia +Western, Squire Thornhill by Dr. Primrose, the reprobate Staunton by +the good angel Jeanie Deans. Shakespeare, Fielding, Goethe, Scott draw +noble and generous natures quite as well as they paint the evil +natures: indeed they paint them better; they enjoy the painting of them +more; they make us enjoy them more. Take this test: if we run over the +characters of Shakespeare or of Scott we have to reflect before we find +the villains. If we run over the characters in Thackeray, it is an +effort of memory to recall the generous and the fine natures. +Thackeray has given us some loveable and affectionate men and women; +but they all have qualities which lower them and tend to make them +either tiresome or ridiculous. Henry Esmond is a high-minded and +almost heroic gentleman, but he is glum, a regular kill-joy, and, as +his author admitted, something of a prig. Colonel Newcome is a noble +true-hearted soldier; but he is made too good for this world and +somewhat too innocent, too transparently a child of nature. +Warrington, with all his sense and honesty, is rough; Pendennis is a +bit of a puppy; Clive Newcome is not much of a hero; and as for Dobbin +he is almost intended to be a butt. + +A more serious defect is a dearth in Thackeray of women to love and to +honour. Shakespeare has given us a gallery of noble women; Fielding +has drawn the adorable Sophia Western; Scott has his Jeanie Deans. But +though Thackeray has given us over and over again living pictures of +women of power, intellect, wit, charm, they are all marred by atrocious +selfishness, cruelty, ambition, like Becky Sharp, Beatrix Esmond, and +Lady Kew; or else they have some weakness, silliness, or narrowness +which prevents us from at once loving and respecting them. Amelia is +rather a poor thing and decidedly silly; we do not really admire Laura +Pendennis; the Little Sister is somewhat colourless; Ethel Newcome runs +great risk of being a spoilt beauty; and about Lady Castlewood, with +all her love and devotion, there hangs a certain sinister and unnatural +taint, which the world cannot forgive, and perhaps ought not to +forgive. The sum of all this is, that in all these twenty-six volumes +and hundreds of men and women portrayed, there is not one man or one +woman having at once a noble character, perfect generosity, powerful +mind, and loveable nature; not one man or one woman of tender heart and +perfect honour, but has some trait that tends to make him or her either +laughable or tedious. It is not so with the supreme masters of the +human heart. And the world does not condone this, and it is right in +not condoning it. + +But to say this, is not to condemn Thackeray as a cynic. With these +many scenes of exquisite tenderness and pathos, with men and women of +such loving hearts and devoted spirits, with the profusion of gay, +kindly, childlike love of innocent fun, that we find all through +Thackeray's work, he does not belong to the order of the Jonathan +Swifts, the Balzacs, the Zolas, the gruesome anatomists of human vice +and meanness. On the other hand he does not belong to the order of the +Shakespeares, Goethes, and Scotts, to whom human virtue and dignity +always remain in the end the supreme forces of human life. Thackeray, +with a fine and sympathetic soul, had a creative imagination that was +far stronger on the darker and fouler sides of life than it was on the +brighter and pure side of life. He saw the bright and pure side: he +loved it, he felt with it, he made us love it. But his artistic genius +worked with more free and consummate zest when he painted the dark and +the foul. His creative imagination fell short of the true equipoise, +of that just vision of _chiaroscuro_, which we find in the greatest +masters of the human heart. This limitation of his genius has been +visited upon Thackeray with a heavy hand. And such as it is, he must +bear it. + +The place of Thackeray in English literature will always be determined +by his _Vanity Fair_: which will be read, we may confidently predict, +as long as _Tom Jones_, _Clarissa_, _Tristram Shandy_, _The Antiquary_, +and _Pickwick_. But all the best of his pieces, even the smaller _jeux +d'esprit_, may be read with delight again and again by young and old. +And of the best are--_Esmond_, _The Newcomes_, _Barry Lyndon_, the +_Book of Snobs_, the _Hoggarty Diamond_, some of the _Burlesques_ and +_Christmas Books_, and the _English Humourists_. Of these, _Esmond_ +has every quality of a great book, except its artificial form, its +excessive elaboration of historical colouring, and its unsavoury plot. +Beatrix Esmond is almost as wonderful a creation as Becky Sharp; +though, if formed on a grander mould, she has less fascination than +that incorrigible minx. The _Newcomes_, if in some ways the most +genial of the longer pieces, is plainly without the power of _Vanity +Fair_. And if _Barry Lyndon_ has this power, it is an awful picture of +cruelty and meanness. The _Book of Snobs_ and the _Hoggarty Diamond_ +were each a kind of prelude to _Vanity Fair_, and both contain some of +its essential marks of pathos and of power. It is indeed strange to us +now to remember that both of these books, written with such finished +mastery of hand and full of such passages of wit and insight, could +have been published for years before the world had recognised that it +had a new and consummate writer before it. The _Book of Snobs_ indeed +may truly be said to have seriously improved the public opinion of the +age, and to have given a death-blow to many odious forms of sycophancy +and affectation which passed unrebuked in England fifty years ago. And +the _Burlesque Romances_ and the _English Humourists_ have certainly +assisted in forming the public taste and in promoting a sound criticism +of our standard fiction. + +Charlotte Bronte dedicated her _Jane Eyre_, in 1847, to William +Makepeace Thackeray, as "the first social regenerator of the day." +Such language, though interesting as coming from a girl of singular +genius and sincerity, however ignorant of real life, was excessive. +But we may truly assert that he has enriched our literature with some +classical masterpieces in the comedy of contemporary manners. + + + + +VI + +CHARLES DICKENS + +It is a fearsome thing to venture to say anything now about Charles +Dickens, whom we have all loved, enjoyed, and laughed over: whose tales +are household words in every home where the English tongue is heard, +whose characters are our own school-friends, the sentiment of our +youthful memories, our boon-companions and our early attachments. To +view him in any critical light is a task as risky as it would be to +discuss the permanent value of some fashionable amusement, a favourite +actor, a popular beverage, or a famous horse. Millions and millions of +old and young love Charles Dickens, know his personages by heart, play +at games with his incidents and names, and from the bottom of their +souls believe that there never was such fun, and that there never will +be conceived again such inimitable beings, as they find in his +ever-fresh and ever-varied pages. This is by itself a very high title +to honour: perhaps it is the chief jewel in the crown that rests on the +head of Charles Dickens. I am myself one of these devotees, of these +lovers, of these slaves of his: or at least I can remember that I have +been. To have stirred this pure and natural humanity, this force of +sympathy, in such countless millions is a great triumph. Men and women +to-day do not want any criticism of Charles Dickens, any talk about him +at all. They enjoy him as he is: they examine one another in his +books: they gossip on by the hour about his innumerable characters, his +never-to-be-forgotten waggeries and fancies. + +No account of early Victorian literature can omit the name of Charles +Dickens from the famous writers of the time. How could we avoid notice +of one whose first immortal tale coincides with the accession of our +Queen, and who for thirty-three successive years continued to pour out +a long stream of books that still delight the English-speaking world? +When we begin to talk about the permanent place in English literature +of eminent writers, one of the first definite problems is presented by +Charles Dickens. And it is one of the most obscure of such problems; +because, more than almost any writer of our age, Charles Dickens has +his own accustomed nook at every fireside: he is a familiar friend, a +welcome guest; we remember the glance of his eye; we have held his +hand, as it were, in our own. The children brighten up as his step is +heard; the chairs are drawn round the hearth, and a fresh glow is given +to the room. We do not criticise one whom we love, nor do we suffer +others to do so. And there is perhaps a wider sympathy with Charles +Dickens as a person than with any other writer of our time. For this +reason there has been hardly any serious criticism or estimate of +Dickens as a great artist, apart from some peevish and sectional +disparagement of his genius, which has been too much tinged with +academic pedantry and the bias of aristocratic temper or political +antagonism. + +I am free to confess that I am in no mood to pretend making up my mind +for any impartial estimate of Charles Dickens as an abiding power in +English literature. The "personal equation" is in my own case somewhat +too strong to leave me with a perfectly "dry light" in the matter. I +will make a clean breast of it at once by saying, that I can remember +reading some of the most famous of these books in their green covers, +month by month, as they came out in parts, when I was myself a child or +"in my 'teens." That period included the first ten of the main works +from _Pickwick_ down to _David Copperfield_. With _Bleak House_, which +I read as a student of philosophy at Oxford beginning to be familiar +with Aristotelian canons, I felt my enjoyment mellowed by a somewhat +more measured judgment. From that time onward Charles Dickens threw +himself into a great variety of undertakings and many diverse kinds of +publication. His _Hard Times_, _Little Dorrit_, _Our Mutual Friend_, +_Great Expectations_, _Tale of Two Cities_, were never to me anything +like the wonder and delight that I found in Oliver Twist, Nickleby, and +Copperfield. And as to the short tales and the later pieces down to +_Edwin Drood_, I never find myself turning back to them; the very +memory of the story is fading away; and I fail to recall the characters +and names. A mature judgment will decide that the series after _David +Copperfield_, written when the author was thirty-eight, was not equal +to the series of the thirteen years preceding. Charles Dickens will +always be remembered by _Pickwick_, _Oliver Twist_, _Nickleby_, and +_Copperfield_. And though these tales will long continue to delight +both old and young, learned and unlearned alike, they are most to be +envied who read him when young, and they are most to be pitied who read +him with a critical spirit. May that be far from us, as we take up our +_Pickwick_ and talk over the autobiographic pathos of _David +Copperfield_. + +This vivid sympathy with the man is made stronger in my own case in +that, from my own boyhood till his death, I was continually seeing him, +was frequently his neighbour both in London and the seaside, knew some +of his friends, and heard much about him and about his work. Though I +never spoke to him, there were times when I saw him almost daily; I +heard him speak and read in public; and his favourite haunts in London +and the country have been familiar to me from my boyhood. And thus, as +I read again my _Pickwick_, and _Nickleby_, and _Copperfield_, there +come back to me many personal and local memories of my own. The +personality of Charles Dickens was, even to his distant readers, vivid +and intense; and hence it is much more so to those who have known his +person. I am thus an ardent Pickwickian myself; and anything I say +about our immortal Founder must be understood in a Pickwickian sense. + +Charles Dickens was before all things a great humourist--doubtless the +greatest of this century; for, though we may find in Scott a more truly +Shakespearean humour of the highest order, the humour of Dickens is so +varied, so paramount, so inexhaustible, that he stands forth in our +memory as the humourist of the age. Swift, Fielding, Hogarth, Sterne, +and Goldsmith, in the last century, reached at times a more enduring +level of humour without caricature; but the gift has been more rarely +imparted to their successors in the age of steam. Now, we shall never +get an adequate definition of that imponderable term--humour--a term +which, perhaps, was invented to be the eternal theme of budding +essayists. We need not be quite as liberal in our interpretation of +humour as was Thackeray in opening his _English Humourists_; for he +declared that its business was to awaken and direct our love, our pity, +our kindness, our scorn for imposture, our tenderness for the weak, to +comment on the actions and passions of life, to be the week-day +preacher--and much more to that effect. But it may serve our immediate +purpose to say with Samuel Johnson that humour is "grotesque imagery"; +and "grotesque" is "distorted of figure; unnatural." That is to say, +humour is an effort of the imagination presenting human nature with +some element of distortion or disproportion which instantly kindles +mirth. It must be imaginative; it must touch the bed-rock of human +nature; it must arouse merriment and not anger or scorn. In this fine +and most rare gift Charles Dickens abounded to overflowing; and this +humour poured in perfect cataracts of "grotesque imagery" over every +phase of life of the poor and the lower middle classes of his time, in +London and a few of its suburbs and neighbouring parts. + +This in itself is a great title to honour; it is his main work, his +noblest title. His sphere was wide, but not at all general; it was +strictly limited to the range of his own indefatigable observations. +He hardly ever drew a character or painted a scene, even of the most +subordinate kind, which he had not studied from the life with minute +care, and whenever he did for a moment wander out of his limits, he +made an egregious failure. But this task of his, to cast the sunshine +of pathos and of genial mirth over the humblest, dullest, and most +uninviting of our fellow-creatures, was a great social mission to which +his whole genius was devoted. No waif and stray was so repulsive, no +drudge was so mean, no criminal was so atrocious, but what Charles +Dickens could feel for him some ray of sympathy, or extract some +pathetic mirth out of his abject state. And Dickens does not look on +the mean and the vile as do Balzac and Zola, that is, from without, +like the detective or the surgeon. He sees things more or less from +their point of view: he feels with the Marchioness: he himself as a +child was once a Smike: he cannot help liking the fun of the Artful +Dodger: he has been a good friend to Barkis: he likes Traddles: he +loves Joe: poor Nancy ends her vile life in heroism: and even his brute +of a dog worships Bill Sikes. + +Here lies the secret of his power over such countless millions of +readers. He not only paints a vast range of ordinary humanity and +suffering or wearied humanity, but he speaks for it and lives in it +himself, and throws a halo of imagination over it, and brings home to +the great mass of average readers a new sense of sympathy and gaiety. +This humane kinship with the vulgar and the common, this magic which +strikes poetry out of the dust of the streets, and discovers traces of +beauty and joy in the most monotonous of lives, is, in the true and +best sense of the term, Christ-like, with a message and gospel of hope. +Thackeray must have had Charles Dickens in his mind when he wrote: "The +humourous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, +your kindness--your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture--your +tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy." +Charles Dickens, of all writers of our age, assuredly did this in every +work of his pen, for thirty-three years of incessant production. It is +his great title to honour; and a novelist can desire no higher title +than this. + +There is another quality in which Charles Dickens is supreme--in +purity. Here is a writer who is realistic, if ever any writer was, in +the sense of having closely observed the lowest strata of city life, +who has drawn the most miserable outcasts, the most abandoned men and +women in the dregs of society, who has invented many dreadful scenes of +passion, lust, seduction, and debauchery; and yet in forty works and +more you will not find a page which a mother need withhold from her +grown daughter. As Thackeray wrote of his friend:--"I am grateful for +the innocent laughter and the sweet and unsullied page which the author +of _David Copperfield_ gives to my children." We need not formulate +any dogma or rule on such a topic, nor is it essential that all books +should be written _virginibus puerisque_; but it is certain that every +word of Charles Dickens was so written, even when he set himself (as he +sometimes did) to describe animal natures and the vilest of their sex. +Dickens is a realist in that he probes the gloomiest recesses and faces +the most disheartening problems of life: he is an idealist in that he +never presents us the common or the vile with mere commonplace or +repulsiveness, and without some ray of humane and genial charm to which +ordinary eyes are blind. Dickens, then, was above all things a +humourist, an inexhaustible humourist, to whom the humblest forms of +daily life wore a certain sunny air of genial mirth; but the question +remains if he was a humourist of the highest order: was he a poet, a +creator of abiding imaginative types? Old Johnson's definition of +humour as "grotesque imagery," and "grotesque" as meaning some +distortion in figure, may not be adequate as a description of humour, +but it well describes the essential feature of Charles Dickens. His +infallible instrument is caricature--which strictly means an +"overload," as Johnson says, "an exaggerated resemblance." Caricature +is a likeness having some comical exaggeration or distortion. Now, +caricature is a legitimate and potent instrument of humour, which great +masters have used with consummate effect. Leonardo da Vinci, Michael +Angelo, Rembrandt, Hogarth, use it; but only at times, and in a +subsidiary way. Rabelais, Swift, Fielding, use this weapon not +unfrequently; Shakespeare very sparingly; Goldsmith and Scott, I think, +almost never. Caricature, the essence of which is exaggeration of some +selected feature, distortion of figure, disproportion of some part, is +a potent resource, but one to which the greater masters resort rarely +and with much moderation. + +Now with Charles Dickens caricature--that comical exaggeration of a +particular feature, distortion of some part beyond nature--is not only +the essence of his humour, but it is the universal and ever-present +source of his mirth. It would not be true to say that, exaggeration is +the sole form of humour that he uses, but there is hardly a character +of his to which it is not applied, nor a scene of which it is not the +pervading "motive." Some feature, some oddity, some temperament is +seized, dwelt upon, played with, and turned inside out, with incessant +repetition and unwearied energy. Every character, except the walking +gentleman and the walking lady, the insipid lover, or the colourless +friend, have some feature thrust out of proportion, magnified beyond +nature. Sam Weller never speaks without his anecdote, Uriah is always +"'umble," Barkis is always "willin'," Mark Tapley is always "jolly," +Dombey is always solemn, and Toots is invariably idiotic. It is no +doubt natural that Barnaby's Raven should always want tea, whatever +happens, for the poor bird has but a limited vocabulary. But one does +not see why articulate and sane persons like Captain Cuttle, Pecksniff, +and Micawber should repeat the same phrases under every condition and +to all persons. This, no doubt, is the essence of farce: it may be +irresistibly droll as farce, but it does not rise beyond farce. And at +last even the most enthusiastic Pickwickian wearies of such monotony of +iteration. + +Now, the keynote of caricature being the distortion of nature, it +inevitably follows that humourous exaggeration is unnatural, however +droll; and, where it is the main source of the drollery, the picture as +a whole ceases to be within the bounds of nature. But the great +masters of the human heart invariably remain true to nature: not merely +true to a selected feature, but to the natural form as a whole. +Falstaff, in his wildest humour, speaks and acts as such a man really +might speak and act. He has no catch-phrase on which he harps, as if +he were a talking-machine wound up to emit a dozen sounds. Parson +Adams speaks and acts as such a being might do in nature. The comic +characters of Goldsmith, Scott, or Thackeray do not outrun and defy +nature, nor does their drollery depend on any special and abnormal +feature, much less on any stock phrase which they use as a label. The +illustrations of Cruikshank and Phiz are delightfully droll, and often +caricatures of a high order. But being caricatures, they overload and +exaggerate nature, and indeed are always, in one sense, impossible in +nature. The grins, the grimaces, the contortions, the dwarfs, the +idiots, the monstrosities of these wonderful sketches could not be +found in human beings constructed on any known anatomy. And Dickens's +own characters have the same element of unnatural distortion. It is +possible that these familiar caricatures have even done harm to his +reputation. His creations are of a higher order of art and are more +distinctly spontaneous and original. But the grotesque sketches with +which he almost uniformly presented his books accentuate the element of +caricature on which he relied; and often add an unnatural extravagance +beyond that extravagance which was the essence of his own method. + +The consequence is that everything in Dickens is "in the excess," as +Aristotle would say, and not "in the mean." Whether it is Tony Weller, +or "the Shepherd," or the Fat Boy, Hugh or the Raven, Toots or +Traddles, Micawber or Skimpole, Gamp or Mantalini--all are overloaded +in the sense that they exceed nature, and are more or less extravagant. +They are wonderful and delightful caricatures, but they are impossible +in fact. The similes are hyperbolic; the names are grotesque; the +incidents partake of harlequinade, and the speeches of roaring farce. +It is often wildly droll, but it is rather the drollery of the stage +than of the book. The characters are never possible in fact; they are +not, and are not meant to be, nature; they are always and everywhere +comic distortions of nature. Goldsmith's Dr. Primrose tells us that he +chose his wife for the same qualities for which she chose her wedding +gown. That is humour, but it is also pure, literal, exact truth to +nature. David Copperfield's little wife is called a lap-dog, acts like +a lap-dog, and dies like a lap-dog; the lap-dog simile is so much +overdone that we are glad to get rid of her, and instead of weeping +with Copperfield, we feel disposed to call him a ninny. + +Nothing is more wonderful in Dickens than his exuberance of animal +spirits, that inexhaustible fountain of life and gaiety, in which he +equals Scott and far surpasses any other modern. The intensity of the +man, his electric activity, his spasmodic nervous power, quite dazzle +and stun us. But this restless gaiety too often grows fatiguing, as +the rollicking fun begins to pall upon us, as the jokes ring hollow, +and the wit gets stale by incessant reiteration. We know how much in +real life we get to hate the joker who does not know when to stop, who +repeats his jests, and forces the laugh when it does not flow freely. +Something of the kind the most devoted of Dickens's readers feel when +they take in too much at one time. None but the very greatest can +maintain for long one incessant outpour of drollery, much less of +extravagance. Aristophanes could do it; Shakespeare could do it; so +could Cervantes; and so, too, Rabelais. But then, the wildest +extravagance of these men is so rich, so varied, so charged with +insight and thought, and, in the case of Rabelais, so resplendent with +learning and suggestion, that we never feel satiety and the cruel sense +that the painted mask on the stage is grinning at us, whilst the actor +behind it is weary and sad. When one who is not amongst the very +greatest pours forth the same inextinguishable laughter in the same +key, repeating the same tricks, and multiplying kindred oddities, +people of cultivation enjoy it heartily once, twice, it may be a dozen +times, but at last they make way for the young bloods who can go +thirty-seven times to see "Charley's Aunt." + +A good deal has been said about Dickens's want of reading; and his +enthusiastic biographer very fairly answers that Charles Dickens's book +was the great book of life, of which he was an indefatigable student. +When other men were at school and at college, he was gathering up a +vast experience of the hard world, and when his brother writers were +poring over big volumes in their libraries, he was pacing up and down +London and its suburbs with inexhaustible energy, drinking in oddities, +idiosyncrasies, and wayside incidents at every pore. It is quite true: +London is a microcosm, an endless and bottomless Babylon; which, +perhaps, no man has ever known so well as did Charles Dickens. This +was his library: here he gathered that vast encyclopaedia of human +nature, which some are inclined to call "cockney," but if it be, +"Cockayne" must be a very large country indeed. Still, the fact +remains, that of book-learning of any kind Dickens remained, to the end +of his days, perhaps more utterly innocent than any other famous +English writer since Shakespeare. His biographer labours to prove that +he had read Fielding and Smollett, _Don Quixote_ and _Gil Blas_, _The +Spectator_, and _Robinson Crusoe_. Perhaps he had, like most men who +have learned to read. But, no doubt, this utter severance from books, +which we feel in his tales, will ultimately tell against their +immortality. + +This rigid abstinence from books, which Dickens practised on system, +had another reaction that we notice in his style. Not only do we feel +in reading his novels that we have no reason to assume that he had ever +read anything except a few popular romances, but we note that he can +hardly be said to have a formed literary style of his own. Dickens had +mannerisms, but hardly a style. In some ways, this is a good thing: +much less can he be said to have a bad style. It is simply no style. +He knows nothing of the crisp, modulated, balanced, and reserved +mastery of phrase and sentence which marks Thackeray. Nor is it the +easy simplicity of _Robinson Crusoe_ and the _Vicar of Wakefield_. The +tale spins along, and the incidents rattle on with the volubility of a +good story-teller who warms up as he goes, but who never stops to think +of his sentences and phrases. He often gets verbose, rings the changes +on a point which he sees to have caught his hearers; he plays with a +fancy out of measure, and turns his jest inside out and over and over, +like a fine comic actor when the house is in a roar. His language is +free, perfectly clear, often redundant, sometimes grandiloquent, and +usually addressed more to the pit than to the boxes. And he is a +little prone to slide, even in his own proper person, into those formal +courtesies and obsolete compliments which forty years ago survived +amongst the superior orders of bagmen and managing clerks. + +There is an old topic of discussion whether Dickens could invent an +organic and powerful plot, and carry out an elaborate scheme with +perfect skill. It is certain that he has never done so, and it can +hardly be said that he has ever essayed it. The serial form in parts, +wherein almost all his stories were cast, requiring each number of +three chapters to be "assorted," like sugar-plums, with grave and gay, +so as to tell just enough but not too much, made a highly-wrought +scheme almost impossible. It is plain that Charles Dickens had nothing +of that epical gift which gave us _Tom Jones_ and _Ivanhoe_. Perhaps +the persistent use of the serial form shows that he felt no interest in +that supreme art of an immense drama duly unfolded to a prepared end. +In _Pickwick_ there neither was, nor could there be, any organic plot. +In _Oliver Twist_, in _Barnaby Rudge_, in _Dombey_, in _Bleak House_, +in the _Tale of Two Cities_, there are indications of his possessing +this power, and in certain parts of these tales we seem to be in the +presence of a great master of epical narration. But the power is not +sustained; and it must be confessed that in none of these tales is +there a complete and equal scheme. In most of the other books, +especially in those after _Bleak House_, the plot is so artless, so +_decousu_, so confused, that even practised readers of Dickens fail to +keep it clear in their mind. The serial form, where a leading +character wanders about to various places, and meets a succession of +quaint parties, seems to be that which suited his genius and which he +himself most entirely enjoyed. + +In contrast with the Pickwickian method of comic rambles in search of +human "curios," Dickens introduced some darker effects and persons of a +more or less sensational kind. Some of these are as powerful as +anything in modern fiction; and Fagin and Bill Sikes, Smike and Poor +Jo, the Gordon riots and the storms at sea, may stand beside some +tableaux of Victor Hugo for lurid power and intense realism. But it +was only at times and during the first half of his career that Dickens +could keep clear of melodrama and somewhat stagey blue fire. And at +times his blue fire was of a very cheap kind. Rosa Dartle and Carker, +Steerforth and Blandois, Quilp and Uriah Heep, have a melancholy +glitter of the footlights over them. We cannot see what the villains +want, except to look villainous, and we fail to make out where is the +danger to the innocent victims. We find the villain of the piece +frantically struggling to get some paper, or to get hold of some boy or +girl. But as the scene is in London in the nineteenth century, and not +in Naples in the fifteenth century, we cannot see who is in real +danger, or why, or of what. And with all this, Dickens was not +incapable of bathos, or tragedy suddenly exploding in farce. The end +of Krook by spontaneous combustion is such a case; but a worse case is +the death of Dora, Copperfield's baby wife, along with that of the +lap-dog, Jip. This is one of those unforgotten, unpardonable, +egregious blunders in art, in feeling, even in decency, which must +finally exclude Charles Dickens from the rank of the true immortals. + +But his books will long be read for his wonderful successes, and his +weaker pieces will entirely be laid aside as are the failures of so +many great men, the rubbish of Fielding, of Goldsmith, of Defoe; which +do nothing now to dim the glory of _Tom Jones_, _The Vicar of +Wakefield_, and _Robinson Crusoe_. The glory of Charles Dickens will +always be in his _Pickwick_, his first, his best, his inimitable +triumph. It is true that it is a novel without a plot, without +beginning, middle, or end, with much more of caricature than of +character, with some extravagant tom-foolery, and plenty of vulgarity. +But its originality, its irrepressible drolleries, its substantial +human nature, and its intense vitality, place it quite in a class by +itself. We can no more group it, or test it by any canon of criticism, +than we could group or define _Pantagruel_ or _Faust_. There are some +works of genius which seem to transcend all criticism, of which the +very extravagances and incoherences increase the charm. And _Pickwick_ +ought to live with _Gil Blas_ and _Tristram Shandy_. In a deeper vein, +the tragic scenes in _Oliver Twist_ and in _Barnaby Rudge_ must long +hold their ground, for they can be read and re-read in youth, in +manhood, in old age. The story of Dotheboys Hall, the Yarmouth +memories of Copperfield, Little Nell, Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, Toots, +Captain Cuttle, Pecksniff, and many more will long continue to delight +the youth of the English-speaking races. But few writers are +remembered so keenly by certain characters, certain scenes, incidental +whimsies, and so little for entire novels treated strictly as works of +art. There is no reason whatever for pretending that all these scores +of tales are at all to be compared with the best of them, or that the +invention of some inimitable scenes and characters is enough to make a +supreme and faultless artist. The young and the uncritical make too +much of Charles Dickens, when they fail to distinguish between his best +and his worst. Their fastidious seniors make too little of him, when +they note his many shortcomings and fail to see that in certain +elements of humour he has no equal and no rival. If we mean Charles +Dickens to live we must fix our eye on these supreme gifts alone. + + + + +VII + +CHARLOTTE BRONTE + +They who are still youthful in the nineties can hardly understand the +thrill which went through us all in the forties upon the appearance of +_Jane Eyre_, on the discovery of a new genius and a new style. The +reputation of most later writers grew by degrees and by repeated +impressions of good work. Trollope, George Eliot, Stevenson, George +Meredith, did not conquer the interest of the larger public until after +many books and by gradual widening of the judgment of experts. But +little Charlotte Bronte, who published but three tales in six years and +who died at the age of thirty-eight, bounded into immediate fame--a +fame that after nearly fifty years we do not even now find to have been +excessive. + +And then, there was such personal interest in the writer's self, in her +intense individuality, in her strong character; there was so much +sympathy with her hard and lonely life; there was such pathos in her +family history and the tragedy which threw gloom over her whole life, +and cut it off in youth after a few months of happiness. To have lived +in poverty, in a remote and wild moorland, almost friendless and in +continual struggle against sickness, to have been motherless since the +age of five, to have lost four sisters and a brother before she was +more than thirty-three, to have been sole survivor of a large +household, to have passed a life of continual weakness, toil, and +suffering--and then to be cut off after nine months of marriage,--all +this touched the sympathies of the world as the private life of few +writers touches them. And then the shock of her sudden death came upon +us as a personal sorrow. Such genius, such courage, such perseverance, +such promise--and yet but three books in all, published at intervals of +two and of four years! There was meaning in the somewhat unusual form +in which Mrs. Gaskell opens her _Life of Charlotte Bronte_, setting out +verbatim in her first chapter the seven memorial inscriptions to the +buried family in Haworth Church, and placing on the title-page a +vignette of Haworth churchyard with its white tombstones. Charlotte +Bronte was a kind of prosaic, most demure and orthodox Shelley in the +Victorian literature--with visible genius, an intense personality, +unquenchable fire, an early and tragic death. And all this passion in +a little prim, shy, delicate, proud Puritan girl! + +To this sympathy our great writer, whom she herself called "the first +social regenerator of the day," did full justice in that beautiful +little piece which he wrote in the _Cornhill Magazine_ upon her death +and which is the last of the _Roundabout Papers_ in the twenty-second +volume of Thackeray's collected works. It is called _The Last Sketch_: +it is so eloquent, so true, so sympathetic that it deserves to be +remembered, and yet after forty years it is too seldom read. + + +Of the multitude that have read her books, who has not known and +deplored the tragedy of her family, her own most sad and untimely fate? +Which of her readers has not become her friend? Who that has known her +books has not admired the artist's noble English, the burning love of +truth, the bravery, the simplicity, the indignation at wrong, the eager +sympathy, the pious love and reverence, the passionate honour, so to +speak, of the woman? What a story is that of that family of poets in +their solitude yonder on the gloomy northern moors! + + +He goes on to deplore that "the heart newly awakened to love and +happiness, and throbbing with maternal hope, had ceased to beat." He +speaks of her "trembling little frame, the little hand, the great +honest eyes." He speaks of his recollections of her in society, of +"the impetuous honesty" which seemed the character of the woman-- + + +I fancied an austere little Joan of Arc marching in upon us, and +rebuking our easy lives, our easy morals. She gave me the impression +of being a very pure, and lofty, and high-minded person. A great and +holy reverence of right and truth seemed to be with her always. Such, +in our brief interview, she appeared to me. As one thinks of that life +so noble, so lonely,--of that passion for truth--of those nights and +nights of eager study, swarming fancies, invention, depression, +elation, prayer; as one reads the necessarily incomplete, though most +touching and admirable history of the heart that throbbed in this one +little frame--of this one amongst the myriads of souls that have lived +and died on this great earth--this great earth?--this little speck in +the infinite universe of God--with what wonder do we think of to-day, +with what awe await to-morrow, when that which is now but darkly seen +shall be clear! + + +It is quite natural and right that Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell, indeed all +who have spoken of the author of _Jane Eyre_, should insist primarily +on the personality of Charlotte Bronte. It is this intense personality +which is the distinctive note of her books. They are not so much tales +as imaginary autobiographies. They are not objective presentations of +men and women in the world. They are subjective sketches of a Bronte +under various conditions, and of the few men and women who occasionally +cross the narrow circle of the Bronte world. Of the three stories she +published, two are autobiographies, and the third is a fancy portrait +of her sister Emily. Charlotte Bronte is herself Jane Eyre and Lucy +Snowe, and Emily Bronte is Shirley Keeldar. So in _The Professor_, her +earliest but posthumous tale, Frances Henri again is simply a little +Swiss Bronte. That story also is told as an autobiography, but, though +the narrator is supposed to be one William Crimsworth, it is a woman +who speaks, sees, and dreams all through the book. The four tales, +which together were the work of eight years, are all variations upon a +Bronte and the two Bronte worlds in Yorkshire and Belgium. It is most +significant (but quite natural) that Mrs. Gaskell in her _Life of +Charlotte Bronte_ devotes more than half her book to the story of the +family before the publication of _Jane Eyre_. The four tales are not +so much romances as artistic and imaginative autobiographies. + +To say this is by no means to detract from their rare value. The +romances of adventure, of incident, of intrigue, of character, of +society, or of humour, depend on a great variety of observation and a +multiplicity of contrasts. There is not much of Walter Scott, as a +man, in _Ivanhoe_ or of Alexander Dumas in the _Trois Mousquetaires_; +and Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Bulwer, Miss Edgeworth, Stevenson, +and Meredith--even Miss Austen and George Eliot--seek to paint men and +women whom they conceive and whom we may see and know, and not +themselves and their own home circle. But Charlotte Bronte told us her +own life, her own feelings, sufferings, pride, joy, and ambition. She +bared for us her own inner soul, and all that it had known and desired, +and this she did with a noble, pure, simple, but intense truth. There +was neither egoism, nor monotony, nor commonplace in it. It was all +coloured with native imagination and a sense of true art. There is +ample room in Art for these subjective idealisations of even the +narrowest world. Shelley's lyrics are intensely self-centred, but no +one can find in them either realism or egoism. The field in prose is +far more limited, and the risk of becoming tedious and morbid is +greater. But a true artist can now and then in prose produce most +precious portraits of self and glowing autobiographic fantasies of a +noble kind. + +And Charlotte Bronte was a true artist. She was also more than this; a +brave, sincere, high-minded woman, with a soul, as the great moralist +saw, "of impetuous honesty." She was not seduced, or even moved, by +her sudden fame. She put aside the prospect of success, money, and +social distinction as things which revolted her. She was quite right. +With all her genius it was strictly and narrowly limited; she was +ignorant of the world to a degree immeasurably below that of any other +known writer of fiction; her world was incredibly scanty and barren. +She had to spin everything out of her own brain in that cold, still, +gruesome Haworth parsonage. It was impossible for any genius to paint +a world of which it was as ignorant as a child. Hence, in eight years +she only completed four tales for publication. And she did right. +With her strict limits both of brain and of experience she could not go +further. Perhaps, as it was, she did more than was needed. _Shirley_ +and _Villette_, with all their fine scenes, are interesting now mainly +because Charlotte Bronte wrote them, and because they throw light upon +her brain and nature. _The Professor_ is entirely so, and has hardly +any other quality. We need not groan that we have no more than we have +from her pen. _Jane Eyre_ would suffice for many reputations and alone +will live. + +In considering the gifted Bronte family, it is really Charlotte alone +who finally concerns us. Emily Bronte was a wild, original, and +striking creature, but her one book is a kind of prose _Kubla Khan_--a +nightmare of the superheated imagination. Anne Bronte always seems but +a pale reflection of the family. In any other family she might be +interesting--just as "Barrel Mirabeau" was the good boy and fool of the +Mirabeau family, though in another family he would have been the genius +and the profligate. And so, the poems of the whole three are +interesting as psychologic studies, but have hardly a single stanza +that can be called poetry at all. It is significant, but hardly +paradoxical, that Charlotte's verses are the worst of the three. How +many born writers of musical prose have persisted in manufacturing +verse of a curiously dull and unmelodious quality! The absolute +masters of prose and of verse in equal perfection hardly exceed +Shakespeare and Shelley, Goethe and Hugo. And Charlotte Bronte is an +eminent example of a strong imagination working with freedom in prose, +but which began by using the instrument of verse, and used it in a +manner that never rose for an instant above mediocrity. + +Of the Brontes it is Charlotte only who concerns us, and of Charlotte's +work it is _Jane Eyre_ only that can be called a masterpiece. To call +it a masterpiece, as Thackeray did, is not to deny its manifold and +manifest shortcomings. It is a very small corner of the world that it +gives, and that world is seen by a single acute observer from without. +The plain little governess dominates the whole book and fills every +page. Everything and every one appear, not as we see them and know +them in the world, but as they look to a keen-eyed girl who had hardly +ever left her native village. Had the whole book been cast into the +form of impersonal narration, this limitation, this huge ignorance of +life, this amateur's attempt to construct a romance by the light of +nature instead of observation and study of persons, would have been a +failure. As the autobiography of Jane Eyre--let us say at once of +Charlotte Bronte--it is consummate art. It produces the illusion we +feel in reading _Robinson Crusoe_. In the whole range of modern +fiction there are few characters whom we feel that we know so +intimately as we do Jane Eyre. She is as intensely familiar to us as +Becky Sharp or Parson Adams. Much more than this. Not only do we feel +an intimate knowledge of Jane Eyre, but we see every one by the eyes of +Jane Eyre only. Edward Rochester has not a few touches of the +melodramatic villain; and no man would ever draw a man with such +conventional and Byronic extravagances. If Edward Rochester had been +described in impersonal narrative with all his brutalities, his stage +villain frowns, and his Grand Turk whims, it would have spoiled the +book. But Edward Rochester, the "master" of the little governess, as +seen by the eyes of a passionate, romantic, but utterly unsophisticated +girl, is a powerful character; and all the inconsistencies, the +affectation, the savageries we might detect in him, become the natural +love-dream of a most imaginative and most ignorant young woman. + +A consummate master of style has spoken, we have just seen, of the +"noble English" that Charlotte Bronte wrote. It is true that she never +reached the exquisite ease, culture, and raciness of Thackeray's +English. She lapsed now and then into provincial solecisms; she +"named" facts as well as persons; girls talk of a "beautiful man"; nor +did she know anything of the scientific elaboration of George Eliot or +the subtle grace of Stevenson. But the style is of high quality and +conscientious finish--terse, pure, picturesque, and sound. Like +everything she did, it was most scrupulously honest--the result of a +sincere and vivid soul, resolved to utter what it had most at heart in +the clearest tone. Very few writers of romance have ever been masters +of a style so effective, so nervous, so capable of rising into floods +of melody and pathos. There is a fine passage of the kind in one of +her least-known books, the earliest indeed of all, which no publisher +could be found in her lifetime to print. The "Professor" has just +proposed, has been accepted, and goes home to bed half-crazy and +fasting. A sudden reaction falls on his over-wrought nerves. + + +A horror of great darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by +one I had known formerly, but had thought for ever departed. I was +temporarily a prey to hypochondria. She had been my acquaintance, nay, +my guest, once before in boyhood; I had entertained her at bed and +board for a year; for that space of time I had her to myself in secret; +she lay with me, she ate with me, she walked out with me, showing me +nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and +where she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, +grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom, and +holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would tell me at such +hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she would +discourse to me of her own country--the grave--and again and again +promise to conduct me there ere long; and drawing me to the very brink +of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal +with mound, monument, and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary +than moonlight. "Necropolis!" she would whisper, pointing to the pale +piles, and add, "It contains a mansion prepared for you." + + +Finely imagined--finely said! It has the ring and weird mystery of De +Quincey. There are phrases that Thackeray would not have used, such as +jar on the ear and betray an immature taste. "Necropolis" is a strange +affectation when "City of the Dead" was at hand; and "pointing to the +pale piles" is a hideous alliteration. But in spite of such +immaturities (and the writer never saw the text in type) the passage +shows wonderful power of language and sense of music in prose. How +fine is the sentence, "taking me to her death-cold bosom, and holding +me with arms of bone," and that of the tombstones, "in a glimmer more +hoary than moonlight" Coleridge might have used such a phrase in the +_Ancient Mariner_ or in _Christabel_. Yet these were the thoughts and +the words of a lonely girl of thirty as she watched the dreary +churchyard at Haworth from the windows of its unlovely parsonage. + +This vivid power of painting in words is specially called forth by the +look of nature and the scenes she describes. Charlotte Bronte had, in +the highest degree, that which Ruskin has called the "pathetic +fallacy," the eye which beholds nature coloured by the light of the +inner soul. In this quality she really reaches the level of fine +poetry. Her intense sympathy with her native moors and glens is akin +to that of Wordsworth. She almost never attempts to describe any +scenery with which she is not deeply familiar. But how wonderfully she +catches the tone of her own moorland, skies, storm-winds, secluded hall +or cottage! + + +The charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the +low-gliding and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a +lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in +autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, +but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless +repose. If a breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there +was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn +and hazel bushes were as still as the white worn stones which +causewayed the middle of the path. Far and wide, on each side, there +were only fields, where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown +birds, which stirred occasionally in the hedge, looked like single +russet leaves that had forgotten to drop. . . . From my seat I could +look down on Thornfield: the gray and battlemented hall was the +principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose +against the west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, +and sank crimson and clear behind them. + + +How admirable is this icy hush of nature in breathless expectation of +the first coming of the master of Thornfield--of the master of Jane +herself. And yet, how simple in phrase, how pure, how Wordsworthian in +its sympathy with earth even in her most bare and sober hues! And then +that storm which ushers in the story of the Vampyre woman tearing +Jane's wedding veil at her bedside, when "the clouds drifted from pole +to pole, fast following, mass on mass." And as Jane watches the +shivered chestnut-tree, "black and riven, the trunk, split down the +centre, gasped ghastly"--a strange but powerful alliteration. "The +moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled the +fissure; her disk was blood-red and half overcast; she seemed to throw +on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly +in the deep drift of cloud." An admirable overture to that terrific +scene of the mad wife's visit to the rival's bed. + +Charlotte Bronte is great in clouds, like a prose Shelley. We all +recall that mysterious storm in which _Villette_ darkly closes, and +with it the expected bridegroom of Lucy Snowe-- + + +The wind takes its autumn moan; but--he is coming. The skies hang full +and dark--a rack sails from the west; the clouds cast themselves into +strange forms--arches and broad radiations; there rise resplendent +mornings--glorious, royal, purple as monarch in his state; the heavens +are one flame; so wild are they, they rival battle at its thickest--so +bloody, they shame Victory in her pride. . . . When the sun returned +his light was night to some! + + +And into that night Lucy's master, lover, husband has for ever passed. + +This sympathy with nature, and this power to invest it with feeling for +the human drama of which it is the scene, lifts little Charlotte Bronte +into the company of the poets. No one, however, can enter into all the +art of her landscapes unless he knows those Yorkshire moors, the +straggling upland villages, bare, cold, gray, uncanny, with low, +unlovely stone buildings, and stern church towers and graveyards, +varied with brawling brooks and wooded glens, and here and there a grim +manor-house that had seen war. It is so often that the dwellers in the +least picturesque and smiling countries are found to love their native +country best and to invest it with the most enduring art. And the +pilgrims to Haworth Parsonage have in times past been as ardent as +those who flock to Grasmere or to Abbotsford. + +_Jane Eyre_ is full of this "pathetic fallacy," or aspect of nature +dyed in the human emotions of which it is the mute witness. The storm +in the garden at night when Rochester first offers marriage to his +little governess, and they return to the house drenched in rain and +melted with joy, is a fine example of this power. From first to last, +the correspondence between the local scene and the human drama is a +distinctive mark in _Jane Eyre_. + +If I were asked to choose that scene in the whole tale which impresses +itself most on my memory, I should turn to the thirty-sixth chapter +when Jane comes back to have a look at Thornfield Hall, peeps on the +battlemented mansion which she had loved so well, and is struck dumb to +find it burnt out to a mere skeleton--"I looked with timorous joy +toward a stately house: I saw a blackened ruin." The suddenness of +this shock, its unexpected and yet natural catastrophe, its mysterious +imagery of the loves of Edward Rochester and Jane Eyre, and the intense +sympathy which earth, wood, rookery, and ruin seem to feel for the +girl's eagerness, amazement, and horror, have always seemed to me to +reach the highest note of art in romance. It is now forty-seven years +since I first read that piece; and in all these years I have found no +single scene in later fiction which is so vividly and indelibly burnt +into the memory as is this. The whole of this chapter, and what +follows it, is intensely real and true. And the very denoument of the +tale itself--that inevitable bathos into which the romance so often +dribbles out its last inglorious breath--has a manliness and sincerity +of its own: "the sky is no longer a blank to him--the earth no longer a +void." + +The famous scene in the twenty-sixth chapter with the interrupted +marriage, when Rochester drags the whole bridal party into the den of +his maniacal wife, the wild struggle with the mad woman, the despair of +Jane--all this is as powerful as anything whatever in English fiction. +It is even a masterpiece of ingenious construction and dramatic action. +It is difficult to form a cool estimate of a piece so intense, so +vivid, and so artful in its mechanism. The whole incident is conceived +with the most perfect reality; the plot is original, startling, and yet +not wholly extravagant. But it must be confessed that the plot is not +worked out in details in a faultless way. It is undoubtedly in +substance "sensational," and has been called the parent of modern +sensationalism. Edward Rochester acts as a Rochester might; but he too +often talks like the "wicked baronet" of low melodrama. The execution +is not always quite equal to the conception. The affiance of Jane and +Edward Rochester, their attempted marriage, the wild temptation of +Jane, her fierce rebuff of the tempter, his despair and remorse, her +agony and flight--all are consummate in conception, marred here and +there as they are in details by the blue fire and conventional +imprecations of the stage. + +The concluding chapters of the book, when Jane finally rejects St. John +Rivers and goes back to Thornfield and to her "master," are all indeed +excellent. St. John is not successful as a character; but he serves to +produce the crisis and to be foil to Rochester. St. John, it is true, +is not a real being: like Rochester, he is a type of man as he affects +the brain and heart of a highly sensitive and imaginative girl. +Objectively speaking, as men living and acting in a practical world, +St. John and Rochester are both in some degree caricatures of men; and, +if the narrative were a cold story calmly composed by a certain Miss +Bronte to amuse us, we could not avoid the sense of unreality in the +men. But the intensity of the vision, the realism of every scene, the +fierce yet self-governed passion of Jane herself, pouring out, as in a +secret diary, her agonies of love, of scorn, of pride, of +abandonment,--all this produces an illusion on us: we are no longer +reading a novel of society, but we are admitted to the wild musings of +a girl's soul; and, though she makes out her first lover to be a +generous brute and her second lover to be a devout machine, we feel it +quite natural that Jane, with her pride and her heart of fire and her +romantic brain, should so in her diary describe them. + +St. John Rivers, if we take him coolly outside of Jane's portrait +gallery, is little more than a puppet. We never seem to get nearer to +his own mind and heart, and his conduct and language are hardly +compatible with the noble attributes with which he is said to be +adorned. A man of such refined culture, of such high intelligence, of +such social distinction and experience, of such angelic character, does +not treat women with studied insolence and diabolical cynicism. That a +girl, half maddened by disappointed love, should romantically come to +erect his image into that of a sort of diabolic angel, is natural +enough, and her conduct when she leaves Moor House is right and true, +though we cannot say as much for Rivers' words. But the impression of +the whole scene is right. + +In the same way, Edward Rochester, if we take him simply as a cultured +and travelled country gentleman, who was a magnate and great _parti_ in +his county, is barely within the range of possibility. As St. John +Rivers is a walking contradictory of a diabolic saint, so Edward +Rochester is a violent specimen of the heroic ruffian. In Emily +Bronte's gruesome phantasmagoria of _Wuthering Heights_ there is a +ruffian named Heathcliff; and, whatever be his brutalities and +imprecations, we always feel in reading it that _Wuthering Heights_ is +merely a grisly dream, not a novel at all. Edward Rochester has +something of the Heathcliff too. But Rochester is a man of the best +English society, courted by wealth and rank, a man of cultivated +tastes, of wide experience and refined habits, and lastly of most +generous and heroic impulses--and yet such a man swears at his people +like a horse-dealer, teases and bullies his little governess, treats +his adopted child like a dog, almost kicks his brother-in-law in his +rages, plays shocking tricks with his governess at night, offers her +marriage, and attempts to commit bigamy in his own parish with his +living wife still under the same roof! That a man of Rochester's +resource, experience, and forethought, should keep his maniac wife in +his own ancestral home where he is entertaining the county families and +courting a neighbouring peer's sister, and that, after the maniac had +often attempted murder and arson--all this is beyond the range of +probabilities. And yet the story could not go on without it. And so, +Edward Rochester, man of the world as he is, risks his life, his home, +and everything and every one dear to him in order that his little +governess, Jane Eyre, should have the materials for inditing a +thrilling autobiography. It cannot be denied that this is the very +essence of "sensationalism," which means a succession of thrilling +surprises constructed out of situations that are practically impossible. + +Nor, alas! can we deny that there are ugly bits of real coarseness in +_Jane Eyre_. It is true that most of them are the effects of that +portentous ignorance of the world and of civilised society which the +solitary dreamer of Haworth Parsonage had no means of removing. The +fine ladies, the lords and soldiers in the drawing-room at Thornfield +are described with inimitable life, but they are described as they +appeared to the lady's-maids, not to each other or to the world. +Charlotte Bronte perhaps did not know that an elegant girl of rank does +not in a friend's house address her host's footman before his guests in +these words--"Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding." Nor +does a gentleman speak to his governess of the same lady whom he is +thought to be about to marry in these terms--"She is a rare one, is she +not, Jane? A strapper--a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom." +But all these things are rather the result of pure ignorance. +Charlotte Bronte, when she wrote her first book, had hardly ever seen +any Englishmen but a few curates, the villagers, and her degraded +brother, with rare glimpses of lower middle-class homes. But Jane +Eyre's own doings and sayings are hardly the effect of mere ignorance. +Her nocturnal adventures with her "master" are given with delightful +_naivete_; her consenting to hear out her "master's" story of his +foreign amours is not pleasant. Her two avowals to Edward +Rochester--one before he had declared his love for her, and the other +on her return to him--are certainly somewhat frank. Jane Eyre in truth +does all but propose marriage twice to Edward Rochester; and she is the +first to avow her love, even when she believed he was about to marry +another woman. It is indeed wrung from her; it is human nature; it is +a splendid encounter of passion; and if it be bold in the little woman, +it is redeemed by her noble defiance of his tainted suit, and her +desperate flight from her married lover. + +But Jane Eyre's ignorances and simplicities, the improbabilities of her +men, the violence of the plot, the weird romance about her own life, +are all made acceptable to us by being shown to us only through the +secret visions of a passionate and romantic girl. As the autobiography +of a brave and original woman, who bares to us her whole heart without +reserve and without fear, _Jane Eyre_ stands forth as a great book of +the nineteenth century. It stands just in the middle of the century, +when men were still under the spell of Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, and +Wordsworth, and yet it is not wholly alien to the methods of our latest +realists. + +It is true that a purely subjective work in prose romance, an +autobiographic revelation of a sensitive heart, is not the highest and +certainly not the widest art. Scott and Thackeray--even Jane Austen +and Maria Edgeworth--paint the world, or part of the world, as it is, +crowded with men and women of various characters. Charlotte Bronte +painted not the world, hardly a corner of the world, but the very soul +of one proud and loving girl. That is enough: we need ask no more. It +was done with consummate power. We feel that we know her life, from +ill-used childhood to her proud matronhood; we know her home, her +school, her professional duties, her loves and hates, her agonies and +her joys, with that intense familiarity and certainty of vision with +which our own personal memories are graven on our brain. With all its +faults, its narrowness of range, its occasional extravagances, _Jane +Eyre_ will long be remembered as one of the most creative influences of +the Victorian literature, one of the most poetic pieces of English +romance, and among the most vivid masterpieces in the rare order of +literary "Confessions." + + + + +VIII + +CHARLES KINGSLEY + +In this series of papers I have been trying to note some of the more +definite literary forces which tended to mould English opinion during the +epoch of the present Queen. I can remember the issue of nearly all the +greater products of the Victorian writers, or at least the heyday of +their early fame. I do not speak of any living writer, and confine +myself to the writers of our country. Much less do I permit myself to +speak of those living lights of literature from whom we may yet receive +work even surpassing that of those who are gone. My aim has been not so +much to weigh each writer in the delicate balance of mere literary merit, +but rather, from the point of view of the historian of ideas and of +manners, to record the successive influences which, in the last fifty +years or so, have moulded or reflected English opinion through printed +books, be they of the dogmatic or of the imaginative order. In so doing, +I have to speak of writers whose vogue is passing away with the present +generation, or those of whom we must admit very grave defects and +feebleness. Some of them may be little cared for to-day; though they +have a place in the evolution of British society and thought. + +Charles Kingsley has such a place--not by reason of any supreme work or +any very rare quality of his own, but by virtue of his versatility, his +_verve_, his fecundity, his irrepressible gift of breaking out in some +new line, his strong and reckless sympathy, and above all by real +literary brilliance. Where he failed to impress, to teach, to +inspire--almost even though he stirred men to anger or laughter--Charles +Kingsley for a generation continued to interest the public, to scatter +amongst them ideas or problems; he made many people think, and gave many +people delight. He woke them up in all sorts of ways, about all sorts of +things. He wrote lyrics, songs, dramas, romances, sermons, Platonic +dialogues, newspaper articles, children's fairy books, scientific +manuals, philosophical essays, lectures, extravaganzas, and theological +polemics. Hardly any of these were quite in the first rank, and some of +them were thin, flashy, and almost silly. But most of them had the +saving gift of getting home to the interests, ideas, and tastes of the +great public, and he made them think even when he was very wrong himself. +Such activity, such keenness, such command of literary resources, has to +be reckoned with in a man of warm feeling and generous impulses; and +thus, if Charles Kingsley is no longer with very many either prophet or +master, he was a literary influence of at least the second rank in his +own generation. + +This would not be enough to make a permanent reputation if it stood +alone; but there were moments in which he bounded into the first rank. +It would hardly be safe to call Kingsley a poet of great pretension, +although there are passages in _The Saint's Tragedy_ and in the _Ballads_ +of real power; but he has written songs which, as songs for the voice, +have hardly been surpassed by Tennyson himself. _The Sands of Dee_ and +_The Three Fishers_, if not poetry of quite perfect kind, have that +incommunicable and indescribable element of the _cantabile_ which fits +them to the wail of a sympathetic voice perhaps even better than any +songs of the most finished poetry. A true song must be simple, familiar, +musically suggestive of a single touching idea, and nothing more. And +this is just the mysterious quality of these songs and the source of +their immense popularity. Again, without pretending that Kingsley is a +great novelist, there are scenes, especially descriptive scenes, in +_Hypatia_, in _Westward Ho!_ which belong to the very highest order of +literary painting, and have hardly any superior in the romances of our +era. No romances, except Thackeray's, have the same glow of style in +such profusion and variety; and Thackeray himself was no such poet of +natural beauty as Charles Kingsley--a poet, be it remembered, who by +sheer force of imagination could realise for us landscapes and climates +of which he himself had no sort of experience. Even Scott himself has +hardly done this with so vivid a brush. + +Kingsley was a striking example of that which is so characteristic of +recent English literature--its strong, practical, social, ethical, or +theological bent. It is in marked contrast with French literature. Our +writers are always using their literary gifts to preach, to teach, to +promulgate a new social or religious movement, to reform somebody or +something to illustrate a new doctrine. From first to last, Carlyle +regarded himself even more as preacher than as artist: so does his +follower, Mr. Ruskin. Macaulay seemed to write history in order to prove +the immeasurable superiority of the Whig to the Tory; and Froude and +Freeman write history to enforce their own moral. Disraeli's novels were +the programme of a party and the defence of a cause; and even Dickens and +Thackeray plant their knives deep into the social abuses of their time. +Charles Kingsley was not professed novelist, nor professed man of +letters. He was novelist, poet, essayist, and historian, almost by +accident, or with ulterior aims. Essentially, he was a moralist, a +preacher, a socialist, a reformer, and a theologian. + +To begin with his poetry, and he himself began his literary career with +verses at the age of sixteen, he began to write poetry almost as a child, +and some of his earlier verses are his best. If Kingsley, with all his +literary gifts, was never quite in the first rank in anything, he came +nearest to being a poet of mark. Some of his ballads almost touch the +high-water mark of true ballad poetry, with its abrupt fierce blows of +tragedy and pathos, its simple touches of primitive rude speech, its +reserve of force, its unspoken mysteries. At any rate, Kingsley's best +ballads have no superior in the ballads of the Victorian era in lilt, in +massiveness of stroke, in strange unexpected turns. _The Weird Lady_ is +an astonishing piece for a lad of twenty-one--it begins with, "The +swevens came up round Harold the Earl, Like motes in the sunnes +beam"--and it ends with the stanza: + + A white dove out of the coffin flew; + Earl Harold's mouth it kist; + He fell on his face, wherever he stood; + And the white dove carried his soul to God + Or ever the bearers wist. + +That little piece is surely a bit of pure and rare ballad poetry. + +A _New Forest Ballad_ is also good, it ends thus-- + + They dug three graves in Lyndhurst yard; + They dug them side by side; + Two yeomen lie there, and a maiden fair, + A widow and never a bride. + +So too is the _Outlaw_, whose last request is this:-- + + And when I'm taen and hangit, mither, + a brittling o' my deer, + Ye'll no leave your bairn to the corbie craws, + to dangle in the air; + But ye'll send up my twa douce brethren, + and ye'll steal me fra the tree, + And bury me up on the brown, brown muirs, + where I aye loved to be. + + +The famous ballad in _Yeast_ might have been a great success if Kingsley +would have limited it to five stanzas instead of twenty. What a ring +there is in the opening lines-- + + The merry brown hares came leaping + Over the crest of the hill-- + +If he could only have been satisfied with the first five stanzas what a +ballad it would have been!--If only he had closed it with the verse-- + + She thought of the dark plantation + And the hares, and her husband's blood, + And the voice of her indignation + Rose up to the throne of God. + +That was enough for a ballad, but not for a political novel. The other +fifteen stanzas were required for his story; they may be vigorous +rhetoric, impressive moralising, but they are too argumentative and too +rhetorical to be ballad poetry. It is curious how much of Kingsley's +work, both poetry and prose, is inspired by his love of sport and his +indignation at game laws! + +His songs, spoiled as they are to our ears by poor music and too often +maudlin voices, are as good songs and as fitted for singing as any in our +time. _The Sands of Dee_, hacknied and vulgarised as it is by the +banalities of the drawing-room, is really (to use a hacknied and +vulgarised phrase) a "haunting" piece of song; and though Ruskin may +pronounce "the cruel crawling foam" to be a false use of the pathetic +fallacy, the song, for what it professes to be, is certainly a thing to +live. I have always felt more kindly toward the East wind since +Kingsley's _Welcome, wild North-Easter_!; and his Church Hymns such +as--_Who will say the world is dying?_ and _The Day of the Lord is at +hand, at hand!_--are far above the level even of the better modern hymns. + +We have not yet touched upon Kingsley's longest and most ambitious +poem--_The Saint's Tragedy_. With all its merits and beauties it is a +mistake. It was avowedly a controversial diatribe against the celibacy +and priestcraft of Romanism, and was originally designed to be in prose. +That is not a safe basis for a dramatic poem, and the poem suffers from +the fact that it is in great part a theological pamphlet. It would have +made a most interesting historical novel as a mediaeval pendant to +_Hypatia_; but it is not a great lyrical drama. As we have had no great +lyrical drama at all since _Manfred_ and _The Cenci_, that is not much in +its dispraise. There are powerful passages, much poetic grace in the +piece; but the four thousand lines of this elaborate polemical poem +rather weary us, and a perfervid appeal to the Protestantism and +uxoriousness of Britons should have been cast into other moulds. + +The long poem of _Andromeda_ almost succeeds in that impossible feat--the +revival of the hexameter in English. It may be a hard saying to the +countrymen of Longfellow, but the truth is that the hexameter is a +metrical monster in our English speech. The paucity of easy dactyls and +the absence of all true spondees in English words, the preponderance of +consonants over vowels, the want of inflected forms, and other +peculiarities in our language--make the hexameter incapable of +transplantation; and this magnificent metre loses with us all its +majesty, its ease, its beauty. The very line can hardly be printed on an +ordinary page, for the immense number of letters in each English verse +causes an unsightly doubling of the lines, chokes the voice, and wearies +the ear. In the hexameter line of Homer there are usually about thirty +letters, of which only twelve are consonants; in the English hexameter +there are often sixty letters, of which nearly forty are consonants. And +the Homeric hexameter will have six words where the English hexameter has +twelve or fourteen.[1] Yet having set himself this utterly hopeless and +thankless task, to write English hexameter, Kingsley produced some five +hundred lines of _Andromeda_, which in rhythm, ease, rapidity, and +metrical correctness are quite amongst the best in the language. It is +very rare to meet with any English hexameter which in rhythm, stress, and +prosody is perfectly accurate. _Andromeda_ contains many such lines, as +for example: + + Violet, asphodel, ivy, and vine-leaves, roses and lilies-- + Nereid, siren, and triton, and dolphin, and arrowy fishes. + +These lines are true hexameters, chiefly because they consist of Latin +and Greek words; and they have little more than forty letters, of which +barely more than half are consonants. They would be almost pure +hexameters, if in lieu of the long a[a-macron]nd, we could put +e[e-breve]t, or _te_ [tau epsilon]. And there are only three Saxon words +in the two lines. But hexameters consisting of purely English words, +especially of Anglo-Saxon words, halt and stammer like a schoolboy's +exercise. The attempt of Kingsley in _Andromeda_ is most ingenious and +most instructive. + +I have dwelt so much upon Kingsley's poetry because, though he was hardly +a "minor poet,"--an order which now boasts sixty members--he wrote a few +short pieces which came wonderfully near being a great success. And +again, it is the imaginative element in all his work, the creative fire +and the vivid life which he threw into his prose as much as his verse, +into his controversies as much as into his fictions, that gave them their +popularity and their savour. Nearly every one of Kingsley's imaginative +works was polemical, full of controversy, theological, political, social, +and racial; and this alone prevented them from being great works. +Interesting works they are; full of vigour, beauty, and ardent +conception; and it is wonderful that so much art and fancy could be +thrown into what is in substance polemical pamphleteering. + +Of them all _Hypatia_ is the best known and the best conceived. +_Hypatia_ was written in 1853 in the prime of his manhood and was on the +face of it a controversial work. Its sub-title was--_New Foes with an +Old Face_,--its preface elaborates the moral and spiritual ideas that it +teaches, the very titles of the chapters bear biblical phrases and +classical moralising as their style. I should be sorry to guarantee the +accuracy of the local colouring and the detail of its elaborate history; +but the life, realism, and pictorial brilliancy of the scenes give it a +power which is rare indeed in an historical novel. It has not the great +and full knowledge of _Romola_, much less the consummate style and +setting of _Esmond_; but it has a vividness, a rapidity, a definiteness +which completely enthral the imagination and stamp its scenes on the +memory. It is that rare thing, an historical romance which does not +drag. It is not one of those romances of which we fail to understand the +incidents, and often forget what it is that the personages are struggling +so fiercely to obtain. No one who has read _Hypatia_ in early life will +fail to remember its chief scenes or its leading characters, if he lives +to old age. After forty years this romance has been cast into a drama +and placed upon the London stage, and it is frequently the subject of +some vigorous pictures. + +In any estimate of _Hypatia_ as a romance, it is right to consider the +curious tangle of difficulties which Kingsley crowded into his task. It +was to be a realistic historical novel dated in an age of which the +public knew nothing, set in a country of which the author had no +experience, but which many of us know under wholly altered conditions. +It was to carry on controversies as to the older and the later types of +Christianity, as to Polytheism, Judaism, and Monotheism; it was to +confute Romanism, Scepticism, and German metaphysics; it was to denounce +celibacy and monasticism, to glorify muscular Christianity, to give +glowing pictures of Greek sensuousness and Roman rascality, and finally +to secure the apotheosis of Scandinavian heroism. And in spite of these +incongruous and incompatible aims, the story still remains a vivid and +fascinating tale. That makes it a real _tour de force_. It is true that +it has many of the faults of Bulwer, a certain staginess, melodramatic +soliloquies, careless incongruities, crude sensationalism--but withal, it +has some of the merits of Bulwer at his best, in _The Last Days of +Pompeii_, _Riensi_, _The Last of the Barons_,--the play of human passion +and adventure, intensity of reproduction however inaccurate in detail; it +has "go," intelligibility, memorability. The characters interest us, the +scenes amuse us, the pictures are not forgotten. The stately beauty of +Hypatia, the seductive fascination of Pelagia, the childlike nature of +Philammon, the subtle cynicism of Raphael Aben-Ezra, the mighty audacity +of the Goths, the fanaticism of Cyril, and the strange clash of three +elements of civilisation,--Graeco-Roman, Christian, Teutonic--give us +definite impressions, leave a permanent imprint on our thoughts. There +are extravagances, theatricalities, impossibilities enough. The Gothic +princes comport themselves like British seamen ashore in Suez or Bombay; +Raphael talks like young Lancelot Smith in _Yeast_; Hypatia is a Greek +Argemone; and Bishop Synesius is merely an African fifth-century Charles +Kingsley, what Sydney Smith called a "squarson," or compound of squire +and parson. Still, after all--bating grandiloquences and incongruities +and "errors excepted," _Hypatia_ lives, moves, and speaks to us; and, in +the matter of vitality and interest, is amongst the very few successes in +historical romance in the whole Victorian literature. + +_West-ward Ho!_ shares with _Hypatia_ the merit of being a successful +historical romance. It is free from many of the faults of _Hypatia_, it +is more mature, more carefully written. It is not laden with the +difficulties of _Hypatia_; it is only in part an historical romance at +all; the English scenery is placed in a country which Kingsley knew +perfectly and from boyhood; and the only controversy involved was the +interminable debate about Jesuit mendacity and Romanist priestcraft. So +that, if _Westward Ho!_ does not present us with the weaknesses and the +dilemmas of _Hypatia_, on the other hand it is not so brilliant or so +rich with interest. But it has real and lasting qualities. The Devon +coast scenery which Kingsley knew and loved, the West Indian and tropical +scenery, which he loved but did not know, are both painted with wonderful +force of imaginative colour. When one recalls all that Kingsley has done +in the landscape of romance,--Alexandria and the desert of the Nile, West +Indian jungles and rivers, Bideford Bay, his own heaths in _Yeast_, the +fever-dens of London in _Alton Locke_,--one is almost inclined to rank +him in this single gift of description as first of all the novelists +since Scott. Compared with the brilliancy and variety of Kingsley's +pictures of country, Bulwer's and Disraeli's are conventional; even those +of Dickens are but local; Thackeray and Trollope have no interest in +landscape at all; George Eliot's keen interest is not so spontaneous as +Kingsley's, and Charlotte Bronte's wonderful gift is strictly limited to +the narrow field of her own experience. But Kingsley, as a landscape +painter, can image to us other continents and many zones, and he carries +us to distant climates with astonishing force of reality. + +_Two Years Ago_ has some vigorous scenes, but it has neither the merits +nor the defects of Kingsley in historical romance. Its scene is too near +for his fine imagination to work poetically, and it is too much of a +sermon and pamphlet to be worth a second, or a third reading; and as to +_Hereward the Wake_, I must confess to not having been able to complete +even a first reading, and that after sundry trials. Of Kingsley's +remaining fanciful pieces it is enough to say that _The Heroes_ still +remains, after forty years, the child's introduction to Greek mythology, +and is still the best book of its class. When we compare it with another +attempt by a romancer of genius, and set it beside the sticky dulness of +_The Tanglewood Tales_, it looks like a group of real Tanagra figurines +placed beside a painted plaster cast. Kingsley's _Heroes_, in spite of +the inevitable sermon addressed in the preface to all good boys and +girls, has the real simplicity of Greek art, and the demi-gods tell their +myths in noble and pure English. _The Water Babies_ is an immortal bit +of fun, which will be read in the next century with _Gulliver_ and _The +Ring and the Rose_, long after we have all forgotten the nonsensical +whims about science and the conventional pulpit moralising which Kingsley +scattered broadcast into everything he said or wrote. + +We have as yet said nothing about that which was Kingsley's most +characteristic and effective work--his political fictions. These were +the pieces by which his fame was first achieved, and no doubt they are +the works which gave him his chief influence on his generation. But, for +that very reason, they suffered most of all his writings as works of art. +_Yeast_ is a book very difficult to classify. It is not exactly a novel, +it is more than a _Dialogue_, it is too romantic for a sermon, it is too +imaginative for a pamphlet, it is too full of action for a political and +social treatise. Incongruous as it is, it is interesting and effective, +and contains some of Kingsley's best work. It has some of his most +striking verses, some of his finest pictures of scenery, many of his most +eloquent thoughts, all his solid ideas, the passion of his youth, and the +first glow of his enthusiasm. It was written before he was thirty, +before he thought himself to be a philosopher, before he professed to be +entrusted with a direct message from God. Its title--_Yeast_--suggests +that it is a ferment thrown into the compound mass of current political, +social, and religious ideas, to make them work and issue in some new +combination. Kingsley himself was a kind of ferment. His mind was +itself destined to cause a violent chemical reaction in the torpid fluids +into which it was projected. His early and most amorphous work of +_Yeast_ did this with singular vigour, in a fresh and reckless way, with +rare literary and poetic skill. + +If I spoke my whole mind, I should count _Yeast_ as Kingsley's typical +prose work. It is full of anomalies, full of fallacies, raising +difficulties it fails to solve, crying out upon maladies and sores for +which it quite omits to offer a remedy. But that is Kingsley all over. +He was a mass of over-excited nerves and ill-ordered ideas, much more +poet than philosopher, more sympathetic than lucid, full of passionate +indignation, recklessly self-confident, cynically disdainful of +consistency, patience, good sense. He had the Rousseau temperament, with +its furious eloquence, its blind sympathies and antipathies, its splendid +sophistries. _Yeast_ was plainly the Christian reverse of the Carlyle +image and superscription, as read in _Sartor_ and _Past and Present_. +Kingsley was always profoundly influenced by Frederick D. Maurice, who +was a kind of spiritual Carlyle, without the genius or the learning of +the mighty _Sartor_, with a fine gift of sympathy instead of sarcasm, +with a genuine neo-Christian devoutness in lieu of an old-Hebrew +Goetheism. Kingsley had some of Carlyle's passion, of his eloquence, of +his power to strike fire out of stones. And so, just because _Yeast_ was +so disjointed as a composition, so desultory in thought, so splendidly +defiant of all the conventions of literature and all the ten commandments +of British society in 1849, I am inclined to rank it as Kingsley's +typical performance in prose. It is more a work of art than _Alton +Locke_, for it is much shorter, less akin to journalism, less spasmodic, +and more full of poetry. _Yeast_ deals with the country--which Kingsley +knew better and loved more than he did the town. It deals with real, +permanent, deep social evils, and it paints no fancy portrait of the +labourer, the squire, the poacher, or the village parson. Kingsley there +speaks of what he knew, and he describes that which he felt with the soul +of a poet. The hunting scenes in Yeast, the river vignettes, the village +revel, are exquisite pieces of painting. And the difficulties overcome +in the book are extreme. To fuse together a Platonic Dialogue and a +Carlyle latter-day pamphlet, and to mould this compound into a rural +romance in the style of _Silas Marner_, heightened with extracts from +University Pulpit sermons, with some ringing ballads, and political +diatribes in the vein of Cobbett's appeals to the People--this was to +show wonderful literary versatility and animation. And, after forty-five +years, _Yeast_ can be read and re-read still! + +_Alton Locke_ was no doubt more popular, more passionately in earnest, +more definite and intelligible than _Yeast_; and if I fail to hold it +quite as the equal of _Yeast_ in literary merit, it is because these very +qualities necessarily impair it as a work of art. It was written, we +well know, under violent excitement and by a terrible strain on the +neuropathic organism of the poet-preacher. It is undoubtedly spasmodic, +crude, and disorderly. A generation which has grown fastidious on the +consummate finish of _Esmond_, _Romola_, and _Treasure Island_, is a +little critical of the hasty outpourings of spirit which satisfied our +fathers in the forties, after the manner of _Sybil_, the _Last of the +Barons_, or _Barnaby Rudge_. The Tennysonian modulation of phrase had +not yet been popularised in prose, and spasmodic soliloquies and +melodramatic eloquence did not offend men so cruelly as they offend us +now. + +As Yeast was inspired by Sartor Resartus, so _Alton Locke_ was inspired +by Carlyle's _French Revolution_. The effect of Carlyle upon Kingsley is +plain enough throughout, down to the day when Carlyle led Kingsley to +approve the judicial murder of negroes in Jamaica. Kingsley himself +tells us, by the mouth of Alton Locke (chap. ix.), "I know no book, +always excepting Milton, which at once so quickened and exalted my +poetical view of man and his history, as that great prose poem, _the +single epic of modern days_, Thomas Carlyle's _French Revolution_." +Kingsley's three masters were--in poetry, Tennyson; in social philosophy, +Carlyle; in things moral and spiritual, Frederick D. Maurice. He had far +more of genius than had Maurice; he was a much more passionate reformer +than Tennyson; he was far more genial and social than Carlyle. Not that +he imitated any of the three. _Yeast_ is not at all copied from Sartor, +either in form or in thought; nor is _Alton Locke_ in any sense imitated +from the _French Revolution_. It is inspired by it; but _Yeast_ and +_Alton Locke_ are entirely original, and were native outbursts from +Kingsley's own fierce imagination and intense human sympathy. + +And in many ways they were amongst the most powerful influences over the +thought of the young of the last generation. In the early fifties we +were not so fastidious in the matter of style and composition as we have +now become. Furious eloquence and somewhat melodramatic incongruities +did not shock us so much, if we found them to come from a really glowing +imagination and from genuine inspiration, albeit somewhat unpruned and +ill-ordered. Now Kingsley "let himself go," in the way of Byron, +Disraeli, Bulwer, and Dickens, who not seldom poured out their +conceptions in what we now hold to be spasmodic form. It is possible +that the genteeler taste of our age may prevent the young of to-day from +caring for _Alton Locke_. But I can assure them that five-and-forty +years ago that book had a great effect and came home to the heart of +many. And the effect was permanent and creative. We may see to-day in +England widespread results of that potent social movement which was +called Christian Socialism, a movement of which Kingsley was neither the +founder nor the chief leader, but of which his early books were the main +popular exponents, and to which they gave a definiteness and a key which +the movement itself sadly lacked. + +I was not of an age to take part in that movement, but in after years at +the Working Men's College, which grew out of it, I gained a personal +knowledge of what was one of the most striking movements of our time. +Nowadays, when leading statesmen assure us "we are all Socialists now," +when the demands of the old "Chartists" are Liberal common form, when +trades-unionism, co-operation, and state-aided benefits are largely +supported by politicians, churchmen, journals, and writers, it is +difficult for us now to conceive the bitter opposition which assailed the +small band of reformers who, five-and-forty years ago, spoke up for these +reforms. Of that small band, who stood alone amongst the literary, +academic, and ecclesiastical class, Charles Kingsley was the most +outspoken, the most eloquent, and assuredly the most effective. I do not +say the wisest, the most consistent, or the most staunch; nor need we +here discuss the strength or the weakness of the Christian Socialist +reform. When we remember how widely this vague initiative has spread and +developed, when we read again _Alton Locke_ and _Yeast_, and note how +much has been practically done in forty years to redress or mitigate the +abuses against which these books uttered the first burning protest, we +may form some estimate of all that the present generation of Englishmen +owes to Charles Kingsley and his friends. + +I have dwelt last and most seriously upon Kingsley's earliest books, +because they were in many respects his most powerful, his typical works. +As he grew in years, he did not develop. He improved for a time in +literary form, but his excitable nerve-system, his impulsive imagination, +drove him into tasks for which he had no gift, and where he floated +hither and thither without sure guide. From the time of his official +success, that is, for the last fifteen years of his life, he produced +nothing worthy of himself, and much that was manifest book-making--the +mere outpouring of the professional preacher and story-teller. Of his +historical and philosophical work I shall not speak at all. His shallow +Cambridge Inaugural Lecture, given by him as Professor of History, was +torn to pieces in the _Westminster Review_ (vol. xix. p. 305, April +1861), it is said, by a brother Professor of History. Much less need we +speak of his miserable duel with Cardinal Newman, wherein he was so +shamefully worsted. For fifteen years he poured out lectures, sermons, +tales, travels, poems, dialogues, children's books, and historical, +philosophical, theological, social, scientific, and sanitary essays--but +the Charles Kingsley of _Yeast_, of _Alton Locke_, of _Hypatia_, of +_Westward Ho!_ of the Ballads and Poems, we never knew again. He burnt +out his fiery spirit at last, at the age of fifty-five, in a series of +restless enterprises, and a vehement outpouring of miscellaneous +eloquence. + +Charles Kingsley was a man of genius, half poet, half controversialist. +The two elements did not blend altogether well. His poetic passion +carried away his reason and often confused his logic. His argumentative +vehemence too often marred his fine imagination. Thus his _Saint's +Tragedy_ is partly a satire on Romanism, and his ballad in _Yeast_ is +mainly a radical pamphlet. Hardly one of his books is without a +controversial preface, controversial titles, chapters, or passages on +questions of theology, churches, races, politics, or society. Indeed, +excepting some of his poems, and some of his popular or children's books +(but not even all of these), all his works are of a controversial kind. +Whatever he did he did with heart, and this was at once his merit and his +weakness. Before all things, he was a preacher, a priest of the English +Church, a Christian minister. He was, indeed, a liberal priest, +sometimes even too free and easy. He brings in the sacred name perhaps +more often than any other writer, and he does so not always in a devout +way. He seemed at last to use the word "God" as if it were an expletive +or mere intensive like a Greek _ge_ [gamma epsilon], meaning "very much" +or "very good," as where he so oddly calls the North-East wind "the wind +of God." And he betrays a most unclerical interest in physical torture +and physical voluptuousness (_Hypatia_, _The Saint's Tragedy_, _Saint +Maura_, _Westward Ho!_), though it is true that his real nature is both +eminently manly and pure. + +As we have done all through these estimates of great writers, we have to +take the great writer at his best and forget his worst. It is a +melancholy reflection that we so often find a man of genius working +himself out to an unworthy close, it is too often feared, in the thirst +of success and even the attraction of gain. But at his best Charles +Kingsley left some fine and abiding influences behind him, and achieved +some brilliant things. Would that we always had men of his dauntless +spirit, of his restless energy, of his burning sympathy, of his keen +imagination! He reminds us somewhat of his own Bishop Synesius, as +described in _Hypatia_ (chap. xxi.), who "was one of those many-sided, +volatile, restless men, who taste joy and sorrow, if not deeply or +permanently, yet abundantly and passionately"--"He lived . . . in a +whirlwind of good deeds, meddling and toiling for the mere pleasure of +action; and as soon as there was nothing to be done, which, till lately, +had happened seldom enough with him, paid the penalty for past excitement +in fits of melancholy. A man of magniloquent and flowery style, not +without a vein of self-conceit; yet withal of overflowing kindliness, +racy humour, and unflinching courage, both physical and moral; with a +very clear practical faculty, and a very muddy speculative one"--and so +on. Charles Kingsley must have been thinking of his own tastes when he +drew the portrait of the "squire-bishop." But he did more than the +Bishop of Cyrene, and was himself a compound of squire-parson-poet. And +in all three characters he showed some of the best sides of each. + + + +[1] Amongst other difficulties it may be observed that such words as +"and," "is," "are," "the," "who," "his," "its," "have," "been"--words +without which few English sentences can be constructed--do not form the +short syllables of a true dactyl. + + + + +IX + +ANTHONY TROLLOPE + +Some of our younger friends who read the name which heads this essay +may incline to think that it ought to be very short indeed, nay, be +limited to a single remark; and, like the famous chapter on the snakes +in Iceland, it should simply run--that Anthony Trollope has no place at +all in Victorian literature. We did not think so in England in the +fifties, the sixties, and the seventies, in the heyday of Victorian +romance; and I do not think we ought to pass that judgment now in this +last quinquennium of our century. I shall have to put our friend +Anthony in a very moderate and prosaic rank; I shall not conceal my +sense of his modest claims and conspicuous faults, of his prolixity, +his limited sphere, his commonplace. But in view of the enormous +popularity he once enjoyed, of the space he filled for a whole +generation, I cannot altogether omit him from these studies of the +Victorian writers. + +I have, too, a personal reason for including him in the series. I knew +him well, knew his subjects, and his stage. I have seen him at work at +the "Megatherium Club," chatted with him at the "Universe," dined with +him at George Eliot's, and even met him in the hunting-field. I was +familiar with the political personages and crises which he describes; +and much of the local colouring in which his romances were framed was +for years the local colouring that I daily saw around me. Most of the +famous writers of whom I have been speaking in this series (with the +exception of Charlotte Bronte) I have often seen and heard speak in +public and in private, but I cannot be said to have known them as +friends. But Anthony Trollope I knew well. I knew the world in which +he lived, I saw the scenes, the characters, the life he paints, day by +day in the same clubs, in the same rooms, and under the same conditions +as he saw them. To re-read some of his best stories, as I have just +done, is to me like looking through a photographic album of my +acquaintances, companions, and familiar reminiscences of some thirty +years ago. I can hear the loud voice, the honest laugh, see the keen +eyes of our old friend as I turn to the admirable vignette portrait in +his posthumous _Autobiography_, and I can almost hear him tell the +anecdotes recounted in that pleasant book. + +Does the present generation know that frank and amusing book--one of +the most brisk and manly autobiographies in our language? Of course it +is garrulous, egoistical, self-complacent in a way. When a famous +writer, at the close of a long career of varied activity, takes up his +pen to tell us how he has lived, and how his books were written, and +what he has loved, seen, suffered, and striven for--it is his business +to be garrulous; we want him to talk about himself, and to give us such +peeps into his own heart and brain as he chooses to unlock. That is +what an "autobiography" means. And never did man do this in a more +hearty, manly, good-tempered spirit, with more good sense, with more +modest _bonhomie_, with a more genial egoism. He has been an enormous +worker; he is proud of his industry. He has fought his way under cruel +hardships to wealth and fame: and he is well satisfied with his +success. He has had millions of readers; he has been well paid; he has +had good friends; he has enjoyed life. He is happy in telling us how +he did it. He does not overrate himself. He believes some of his work +is good: at least it is honest, pure, sound work which has pleased +millions of readers. Much of his work he knows to be poor stuff, and +he says so at once. He makes no pretence to genius; he does not claim +to be a hero; he has no rare qualities--or none but industry and +courage--and he has met with no peculiar sufferings and no cruel and +undeserved rebuffs. He has his own ideas about literary work--you may +think them commonplace, mechanical, mercenary ideas--but that is a true +picture of Anthony Trollope; of his strong, manly, pure mind, of his +clear head, of his average moral sense: a good fellow, a warm friend, a +brave soul, a genial companion. + +With all his artless self-complacency in his own success, Trollope took +a very modest estimate of his own powers. I remember a characteristic +discussion about their modes of writing between Trollope and George +Eliot at a little dinner party in her house.[1] "Why!" said Anthony, +"I sit down every morning at 5.30 with my watch on my desk, and for +three hours I regularly produce 250 words every quarter of an hour." +George Eliot positively quivered with horror at the thought--she who +could write only when she felt in the vein, who wrote, re-wrote, and +destroyed her manuscript two or three times, and as often as not sat at +her table without writing at all. "There are days and days together," +she groaned out, "when I cannot write a line." "Yes!" said Trollope, +"with imaginative work like yours that is quite natural; but with my +mechanical stuff it's a sheer matter of industry. It's not the head +that does it--it's the cobbler's wax on the seat and the sticking to my +chair!" In his _Autobiography_ he has elaborately explained this +process--how he wrote day by day, including Sundays, whatever his +duties, his amusements, or the place; measuring out every page, +counting the words, and exacting the given quantity hour by hour. He +wrote continuously 2500 words in each day, and at times more than +25,000 words in a week. He wrote whilst engaged in severe professional +drudgery, whilst hunting thrice a week, and in the whirl of London +society. He wrote in railway trains, on a sea voyage, and in a town +club room. Whether he was on a journey, or pressed with office +reports, or visiting friends, he wrote just the same. _Dr. Thorne_ was +written whilst he was very sea-sick in a gale at sea, or was +negotiating a treaty with Nubar Pasha; and the day after finishing _Dr. +Thorne_ he began _The Bertrams_. It is one of the most amazing, and +one of the most comical, records of literary activity we have. No one +can suppose that work of a very high class can be so produced at all. +Nor does Trollope pretend that it is of a high class. He says it is +honest work, the best he could do. + +He takes a strange pleasure in recounting these feats of literary +productiveness. He poses as the champion of the age in quantity and +rapidity. This lightning novelist could produce a volume in two or +three weeks; and thus he could easily turn out three novels of three +volumes each in a year. He gives us an exact list of sixty works +produced in about thirty-five years, and a total of about 70,000 pounds +as the earnings of some twenty-four years. He insists that he never +neglected his Post-Office work, but was an invaluable and energetic +public servant; he insists that, much as he enjoyed his literary +profits, he was never misled by the desire of money; and he insists +that he could have done no better work if he had written much less, or +if he had given more time to each book. In all this he does not +convince us. He certainly showed transcendent force of will, of nerve, +and of endurance. "It's dogged as does it!" says Giles Hoggett to Mr. +Crawley, in _The Last Chronicle of Barset_; and if "dogged" could make +a great novelist, Anthony Trollope was pre-eminently "dogged." But a +great novelist needs other gifts. And to tell us that he would not +have done better work if his whole life had been given to his work, if +every book, every chapter of every book, were the fruit of ample +meditation and repeated revision, if he had never written with any +thought of profit, never written but what he could not contain hidden +within him--this is to tell us palpable nonsense. + +Trollope's sixty works no doubt exceed the product of any Englishman of +our age; but they fall short of the product of Dumas, George Sand, and +Scribe. And, though but a small part of the sixty works can be called +good, the inferior work is not discreditable: it is free from +affectation, extravagance, nastiness, or balderdash. It never sinks +into such tawdry stuff as Bulwer, Disraeli, and even Dickens, could +indite in their worst moods. Trollope is never bombastic, or +sensational, or prurient, or grotesque. Even at his worst, he writes +pure, bright, graceful English; he tells us about wholesome men and +women in a manly tone, and if he becomes dull, he is neither ridiculous +nor odious. He is very often dull: or rather utterly commonplace. It +is the fashion with the present generation to assert that he is never +anything but commonplace; but this is the judgment of a perverted +taste. His besetting danger is certainly the commonplace. It is true +that he is almost never dramatic, or powerful, or original. His plots +are of obvious and simple construction; his characters are neither new, +nor subtle, nor powerful; and his field is strictly limited to special +aspects of the higher English society in town and country. But in his +very best work, he has risen above commonplace and has painted certain +types of English men and women with much grace and consummate truth. + +One of Trollope's strong points and one source of his popularity was a +command over plain English almost perfect for his own limited purpose. +It is limpid, flexible, and melodious. It never rises into eloquence, +poetry, or power; but it is always easy, clear, simple, and vigorous. +Trollope was not capable of the sustained mastery over style that we +find in _Esmond_, nor had he the wit, passion, and pathos at +Thackeray's command. But of all contemporaries he comes nearest to +Thackeray in easy conversations and in quiet narration of incidents and +motives. Sometimes, but very rarely, Trollope is vulgar--for good old +Anthony had a coarse vein: it was in the family:--but as a rule his +language is conspicuous for its ease, simplicity, and unity of tone. +This was one good result of his enormous rapidity of execution. His +books read from cover to cover, as if they were spoken in one sitting +by an _improvisatore_ in one and the same mood, who never hesitated an +instant for a word, and who never failed to seize the word he wanted. +This ease and mastery over speech was the fruit of prodigious practice +and industry both in office work and in literary work. It is a mastery +which conceals itself, and appears to the reader the easiest thing in +the world. How few out of many millions have studied that subtle +mechanism of ear and thought which created the melodious ripple of +these fluent and pellucid words. + +His work has one special quality that has not been sufficiently +noticed. It has the most wonderful unity of texture and a perfect +harmony of tone. From the first line to the last, there is never a +sentence or a passage which strikes a discordant note; we are never +worried by a spasmodic phrase, nor bored by fine writing that fails to +"come off." Nor is there ever a paragraph which we need to read over +again, or a phrase that looks obscure, artificial, or enigmatic. This +can hardly be said of any other novelist of this century, except of +Jane Austen, for even Thackeray himself is now and then artificial in +_Esmond_, and the vulgarity of _Yellowplush_ at last becomes fatiguing. +Now Trollope reproduces for us that simplicity, unity, and ease of Jane +Austen, whose facile grace flows on like the sprightly talk of a +charming woman, mistress of herself and sure of her hearers. This +uniform ease, of course, goes with the absence of all the greatest +qualities of style; absence of any passion, poetry, mystery, or +subtlety. He never rises, it is true, to the level of the great +masters of language. But, for the ordinary incidents of life amongst +well-bred and well-to-do men and women of the world, the form of +Trollope's tales is almost as well adapted as the form of Jane Austen. + +In absolute realism of spoken words Trollope has hardly any equal. His +characters utter quite literally the same words, and no more, that such +persons utter in actual life. The characters, it is true, are the +average men and women we meet in the educated world, and the +situations, motives, and feelings described are seldom above or below +the ordinary incidents of modern life. But within this very limited +range of incident, and for this very common average of person and +character, the conversations are photographic or stenographic +reproductions of actual speech. His letters, especially his young +ladies' letters, are singularly real, life-like, and characteristic. +We have long got rid of the artificial eloquence and the studied +witticisms of the older school. Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith, and +Scott put into the mouths of their heroes and heroines elaborate +speeches, poetry, eloquence, and epigrams which are no more like real +speech than the allocutions of kings and queens in Shakespeare are like +natural talk. That has long been discarded. Jane Austen and Thackeray +make their men and women discourse as men and women do. But perhaps +with Thackeray, the talk is too racy, too brilliant, too rich with wit, +humour, and character, to be quite literally truthful. Now, Trollope, +taking a far lower and simpler line, makes his characters talk with +literal truth to nature. + +This photographic realism of conversation is common enough now: but it +has too often the defects of photography; it is bleared, coarse, and +ill-favoured. As we all know, in the new realism a young woman and her +lover talk thus: "Old gal! why so glum?" said he--"It's my luck!" says +she, and flings her straw hat on the floor. That is the new +photographic style, but it does not please us of an older generation. +Now Trollope makes his people utter such phrases as the characters he +presents to us actually use in real life--or rather such phrases as +they did use thirty years ago. And yet, although he hardly ever rises +into eloquence, wit, brilliancy, or sinks into any form of talk either +unnaturally tall, or unnaturally low,--still, the conversations are +just sufficiently pointed, humorous, or characteristic, to amuse the +reader and develop the speaker's character. Trollope in this exactly +hits the happy mean. Like Mr. Woodhouse's gruel, his conversations are +"thin--but not so very thin." He never attempts grandiloquence; but +then he never sinks into the fashionable bathos of--"Sugar in your tea, +dear?"--"Another lump, if you please,"--nor does he fall into the +fashionable realism of--"Dry up, old man!" No! Trollope's characters +speaks with literal nature; and yet with enough of point, humour, +vigour, to make it pleasant reading. + +We may at once confess to his faults and limitations. They are plain +enough, constant, and quite incapable of defence. Out of his sixty +works, I should be sorry to pick more than ten as being worth a second +reading, or twenty which are worth a first reading. Nor amongst the +good books could I count any of the last ten years. The range of +characters is limited to the clergy and professional men of a cathedral +city, to the county families and the respectabilities of a quiet +village, to the life of clubs, public offices, and Parliament in +London, and to the ways of "society" as it existed in England in the +third quarter of the present century. The plots are neither new nor +ingenious; the incidents are rarely more than commonplace; the +characters are seldom very powerful, or original, or complex. There +are very few "psychologic problems," very few dramatic situations, very +few revelations of a new world and unfamiliar natures. There are some +natural scenes in Ireland; now and then a cook-maid, a farmer, a +labourer, or a clerk, come on the stage and play their short parts with +faultless demeanour. But otherwise, the entire company appear in the +frock-coats and crinolines of the period, and every scene is played in +silk hats, bonnets, and regulation evening toilette. + +But within this limited range of life, this uniformity of "genteel +comedy," Trollope has not seldom given us pieces of inimitable +truthfulness and curious delicacy of observation. The dignitaries of +the cathedral close, the sporting squires, the county magnates, the +country doctors, and the rectory home, are drawn with a precision, a +refinement, an absolute fidelity that only Jane Austen could compass. +There is no caricature, no burlesque, nothing improbable or +over-wrought. The bishop, the dean, the warden, the curate, the +apothecary, the duke, the master of fox-hounds, the bishop's wife, the +archdeacon's lady, the vicar's daughter, the governess, the +undergraduate--all are perfectly true to nature. So, too, are the men +in the clubs in London, the chiefs, subordinates, and clerks in the +public offices, the ministers and members of Parliament, the leaders, +and rank and file of London "society." They never utter a sentence +which is not exactly what such men and women do utter; they do and they +think nothing but what such men and women think and do in real life. +Their habits, conversation, dress, and interests are photographically +accurate, to the point of illusion. It is not high art--but it is art. +The field is a narrow one; the actors are ordinary. But the skill, +grace, and humour with which the scenes are caught, and the absolute +illusion of truthfulness, redeem it from the commonplace. + +The stage of Trollope's drama is not a wide one, but it is far wider +than that of Jane Austen. His plots and incidents are sufficiently +trite and ordinary, but they are dramatic and original, if contrasted +with those of _Emma_ or _Mansfield Park_. No one will compare little +Jane's delicate palfrey with Anthony's big-boned hunter; nor would any +one commit the bad taste of treating these quadrupeds as if they were +entered for a race; but a narrow stage and familiar incidents are not +necessarily fatal to true art. If Trollope had done nothing more than +paint ordinary English society with photographic accuracy of detail, it +would not be a great performance. But he has done more than this. In +the Barsetshire series, at any rate, he has risen to a point of drawing +characters with a very subtle insight and delicate intuition. The +warden, the bishop, Mrs. Proudie, Dr. Thorne, Mary Thorne, Lily Dale, +Lady Arabella, and, above all, Mr. Crawley, are characters definitely +conceived, profoundly mastered, and truly portrayed. Trollope +evidently judged Crawley to be his greatest creation, and the _Last +Chronicle of Barset_ to be his principal achievement. In this he was +doubtless right. There are real characters also in the two _Phineas +Finn_ tales. Chiltern, Finn, Glencora Palliser, Laura Kennedy, and +Marie Goesler, are subtly conceived and truly worked out. This is +enough to make a decent reputation, however flat be the interminable +pot-boilers that precede and follow them. + +The list of Trollope's real successes is not very long. The six tales +of the Barsetshire cycle, _The Warden_, _Barchester Towers_, _Doctor +Thorne_, _Framley Parsonage_, _The Small House at Allington_, _The Last +Chronicle of Barset_, are unquestionably his main achievements; and of +these either _Doctor Thorne_ or _The Last Chronicle_ is the best. The +Crawley story is undoubtedly the finest thing Trollope ever did; but +for myself, I enjoy the unity, completeness, and masterly scheme of +_Doctor Thorne_, and I like Mary Thorne better than any of Trollope's +women. If, to the six Barset tales, we add _Orley Farm_, _The +Claverings_, the two _Phineas Finns_, and the _Eustace Diamonds_, we +shall include, perhaps, more than posterity will ever trouble itself +about, and almost exactly one-fifth of the novels he left behind. The +ten or twelve of Trollope's best will continue to be read, and will, in +a future generation, no doubt, regain not a little of their early +vogue. This will be due, in part, to their own inherent merit as +graceful, truthful, subtle observation of contemporary types, clothed +in a style of transparent ease. Partly, it will be due to this: that +these tales will reproduce for the future certain phases of life in the +nineteenth century in England with minute fidelity and the most literal +realism. + +This is no doubt the cause of the revulsion of opinion by which in some +English circles Trollope has suffered of late. If there are fashions, +habits, and tastes which the rising generation is certain to despise, +it is such as were current in the youth of their own parents about +thirty or forty years before them. The collars, the bonnets, the +furniture, the etiquette, the books of that age always seem to the +young to be the last word of all that is awkward and "bad form," +although in two or three generations these very modes regain a certain +quaint charm. And for the moment poor Anthony represents to the +emancipated youth of our time all that was "banal" and prosy some +thirty years ago. The taste of our youth sets hard for a new heaven, +or at least a new earth, and if not that, it may be a new hell. Novels +or poems without conundrums, without psychologic problems, with no +sexual theorems to solve, with no unique idiosyncrasies to fathom, +without anything unnatural, or sickening, without hospital +nastinesses,--are all, we are assured, unworthy the notice of the youth +of either sex who are really up to date. In the style of the new +pornographic and clinical school of art, the sayings and doings of +wholesome men and women who live in drawing-rooms and regularly dress +before dinner are "beastly rot," and fit for no one but children and +old maids. + +But we conservatives of an older school are grateful to Anthony that he +produced for the last generation an immense collection of pleasant +tales without a single foul spot or unclean incident. It was his boast +that he had never written a line which a pure woman could not read +without a blush. This is no doubt one of the grounds on which he is so +often denounced as _passe_. His tales, of course, are full of love, +and the love is not always discreet or virtuous. There are cases of +guilty love, of mad love, of ungoverned and unreasoning passion. But +there is not an impure or prurient passage in the whole library of +tales. Much more than this: in the centre of almost every tale, we are +taken to the heart of a spotless, loving, refined, brave English girl. +In nothing does Anthony Trollope delight more than when he unveils to +us the secret thoughts of a noble-hearted maiden who loves strongly but +who has a spirit as strong as her love, a clear brain and a pure will. +In nothing is he more successful; nowhere is he more subtle, more true, +more interesting. In this fine gift, he surpasses all his +contemporaries, and almost all other English novelists. Mary Thorne, +Lily Dale, Lucy Roberts--I would almost add, Martha Dunstable--may not +be heroines of romance, and are certainly not great creations. But +they are pure, right-minded, delicate, brave women; and it does one +good to be admitted to the sacred confessional of their hearts. + +It must be admitted that they are "young ladies," nurtured in the +conventional refinement of the last generation, high-bred, and trained +in the jealous sensitiveness of what was thought to be "maiden modesty" +thirty or forty years ago. That is their misfortune to-day; it is now +rather silly to be a "young lady" at all, and the old-fashioned "maiden +modesty" of their mothers and grandmothers is become positively +ridiculous. Young women of the present date, we are assured in the +language of our gilded youth, have to be either "jolly girls" or +"crocks"; and Mary Thorne and Lily Dale are certainly not "jolly +girls." Their trials and agonies are not different from those which +may happen in any ordinary family, and the problems they have to solve +are those which may await any girl at any time. But the subtle touches +with which we are admitted to their meditations, the delicate weighing +of competing counsels and motives, the living pulses of heart and +brain, and the essential soundness and reality of the mental and moral +crisis--are all told with an art that may be beneath that of Jane +Austen, but which certainly is akin to hers, and has the same quality +of pure and simple human nature. Pure and simple human nature is, for +the moment, out of fashion as the subject of modern romance. But it +remains a curious problem how the boisterous, brawny, thick-skinned +lump of manhood whom we knew as Anthony Trollope ever came to conceive +so many delicate and sensitive country maidens, and to see so deeply +and so truly into the heart of their maiden meditations. + +Trollope is equally successful with some other social problems and +characters of unstable equilibrium. They are none of them very +profound or exalted studies in psychology; but they are truthful, +natural, and ingenious; and it needed a sure and delicate hand to make +them interesting and life-like. The feeble, solemn, timid, vacillating +bishop, driven to distraction by some clerical scandal in his tea-cup +of a diocese; the pompous ecclesiastic with wounded dignity and family +quarrels; the over-sensitive priest whose conscience is more acute than +his brain; the weak, generous, cowardly owner of an embarrassed estate; +the honest and impulsive youth placed between love and duty; the loving +girl who will not sacrifice dignity to love; the public official who is +torn between conscience and self-interest; the man in a great position +who does not know his own mind; the man with honest principles who is +tempted above his strength by love, ambition, or ruin--all of these +live in the pages of Trollope with perfect truth to nature and reality +of movement. It would be too much to say that any of them are masterly +creations, unless it be Crawley and the Proudies, but they are +absolutely truthful, real, living portraits. The situations are not +very striking, but then they are perfectly natural. And the characters +never say or do a thing which oversteps by a hair's-breadth the +probable and natural conduct of such persons. + +All this is now said to be commonplace, goody-goody, and Philistine. +There are no female acrobats, burglars, gutter-urchins, crapulous +prostitutes, no pathological anatomy of diseased bodies and carious +souls, hardly a single case of adultery in all Trollope. But they who +can exist without these stimulants may find pleasant reading yet in his +best work. _The Last Chronicle of Barset_ is a really good tale which +deserves to live, and the whole Crawley episode rises to the level of +fine imaginative work. _Doctor Thorne_ is a sound, pleasant, ingenious +story from beginning to end. It has perhaps the best plot of all +Trollope's books, and, singularly enough, it is the only plot which he +admits not to be his own. I count Mary Thorne as his best woman and +Doctor Thorne as one of his best men. The unity of _Doctor Thorne_ is +very striking and ingenious. The stage is crowded: there are nearly a +score of well-marked characters and five distinct households; but the +whole series works into the same plot; the scene is constantly varied, +and yet there is no double plot or separate companies. Thus, though +the whole story revolves round the fortunes of a single family, the +interest and the movement never flag for a page. The machinery is very +simple; the characters are of average strength and merit; the incidents +and issues are ordinary enough. And the general effect is wholesome, +manly, womanly, refined, and true to nature. + +The episcopal and capitular group of ecclesiastics round the Cathedral +of Barchester is Trollope's main creation, and is destined to endure +for some time. It is all in its way inimitably true and subtly +graduated from bishop to dean, from dean to canon, and so on through +the whole chapter down to the verger and the porter. The relations of +these dignitaries to each other, the relation of their woman-kind to +each other, the relation of the clerical world to the town world and to +the county world, their conventional etiquette, their jealousies, their +feuds, their scandals, and their entertainments, are all marked with +admirable truth and a refined touch. The relation of the village +respectabilities to the county families, the relation of the county +families to the great ducal magnate, are all given with curious +precision and subtle discrimination. When _The Warden_ appeared just +forty years ago, I happened to be a pupil in the chambers of the late +Sir Henry Maine, then a famous critic of the _Saturday Review_; and I +well remember his interest and delight in welcoming a new writer, from +whom he thought so much might be expected. The relations of London +"Society" to the parliamentary and ministerial world as described in +Trollope's later books are all treated with entire mastery. It is this +thorough knowledge of the organism of English society which specially +distinguishes Trollope. It is a quality in which Thackeray alone is +his equal; and Thackeray himself has drawn no complex social organism +with such consummate completeness as Trollope's Barchester Close. It +is of course purely English, locally true to England only. But it is, +as Nathaniel Hawthorne said, "solid and substantial," "as real as if it +were a great lump out of the earth,"--"just as English as a beefsteak." + +What makes all that so strange is this, that when he began to write +novels, Trollope had far less experience than have most cultivated men +of cathedral closes, rectories, and county families. He had never been +to a college, and till past middle life he never had access to the +higher grades of English society. He never at any time, and certainly +not when the Barchester cycle began, had any footing whatever in +clerical circles, and but little intimate acquaintance with young +ladies of birth and refinement in country homes. He never was much +thrown with the young bloods of the army, of the universities, or of +Parliament. He rarely consorted with dukes or county magnates, and he +never lived in the centre of the political world. Yet this rough, +self-taught busy Post-Office surveyor in Ireland, perpetually +travelling about the country on the inspections of his duty, managed to +see to the very marrow of the prelates of a cathedral, to the inner +histories of the duke's castle and the squire's home, into the secret +musings of the rector's daughter, and into the tangled web of +parliamentary intrigue. He did all this with a perfectly sure and +subtle touch, which was often, it is true, somewhat tame, and is never +perhaps of any very great brilliance, but which was almost faultlessly +true, never extravagant, never unreal. And, to add to the wonder, you +might meet him for an hour; and, however much you might like his bluff, +hearty, resonant personality, you would have said he was the last man +to have any delicate sympathy with bishops, dukes, or young ladies. + +His insight into parliamentary life was surprisingly accurate and deep. +He had not the genius of Disraeli, but his pictures are utterly free +from caricature or distortion of any kind. In his photographic +portraiture of the British Parliament he surpassed all his +contemporaries; and inasmuch as such studies can only have a local and +sectional interest, they have probably injured his popularity and his +art. His conduct of legal intricacies and the ways of lawyers is +singularly correct; and the long and elaborate trial scene in _Phineas +Redux_ is a masterpiece of natural and faithful descriptions of an Old +Bailey criminal trial in which "society" happens to be involved. Yet +of courts of law, as of bishops' palaces, rectory firesides, the +lobbies of Parliament, and ducal "house parties," Trollope could have +known almost nothing except as an occasional and outside observer. The +life of London clubs, the habits and _personnel_ of a public office, +the hunting-field, and the social hierarchy and ten commandments +observed in a country town--these things Trollope knew to the minutest +shade, and he has described them with wonderful truth and zest. + +There was a truly pathetic drollery in his violent passion for certain +enjoyments--hunting, whist, and the smoking-room of his club. I cannot +forget the comical rage which he felt at Professor Freeman's attack on +fox-hunting. I am not a sporting man myself; and, though I may look on +fox-hunting as one of the less deadly sins involved in "sport," I know +nothing about it. But it chanced that as a young man I had been +charged with the duty of escorting a certain young lady to a "meet" of +fox-hounds in Essex. A fox was found; but what happened I hardly +remember; save this, that, in the middle of a hot burst, I found myself +alongside of Anthony Trollope, who was shouting and roaring out +"What!--what are you doing here?" And he was never tired of holding me +up to the scorn of the "Universe" club as a deserter from the +principles of Professor Freeman and John Morley. I had taken no part +in the controversy, but it gave him huge delight to have detected such +backsliding in one of the school he detested. Like other sporting men +who imagine that their love of "sport" is a love of nature, when it is +merely a pleasure in physical exercise, Trollope cared little for the +poetic aspect of nature. His books, like Thackeray's, hardly contain a +single fine picture of the country, of the sea, of mountains, or of +rivers. Compared with Fielding, Scott, Charlotte Bronte, Dickens, +George Eliot, he is a man blind to the loveliness of nature. To him, +as to other fox-hunters, the country was good or bad as it promised or +did not promise a good "run." Though Trollope was a great traveller, +he rarely uses his experiences in a novel, whereas Scott, Thackeray, +Dickens, Bulwer, George Eliot fill their pages with foreign adventures +and scenes of travel. His hard riding as an overgrown heavy-weight, +his systematic whist playing, his loud talk, his burly ubiquity and +irrepressible energy in everything--formed one of the marvels of the +last generation. And that such a colossus of blood and bone should +spend his mornings, before we were out of bed, in analysing the +hypersensitive conscience of an archdeacon, the secret confidences +whispered between a prudent mamma and a love-lorn young lady, or the +subtle meanderings of Marie Goesler's heart--this was a real +psychologic problem. + +There can be no doubt that this constitutional vehemence of his, this +hypertrophy of blood and muscle, injured his work and dimmed his +reputation. Much of his work he ought to have burnt. His classical +studies are worthless, his _Life of Thackeray_ and his _Travels_ are +mere book-making. His novels, even the best, are revised and printed +with scandalous haste. He speaks of a "_toga virile_" and of "_the +husband of his bosom_," for wife; and there are misprints in every +paragraph. When, in his _Autobiography_, he let the public into the +story of his method, of his mechanical writing so many words per hour, +of his beginning a new tale the day after he finished the last, of his +having no particular plot, and hardly thinking about a plot, and all +the little trade secrets of his factory, the public felt some disgust +and was almost inclined to think it had been cheated out of its 70,000 +pounds. + +Anthony Trollope was not a fraud, nor even a mere tradesman. His +reputation may perhaps partially revive, and some of his best work may +be read in the next century. His best work will of course be a mere +residuum of his sixty books, as is the best of nearly all prolific +writers. I am inclined to think the permanent survival may be limited +to the _Barchester_ cycle, with _Orley Farm_ and the two _Phineas +Finns_. In any case, his books will hereafter bear a certain +historical interest, as the best record of actual manners in the higher +English society between 1855 and 1875. That value nothing can take +away, however dull, _connu_, and out of date the books may now seem to +our new youth. It is a curious problem why our new youth persists in +filling its stomach with the poorest trash that is "new"--_i.e._ +published in 1895, whilst it will not look at a book that is "old +"--_i.e._ published in 1865, though both are equally unknown to the +young reader. If our new youth ever could bring itself to take up a +book having 1865 on its title-page, it might find in the best of +Anthony Trollope much subtle observation, many manly and womanly +natures, unfailing purity of tone, and wholesome enjoyment. + + + +[1] This anecdote has been doubted, on the ground that such rapid +composition is impossible. But Trollope in his _Autobiography_ asserts +this fact, exactly as he told George Eliot, except that the first half +hour was occupied by re-reading the work of the previous day. The +average morning's work was thus 2500 words, written in two and a half +hours. + + + + +X + +GEORGE ELIOT + +It will be the duty of the more serious criticism of another generation +in some degree to revive the reputation of George Eliot as an abiding +literary force--a reputation which the taste of the hour is rather +disposed to reduce. Five-and-twenty years ago the tendency was towards +excessive praise: many judges, of trained literary insight, proclaimed +her as the greatest genius of the age, one of the brightest stars of +English literature, nay, said some of them, quite losing control of +their speech--a modern Shakespeare, and so forth. Some cooler heads +looked grave, but none save the inveterate cynics ventured to mock; and +the great public, as usual, thought it best to follow the lead of so +many men and so many women of the higher culture. The inevitable +reaction ensued: when, not only were the grave shortcomings of George +Eliot ruthlessly condemned, but her noble aim and superb qualities were +blindly ignored. + +The taste in popular romance sways hither and thither in sudden +revulsion, like the taste in hats or in frocks, or the verdict of +manhood suffrage. This or that type becomes suddenly the rage, this or +that mannerism is voted an offence, as quickly as fashion runs after a +new tint, or boycotts an obsolete sleeve. Journalism and all the other +forces of the hour stimulate these caprices and carry away the masses +by their volubility and noise. It is the business of serious +criticism, keeping a cooler head, to correct these fervid impulses of +the day--whilst excited audiences in the amphitheatre raise or depress +the fatal thumb, awarding life or death to the combatants in the great +arena. + +The business of criticism is to _judge_--to judge upon the whole +evidence, after hearing counsel on both sides with equal attention, +after weighing every shred of argument and every word that any witness +has to offer, and after patient study of every aspect of the case, to +deliver a complete and reasoned estimate of the whole matter at issue. +The true critic is not a mere juryman, who has nothing to do but to +pronounce a bare verdict of "guilty" or "not guilty." He is a judge of +the supreme court of equity, who may find, in some intricate story +unravelled at his bar, a dozen errors in law and as many mistakes of +fact, and yet may give substantial relief or may decree onerous +penalties. It is easy enough to detect faulty, easy enough to insist +on merits: the thing wanted to guide the public is the cool, +compensated, equitable judgment that is not seduced by any conspicuous +charm, and is not irritated by any incorrigible defect, but which, +missing no point of merit and none of failure, finally and resolutely +strikes the just balance. + +This just balance, with all its intricate adjustments of compensation +and equivalence, is peculiarly needed in the case of George Eliot, and +at the same time is unusually difficult. George Eliot was most +conspicuous as an artist, as a worker in the sphere of imagination and +creation. At the same time, she had very rare powers and a really +unusual learning quite outside of imaginative art. And these +reflective powers and such stores of knowledge are often antagonistic +to creative art, and undoubtedly were so not seldom with her. If +Aristotle himself had written a dull psychological tragedy, we might +read it for his sake, but we should not forgive him, and we ought not +to forgive him. And if Shakespeare himself had written the _Novum +Organum_ or the _Principia_, we should not have had _Hamlet_ and _Lear_ +as we now know them. There is no compensation between philosophy and +poetry. No profundity, no learning, can give beauty to verses which +lack the divine fire. If George Eliot's fame has to be based solely on +her great powers and endowments, her art would not be worth much. +However, it is not so: she was an artist, with true artistic gifts. +Her philosophic power and her scientific attainments often ennoble +these gifts: yet it is too often evident that they seriously mar and +embarrass them. + +Turn it the other way. Until nearly the age of forty, George Eliot was +known only as a critical and philosophical writer. And in reading, in +logical acumen, and in breadth of view, she was the equal of the first +minds of her time. But no one of her contemporaries, eminent in +philosophy and science, approached her, however remotely, in artistic +gifts; and no one of them even attempted to invest ethical and social +ideas with high imagination and beautiful ideals. Thus, George Eliot +was of a far higher mental plane than any contemporary who has used +imaginative prose as an art, and she was also a far greater artist than +any contemporary philosopher. It is quite certain that learning and +wisdom may be lodged in the same brain with the highest poetry, as +Lucretius, Virgil, Dante, Milton, and Goethe may prove. And men of +original power have not seldom used imaginative art with signal success +to convey the ideas with which they were charged; for this has been +done by Cervantes, Rabelais, Swift, Rousseau, Byron, Shelley, and +Goethe. + +It is therefore legitimate and natural that a powerful and teeming mind +should resort to art as its medium, and also that an artist of high +aims should be a systematic thinker and an omnivorous student. The +combination is very rare and success is singularly difficult. To fail +in art is to lose all and to end in utter failure. And to carry +ethical purpose and erudition into art is indeed a perilous +undertaking, wherein but one or two of the greatest have wholly +succeeded. The problem with George Eliot is to judge how far she has +succeeded in the all but impossible task. That her success is far from +complete is but too obvious. That she has had many incidental +successes is also obvious. Her work is not sufficiently spontaneous, +not easy or simple, not buoyant enough. But it has great nobility, +rare distinction. It may not live as perfect art; but it should not +perish as ambitious failures perish. + +If George Eliot were not a writer of romance, she was nothing at all in +the front ranks of Victorian literature. With all her powers of mind, +her mastery of language, her immense stores of knowledge and supreme +culture, she gave to the world nothing of great mark, acknowledged and +known as hers, except her famous romances; for, as we shall presently +see, we cannot count any of the poems as of great mark. But, as a +writer of romance, George Eliot differs essentially and for the worse +from all the other great writers of romance in her own or preceding +generations. Most certainly she was not a born romancer; she had no +spontaneous gift of telling stories, no irrepressible genius that way. +Now all the great romancers have been born to it, as Robinson Crusoe +was born to the sea, or as Turner was born to paint. Though Scott +published novels late, he had begun _Waverley_ at thirty-four; his +earlier works are romantic ballads and metrical romances; and from +boyhood, at home and abroad, he was ever filled with some tale of +adventure and character. Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth "lisped" in +novelettes, as Pope said he "lisped in numbers." Though Charlotte +Bronte published so little, she wrote stories incessantly from +childhood. Lytton, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, invented tales as +part of their daily lives, and from the earliest age. But George Eliot +was thirty-nine when her first tales were published, and she was forty +before she was known to the public as a novelist at all. And so little +was novel-writing her natural gift, that her most intimate friends +never suspected her power, nor did she herself altogether enjoy the +exercise of her art. To the last her periods of mental gestation were +long, painful, and unhopeful. Parturition was a dangerous crisis, and +the long-expected infant was reared with misgivings and a superfluity +of coddling. The romances of George Eliot came like some _enfant de +miracle_, born late in the mother's life, at the cost of infinite pain, +much anxiety, and amidst the wondering trepidation of expectant circles +of friends. + +Even in her best books we never quite get over the sense of almost +painful elaboration, of a powerful mind having rich gifts striving to +produce some rare music with an unfamiliar and uncongenial instrument. +It reminds us of Beethoven evolving his majestic sonatas on an untuned +and dilapidated old piano, the defects of which he could not himself +hear. The conventional critic in _The Vicar of Wakefield_ is told to +say that "the picture would have been better if the artist had taken +more pains." With George Eliot too often we are made to feel that the +picture would have been, at any rate, more enjoyable if the artist had +taken less pains. To study her more ambitious tales is like an attempt +to master some new system of psychology. The metaphysical power, the +originality of conception, the long brooding over anomalies and +objections--these are all there: but the rapid improvisation and easy +invention are not there. Such qualities would indeed be wholly out of +place in philosophy, but they are the essence of romance. In romance +we want to feel that the piece is only brought to an end by time and +our human powers of listening; that there is "plenty more where these +come from"; that the story-teller enjoys telling stories for their own +sake, and would go on with the tales, though the audience were reduced +to a child, an idiot, and a deaf man. + +This explains the paradox that the most popular, and most certainly the +most praised of George Eliot's works, are the simpler and the shorter. +Every one enjoys the _Scenes of Clerical Life_, short stories of a +hundred pages each, with simple plots and a few characters in everyday +life. I have no doubt myself that _Silas Marner_ comes nearer to being +a great success than any of the more elaborate books. Yet _Silas +Marner_ is about one-fifth part of the length of _Middlemarch_; and its +plot, _mise-en-scene_, and incidents are simplicity itself. There is +no science, no book-learning, and but few ethical problems in it from +beginning to end; and it all goes in one small volume, for the tale +concerns but the neighbours of one quiet village. Yet the quaint and +idyllic charm of the piece, the perfection of tone and keeping, the +harmony of the landscape, the pure, deep humanity of it, all make it a +true and exquisite work of high art. + +Modern English (and I am one of those who hold that the best modern +English is as good as any in our literature) has few pieces of +description more gem-like in its crystalline facets than the opening +chapter that tells of the pale, uncanny weaver of Raveloe in his stone +cottage by the deserted pit. Some of us can remember such house +weavers in such lonesome cottages on the Northern moors, and have heard +the unfamiliar rattle of the loom in a half-ruinous homestead. How +perfect is that vignette of Raveloe--"a village where many of the old +echoes lingered, undrowned by new voices"--with its "strange lingering +echoes of the old demon-worship among the grey-haired peasantry"! The +entire picture of the village and its village life a hundred years ago, +is finished with the musical and reserved note of poetry, such as we +are taught to love in Wordsworth and Tennyson. And for quiet humour +modern literature has few happier scenes than the fireside at the +"Rainbow," with Macey and Winthrop, the butcher and the farrier, over +their pipes and their hot potations, and the quarrel about "seeing +ghos'es," about smelling them! + +Within this most graceful and refined picture of rural life there is a +dominant ethical motive which she herself describes as its aim, "to set +in a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural, human +relations." This aim is perfectly worked out: it is a right and +healthy conception, not too subtle, not too common:--to put it in +simpler words than hers, it is how a lonely, crabbed, ill-used old man +is humanised by the love of a faithful and affectionate child. The +form is poetic: the moral is both just and noble: the characters are +living, and the story is original, natural, and dramatic. The only +thing, indeed, which _Silas Marner_ wants to make it a really great +romance is more ease, more rapidity, more "go." The melody runs so +uniformly in minor keys, the sense of care, meditation, and +introspection is so apparent in every line, the amount of serious +thought lavished by the writer and required of the reader is so +continuous, that we are not carried away, we are not excited, inspired, +and thrilled as we are by _Jane Eyre_ or _Esmond_. We enjoy a +beautiful book with a fine moral, set in exquisite prose, with +consummate literary resources, full of fine thoughts, true, ennobling +thoughts, and with no weak side at all, unless it be the sense of being +over-wrought, like a picture which has been stippled over in every +surface. + +A clever French woman said of George Eliot's conversation--_elle +s'ecoute quand elle parle_! Just so, as we read on we seem to see how +she held up each sentence into the light as it fell from her pen, +scrutinised it to see if some rarer phrase might not be compacted, some +subtler thought excogitated. Of all the more important tales, _Silas +Marner_ is that wherein we least feel this excessive thoughtfulness. +And thus it is the best. Perhaps other born romancers would have +thrown into it more life, energy, jollity, or passion. Thackeray would +have made the weaver a serio-comic hermit: Dickens would have made +Eppie a sentimental angel; Charlotte Bronte would have curdled our +blood; Trollope might have made more of Nancy's courting. But no one +of them could have given us a more lofty lesson "of the remedial +influences of pure, natural, human relations." The only doubt is, +whether a novel is the medium for such lessons. On this, opinions are, +and will remain, divided. The lesson and the art ought both to be +faultless. + +When we ask for a romance fully developed and more than a graceful +vignette, _Adam Bede_ must be regarded as the principal, and with the +wider public it is always the typical, work of George Eliot. She said +herself that it seemed to her "impossible that she should ever write +anything so good and true again":--and herein she was no doubt right. +It is the only one of her works in prose or verse which we feel to be +inevitable, spontaneous, written out of the abundance of enjoyment and +experience. It is of all her books the heartiest, the wittiest, the +most cheerful, or rather the least desponding. In that book it may be +that she exhausted herself and her own resources of observation as an +eye-witness. She wrote fine things in other veins, in different +scenes, and she conceived other characters and new situations. But for +all practical purposes _Adam Bede_ was the typical romance, which +everything she had thought or known impelled her to write, in which she +told the best of what she had seen and the most important of what she +had to say. Had she never written anything but _Adam Bede_, she would +have had a special place of her own in English romance:--and I am not +sure that anything else which she produced very materially raised, +enlarged, or qualified that place. + +_The Mill on the Floss_ must always be very interesting to all who knew +George Eliot and loved her work, if for no other reason, for its +autobiographic and personal touches and its revelation of yearnings and +misgivings hardly suspected in life. There are scenes and minor +characters in it which hold their own against _Adam Bede_, but as a +whole it is not so strong or so rich in colour, and it can hardly be +said to occupy new ground. It has not the pathos of _Amos Barton_, nor +the exquisite style of _Silas Marner_, nor the breadth and constructive +merit of _Adam Bede_. And except to the chosen band of Eliotists, it +is not likely to retain any permanent popularity. It is a book to +study for those who have special interest in George Eliot as woman, as +teacher, and as artist--but for my own part I find it rather a book to +reflect upon than a book to read and to re-read. + +With respect to _Romola_, though we must all agree with Mr. Oscar +Browning that it is "replete with learning," "weighed with knowledge in +every page," exquisite in art, and so forth, it is really impossible to +call it with him "the best historical novel ever written." Even in +exact reproduction of another age, it cannot compare with _Esmond_, and +how immeasurably as romance is it beneath the fire and movement of a +dozen historical romances that one could name! The beauty of the +Florentine pictures, the enormous care, thought, and reading, lavished +on the story, the variety of literary resource--all make it a most +memorable work, a work almost _sui generis_, a book which every student +of Italy, every lover of Florence must mark, learn, and inwardly +digest. But to call it a complete success is to go too far. The task +was too great. To frame in a complex background of historical +erudition an ethical problem of even greater complexity and +subtlety--this was a task which might have sorely tried even greater +powers than hers--a task in which Goethe and Scott might have +succeeded, but which Goethe and Scott were too truly the born artists +to attempt without ample care, and too busy with many things to devote +to it the required labour. + +_Romola_ is certainly a wonderful monument of literary accomplishments; +but it remains a _tour de force_, too elaborate, too laboured, too +intricate, too erudite. As the French say, it has _trop de choses_, it +is too long, too full, over-costumed, too studiously mounted on the +stage. We sometimes see nowadays "a Shakespearean revival," with +scenery studied by eminent artists on the spot, costumes +archaeologically accurate, real armour, "properties" from famous +collections, a _mise-en-scene_ of lavish splendour and indefatigable +research--and then we ask, how can "Hamlet" or "Lear" live up to such +learning, and why is "Romeo" such a melancholy devil? Few men enjoyed +the earlier portions of _Romola_ more than I did. _Italianissimo_ and +_Florentissimo_ as I was, it was an intense treat. But, though I have +read and re-read _Romola_ from time to time, it has always been in +sections. I have never read it straight through at one time; and to +this hour, I am not quite clear about all the ramifications of the plot +and the various cross-purposes of the persons. Could any one say this +about _Quentin Durward_ or _Ivanhoe_, or of the _Last Days of Pompeii_, +or of _Esmond_ or even of _Hypatia_ or _Westward Ho!_ + +_Romola_, we know, tried its author most cruelly in composition, nor +need we wonder at this. "I began it,", she said, "a young woman--I +finished it an old woman." "It ploughed into her," said her husband, +"more than any of her other books." And, in my opinion, it marks the +decline of her genius. I cannot count any of the later books as equal +to her earlier works. Her great period of production reaches at most +over the six years 1858-1863 (aetat. 39-45), in which she produced +_Scenes of Clerical Life_ (1858), _Adam Bede_ (1859), _The Mill on the +Floss_ (1860), _Silas Marner_ (1861), and _Romola_ (1863). If we +measure by strict success in the highest art, this period should not be +extended beyond the four years which closed with _Silas Marner_. +_Romola_ is an ambitious, beautiful, altogether noble essay to fly +skyward like Icarus, whose ingenious mechanism was melted by the +sunlight in mid-career. And I cannot count any of the later pieces, +prose or verse, as anything but inferior to _Romola_. They have great +beauties, fine passages, subtle characters, and high conceptions--but +they are the artificial products of a brain that showed symptoms of +exhaustion, of a great writer who was striving after impossible tasks +without freedom and without enjoyment. + +I cannot at all agree with those admirers of George Eliot's genius who +believe that it grew continuously in power, who even assure us that it +reached its zenith in _Daniel Deronda_. What can they mean? _Daniel +Deronda_, as usual, shows brilliant literary skill in many passages, +and its insight into modern Hebraism is a psychological problem. But +with all its merits and even beauties, _Daniel Deronda_ has the fatal +defect of unpleasant characters who are neither beautiful nor +interesting, terrible situations which bore rather than terrify us, a +plot which is at once preposterous and wearisome. As to +_Middlemarch_--George Eliot's longest, most crowded, and ethically most +elaborated romance--with all its subtlety, its humour, its variety, and +its sardonic insight into provincial Philistinism, it becomes at last +tedious and disagreeable by reason of the interminable maunderings of +tedious men and women, and the slow and reiterated dissection of +disagreeable anatomies. At this moment I cannot, after twenty years, +recall the indefinite, lingering plot, or the precise relations to each +other of the curiously uninteresting families, who talk scandal and +fuss about in Middlemarch town. + +In _Felix Holt_ I was naturally much interested, having read it in +manuscript, and advised upon the point of law, as appears from her +published letters in the _Life_ by J. Cross. There are two or three +lines--the lawyers' "opinion on the case"--which she asked me to +sketch; and I remember telling her when she inserted these lines in the +book, that I should always be able to say that I had written at least a +sentence which was embodied in English literature. _Felix Holt_ +contains some fine characters and scenes, but it cannot be regarded as +equal to _Adam Bede_ and _Silas Marner_. We will not speak of +_Theophrastus Such_, 1879, written just before her death. It was the +work of a woman physically and intellectually exhausted. I feel a +certain guilty sense of disappointment when I think of the book, for I +possibly had some hand in causing it to be written. I had sent her a +long letter pointing out that our literature, with all its wealth of +achievement in every known sphere, was still deficient in one form of +composition in which the French stood paramount and alone. That was +what they called _Pensees_--moral and philosophical reflections in the +form of epigrams or rather aphorisms. I thought, and I still think, +that this form of composition was peculiarly suited to her genius, at +least in her prime. It was not in her prime when she painfully evolved +the sour affectations set forth in _Theophrastus_. + +A word or two must be said about the _Poems_. They have poetic +subjects, ideas, similes: they are full of poetic yearning, crowded +with poetic imagery; they have everything poetry needs, except poetry. +They have not the poet's hall-mark. They are imitation poems, like the +forged "ancient masters" they concoct at Florence, or the Tanagra +statuettes they make in Germany. With all her consummate literary +gifts and tastes, George Eliot never managed to write a poem, and never +could be brought to see that the verses she wrote were not poems. It +was an exaggeration of the defect that mars her prose; and her verses +throw great light on her prose. They are over-laboured; the conception +overpowers the form; they are too intensely anxious to be recognised as +poems. We see not so much poetic passion, as a passionate yearning +after poetic passion. We have--not the inevitable, incalculable, +inimitable phrase of real poetry--but the slowly distilled, calculated, +and imitated effort to reach the spontaneous. + +It is melancholy indeed to have to admit this, after such labour, such +noble conceptions, such mastery over language: but it is the truth. +And it explains much of kindred failure in her prose work. Great +imagination, noble conceptions, mastery over language can do much, but +they cannot make a poet. Nothing can, but being a poet. Nor can these +gifts make a great romancer or poet in prose. Nothing can, but being +born to romance, being a prose poet. As the Gospel has it--"Which of +you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?" George +Eliot had not sufficiently meditated on this scripture. She too often +supposed that by taking thought--by enormous pains, profound thought, +by putting this thought in exquisite and noble words--she might produce +an immortal romance, an immortal poem. + +And yet let us never forget that the _Spanish Gypsy_ is a very grand +conception, that it has some noble scenes, and here and there some +stately lines--even some beautiful passages, could we forget the +artificial alliteration and the tuneless discords to which the poet's +ear seems utterly insensible. The opening lines seem to promise well +and have much of mellow thought, in spite of five hissing sibilants in +the very first verse-- + +[Transcriber's note: In the original book, the letters in the poem +fragments under discussion were bolded. Here, they are delineated with +slashes (/).] + + 'Ti/s/ the warm /S/outh, where Europe /s/pread/s/ her land/s/. + Like fretted leaflets, breathing on the deep: + +And then comes in the fourth line an awful cacophony of +alliteration--and an alliteration in "c." + + A /C/alm earth-goddess /c/rowned with /c/orn and vines. + +Then we have a really pretty but artificial line--an alliteration in +"m." + + On the /M/id Sea that /m/oans with /m/e/m/ories. + +The seventh line again is an alliteration of alternate "p" and "d." + + /P/ant /d/umbly /p/assionate with /d/reams of youth. + +The tenth line is an excruciating alliteration in sibilants. + + /F/eed/s/ the /f/amed /s/tream that water/s/ Andalu/s/. + +But it must be admitted that the next line is graceful-- + + And loiters, amorous of the fragrant air. + +The whole introduction of some 400 lines is full of beautiful images, +fine thoughts, and striking phrases, but it is crowded, artificial, +brocaded to excess with _trop de choses_; and it suddenly breaks into +drama, with dialogue in person. This alternation of dramatic form and +dialogue with epical narrative, interlarding the tragedy in parts with +portentously long explanatory comment, is perhaps the most unlucky +novelty which was ever attempted in verse. What would one say if even +fine passages out of Wordsworth's _Excursion_ had been accidentally +bound up between the pages of Shakespeare's _Hamlet_? + +But it is needless to enlarge on all the metrical and poetic defects of +this medley of nearly 10,000 lines, with its lip-twisting, +ear-torturing lyrics--(was there ever such a cacophony as-- + + O the sweet sweet prime + Of the past spring-time!)-- + +with its strange alternations of action and narration, its soliloquies +of 150 unbroken lines, and all its other incongruities. The important +point is, that it has a really grand scheme, that the characters of +Zarca and of Fedalma are lofty, impressive, and nobly dramatic, that +the whole poem is, in conception, a work of power and true imagination. +Just as Kingsley, who had far greater poetic faculty than George Eliot, +mistook in making the _Saint's Tragedy_ a drama, when he might have +made it a grand historical romance, so George Eliot made a cruel +mistake in writing the _Spanish Gypsy_ as a poem, when she might have +written it as an historical romance--a romance, it may be, much +superior to _Romola_, as the subject and the conception were on grander +lines. + +It is to me a truly melancholy duty to have to admit that so much in +the noble conceptions and rich thought of George Eliot was not a +complete success in ultimate execution--and that, in great measure, +because the conception and aim were so great and the execution so +profoundly conscientious. I knew her well, I was amongst those who had +the deepest regard for her mental power and her moral insight. I +always recognised her as one of the best and most cultured minds of her +time. I had great faith in her judgment, and could respect her courage +even when I repudiated her opinions. But I never was one of those who +exaggerated her gifts as an artist. I never could count anything later +than _Silas Marner_ as a complete and unqualified masterpiece. One may +have the imaginative power shown by Michael Angelo in his Sistine +Chapel, or his Medicean tombs, and yet, if one is not complete master +of the brush and the chisel, no imagination, no thought, will produce a +masterpiece in fresco or in marble. George Eliot was a most thoughtful +artist, but she was more of a thinker than an artist; she was always +more the artist when she was least the thinker; and when she conceived +a work of art in her sublimest aspirations (as notably in _The Spanish +Gypsy_), she almost makes us doubt if she were an artist at all. + +She was an artist; and the younger generations will make an +unpardonable error if they fail to do justice to the permanent survival +of her best and earliest work. They will also be guilty of +unpardonable blindness if they fail to note how completely she stands +above all her contemporary rivals in romance, by thought, by knowledge, +by nobility of aim. She raised the whole art of romance into a higher +plane of thought, of culture, and of philosophic grasp. And when she +failed, it was often by reason of the nobility of her aim itself, of +the volume of her own learning, of the intensity of her own standard of +perfection. Her passages in prose are studied with the care that men +usually bestow on a sonnet; her accessories and landscapes are patient +and conscientious transcripts of actual spots of country and town; her +drama is a problem of ethical teaching, subtly elaborated, and minutely +probed. In these high aims and difficult ambitions, she not seldom +failed, or achieved a somewhat academic and qualified success. But the +task was not seldom such that even to have fallen short of complete +success was a far from ignoble triumph. + +She raised the whole art of romance to a higher plane, I say; and, +although in this ambitious aim she too often sacrificed freshness, +ease, and simplicity, the weight of the limits she imposed on herself +must fairly be counted in the balance. Romance had never before in +England been written with such a sense of responsibility, with such +eager subtlety of form, and with such high ethical purpose. The sense +of responsibility wearies many readers, and at last crushed the writer; +the form became "precious," and at last pedantic; and the ethical +purpose was sometimes more visible than the ethical life. In the +French drama Corneille had great conceptions, noble types of character, +stately verse, and tragic situations; but English readers too often +find him mannered, artificial, dull. Corneille, I freely admit, is not +Shakespeare: I greatly prefer Shakespeare; but I prefer Corneille to +Ibsen. We have plenty of Ibsenites to-day, and rather a plethora than +a dearth of ignoble creatures in squalid situations who expose to us +their mean lives with considerable truth to nature. In such an age, it +is just as well that the lessons of _Adam Bede_, _Romola_, Fedalma and +Zarca, should not be quite forgotten. + +The art of romance, in the widest and loftiest sense of the term, is +even yet in its infancy. Ancient literature, mediaeval literature, +knew nothing of it. Nor indeed did modern literature entirely conceive +it in all its fulness until the days of Le Sage, Richardson, Fielding, +and Goldsmith. Nay, we may say that its power was not quite revealed +before Scott, Goethe, Manzoni, Jane Austen, Balzac, Thackeray, Dickens, +and George Sand. Its subtlety, its flexibility, its capacity for +analytic research, its variety of range, and facility for reaching all +hearts and all minds--all this is simply incalculable. And we may be +sure that the star of romance has not yet reached its zenith. It is +the art of the future--and an art wherein women are quite as likely to +reign as men. It would be treason to Art to pretend that George Eliot +came near to such perfection. But she had certain qualities that none +of her predecessors had quite possessed, and she strove for an ideal +which may one day become something more than a dream--a dream that as +yet eludes and escapes from the mind as it struggles to grasp it and to +fix it. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUDIES IN EARLY VICTORIAN +LITERATURE*** + + +******* This file should be named 18384.txt or 18384.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/3/8/18384 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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