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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/39298-8.txt b/39298-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c45eb9 --- /dev/null +++ b/39298-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14092 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Modern Leaders: Being a Series of +Biographical Sketches, by Justin McCarthy + +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/license + + +Title: Modern Leaders: Being a Series of Biographical Sketches + +Author: Justin McCarthy + +Release Date: March 30, 2012 [EBook #39298] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN LEADERS *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Martin +Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned +images of public domain material from the Google Print +project.) + + + + + + +MODERN LEADERS: + +_BEING A SERIES OF_ + +BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. + +BY JUSTIN McCARTHY, +_Author of "Lady Judith: A Tale of Two Continents," etc._ + +NEW YORK: +SHELDON & COMPANY, +677 BROADWAY and 214 and 216 MERCER STREET. +1872. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +QUEEN VICTORIA AND HER SUBJECTS. 7 + +THE REAL LOUIS NAPOLEON. 18 + +EUGENIE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH. 25 + +THE PRINCE OF WALES. 35 + +THE KING OF PRUSSIA. 45 + +VICTOR EMANUEL, KING OF ITALY. 55 + +LOUIS ADOLPH THIERS. 66 + +PRINCE NAPOLEON. 77 + +THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. 85 + +BRIGHAM YOUNG. 96 + +THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND. 106 + +ENGLISH POSITIVISTS. 116 + +ENGLISH TORYISM AND ITS LEADERS. 126 + +"GEORGE ELIOT" AND GEORGE LEWES. 136 + +GEORGE SAND. 145 + +EDWARD BULWER AND LORD LYTTON. 156 + +"PAR NOBILE FRATRUM--THE TWO NEWMANS." 167 + +ARCHBISHOP MANNING. 175 + +JOHN RUSKIN. 183 + +CHARLES READE. 192 + +EXILE-WORLD OF LONDON. 202 + +THE REVEREND CHARLES KINGSLEY. 211 + +MR. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 223 + +SCIENCE AND ORTHODOXY IN ENGLAND. 234 + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +The sketches which make up this volume are neither purely critical nor +merely biographical. They endeavor to give the American reader a clear +and just idea of each individual in his intellect, his character, his +place in politics, letters, and society. In some instances I have +written of friends whom I know personally and well; in others of men +with whom I have but slight acquaintance; in others still of persons +whom I have only seen. But in every instance those whom I describe are +persons whom I have been able to study on the spot, whose character and +doings I have heard commonly discussed by those who actually knew them. +In no case whatever are the opinions I have given drawn merely from +books and newspapers. This value, therefore, these essays may have to an +American, that they are not such descriptions as any of us might be +enabled to put into print by the mere help of study and reading; +descriptions for example such as one might make of Henry VIII. or +Voltaire. They are in every instance, even when intimate and direct +personal acquaintance least assist them, the result of close observation +and that appreciation of the originals which comes from habitual +intercourse with those who know them and submit them to constant +criticism. + +I have not made any alteration in the essays which were written some +years ago. Let them stand as portraits bearing that date. If 1872 has in +any instance changed the features and the fortunes of 1869 and 1870, it +cannot make untrue what then was true. What I wrote in 1869 of the +Prince of Wales, for example, will probably not wholly apply to the +Prince of Wales to-day. We all believe that he has lately changed for +the better. But what I wrote then I still believe was true then; and it +is a fair contribution to history, which does not consent to rub out +yesterday because of to-day. I wrote of a "Liberal Triumvirate" of +England when the phrase was an accurate expression. It would hardly be +accurate now. To-day Mr. Mill does not appear in political life and Mr. +Bright has been an exile, owing to his health, for nearly two years from +the scenes of parliamentary debate and triumph. But the portraits of the +men do not on that account need any change. Even where some reason has +been shown me for a modification of my own judgment I have still +preferred to leave the written letter as it is. A distinguished Italian +friend has impressed on me that King Victor Emanuel is personally a much +more ambitious man than I have painted him. My friend has had far better +opportunities of judging than I ever could have had; but I gave the best +opinion I could, and still holding to it prefer to let it stand, to be +taken for what it is worth. + +I think I may fairly claim to have anticipated in some of the political +sketches, that of Louis Napoleon, for instance, the judgment of events +and history, and the real strength of certain characters and +institutions. + +These sketches had a gratifying welcome from the American public as they +appeared in the "Galaxy." I hope they may be thought worth reading over +again and keeping in their collected form. + +JUSTIN MCCARTHY. +48 GOWER STREET, BEDFORD SQUARE, LONDON, July 31, 1872. + + + + +QUEEN VICTORIA AND HER SUBJECTS. + + +"And when you hear historians tell of thrones, and those who sat upon +them, let it be as men now gaze upon the mammoth's bones, and wonder +what old world such things could see." + +So sang Byron half a century ago, and great critics condemned his verse, +and called him a "surly Democrat" because he ventured to put such +sentiments and hopes into rhyme. The thrones of Europe have not +diminished in number since Byron's day, although they have changed and +rechanged their occupants; and the one only grand effort at the +establishment of a new Republic--that of France in 1848--went down into +dust and ashes. Naturally, therefore, the tendency in Europe is to +regard the monarchical principle as having received a new lease and +charter of life, and to talk of the republican principle as an exotic +forced for a moment into a premature and morbid blossom upon European +soil, but as completely unsuited to the climate and the people as the +banyan or the cocoa tree. + +I do not, for myself, quite agree in this view of the aspect of affairs. +Of course, if one were inclined to discuss the question fairly, he must +begin by asking what people mean when they talk of the republican +principle. What is the republican principle? When you talk of a +Republic, do you mean an aggressive, conquering, domineering State, +ruled by faction and living on war, like the Commonwealth of Rome? or a +Republic like that planned by Washington, which should repudiate all +concern in foreign politics or foreign conquest? Do you mean a Federal +Republic, like that of the United States, or one with a centralized +power, like the French Republic of 1848? Do you mean a Republic like +that of Florence, in which the people were omnipotent, or a Republic +like that of Venice, in which the people had no power at all? Do you +mean a Republic like that of Switzerland, in which the President is next +to nobody, or a Republic like that of Poland, which was ornamented by a +King? In truth, the phrase "republican principle" has no set meaning. It +means just what the man who uses it wishes to express. If, however, we +understand it to mean, in this instance, the principle of popular +self-government, then it is obvious that Europe has made immense +progress in that direction since Byron raged against the crimes of +Kings. If it means the opposite to the principle of Divine Right or +Legitimacy, or even personal loyalty--loyalty of the old-time, +chivalric, enthusiastic fashion--then it must be owned that it shows all +over Europe the mark of equal progress. The ancient, romantic, +sentimental loyalty; the loyalty which reverenced the Sovereign and was +proud to abase itself before him; the loyalty of the Cavaliers; the +loyalty which went wild over "Oh, Richard! Oh, mon Roi!" is dead and +gone--its relics a thing to be stared at, and wondered over, and +preserved for a landmark in the progress of the world--just like the +mammoth's bones. + +The model Monarchy of Europe is, beyond dispute, that of Great Britain. +In England there is an almost absolute self-government; the English +people can have anything whatever which they may want by insisting on it +and agitating a little for it. The Sovereign has long ceased to +interfere in the progress of national affairs. I can only recollect one +instance, during my observation, in which Queen Victoria put her veto on +a bill passed by Parliament, and that was on an occasion when it was +discovered, at the last moment, that the Lords and Commons had passed a +bill which had a dreadful technical blunder in it, and the only way out +of the difficulty was to beg of the Queen to refuse it her sanction, +which her Majesty did accordingly, and the blunder was set right in the +following session. If a Prime Minister were to announce to the House of +Commons, to-morrow, that the Queen had boxed his ears, it would not +create a whit more amazement than if he were to say, no matter in what +graceful and diplomatic periphrasis, that her Majesty was unwilling to +agree to some measure which her faithful Commons desired to see passed +into law. + +Nothing did Mr. Disraeli more harm, nothing brought greater contempt on +him than his silly attempts last session to induce the Commons to +believe, by vague insinuations and covert allusions, that the Queen had +a personal leaning toward his policy and himself. So long ago as the +time of the free trade struggle, the Tories, for all their hereditary +loyalty, complained of and protested against the silent presence of +Prince Albert in the Peers' gallery of the House of Commons, on the +ground that it was an attempt to influence the Parliament improperly, +and to interfere with the freedom of debate. No one has anything to say +against the Queen which carries any weight or is worth listening to. She +is undoubtedly a woman of virtue and good sense. So good a woman, I +venture to think, never before reigned over any people, and that she is +not a great woman, an Elizabeth, a Catherine of Russia, or even an +Isabella of Castile, is surely rather to the advantage than otherwise of +the monarchical institution in its present stage of existence. Here, +then, one might think, if anywhere and ever, the principle of personal +loyalty has a fair chance and a full justification. A man might +vindicate his loyalty to Queen Victoria in the name of liberty itself; +nay, he might justify it by an appeal to the very principle of +democracy. Yet one must be blind, who, living in England and willing to +observe, does not see that the old, devoted spirit of personal loyalty +is dead and buried. It is gone! it is a memory! You may sing a poetic +lament for it if you will, as Schiller did for the gods of Hellas; you +may break into passionate rhetoric, if you can, over its extinction, as +Burke did for the death of the age of Chivalry. It is gone, and I firmly +believe it can never be revived or restored. + +I do not mean to say that there are many persons in England who feel any +strong objection to the Monarchy, or warmly desire to see a Republic +substituted for it. I know in England several theoretical +republicans--they are to be met with in almost any company. I have never +met with any one Englishman living in England, who showed any anxious, +active interest in the abolition of the Monarchy. I do not know any one +who objects to drink the usual loyal toasts at a public dinner, or +betrays any conscientious reluctance to listen to the unmeaning eulogy +which it is the stereotyped fashion for the chairman of every such +banquet to heap on "Her Majesty and the rest of the Royal Family." But +this sort of thing, if it ever had any practical meaning, has now none. +It has reached that stage at which profession and practice are always +understood to be quite different things. Every one says at church that +he is a miserable sinner; no one is supposed really to believe anything +of the sort. Every one has some time or other likened women to angels, +but we are not therefore supposed seriously to ignore the fact that +women wear flannel petticoats, and have their faults, and are mortal. So +of loyal professions in England now. They are understood to be phrases, +like "Your obedient servant," at the bottom of a letter. They do not +suggest hypocrisy or pretence of any kind. There is apparently no more +inconsistency now in a man's loyally drinking the health of the Queen, +and proceeding immediately after (in private conversation) to abuse or +ridicule her and her family, than there would be in the same man +beginning with "Dear Sir," a missive to one whom he notoriously +dislikes. Every one who has been lately in London must have heard an +immense amount of scandal, or at all events of flippant joking at the +expense of the Queen herself; and of more serious complaint and distrust +as regards the Prince of Wales. Yet the virtues of the Queen, and the +noble qualities of the Prince of Wales are panegyrized and toasted, and +hurrah'd at every public dinner where Englishmen gather together. + +The very virtues of Queen Victoria have contributed materially toward +the extinction of the old-fashioned sentiment of living, active loyalty. +The English people had from the time at least of Anne to our own day a +succession of bad princes. Only a race patient as Issachar could have +endured such a line of sovereigns as George II., George III., and George +IV. Then came William IV., who being a little less stupidly obstinate +than George III., and not so grossly corrupt as George IV., was hailed +for a while as the Patriot King by a people who were only too anxious +not to lose all their hereditary and traditional veneration. Do what +they would, however, the English nation could not get into any sincere +transports of admiration about the Patriot King; and they soon found +that any popular reform worth having was to be got rather in spite of +the Patriot King, than by virtue of any wisdom or patriotism in the +monarch. Great popular demonstrations and tumults, and threats of +marching on London; and O'Connell meetings at Charing Cross, with +significant allusion by the great demagogue to the King who lost his +head at Whitehall hard by; the hanging out of the black flag at +Manchester, and a general movement of brickbats everywhere--these seem +to have been justly regarded as the persuasive influences which +converted a Sovereign into the Patriot King and a Reformer. Loyalty did +not gain much by the reforms of that reign. Then followed the young +Victoria; and enthusiasm for a while wakened up fresh and genuine over +the ascension of the comely and simple-hearted girl, who was so frank +and winning; who ran down stairs in her night-dress, rather than keep +her venerable councillors waiting when they sought her out at midnight; +who openly acknowledged her true love for her cousin, and offered him +her hand; who was at once queenly and maidenly, innocent and fearless. + +But this sort of thing did not last very long. Prince Albert was never +popular. He was cold; people said he was stingy; his very virtues, and +they were genuine, were not such as anybody, except his wife and family, +warmly admires in a man; he was indeed misunderstood, or at all events +misprized in England, up to the close of his life. Then the gates of the +convent, so to speak, closed over the Queen, and royalty ceased to be an +animating presence in England. + +The young men and women of to-day--persons who have not passed the age +of twenty-one--can hardly remember to have ever seen the Sovereign. She +is to them what the Mikado is to his people. Seven years of absolute +seclusion on the part of a monarch must in any case be a sad trial to +personal loyalty, at least in the royal capital. A considerable and an +influential section of Queen Victoria's subjects in the metropolis have +long been very angry with their Sovereign. The tailors, the milliners, +the dressmakers, the jewellers, the perfumers, all the shopkeepers of +the West End who make profit out of court dinners and balls and +presentations, are furious at the royal seclusion which they believe has +injured their business. So, too, are the aristocratic residents of the +West End, who do not care much about a court which no longer contributes +to their season's gayety. So, too, are all the flunkey class generally. +Now, I am sure there are no three sections of the population of London +more influential in the spreading of scandal and the nursing of this +discontent than the shopkeepers, the aristocrats, and the flunkeys of +the West End. These are actively and demonstratively dissatisfied with +the Queen. These it is who spread dirty scandals about her, and laugh +over vile lampoons and caricatures of which she is the object. + +Every one knows that there is a low, mean scandal afloat about the +Queen--and it is spread by the clubs, the drawing-rooms, the shops, and +the servants'-halls of the West End. I am convinced that not one of +those who spread the scandal really believes it; but they like to spread +it because they dislike the Queen. There can be no doubt, however, that +much dissatisfaction at the Queen's long seclusion is felt by persons +who are incapable of harboring any motives so mean or spreading any +calumnies so unworthy. Most of the London papers have always found fault +rather sharply and not over decently with the royal retirement. Mr. +Ayrton, representative of the Tower Hamlets--the largest constituency in +England--openly expressed this sentiment at a public meeting; and though +his remarks were at once replied to and condemned by Mr. Bright, they +met with a more or less cordial response from most of his audience. + +There is or was in the House of Commons (the general election has got +happily rid of him), a foolish person named Reardon, a Piccadilly +auctioneer, who became, by what we call in England "a fluke," a member +of the House of Commons. This person moved last session a resolution, or +something of the kind, calling on the Queen to abdicate. The thing was +laughed down--poor Mr. Reardon's previous career had been so absurd that +anything coming from him would have been hooted; and the House of +Commons is fiercely intolerant of "bores" and men with crotchets. But I +have reason to believe that Mr. Reardon's luckless project was concocted +by a delegation of London tradesmen, and had the sympathy of the whole +class; and I know that many members of the House which hooted and +laughed him down had in private over and over again grumbled at the +Queen's retirement, and declared that she ought to abdicate. + +"What on earth does it matter," I asked of a member of Parliament--one +of the most accomplished scholars and sharp logicians in the +House--"What on earth does it matter whether or not the Queen gives a +few balls to a few thousand West End people in the season? How can +rational people care, one way or the other?" "My dear fellow," was the +answer, "_I_ don't care; but all that sort of thing is her business, and +she is paid to do it, and she ought to do it. If she were a washerwoman +with a family, she would have to do her work, no matter what her grief." +Now this gentleman--who is utterly above any sympathy with scandal or +with the lackey-like grumblings of the West End--did, undoubtedly, +express fairly enough a growing mood of the public dissatisfaction. + +Beyond all this, however, is the fact that people--the working-class +especially--are beginning to ask whether we really want a Sovereign at +all, seeing that we get on just as well during the eclipse of royalty as +in its brightest meridian splendor. This question is being very often +put; and it is probably more often thought over than put into words. Now +I think nothing worse could possibly happen to royalty in England than +that people should begin quietly to ask whether there really is any use +in it. If there is a bad King or Queen, people can get or look for, or +hope and pray for a good one; and the abuse of the throne will not be +accounted a sufficient argument against the use of it. But how will it +be when the subjects begin to find that during the reign of one of the +best sovereigns possible to have, they can get on perfectly well +although the monarch is in absolute seclusion? + +George IV. was an argument against bad kings only--Queen Victoria may +come to be accepted as an illustration of the uselessness of the very +best kind of Sovereign. I think King Log was much better calculated to +do harm to the institution of royalty than King Stork, although the +frogs might have regretted the placid reign of the former when the +latter was gobbling up their best and fattest. + +Decidedly the people of England are learning of the Queen how to do +without royalty. A small section of her subjects are angry with her and +bitter of heart against her; a much larger number find they can do +perfectly well without her; a larger number still have forgotten her. On +a memorable occasion Prince Albert declared that constitutional +government was on its trial in England. The phrase, like many that came +from the same well-meaning lips, was unlucky. Constitutional government +was not upon its trial then; but Monarchy is upon its trial now. + +Do I mean to say that Great Britain is on the verge of a revolution; +that the dynasty is about to be overthrown; that a new Cromwell is to +make his appearance? By no means. It does not follow that even if the +English people were to be convinced to-morrow of the absolute +uselessness of a throne, and a sovereignty, they would therefore proceed +to establish a republic. No people under the sun are more strongly +governed by tradition and "the majesty of custom" than the English. +Cobden used to say that they had a Chinese objection to change of any +kind. The Lord Mayor's show, long threatened, and for a while partially +obscured, has come out again in full gingerbread. There is a functionary +who appears every night at the door of the House of Commons just at the +moment when the sitting is formally declared to be over, and bawls out +to the emptying benches the resonant question, "Who's for home?" I +believe the practice originated at a time when Westminster was +unpeopled, and midnight roads were dangerous, and members were glad to +make up parties to travel home together; and, so a functionary was +appointed to issue stentorian appeal to all who were thus willing to +combine their strength and journey safely in company. The need of such +an arrangement has, I need hardly say, passed away these many +generations; but the usage exists. It oppresses no one to have the +formal call thundered out; the thing has got to be a regular +performance; it is part of the whole business and system; nobody wants +it, but nobody heeds it or objects to it, and the functionary appears +every night of every session and shouts his invitation to companionship +as regularly as if the Mohocks were in possession of Charing Cross, and +Claude Duval were coming full trot along Piccadilly. + +Now, this may be taken as a sort of illustration of the manner in which +the English people are naturally inclined to deal with any institutions +which are merely useless, and have the recommendation of old age and +long descent. The ordinary Englishman to-day would find it hard to bring +up before his mind's eye a picture of an England without a Sovereign. If +it were made fully plain to him, and thoroughly impressed upon his mind +that he could do just as well without a Sovereign as with, and even that +Monarchy never could possibly be of use to him any more, I think he +would endure it and pay its cost, and drink its health loyally for all +time, providing Monarchy did nothing outrageously wrong; or +provided--which is more to my present purpose--that no other changes of +a remarkable nature occurred in the meantime to remove ancient +landmarks, to disturb the basis of his old institutions and to prepare +him for a new order of things. This is indeed the point I wish to +discuss just now. I have explained what I believe to be the depth and +strength and meaning of the average Englishman's loyal feelings to his +Sovereign at the present moment. I should like to consider next how that +feeling will, in all probability, be affected by the changes in the +English political system, which seem inevitable, and by the accession, +or expected accession, of a new Sovereign to the throne. + +England has, just now, something very nearly approaching to manhood +suffrage; and to manhood suffrage it will probably come before long. The +ballot will, doubtless, be introduced. The Irish Church is as good as +dead. I cannot doubt that the English State Church will, ultimately, and +before very long, succumb to the same fate. Not that this logically or +politically follows as a matter of necessity; and nothing could be more +unwise in the interest of their own cause than the persistency with +which the Tories keep insisting that the doom of the one is involved in +the doom of the other. The Irish Church is the foreign church of a +miserably small minority; the English Establishment is the Church of the +majority, and is an institution belonging to the soil. The very +principle which maintains the English Church ought of right to condemn +the Irish Church. But it is the fact that an agitation more influential +than it seemed to the careless spectator, has long been going on in +England for the abolition of the State Church system altogether; and +there can be no doubt that the fate of the Irish Establishment will lend +immense courage and force to that agitation. Revolutionary movements are +always contagious in their nature, and the movement against the Irish +Church is in the strictest sense revolutionary. The Dutch or the Scotch +would have carried such a movement to triumph across rivers of blood if +it were needful; and no man of spirit could say that the end would not +be worth the cost. I assume, then, that the overthrow of the Irish +Church will inflame to iconoclastic fervor the movement of the English +Dissenters against all Church establishments. I do not stop just now to +inquire whether the movement is likely to be successful or how long it +may take to accomplish the object. To me, it seems beyond doubt that it +must succeed; but I do not care to assume even that for the purpose of +my present argument. I only ask my readers to consider the condition of +things which will exist in England when a movement resting on a suffrage +which is almost universal, a movement which will have already overthrown +one State Church within Great Britain, proceeds openly and exultingly to +attack the English Church itself, within its own dominions. I ask +whether it is likely that the institution which is supposed to be bound +up inseparably with that Church, the Monarchy which is based upon, and +exists by virtue of religious ascendency, is likely to escape all +question during such a struggle, and after it? The State Church and the +Aristocracy, if they cannot always be called bulwarks of the throne, are +yet so completely associated with it in the public mind that it is hard +even to think of the one without the others, and yet harder to think of +the one as existing serene and uninjured after the decay or demolition +of the others. + +Now, the Aristocracy have, as Mr. Bright put it so truly and so +effectively the other day, already capitulated. They have given up all +notion of any longer making the laws of the country in the interest of +their own class. One of the first things the Reformed Parliament will +do, when it has breathing-time to think about such matters, will be to +abolish the purchase system in the army, and throw open promotion to +merit, without reference to class. The diplomatic service, that other +great stronghold of the Aristocracy, will be thoroughly reorganized and +made a real, useful department, doing solid work, and open to talent of +whatever caste; or it will be abolished altogether. Something will have +to be done with the House of Lords. It, too, must be made a reality, or +dismissed into the land of shadows and the past. Efforts at reforming +it, while it stands on its present basis, are futile. Its existence is, +in its present form, the one great objection to it. + +The good-natured, officious Lord Shaftesbury went to work, a few months +ago, to prepare a scheme of reform for the House of Lords, in order to +anticipate and conciliate the popular movement which he expected. He +could think of nothing better than a recommendation that the House +should meet an hour earlier every evening, in order, by throwing more +time on their hands, to induce the younger Peers to get up debates and +take part in them. This, however, is not precisely the kind of reform +the country will ask for when it has leisure to turn its attention to +the subject. It will ask for some reorganization which shall either +abolish or reduce to a comparative nothing the hereditary legislating +principle on which the House of Lords now rests. A set of law-makers or +law-marrers intrusted with power only because they are born to titles, +is an absurd anomaly, which never could exist in company with popular +suffrage. "Hereditary law-makers!" exclaimed Franklin. "You might as +well talk of hereditary mathematicians!" Franklin expressed exactly what +the feeling of the common sense of England is likely to be when the +question comes to be raised. I expect then, not that the House of Lords +will be abolished, but that the rule of the hereditary principle will be +brought to an end--that the Aristocracy there, too, will have to +capitulate. + +Now, I doubt whether an American reader can have any accurate idea, +unless he has specially studied the matter and watched its practical +operation in England, of the manner in which the influence of the Peers +makes itself felt through the political life of Great Britain. Americans +often have some kind of notion that the Aristocracy govern the country +directly and despotically, with the high hand of imperious feudalism. +There is nothing of the kind in reality. The House of Lords is, as a +piece of political machinery, almost inoperative--as nearly as possible +harmless. No English Peer, Lord Derby alone excepted, has anything like +the political authority and direct influence of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. +Disraeli, or Mr. Bright. There are very few Peers, indeed, about whose +political utterances anybody in the country cares three straws. But, on +the other hand, the traditional _prestige_ of the Peers, the tacit, +time-honored, generally-conceded doctrine that a Peer has first right to +everything--the mediæval superstition tolerated largely in our own time, +which allows a sort of divinity to hedge a Peer--all this has an +indirect, immense, pervading, almost universal influence in the +practical working of English politics. The Peers have, in fact, a +political _droit du seigneur_ in England. They have first taste of every +privilege, first choice of every appointment. Political office is their +pasture, where they are privileged to feed at will. There does not now +exist a man in England likely to receive high office, who would be bold +enough to suggest the forming of a Cabinet without Peers in it, even +though there were no Peers to be had who possessed the slightest +qualification for any ministerial position. The Peers must have a +certain number of places, because they are Peers. The House of Commons +swarms with the sons and nephews of Peers. The household appointments, +the ministerial offices, the good places in the army and the church are +theirs when they choose--and they generally do choose--to have them. The +son of a Peer, if in the House of Commons, may be raised at one step +from his place in the back benches to a seat in the Cabinet, simply +because of his rank. When Earl Russell, two or three years ago, raised +Mr. Goschen, one of the representatives of the city of London and a +partner in a great London banking-house, to a place in the Cabinet, the +whole country wondered: a very few, who were not frightened out of their +propriety, admired; some thought the world must be coming to an end. But +when the Marquis of Hartington was suddenly picked out of West End +dissipation and made War Secretary, nobody expressed the least wonder, +for he was the heir of the House of Devonshire. Indeed, it was perfectly +notorious that the young Marquis was presented to office, in the first +instance, because it was hoped by his friends that official duties might +wean him from the follies and frivolities of a more than ordinarily +heedless youth. Sir Robert Peel the present, the _magni nominis umbra_, +is not, of course, in the strict sense, an aristocrat; but he is mixed +up with aristocrats, and is the son of a Peer-maker, and may be regarded +as claiming and having the privileges of the class. Sir Robert Peel was +presented with the First Secretaryship as something to play with, +because his aristocratic friends, the ladies especially, thought he +would be more likely to sow his wild oats if he were beguiled by the +semblance of official business. A commoner must, in fact, be supposed to +have some qualification for office before he is invited to fill a +ministerial place. No qualification is believed necessary for the near +relative or connection of a Peer. Even in the most favorable examples of +Peers who are regular occupants of office, no special fitness is assumed +or pretended. No one supposes or says that Lord Clarendon, or Lord +Granville, or Lord Malmesbury has any particular qualification which +entitles him, above all other men, to this or that ministerial place. +Yet it must be a man of bold imagination indeed, who could now conceive +the possibility of a British Cabinet without one of these noblemen +having a place in it. + +All this comes, as I have said, out of a lingering superstition--the +faith in the divine right of Peers. Now, a reform in the constitution of +the Upper House, which should purge it of the hereditary principle, +would be the first great blow to this superstition. Julius Cæsar, in one +of his voyages of conquest, was much perplexed by the priests, who +insisted that he had better go back because the sacred chickens would +not eat. At last he thought the time had come to prove his independence +of the sacred chickens, "If they will not eat," he said, "then let them +drink"--and he flung the consecrated fowls into the sea; and the +expedition went on triumphantly, and the Roman soldiers learned that +they could do without the sacred chickens. I think a somewhat similar +sensation will come over all classes of the English people when they +find that the hereditary right to make laws is taken from the English +Peerage. I do not doubt that the whole fabric of superstition will +presently collapse, and that the privilege of the Peer will cease to be +anything more than that degree of superior influence which wealth and +social rank can generally command, even in the most democratic +communities. The law which gives impulse and support to the custom of +primogeniture is certain to go, and with it another prop of the mediæval +superstition. The Peerage capitulates, in fact--no more expressive word +can be found to describe the situation. + +Now, in all this, I have been foreshadowing no scheme of wild, vague, +far-distant reform. I appeal to any one, Liberal or Tory, who is +practically acquainted with English politics, to say whether these are +not changes he confidently or timidly looks to see accomplished before +long in England. I have not spoken of any reform which is not part of +the actual accepted programme of the Radical party. To the reform of +the House of Lords, of the military and diplomatic service; to abolition +of the law of primogeniture, the whole body of the Liberals stands +pledged; and Mr. Bright very recently renewed the pledges in a manner +and with an emphasis which showed that change of circumstances has made +no change in his opinions, brought no faltering in his resolution. The +abolition of the English Church is not, indeed, thus openly sought by so +powerful a party; but it is ostentatiously aimed at by that solid, +compact, pertinacious body of Dissenters who, after so long a struggle, +succeeded at last in getting rid of Church rates; and the movement will +go on with a rush after the fall of the Irish establishment. Here then +we have, in the not distant future, a prospect of an England without a +privileged Aristocracy, and with the State Church principle called into +final question. I return to my first consideration--the consideration +which is the subject of this paper--how will this affect the great +aristocratic, feudal and hierarchical institution of England, the Throne +of the Monarch? + +The Throne then will stand naked and alone, stripped of its old-time and +traditional surroundings and associations. It cannot be like that of +France, the throne of a Cæsar, a despotic institution claiming to +exercise its despotism over the people by virtue of the will and +delegated power of the people. The English Crown never can be an active +governing power. It will be the last idol in the invaded sanctuary. It +will stand alone, among the pedestals from which popular reform has +swept the embodied superstitions which were its long companions. It must +live, if at all, on the old affection or the toleration which springs +out of custom and habit. This affection, or at least this toleration, +may always be looked upon as a powerful influence in England. One can +hardly imagine, for instance, anything occurring in our day to dethrone +the Queen. However one class may grumble and another class may gibe, the +force of habit and old affection would, in this instance, prove +omnipotent. But, suppose the Prince of Wales should turn out an +unpopular and ill-conditioned ruler? Suppose he should prove to be a man +of low tastes, of vulgar and spendthrift habits, a maladroit and +intermeddling king? He is not very popular in England, even now, and he +is either one of the most unjustly entreated men living, or he has +defects which even the excuse of youth can scarcely gloss over. + +An illustrated weekly paper in London forced itself lately into a sudden +notoriety by publishing a finely-drawn cartoon, in which the Prince of +Wales, dressed as Hamlet, was represented as breaking away from the +restraining arms of John Bull as Horatio, and public opinion as +Marcellus, and rushing after a ghost which bore the form and features of +George IV., while underneath were inscribed the words, "Lead on; I'll +follow thee!" This was a bold and bitter lampoon; I am far from saying +that it was not unjust, but I believe it can hardly be doubted that the +Prince of Wales has, as yet, shown little inclination to imitate the +example or cultivate the tastes of his pure-minded and intellectual +father. Now suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Prince of Wales +should turn out a George IV., or suppose, and which would be far worse +from a national point of view, he or his son should turn out a George +III. And suppose further that, about the same time any great crisis +should arise in England--suppose the country entangled in a great +foreign war, or disturbed by some momentous domestic agitation--can any +one doubt that the Crown, in its then isolated condition, would be +really in danger? + +We must remember, when the strength of English institutions is boasted, +that they have not, since 1815, stood any strain which could fairly be +called critical. England has never had her national strength, her +political position, or even her _prestige_ seriously imperilled since +that time. Even the Indian war could not be called a great supreme +trial, such as other nations have lately had to bear. No one, even for a +moment, could have doubted how that struggle would end. It was bitter, +it was bloody; but the life of the nation was not staked upon it, even +had its issue been uncertain; and its issue never was uncertain. It +would be superfluous to say that England has passed through no ordeal +like that to which the United States were lately subjected. She has not +even had to confront anything like the crisis which Prussia voluntarily +invited, which Austria had to meet, in 1866. It will be time to consider +English feudal institutions, or what may remain of them, safe and +firmly-rooted, when they have stood the worst result of such a crisis as +that, and not been shaken down. + +What I contend is that there is nothing in the present condition of the +English public mind, and nothing in the prospect of the immediate future +to warrant the almost universal assumption that the throne of England is +founded on a rock. The stupidity of loyalty, the devotion as of the +spaniel to his master, of the idolator to his god, is gone. I doubt if +there exists one man in England who feels the sentiment of loyalty as +his grandfather would have felt it. The mass of the people have learned +satisfactorily that a sovereign is not a part of the necessary machinery +of the government. The great problem which the Duke of Wellington used +to present for solution--"How is the Queen's Government to be carried +on?" has been solved in one and an unexpected sense. It can be carried +on without a queen. Here then we have the institution proving itself +superfluous, and falling into public indifference at the very same +moment that some other institutions which seemed always involved with it +as its natural and necessary companions, are about to be broken to +pieces and thrown away. He must, indeed, be full of a verily +transcendental faith in the destinies and divinity of royalty who does +not admit that at least there is a time of ordeal awaiting it in +England, such as it has not encountered before during this century. + +To me it seems that the royal principle in England is threatened, not +with sudden and violent extinction, but with death by decay. I do not +expect any change of any kind to-morrow or the day after, or even the +week after next. I do not care to dogmatize, or predict, or make guesses +of any kind. I quite agree with my friend Professor Thorold Rogers, that +an uninspired prophet is a fool. But I contend that as the evident signs +of the times now show themselves, the monarchical principle in England +does seem to be decaying; that the national faith which bore it up is +sorely shaken and almost gone, and that some of the political props +which most nearly supported it are already being cut away. There may, +indeed, be some hidden virtue in the principle, which shall develop +itself unexpectedly in the hour of danger, and give to the institution +that seemed moribund a new and splendid vitality. Such a phenomenon has +been manifested in the case of more than one institution that seemed on +the verge of ruin--it may be the fortunate destiny of British royalty. +But unless in the sudden and timely development of some such occult and +unlooked-for virtue, I do not see what is to preserve the monarchical +principle in England through the trials of the future. + +Let it be remembered, too, that the one great plea hitherto always made +in England for monarchy, is that it alone will work on a large scale. +"We admit," it was said, "that your republican theory looks better and +admits of more logical argument in its favor. But we are practical men, +and we find that our system, with all its theoretical disadvantages, +will work and stand a strain; and your republican theory, with all its +apparent advantages in logic, is not suited for this rough world. Our +machinery will stand the hardest trial; yours never did and never will. +Don't tell us about Switzerland. Switzerland is a little country. Kept +out of the stress and danger of European commotions, and protected by a +guarantee of the great powers, any constitution ought to work under such +advantages. But a great independent republic never did last; never did +stand a sudden strain, and never will." So people thought and argued in +England--even very intelligent people, until at last it became one of +the British Philistine's articles of faith, that the republican +principle never will work on a large scale. When Sir John Ramsden +declared in the House of Commons at the beginning of the American civil +war, that the republican bubble had burst, and all Philistinism in +Britain applauded the declaration, the plaudits were given not so much +because of any settled dislike Philistinism had to the United States, as +because Philistinism beheld what it believed to be a providential +testimony to its own wisdom and foresight. Since then Philistinism has +found that after all republicanism is able to bear a strain as great as +monarchy has ever yet borne, and can come out of the trial unharmed and +victorious. + +The lesson has sunk deeply. The mind of something better than +Philistinism has learned that republics can be made to work on a large +scale. I believe Mr. Gladstone is one of the eminent Englishmen who now +openly admit that they have learned from the American war something +which they did not know before, of the cohesiveness and durability of +the republican system. Up to the time of that war in fact, most +Englishmen, when they talked of republican principles, thought only of +French republicanism, and honestly regarded such a system as a brilliant +empty bubble, doomed to soar a little, and float, and dazzle, and then +to burst. + +That idea, it is quite safe to say, no longer exists in the English +mind. The fundamental, radical objection to republicanism--the objection +which, partly out of mere reaction and partly for more substantial +reasons, followed the brief and romantic enthusiasm of the days of +Fox--is gone. The practical Englishman admits that a republic is +practicable. Only those who know England can know what a change in +public opinion this is. It is, in fact, something like a revolution. I +think the most devoted monarchist will hardly deny that if some +extraordinary combination of chances (after all, even the British Throne +is but a human institution) were to disturb the succession of the house +of Brunswick, Englishmen would be more likely to try the republican +system than to hunt about for a new royal family, or endeavor to invent +a new scheme of monarchy. Here, then, I leave the subject. Take all this +into account, in considering the probabilities of the future, and then +say whether, even in the case of England, it is quite certain that +Byron's prediction is only the dream of a cynical poet, destined never +to be fulfilled among human realities. + + + + +THE REAL LOUIS NAPOLEON. + + +"How will it be with him," said Richard Cobden to a friend, one night, +as they spoke of a great and successful adventurer whom the friend was +striving to defend--"how will it be with him when life becomes all +retrospect?" The adventurer they spoke of was not Louis Napoleon; but +the inquiry might well apply just now to the Emperor of the French. Life +has reached that point with him when little more than retrospect can be +left. In the natural course of events, there can be no great triumphs +for Louis Napoleon still to achieve. Great blunders are possible, though +hardly probable; but the greatest of blunders would scarcely efface the +memory of the substantial triumphs. "Not heaven itself," exclaimed an +ambitious and profane statesman, "can undo the fact that I have been +three times Prime Minister." Well, the Fates--let them do their +best--can hardly undo the fact that the despised outcast of Constance, +and Augsburg, and London, and New York, whom Lord Palmerston excused +himself to Guizot for tolerating, on the ground that really nobody +minded the dull, harmless poor fellow; the Fates cannot undo the fact +that this man has elected himself Emperor of the French, has defeated +the Russians and the Austrians, and made a friend and ally of England. + +So much of the past, then, is secure; but there are hardly any triumphs +to be won in the future. If one may venture to predict anything, he may +venture to predict that the Emperor of the French will not live to be a +very old man. He has already led many lives--fast, hard, exhausting +lives, "that murder the youth in a man ere ever his heart has its will." +Exile, conspiracy, imprisonment, hard thinking, hard working, wild and +reckless dissipation, prolonged to the very outer verge of middle life, +the brain, the nerves, the muscles, the whole physical and mental +constitution always strained to the utmost--these are not the ways that +secure a long life. Louis Napoleon is already an "_abgelebter mann_"--an +outworn, used-up, played-out man. The friends and familiars with whom he +started in life are nearly all gone. Long since laid in earth is the +stout form of the wild Marquis of Waterford, who was a wonder to our +fathers (his successor to the title ran away with somebody's wife the +other day; and I thought Time had turned back by thirty years when I +read of the _escapade_, with the name, once so famous, of the principal +performer), and who rode by Louis Napoleon's side at the celebrated, +forgotten Eglintoun Tournament, and was, like Louis Napoleon, one of the +Knights Challengers in that piece of splendid foolery. Dead, lang syne, +is Eglintoun himself, the chivalrous Earl of the generous instincts and +the florid, rotund eloquence, reminding one of Bulwer Lytton diluted. I +do not know whether the Queen of Beauty of that grand joust is yet +living and looking on the earth; but if she be, she must be an embodied +sermon on the perishableness of earthly charms. De Morny is dead, the +devoted half-brother, son of Louis Napoleon's mother, the chaste +Hortense, and the Count de Flahault--De Morny, the brilliant, genial, +witty, reckless gambler in politics and finance, the man than whom +nobody ever, perhaps, was more faithful to friendship and false to +morality, more good-natured and unprincipled. I have seen tears in men's +eyes when De Morny died--in the eyes of men who owned all the time, +smiling through their tears like Andromache, that the lost patron and +friend was the most consummate of _roués_ and blacklegs. Walewski is +dead--Walewski of romantic origin, born of the sudden episode of love +between the great Napoleon and the Polish lady--Walewski, who, like +Prince Napoleon-Jerome, carried his pedigree stamped upon his +face--Walewski, the lover of Rachel, and, to do him justice, the steady +friend of Poland. Old Mocquard is gone, the faithful scribe and +confidant: he is dead, and the dramas he would persist in writing are +dead with him, nay, died even before him. I do not know whether the +faithful, devoted woman who worked for Louis Napoleon, and believed in +him when nobody else did; the woman to whose inspirings, exertions, and +ready money he owes, in great measure, the fact that he is now Emperor +of the French--I do not know whether this woman is alive or dead. I +think she is dead. Anyhow, I suppose the dignity of history, as the +phrase is, can hardly take account of her. She helped to make an +Emperor, and the Emperor, in return, made her a Countess; but then he +had to marry--and so we take leave of the woman who made the Emperor, +and do our homage to the woman who married him. All those are gone; and +St. Arnaud, of the stormy youth, and Pelissier, the bland, +sweet-tempered chevalier, who, getting into a dispute (on his way to be +governor of Algeria) with the principal official of a Spanish port, +invited that dignitary to salute a portion of the Pelissier person which +assuredly the foes of France were never allowed to see--all these are +gone, and many more, and only a very few, fast fading, of the old +friends and followers remain. Life to Louis Napoleon must now, indeed, +be nearly all retrospect. His career, his Imperial reign may be judged +even now as fairly and securely as as if his body had just been laid +beside that of his uncle, under the dome of the Invalides. + +Recent events seem specially to invite and authorize that judgment. +Within the past twelve months, the genuine character of Louis Napoleon +has displayed itself, strikingly, nakedly, in his policy. He has tried, +in succession, mild liberalism, severe despotism, reactionary +conservatism, antique Cæsarism, and then, in an apologetic, contrite +sort of way, a liberalism of a rather pronounced character. Every time +that he tried any new policy he was secretly intriguing with some other, +and making ready for the possible necessity of having to abandon the +former and take up with the latter. He was like the lady in "Le Diable +Boiteux," who, while openly coquetting with the young lover, slily gives +her hand behind her back to the old admirer. So far as the public could +judge, Louis Napoleon has, for many months back, been absolutely without +any settled policy whatever. He has been waiting for a wind. Such a +course is probably the safest a man in his position can take; but one +who, at a great crisis, cannot originate and initiate a policy, will not +be remembered among the grand rulers of the world. I do not remember any +greater evidence given in our time of absolute incapacity to seize a +plan of action and decide upon it, than was shown by the Emperor of the +French during the crisis of June and July. So feeble, so vague, halting, +vacillating was the whole course of the government, that many who detest +Louis Napoleon, but make it an article of faith that he is a sort of +all-seeing, omnipotent spirit of darkness, were forced to adopt a theory +that the riots in Paris and the provinces were deliberately got up by +the police agents of the Empire, for the purpose of frightening the +_bourgeois_ class out of any possible hankering after democracy. No +doubt this idea was widely spread and eagerly accepted in Paris; and +there were many circumstances which seemed to justify it. But I do not +believe in any such Imperial stage-play. I fancy the riots surprised the +Government, first, by their sudden outburst, and next, by their sudden +collapse. Probably the Imperial authorities were very glad when the +disturbances began. They gave an excuse for harsh conduct, and they +seemed, for the time, to put the Government in the right. They restored +Louis Napoleon at that moment, in the eyes of timid people, to that +position, as a supreme maintainer of order, which for some years he had +not had an opportunity effectively to occupy. But the obvious want of +stamina in the disturbing force soon took away from the Imperial +authorities this opportune _prestige_, and very little political capital +was secured for Imperialism out of the abortive barricades, and +incoherent brickbats, and effusive chantings of the "Marseillaise." In +truth, no one had anything else to offer just then in place of the +Empire. The little crisis was no test whatever of the Emperor's hold +over his people, or of his power to deal with a popular revolution. To +me it seems doubtful whether the elections brought out for certain any +fact with which the world might not already have been well acquainted, +except the bare fact that Orleanism has hardly any more of vitality in +it than Legitimacy. Rochefort, and not Prevost Paradol, is the typical +figure of the situation. + +The popularity and the success of Rochefort and his paper are remarkable +phenomena, but only remarkable in the old-fashioned manner of the straws +which show how the wind blows. Rochefort's success is due to the fact +that he had the good-fortune to begin ridiculing the Empire just at the +time when a general notion was spreading over France that the Empire of +late had been making itself ridiculous. Louis Napoleon had reached the +turning-point of his career--had reached and passed it. The country saw +now all that he could do. The bag of tricks was played out. The +anticlimax was reached at last. + +The culmen, the crisis, the turning-point of Louis Napoleon's career +seems to me to have been attained when, just before the outbreak of the +Schleswig-Holstein war--so small a war in itself, so fateful and +gigantic in its results--he appealed to the Emperors and Kings of +Europe, and proposed that the nations should hold a Congress, to settle, +once and forever, all pending disputes. I think the attitude of Louis +Napoleon at that moment was dignified, commanding, imperial. His +peculiar style, forcible, weighty, measured--I have heard it well +described as a "monumental" style--came out with great effect in the +language of the appeal. There was dignity, and grace, there was what +Edmund Burke so appropriately terms "a proud humility," in Louis +Napoleon's allusion to his own personal experience in the school of +exile and adversity as an excuse for his presuming to offer advice to +the sovereigns of Europe. One was reminded of Henry of Navarre's +allusion to the wind of adversity which, blowing so long upon his face, +had prematurely blanched his hair. I do not wonder that the proposed +Congress never met. I do not wonder that the European governments put it +aside--some with courteous phrase and feigned willingness to accept the +scheme, like Russia and Austria; some with cold and brusque rejection, +like England. Nothing worth trying for could have come of the Congress. +Events were brooding of which France and England knew nothing, and which +could not have been exorcised away by any resolutions of a conclave of +diplomatists. But that was, I think, the last occasion when Louis +Napoleon held anything like a commanding, overruling position in +European affairs, and even then it was but a semblance. After that, came +only humiliations and reverses. In a diplomatic sense, nothing could be +more complete than the checkmate which the Emperor of the French drew +upon himself by the sheer blundering of his conduct with regard to +Prussia. He succeeded in placing himself before the world in the +distinct attitude of an enemy to Prussia; and no sooner had he, by +assuming this attitude, forced Prussia to take a defiant tone, than he +suddenly sank down into quietude. He had bullied to no purpose; he had +to undergo the humiliation of seeing Prussia rise in public estimation, +by means of the triumph which his unnecessary and uncalled-for hostility +had enabled her to win. In fact, he was outgeneralled by his pupil, +Bismarck, even more signally than he had previously been outgeneralled +by his former pupil, Cavour. More disastrous and ghastly, by far, was +the failure of his Mexican policy. That policy began in falsehood and +treachery, and ended as it deserved. Poetic and dramatic justice was +fearfully rendered. Never did Philip II., of Spain, never did his +father, never did Napoleon I., never did Mendez Pinto, or any other +celebrated liar, exceed the deliberate monstrosity of the falsehoods +which were told by Louis Napoleon or Louis Napoleon's Ministers at his +order, to conceal, during the earlier stages of the Mexican +intervention, the fact that the French Emperor had a _protégé_ in the +background, who was to be seated on a Mexican throne. The world is not +much affected by perfidy in sovereigns. It laughs at the perjuries of +princes as Jove does at those of lovers. But it could not overlook the +appalling significance of Louis Napoleon's defeat in that disastrous +chapter of his history. Wisdom after the event is easy work; but many, +many voices had told Louis Napoleon beforehand what would come of his +Mexican policy. Not to speak of the hints and advice he received from +the United States, he was again and again assured by the late Marshal +O'Donnell, then Prime Minister of Spain; by General Prim, who commanded +the allied forces during the earlier part of the Mexican expedition; by +Prince Napoleon, by many others--that neither the character of the +Mexican people nor the proximity of the United States would allow a +French proconsulate to be established in Mexico under the name of an +Empire. It is a certain fact that Louis Napoleon frequently declared +that the foundation of that Empire would be the great event of his +reign. This extraordinary delusion maintained a hold over his mind long +after it had become apparent to all the world that the wretched bubble +was actually bursting. The catastrophe was very near when Louis +Napoleon, in conversation with an English political adventurer, who then +was a Member of Parliament, assured him that, however the situation +might then look dark, history would yet have to record that he, Louis +Napoleon, had established a Mexican Empire. The English member of +Parliament, although ordinarily a very shrewd and sceptical sort of +person, was actually so impressed with the earnestness of his Imperial +interlocutor that he returned to London and wrote a pamphlet, in which, +to the utter amazement of his acquaintances, he backed the Empire of +Mexico for a secure existence, and said to it _esto perpetua_. The +pamphlet was hardly in circulation when the collapse came. If Louis +Napoleon ever believed in anything, he believed in the Mexican Empire. +He believed, too, in the certain success of the Southern Confederation. +No Belgravian Dundreary, no _exaltée_ Georgian girl, could have been +more completely taken by surprise when the collapse of that enterprise +came than was the Emperor Napoleon III., whose boundless foresight and +profound sagacity we had all for years been applauding to the echo. +"That which is called firmness in a King," said Erskine, "is called +obstinacy in a donkey." That which is called foresight and sagacity in +an Emperor, is often what we call blindness and blundering in a +newspaper correspondent. The question is whether we can point to any +great event, any political enterprise, subsequent to his successful +assumption of the Imperial crown, in regard to which Napoleon III., if +called upon to act or to judge, did not show the same aptitude for rash +judgments and unwise actions? Certainly no great thing with which he has +had to do came out in the result with anything like the shape he meant +it to have. The Italian Confederation, with the Pope at the head of it; +the Germany irrevocably divided by the line of the Main; the Mexican +Empire; the "rectification" of frontier on the Rhine; the acquisition +of Luxembourg; these are some of the great Napoleonic ideas, by the +success or failure of which we may fairly judge of the wisdom of their +author. At home he has simply had a new plan of government every year. +How many different ways of dealing with the press, how many different +schemes for adjusting the powers of the several branches of legislation, +have been magniloquently announced and floated during the last few +years, each in turn to fail rather more dismally than its predecessor? +Now, it seems, we are to have at last something like that ministerial +responsibility which the Imperial lips themselves have so often +described as utterly opposed to the genius of France. Assuredly it shows +great mental flexibility to be able thus quickly to change one's policy +in obedience to a warning from without. It is a far better quality than +the persistent treachery of a Charles I., or the stupid doggedness of a +George III. But unless it be a characteristic of great statesmanship to +be almost always out in one's calculations, wrong in one's predictions, +and mistaken in one's men, the Emperor has for years been in the habit +of doing things which are directly incompatible with the character of a +great statesman. + +Contrasting the Louis Napoleon of action and reality with the Louis +Napoleon of the journals, I am reminded of a declaration once made by a +brilliant, audacious, eccentric Italian journalist and politician, +Petruccelli della Gattina. Petruccelli was, and perhaps still is, a +member of the Italian Parliament, and he had occasion to find fault with +some office or dignity, or something of the kind, conferred by Count +Cavour on the Neapolitan, Baron Poerio, whose imprisonment and chains, +during the reign of the beloved Bomba, aroused the eloquent anger of Mr. +Gladstone, and through Gladstone's efforts and appeals became the wonder +and the horror of the world. Petruccelli insisted that Poerio's +undeserved sufferings were his only political claim. "You know perfectly +well," he said, in effect, to Cavour, "that there is no such man as the +Poerio of the journals. It suited us to invest the poor victim with the +attributes of greatness, and therefore, we, the journalists, created a +Poerio of our own. This imposed upon the world, but it did not impose +upon you, and you have no right to take our Poerio _au serieux_." I do +not know whether the journals created an imaginary Poerio, but I am +convinced that they have created an imaginary Louis Napoleon. The world +in general now so much prefers the imaginary to the real Louis, that it +would for the present be as difficult to dethrone the unreal and set up +the real, as it would be to induce the average reader to accept Lane's +genuine translation of the "Arabian Nights" instead of the familiar +translation from a sprightly, flippant, flashy French version, which +hardly bears the slightest resemblance to the original. English +journalism has certainly created a Disraeli of its own--a dark, subtle, +impenetrable, sphinx-like being, who never smiles, or betrays outward +emotion, or is taken by surprise, or makes a mistake. This Disraeli is +an immense success with the public, and is not in the least like the +real Disraeli, who is as good-natured and genial in manner as he is bold +and blundering in speech and policy. So, on a wider scale, of Louis +Napoleon. We are all more or less responsible for the fraud on the +public; and, indeed, are to be excused on the ground that, enamored of +our own creation, we have often got the length of believing in it. We +have thus created a mysterious being, a sphinx of far greater than even +Disraelian proportions, an embodiment of silence and sagacity, a dark +creature endowed with super-human self-control and patience and +foresight; one who can bend all things, and all men, and destiny itself +to his own calm, inexorable will. + +I do not believe there is anything of the sphinx about Louis Napoleon. I +do not believe in his profound sagacity, or his foresight, or his +stupendous self-control. I have grown so heretical that I do not even +believe him to be a particularly taciturn man. I am well satisfied that +Louis Napoleon is personally a good-natured, good-tempered, undignified, +awkward sort of man, ungainly of gesture, not impressive in speech, a +man quite as remarkable for occasional outbursts of unexpected and +misplaced confidence as for a silence that often is, if I may use such +an expression, purely mechanical and unmeaning. I calmly ask my +_confrères_ of the press, is it not a fact that Louis Napoleon is +commonly made the dupe of shallow charlatans, that he has several times +received and admitted to confidential counsel and conference, and +treated as influential statesmen and unaccredited ambassadors, utterly +obscure American or English busybodies who could hardly get to speech of +the Mayor of a town at home; that he has entered into signed and sealed +engagements with impudent adventurers from divers countries, under the +impression that they could render him vast political service; that he +has paid down considerable sums of money to subsidize the most obscure +and contemptible foreign journals, and never seemed able for a moment to +comprehend that in England and the United States no journal that can be +bought for any price, however high, is worth buying at any price, +however low; that his personal inclinations are much more toward quacks +and pretenders than toward men of real genius and influence; that Cobden +was one of the very few great men Louis Napoleon ever appreciated, while +impostors, and knaves, and blockheads, of all kinds, could readily find +access to his confidence? Of course, a man might possibly be a great +sovereign although he had these weaknesses; but the Louis Napoleon of +journalism is not endowed with these, or indeed with any other +weaknesses. + +Those who know Paris well, know that there is yet another Louis Napoleon +there, equally I trust a fiction with him of the journals. I speak of +the Louis Napoleon of private gossip, the hero of unnumbered _amours_ +such as De Grammont or Casanova might wonder at. I have heard stories +poured into my patient but sceptical ears which ascribed to Louis +Napoleon of to-day, adventures illustrating a happy and brilliant +combination of Haroun Al Raschid and Lauzun--the disguises of the Caliph +employed for the purposes of Don Juan. Now, Louis Napoleon certainly +had, and perhaps even still has, his frailties of this class, but I +reject the Lauzun or Don Juan theory quite as resolutely as the sphinx +theory. + +What we all do really know of Louis Napoleon is, that having the +advantage of a name of surpassing prestige, and at a moment of +unexampled chances not created by him, he succeeded in raising himself +to the throne made by his uncle; that when there, he held his place +firmly, and by maintaining severe order in a country already weary of +disturbance and barren revolution, he favored and stimulated the +development of the material resources of France; that he entered on +several enterprises in foreign politics, not one of which brought about +the end for which it was undertaken, and some of which were ludicrous, +disastrous failures; that he strove to compensate France for the loss of +her civil liberty, by audaciously attempting to make her the dictator of +Europe, and that he utterly failed in both objects; for here toward the +close of his rule, France seems far more eager for domestic freedom than +ever she was since the _coup d'état_, while her influence over the +nations of Europe is considerably less than it was at any period since +the fall of Sebastopol. Now, if this be success, I want to know what is +failure? If these results argue the existence of profound sagacity, I +want to know what would show a lack of sagacity? Was Louis Napoleon +sagacious when he entered Lombardy, to set Italy free from the Alps to +the sea, and sagacious also when, after a campaign of a few weeks, he +suddenly abandoned the enterprise never to resume it? Was he wise when +he told Cavour he would never permit the annexation of Naples, and wise +also when, immediately after, he permitted it? Was he a great statesman +when he entered on the Mexican expedition, and also a great statesman +when he abandoned it and his unfortunate pupil, puppet, and victim +together? Did it show a statesmanlike judgment to bully Prussia until he +had gone near to making her an irreconcilable enemy, and also a +statesmanlike judgment then to "cave in," and declare that he never +meant anything offensive? Was it judicious to demand a rectification of +frontier on the Rhine, and judicious also to abandon the demand in a +hurry, when it was received as anybody might have known that a proud, +brave nation, flushed with a splendid success, would surely have +received it? Did it display great foresight to count with certainty that +the Southern Confederation would succeed, and that Austria would win an +easy victory over Prussia? Was it judicious to instruct an official +spokesman to declare that France had taken steps to assure herself +against any spread of Prussian influence beyond the Main, and to have to +stand next day, amazed and confounded, before an amazed and amused +Europe, when Bismarck made practical answer by contemptuously unrolling +the treaties of alliance actually concluded between France and the +principal States of South Germany? Was it a proof of a great ruling mind +to declare that France could never endure a system of ministerial +responsibility, and also a proof of a great ruling mind to declare that +this is the one thing needful to her contentment? All this bundle of +paradoxes one will have to sustain, if he is content to accept as a +genuine being that monstrous paradox, the Louis Napoleon of the press. +Of course, I do not deny to Louis Napoleon certain qualities of +greatness. But I believe the public was not a whit more gravely mistaken +when it regarded the King street exile as a dreamy dunce, than it is +now, when it regards Napoleon III. as a ruler of consummate wisdom. + +There was much of sound sense as well as wit in the saying ascribed to +Thiers, that the second Empire had developed two great statesmen--Cavour +and Bismarck. I do not know of any one great idea, worthy of being +called a contribution to the science of government, which Louis Napoleon +has yet embodied, either in words or actions. The recent elections, and +the events succeeding them, only demonstrate the failure of Imperialism +or Cæsarism, after a trial and after opportunities such as it probably +will never have again in Europe. I certainly do not expect any complete +collapse during the present reign. Doubtless the machine will outlast +the third Emperor's time. He has sense and dexterity enough to trim his +sails to each breeze that passes, and he will, probably, hold the helm +till his right hand loses its cunning with its vital power. But I see no +evidence whatever which induces me to believe that he has founded a +dynasty or created an enduring system of any kind. Some day France will +shake off the whole thing like a nightmare. Meantime, however, I am +anxious to help in dethroning the Louis Napoleon of the journals rather +than him of the Tuileries. The latter has many good qualities which the +former is never allowed to exhibit. I believe the true Louis Napoleon +has a remarkably kind and generous heart; that he is very liberal and +charitable; that he has much affection in him, and is very faithful to +his old friends and old servants; that people who come near him love him +much; that he is free and kindly of speech; that his personal defects +are rather those of a warm and rash, than of a cold and stern nature. +But I think it is high time that we were done with the melodramatic, +dime-romance, darkly mysterious Louis Napoleon of the journals. He +belongs to the race of William Tell, of the Wandering Jew, the Flying +Dutchman, the Sphinx to whom he is so often compared, the mermaid, the +sea-serpent, Byron's Corsair, and Thaddeus of Warsaw. + + + + +EUGENIE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH. + + +There are certain men and women in history who seem to have a +peculiarity, independent of their merits or demerits, greatness or +littleness, virtues or crimes--a peculiarity which distinguishes them +from others as great or as little, as virtuous or as criminal. They are, +first and above all things, interesting. It is not easy to describe what +the elements are which make up this attribute. Certainly genius or +goodness, wit or wisdom, splendid public services, great beauty, or even +great suffering, will not always be enough to create it. The greatest +English king since the First Edward was assuredly William the Third; the +greatest military commanders England has ever had were Marlborough and +Wellington; but these three will hardly be called by any one interesting +personages in the sense in which I now use the word. Why Nelson should +be interesting and Wellington not so, Byron interesting and Wordsworth +not so, is perhaps easy enough to explain; but it is not quite easy to +see why Rousseau should be so much more interesting than Voltaire, +Goethe than Schiller, Mozart than Handel, and so on through a number of +illustrations, the accuracy of which nearly all persons would probably +acknowledge. Where history and public opinion and sentiment have to deal +with the lives and characters of women, the peculiarity becomes still +more deeply emphasized. What gifts, what graces, what rank, what +misfortunes have ever surrounded any queens or princesses known to +history with the interest which attaches to Mary Stuart and Marie +Antoinette? Lady Jane Grey was an incomparably nobler woman than either, +and suffered to the full as deeply as either; yet what place has she in +men's feelings and interest compared with theirs? Who cares about Anna +Boleyn, though she too shared a throne and mounted a scaffold? + +_Absit omen!_ I am about to speak of an illustrious living lady, who has +in common with Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette two things at least: she +has a French sovereign for a husband, and she has the fame of beauty. +But she has likewise that other peculiarity of which I spoke: she is +interesting. It is only speaking by the card to say that by far the most +interesting of all the imperial and royal ladies now living is Eugénie, +Empress of the French. I think there are princesses in Europe more +beautiful and even more graceful than she is, or than she ever could +have been; I fancy there are some much more highly gifted with +intellect; but there is no woman living in any European palace in whom +the general world feels half so much interest. There is not the +slightest reason to believe that she is a woman of really penetrating or +commanding intellect, and should she be happy enough to live out her +life in the Tuileries and die peacefully in her bed, history will find +but little to say about her, good or bad. Yet so long as her memory +remains in men's minds, it will be as that of a princess who had above +all things the gift of being interesting--the power of attracting toward +herself the eyes, the admiration, the curiosity, the wonder of all the +civilized world. + +"We count time by heart-throbs, not by figures on a dial," says a poet +who once nearly secured immortality, Philip James Bailey. There +certainly are people whose age seems to defy counting by figures on a +dial. Ask anybody what two pictures are called up in his mind when he +hears the names of Queen Victoria and the Empress of the French, no +matter whether he has ever seen the two illustrious ladies or not. In +the case of the former I may safely venture to answer for him that he +sees the face and figure of a motherly, homely body; a woman who has got +quite beyond the age when people observe how she dresses; to whom +personal appearance is no longer of any importance or interest. In the +case of the latter he sees a dazzling court beauty; a woman who, though +not indeed in her youth, is still in a glorious prime; a woman to +captivate hearts, and inspire poets, and set scandal going, and adorn a +ball-room or a throne. The first instinctive idea would be, I think, +that the Empress of the French belonged positively to a later generation +than the good, unattractive, dowdyish Queen of England. Yet I believe +the difference in actual years is very slight. To be sure, you will find +in any almanac that Queen Victoria was born on the 24th of May, 1819, +and is consequently very near to fifty-one years of age; while the fair +Eugénie is set down as having been born on May 5th, 1826, and +consequently would now appear to be only in her forty-fourth year. But +then Queen Victoria was born in the purple, and cannot, poor thing, make +any attempt at reducing by one single year the full figure of her age. +History has taken an inexorable, ineffaceable note of the day and hour +of her birth; and even court flattery cannot affect to ignore the +record. Now Eugénie was born in happy obscurity; even the place of her +birth is not known by the public with that certainty which alone +satisfies sceptics; and I have heard that the date recorded as that of +her natal hour is only a graceful fiction, a pretty bit of polite +biography. Certainly I have heard it stoutly maintained that if any +historian or critic were now to be as ungallant in his researches as +John Wilson Croker was in the case of Lady Morgan (was it not Lady +Morgan?), he would find that the birth of the brilliant Empress of the +French would have to be dated back a few years, and that after all the +difference between her and the elderly Queen Victoria is less an affair +of time than of looks and of heart-throbs. + +About a dozen years, I suppose, have passed away since I saw the Empress +Eugénie and Queen Victoria sitting side by side. Assuredly the +difference even then might well have been called a contrast, although +the Queen was in her happiest time, and has worn out terribly fast since +that period. But the quality which above all others Queen Victoria +wanted was just that in which the Empress of the French is supreme--the +quality of imperial, womanly grace. I have never been a rapturous +admirer of the beauty of the Empress; a certain narrowness of contour in +the face, the eyes too closely set together, and an appearance of +artificiality in every movement of the features, seem to me to detract +very much from the charms of her countenance. But her queenly grace of +gesture, of attitude, of form, of motion, must be admitted to be beyond +cavil, and superb. She looks just the woman on whom any sort of garment +would hang with grace and attractiveness; a blanket would become like a +regal mantle if it fell round her shoulders; I verily believe she would +actually look graceful in Mary Walker's costume, which I consider +decidedly the most detestable, in an artistic sense, ever yet indued by +mortal woman. Poor Queen Victoria looked awkward and homely indeed by +the side of this graceful, noble form; this figure that expressed so +well the combination of suppleness and affluence, of imperial dignity +and charming womanhood. Time has not of late spared the face of the +Empress of the French. Lines and hollows are growing fast there; the +bright eyes are sinking deeper into their places; the complexion is +fading and clouding; malicious people now say that, like that of the +lady in the "School for Scandal," it comes in the morning and goes in +the night; and the hair is apparently fast growing thin. But the grace +of form and movement is still there, unimpaired and unsurpassed. The +whitest and finest shoulders still surmount a noble bust, which, but +that its amplitude somewhat exceeds the severe proportions of antique +Grecian beauty, might be reproduced in marble to illustrate the contour +of a Venus or a Juno. I have seldom looked at the Empress of the French +or at any picture or bust of her without thinking how Mary Wortley +Montagu would have gone into bold and eloquent raptures over the superb +womanhood of that splendid form. + +Well, the face always disappointed me at least. It seems to me cold, +artificial, narrow, insincere. It wants nobleness. It does not impress +me as being the face of a frivolous woman, a coquette, a court +butterfly; but rather that of one who is always playing a part which +sometimes wearies. If I were to form my own impressions of the Empress +of the French merely from her face, I should set her down as a keen, +politic woman, with brains enough to be crafty, not enough to be great. +I should set her down as a woman who needs and loves the stimulus of +incessant excitement, just as much as a certain class of actress does. +Indeed, I think I have seen in the face of more than one actress just +such an habitual expression, off the stage, as one may see in the +countenance of the French Empress. I fear that sweet and gracious smile, +which is said to be so captivating to those for whose immediate and +special homage it is put on, changes into sudden blankness or weariness +when its momentary business has been done. Sam Slick tells us of a lady +whose smile dropped from her face the moment the gazer's eyes were +withdrawn "like a petticoat when the strings break;" and if I might +apply this irreverent comparison to the smile of an Empress, I would say +that I think I have noted just such a change in the expression of the +brilliant Eugénie. Indeed, it must be a tiresome part, that which she +has had to play through all these resplendent years; a part thrilling +with danger, made thorny by many sharp vexations. Were the Empress of +the French the mere _belle_ of a court, she might doubtless have +joyfully swallowed all the bitternesses for the sake of the brightness +and splendor of her lot; were she a woman of high, imperial genius, a +Maria Theresa, an Anne of Austria, she might have found in the mere +enjoyment of power, or in the nobler aspirings of patriotism, abundant +compensation for her individual vexations. But being neither a mere +coquette nor a woman of genius, being neither great enough to rise +wholly above her personal troubles, nor small enough to creep under them +untouched, she must have suffered enough to render her life very often a +weary trial; and the traces of that weariness can be seen on her face +when the court look is dropped for a moment. + +The Empress seems to have passed through three phases of character, or +at least to have made on the public opinion of France three successive +and different impressions. For a long time she was set down as a mere +coquette, a creature whose soul soared no higher than the aspiration +after a bonnet or a bracelet, whose utmost genius exhausted itself in +the invention of a crinoline. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any +invention known to modern Europe had so sudden and wonderful a success +or made the inventor so talked about as Eugénie's famous _jupon +d'acier_. A sour and cynical Republican of my acquaintance once declared +that anybody might have known the Empress to be a _parvenue_ by the mere +fact that she could and did invent a petticoat; for he maintained that +no born emperor or empress ever was known to have done even so much in +the way of invention. Decidedly, the Empress did a great deal of harm in +those her earlier and more brilliant days. To her influence and example +may be ascribed the passion for mere extravagance and variety of dress +which has spread of late years among all the fashionable and would-be +fashionable women of Europe and America. It is not too much to say that +the Empress of the French demoralized, in this sense, the womanhood of +two generations. How literally debauching her influence was to the +women immediately under its control, the women of the fashionable world +of Paris, I need not stop to tell. Graceful, gracious, and elegant as +she is, she did undoubtedly succeed in branding with a stamp of +vulgarity the brilliant court of the Second Empire. It is not wonderful +if scandal said coarse and bitter things about the goddess of +prodigality who presided over the revels of the Tuileries. The most +absurd stories used to be told of the amusements which went on in the +private gardens of the palace and in its inner circles; and the levity +and occasional flightiness of a vivacious young woman thirsting for +fresh gayeties and new excitements were perverted and magnified into +reckless and wanton extravagances. Of course it was inevitable that +there should be scandal over the birth of the Prince Imperial. Were the +Empress Eugénie chaste as ice, pure as unsunned snow, she could not, +under the circumstances, escape that calumny. + +About the time of her sudden and mysterious escapade to London, the +Empress began to emerge a little from the character of a mere woman of +fashion, and to become known and felt as a politician. People say that +some at least of the influence and control which she began to obtain +over her husband was owing to her knowledge of his many infidelities and +his reluctance to provoke her into open quarrel. Unless Eugénie was +wholly free from the jealousy which is supposed to lie in the heart of +every other woman, she must have suffered cruelly in this way for many +years. In her own court circles, at her own side, were ladies whom +universal report designated as successive _maîtresses en titre_ of the +Emperor Napoleon. Stories, too, of his indulgence in low and gross +amours were told everywhere, and, true or false (charity itself could +not well doubt that some of them were true), must have reached the +Empress's ears. She suffered severely, and she took to politics--perhaps +as a harassed man sometimes takes to drinking. Her political influence +was, in its day, simply disastrous. She was always on the wrong side, +and she was always impetuous, unreasoning, and pertinacious, as cynical +people say is the way of women. She became a devotee of the narrowest +kind; and just as Madame de Maintenon's religious bigotry did infinitely +more harm to France than the vilest profligacy of a Pompadour or a +Dubarry could have done, so the religious fervor of the Empress Eugénie +threatened at one time to prove a worse thing for the State and for +Europe than if she had really carried on during all her lifetime the +palace orgies which her enemies ascribed to her. Reaction, +Ultramontanism, illiberalism, superstition, found a patroness and leader +in her. She fought for the continued occupation of Rome; she battled +against the unity of Italy; she recommended and urged the Mexican +expedition. Louis Napoleon is personally a good-natured, easy-going sort +of man, averse to domestic disputes, fully conscious, no doubt, of his +frequent liability to domestic censure. What wonder if European politics +sometimes had to suffer heavily for the tolerated presence of this or +that too notorious lady in the inner circles of the French court? "Who +is the Countess de ----?" I once asked of a Parisian friend who was +attached to the Imperial household--I was speaking of a lady whose +beauty and whose audacities of dress were then much talked of in the +French capital. "The latest favorite," was the reply. "I shouldn't +wonder if her presence at court cost another ten years of the occupation +of Rome." + +With the Empress's introduction to politics and political intrigue, the +era of scandal seems to have closed for her. She dressed as brilliantly +and extravagantly as ever, and she would take as much pains about her +toilet for the benefit of Persigny and Baroche and Billault at a Council +of State as for a ball in the Tuileries. She received the same sort of +company, was surrounded by the same ladies and the same cavaliers as +ever. But she ceased to be herself a subject of scandal--a fact which is +not a little remarkable when one remembers how many bitter enemies she +made for herself at this period of her career. She seems to have +seriously contemplated the assumption of a great political and religious +part--the part of the patroness and protectress of the Papacy. I believe +she studied hard to educate herself for this part, and indeed for the +work in politics generally which devolved upon her. The position of +Vicegerent, assigned to her by the Emperor during his absence in the +Lombardy campaign, stirred up political ambition within her, and she +seems to have shown a remarkable aptitude for political work. She +certainly sustained the opinion expressed by John Stuart Mill in his +"Subjection of Women," that the business of politics, from which laws in +general shut women out, is just the one intellectual occupation in +which, whenever they have had a chance, they have proved themselves the +equals of men. When Eugénie was raised to the Imperial throne, she +appears to have had no better education than any young Spanish woman of +her class, and that certainly is not much. A lady once assured me that +she was one of a group who were presented to the Empress at the +Tuileries, and that there being in the group two beautiful girls from +America, to whom Eugénie desired to be particularly gracious, her +Imperial Majesty began to ask them several questions about their native +land, and astonished them almost beyond the capacity to reply by kindly +inquiring whether they had come from New York "over the sea, or over the +land." But the Empress has read up a good deal, and mastered much other +knowledge besides that of geography, since those salad days. Meanwhile, +she became more and more the divinity of the Ultramontanes; and the +French court presented the interesting spectacle of having two rival and +extreme parties, one led by the Emperor's wife, and the other by his +cousin, Prince Napoleon, between whom the Emperor himself maintained an +attitude something like that of the central figure in a game of seesaw. +I presume there can be little doubt that the Empress regarded her +husband's portly cousin with a cordial detestation. She is not a woman +endowed with a keen sense of humor, nor in any case would she be quite +likely to enjoy anything which was humorous at her own expense; and +Prince Napoleon is credited broadly with having said things concerning +her which doubtless made his friends and followers and boon companions +laugh, but which, reported to her, as they assuredly would be, must have +made her cheek flame and her lips quiver. Moreover, the Red Prince was +notoriously in the habit of turning into jest some things more sacred in +the eyes of the Imperial devotee than even her own reputation. She +feared his tongue, his reckless wit, his smouldering ambition. She +feared him for her boy, whose rival and enemy he might come to be; and +Prince Napoleon had more sons than one. Therefore the rivalry was keen +and bitter. She was for the Pope; he was for Italy and the Revolution. +She sympathized with the South in the American civil war; Prince +Napoleon was true to his principles and stood by the North. She favored +the Mexican enterprise; he opposed it. She was for all manner of +repressive action as regarded political speaking and writing; he was for +a free platform and free press. Her triumph came when, during the +Emperor's visit to Algeria, Prince Napoleon delivered his famous Ajaccio +speech--a speech terribly true and shockingly indiscreet--and was +punished by an Imperial rebuke, which led him to resign all his +political offices and withdraw absolutely from public life for several +successive years. + +But just when the Empress seemed to have the field all to herself, her +political influence began somehow to wane. Perhaps she grew a little +weary of the work of statecraft; perhaps she had not been so successful +in some of her favorite projects as she had expected to be. The Mexican +expedition turned out a dismal, ghastly failure, and that enterprise had +always been regarded as the joint work of the two influences which +cynical people say have usually been most disastrous in politics--the +priest and the petticoat. Then the idea of working out the scheme of +European politics from the central point of the Tuileries was suddenly +exploded by the unexpected intrusion of Prussia, and the dazzling +victory in which the Bonaparte as well as the Hapsburg was overthrown +and humbled. The old framework of things was disjointed by this +surprising event. A new political centre of gravity had to be sought for +Europe. France was rudely pushed aside. The fair Empress, who had been +training herself for quite a different condition of things, found +herself now confronted by new, strange, and bewildering combinations. +One thing is highly to her credit. I have been assured by people who +claim to know something of the matter, that her earnest influence was +used to induce the French Government to accept, without remonstrance, +the new situation. While Louis Napoleon was committing the inexcusable +blunder of feeling his way towards a war with Prussia, and thereby +subjecting himself to the ignominy of having to draw hastily back, the +voice of the Empress, I am assured, was always raised for peace. But I +think the new situation was too much for her. She had made up for a game +of politics between the Pope and Italy; when other players and other +stakes appeared, the Empress was disinclined to undertake a new course +of education. She thereupon passed into the third phase--that of +philanthropic devotee, Lady Bountiful, and mother of her people; and +since then, if she cannot be said to have grown universally popular, she +may fairly be described as having got rid of nearly all her former +unpopularity. Her good deeds began to be magnified everywhere, and even +ancient enemies were content to sing her praises, or, at least, to hear +them sung. + +Undoubtedly she has a kindly, charitable heart, and can do heroic as +well as graceful things. Her famous visitation of the cholera hospitals +may doubtless have been done partly for effect, but even in this sense +it showed a lofty appreciation of the duties of an Empress, and could +not have been conceived or carried out by an ignoble nature. When the +cholera appeared in Madrid, the fat, licentious woman who then cumbered +and disgraced the throne of Spain, fled in dismay from her capital; and +this act of peculiarly unwomanlike cowardice told heavily against her +and hurried her deeply down into that public contempt which is so fatal +to sovereigns. The Empress Eugénie, on the other hand, dignified and +served herself and her husband by her fearless exposure of her own life +in the cause of humanity and charity. Kindly and generous deeds of hers +are constantly reported in Paris, and these things go far in keeping up +the superstition of loyalty. Every one knows how gracious and winning +the Empress can be in her personal relations with those who approach +her. Sometimes her demeanor and actions come into sharp contrast with +those of other sovereigns in matters less momentous than the visiting of +death-charged hospital wards. I have heard of an American lady who once +made some rich and complete collections of specimens of American +foliage, collected them at immense labor, arranged them with exquisite +taste in two large and beautiful volumes, and sent one as an offering to +Queen Victoria, the other to the Empress of the French. From the British +court came back the volume itself, with a formal reply from an official +intimating that Her Majesty the Queen made it a rule not to accept such +gifts. From Paris came a letter of genial, graceful acceptance, written +by the Empress Eugénie herself, full of good taste, good feeling, and +courteous, ladylike expression. These are small things, but womanly tact +and grace seldom have much opportunity of expressing themselves save in +just such small things. + +The Empress then has of late years faded a little out of political +life. I think it may be taken for granted that although she is a quick, +clever woman, with talents far beyond the mere inventing of bonnets and +petticoats, she is not gifted with any political genius, not qualified +to see quickly into the heart of a difficult question, not endowed with +the capacity to surmount a great crisis. I have never heard anything +which induces me to think that Eugénie's intellect and power would count +for much in the chances of the dynasty should Louis Napoleon die while +his son is yet a boy. Like Louis Napoleon himself, she was twice +misjudged: first when people set her down as an empty-headed coquette, +and next when they cried her up as a woman with a genius for government. +So far as one may venture to predict, I think she would not prove strong +enough for the place, if evil fortune should throw upon her the task of +preserving the throne for her boy. + +Recent events seem to me to prove that the imperial system is less +strong and more shaky than most of us would have supposed six months +ago. I for one do fully believe that the recent disturbances are the +genuine indications of a profound and bitter popular discontent. I beg +the readers of THE GALAXY to be very cautious how they form an estimate +of the situation from the correspondence and editorial articles of the +London press. If the "Times" believes Bonapartism safe and strong in +Paris, I have only to remark that the "Times" believed the same, almost +up to the bitter end, of Bonapartism in Mexico. There are very few +London journals which can be trusted where the politics of France are +concerned. Not that the journals are bribed; everybody knowing anything +of the London press knows how absurd the idea of such bribery is; but +that all London Philistinism (and Philistinism does a good deal of the +writing for the London papers) considers it genteel and respectable, and +the right sort of thing generally, to go in for the Empire and sneer at +revolution. I have read with no little wonder many of the comments of +the London, and indeed some of the New York journals, on Henri Rochefort +and his colleagues. One would think that in order to prove a certain +revolutionary movement powerless and contemptible, you had only to show +that its leaders were themselves contemptible and disreputable persons. +Some of the journals here and in London write as if the Empire must be +safe because the satire of the "Lanterne" and the "Marseillaise" seems +to them coarse and witless, and because they have heard that Henri +Rochefort is an insincere man, of doubtful courage and tainted moral +character. One longs to ask whether the "Père Duchesne" and the "Vieux +Cordelier" were publications fit to be read in the drawing-rooms of +virtuous families; whether Mirabeau's private character was quite +blameless; whether Marat and Hébert had led reputable lives; whether +Camille Desmoulins was habitually received into the highest circles; +whether Théroigne de Méricourt was the sort of young woman one's wife +would like to invite to tea. The imbecility with which certain +journalists go on day after day trying to assure themselves and the +world that imperialism has nothing to fear at the hands of a movement +led by scurrilous and disreputable men, has something in it at once +amusing and provoking. The strength of a revolutionary movement is not +exactly to be estimated by the claims of its leaders to carry off the +_prix Monthyon_ or the Holy Grail. Perhaps if it were to be so +estimated, it would be hard to say where the victory should go in the +present instance. For the worst of Rochefort's colleagues have never +been accused of any profligacies and basenesses so bad as those which +universal public opinion ascribes to the leading Bonapartes and some of +their most influential supporters. Undoubtedly there is a great deal of +scurrility and even worse in the papers conducted by Rochefort. It is +not in good taste to go on asking who was the mother of De Morny, who +was the father of Walewski; how the present Walewski, Walewski _fils_, +comes to be called a count, and who was his mother, and so on; and the +direct and libellous attacks on the Empress are utterly indefensible. If +one were making up a memoir of Henri Rochefort, or engaged in a debating +society's controversy on his character, one would have to admit that he +is by no means a model demagogue, a pattern patriot. But one might at +the same time hint that, judging by historical precedent, he is probably +all the more formidable as a revolutionary leader for that very reason. +His literary attacks on the Government are by no means all vulgar, or +scurrilous, or contemptible. There was fresh and genuine humor as well +as telling satire in the "Lanterne's" early declaration of allegiance to +the Napoleons, the purport of which was that, feeling bound to express +his devotion to a Napoleon, Rochefort had selected as the object of his +loyal homage Napoleon the Second, the sovereign who never coerced the +press, or corrupted the Senate, or robbed the nation of its liberty, or +exiled its patriots, or carried on a Mexican expedition, or impoverished +the country to maintain a gigantic army. But there is one thing +certain--that whether Rochefort is witty or not, wise or not, he has +waked an echo throughout France and Europe in general which even very +wise and undeniably witty enemies of the Empire did not succeed in +creating. Nothing he has written will compare in artistic strength of +satire or invective with Victor Hugo's "Châtimens" or "Napoléon le +Petit." Eugène Pelletan's "Nouvelle Babylone" was a prolonged outpouring +of indignant eloquence by a gentleman, a scholar, and a thinker. +Rogeard's "Propos de Labienus" was a piece of really fine sarcasm. But +not the most celebrated of these attacks on the Empire created anything +like the sensation which Rochefort has succeeded in creating by the +constant "pegging away" of his bitter, envenomed, and unscrupulous pen. +Indeed, the reason is obvious--at least to those who, like me, believe +that the great mass of the Parisian population (the army, the officials, +and the priests not counted) are heartily sick of Bonapartism, and would +get rid of it if they could. Rochefort assails the Empire and the +Emperor in a style which they can understand. He is a master of a +certain kind of coarse, rasping ridicule, which delights the disaffected +_ouvrier_; and he has no scruple about assailing any weak place he can +find in his enemy, even though in doing so the heart of a woman has +likewise to be wounded. An angry and disaffected populace delights in +this kind of thing. The fact that Rochefort has created such a sensation +is the best proof in the world that the Parisian populace is angry and +disaffected. Rochefort has a happy gift of epithets, which goes a long +way with admirers and followers such as his. I doubt whether a whole +chapter could have described more accurately and vividly the person, +character, and career of Prince Pierre Bonaparte than Rochefort did when +he branded him as "a social bandit." Personally, Rochefort is not +qualified to be a demagogue in the sense that Danton was a demagogue, +and he can make no pretension to be a revolutionary leader of a high +class. But he can incite a populace, madden the hearts of disaffected +crowds, as the bitter tongue of a shrill woman might do, and as the +tongue of a great orator might perhaps fail to do. Doubtless Rochefort +and his literary sword-and-buckler men are not strong enough to create a +serious disturbance of themselves alone. But if a moment of general +uncertainty and unsettlement came, they might prove a dangerous +disturbing force. If, for example, there should come a crisis which of +itself rendered change of some kind necessary, when all the chances of +the future might depend upon a single hour or perhaps a single decisive +command, and when it was not certain who had the right, who would assume +the responsibility to give the command, then indeed the bitter screams, +and jeers, and invectives of these reckless literary bravos might have +much to do with the ordering of the situation. If, for example, the +Emperor were to die just now, who shall venture to say how much the +chances of the Empress and her son might not be affected at that moment +of terrible crisis by the pens and the tongues of Rochefort and his +followers? + +Some time, in the natural course of things, the Empress may expect to +have to face such a crisis. It is highly probable that the time will +come while yet her boy is young and dependent upon her guardianship and +care. Has she won for herself the affection, confidence, and loyalty of +France, to such an extent that she could count upon national support? I +am convinced that she has not. She is much liked and even loved by those +who know her. They have countless anecdotes to tell of her affectionate +ways as a mother, of her generosity and kindness as a woman. But +although she has outlived many of the early prejudices against her, she +is still regarded with distrust and dislike by the older families of +France; and I am confident that a large proportion of the working +classes in Paris and the large towns delight to believe the worst things +that malice and slander can say to her detriment. The priests and the +shopkeepers are probably her best friends; but I am not aware that +priests and shopkeepers have ever proved themselves very powerful +bulwarks against sudden popular revolution. The generals and the army +might of course remain perfectly loyal to her; probably would if they +had no time to consider the situation, and there were no favorite rival +in the way (if Prince Napoleon, for example, were a brilliant soldier, +she would not have a ghost of a chance against him); but it must be +remembered that the loyalty of an army is something like the +epigrammatic description of the honor of a woman: when there is any +deliberation, it is likely to be lost; and the claims of the Empress are +certainly not such as absolutely to forbid deliberation and render it +impossible. Much of course would depend on the woman herself. There was +a moment when Catharine of Russia's unfortunate husband might have +carried all before him if he had only seized the chance; and he did not +seize it, and so lost all. There was a moment when Catharine might have +utterly failed if she had not risen to the height of the crisis, and +seized the opportunity with both hands; and she did rise to the height +of the crisis, did seize the opportunity, and so won all. Place Eugénie +in such a position, and is she a woman to win? Is she in fact a woman of +genius? I think not. Nothing that I have ever heard of her--and I have +known many who were her intimate friends--has led me to believe her +endowed with a quick, strong, commanding intellect. Mentally she seems +to be narrow and shallow; in temper she is quick, capricious, full of +warm personal affections and almost groundless personal dislikes. I have +a strong idea that no matter what the urgency of the crisis, she would +stay to make herself picturesque before taking any public action; and I +venture to think she would be guided by counsel only where she happened +to have a personal liking for the counsellor. She cannot, I fancy, be +trusted at a great crisis to make the fortune of her son. Enough if she +do not mar it at such a time. + +Political considerations apart, one can only wish her well. Her face is +one which ought to smile sweetly and gracefully through history. If fate +and France will endure the Bonapartes for another generation or so, +there will be some consolation to gallant and romantic souls in the +thought that thereby this gracious, queenly woman will be allowed to +make a happy end of her brilliant, not untroubled life. Thus far we may, +in summing up her career, describe her, first, as a bright, vivacious +young coquette, with a dash of the adventuress about her, ranging the +world in search of a husband; then a woman suddenly and surprisingly +raised to the dazzling rank of an Empress, and a little bewildered by +the change; then a splendid leader of the world's fashion, magnificently +frivolous and heedless; then a political _intrigante_, the supreme +patroness of Ultramontanism; and now a quiet, queenly mother, verging +toward that kind of devoteeism in which some satirical person declares +that coquetry in France is sure to end. She is not a woman to make any +deep impression on history. She has neither gifts enough nor faults +enough. As a politician she has been a failure, and perhaps worse than a +failure; but she has been fortunate enough to escape from all public +responsibility for her mistakes, and may get quietly into history as +merely an intelligent, good-natured, and beautiful woman. Posterity will +probably see her and appreciate her sufficiently in her portrait by +Winterhalter: a name, a vague memory, and a smooth fair picture with +bright complexion, shining hair, and noble shoulders, alone carrying +down to other times the history of the Third Napoleon's wife. Only great +misfortunes could redeem her from this destiny of half oblivion; and +history has names enough that are burnt by misfortune into eternal +memory, and may well spare hers. One great claim she has to a liberal +construction of her character: her personal enemies are those who do not +know her well; her intimates seem to be always her friends. She has one +good quality, which her husband with all his faults likewise possesses: +she has never in her imperial splendor forgotten or neglected or been +ashamed of old acquaintances and friends. I have heard scores of +anecdotes from people who know her well--I have heard one such anecdote +since I began writing this article--which prove her to be entirely above +the mean and vulgar weakness of the _parvenu_, who shrinks in her +magnificence from any acquaintanceship or association likely to remind +her of less brilliant days. Taken on the whole, the Empress Eugénie is +better than her fortunes and her surroundings might have made her. She +is, I think, a woman much more deserving of respect than Josephine +Beauharnais, whose misfortunes, joined with the quiet pathetic dignity +of her retirement and her later years, have made the world forget the +levities, frivolities, and follies of her earlier life. She has shown a +quicker and better appreciation of the duties and difficulties of her +station, and the temper of the people among whom she had to live, than +was at any time shown by Marie Antoinette. Whether she could ever under +the most favorable conditions prove an Anne of Austria may well be +doubted; and we must all hope for her own sake that she may never be put +to the proof. She has at least made it clear that she is no mere Reine +Crinoline; she has shown that she possesses some heart, some courage, +and some brains; she has had sense enough to retrieve blunders, and +merit enough to live down calumny. The best thing one can hope for her +is that she may never again be placed in a position which would tempt +and allow her to make political influence the instrument of religious +bigotry. The greatest woman her native country ever produced, Isabella +of Castile, became with all her virtues and genius a curse to Spain, +because of her bigotry and her power; and there was a time when it +seemed as if the Empress Eugénie was likely to make for herself an +odious fame as the chief patroness of a conspiracy against the religious +and political liberties of the south of Europe. Let us hope that in her +future career she may be saved from any such temptation, and that she +may be kept as much as possible out of all political complications where +religion interferes; and if she be thus graced by fortune, it is all but +certain that whatever her future years may bring, she will deserve and +receive a genial record in the history of France. + + + + +THE PRINCE OF WALES. + + +"It is now sixteen or seventeen years," says Edmund Burke, in that +famous passage to which one is almost ashamed to allude any more, so +hackneyed has it been, "since first I saw the Queen of France, then the +Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which +she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision." That glowing, +impassioned apostrophe did more to make partisans and admirers for poor +Marie Antoinette among all English-speaking peoples, probably for all +time, than any charms, or virtues, or misfortunes of the Queen and the +woman could have done. I can never of late read or recall to mind the +burning words of Burke, without thinking of a certain day in March some +seven years ago, when I stood on a platform in Trafalgar Square, London, +and saw a bright, beautiful young face smiling and bending to a vast +enthusiastic crowd on either side, and I, like everybody else, was +literally stricken with admiration of the beauty, the sweetness, and the +grace of the Princess Alexandra of Denmark. In truth, I am not in +general an enthusiast about princes or princesses; I do not believe that +the king's face usually gives grace. In this instance the beauty of the +Princess Alexandra had been so noisily trumpeted by literary lacqueys +already, that one's natural instinct was to feel disappointed, and to +say so, when the Princess herself came in sight. But it was impossible +to feel disappointment, or anything but admiration, at the sight of that +bright, fair face, so transparent in the clearness of its complexion, so +delicate and refined in its outlines, so sweet and gracious in its +expression. I think something like the old-fashioned, chivalric, +chimerical feeling of personal loyalty must have flamed up for the +moment that day in the hearts of many men, who perhaps would have been +ashamed to confess that their first experience of such an emotion was +due to a passing glimpse of the face of a pretty, tremulous girl. + +If ours were days of augury, men might have shuddered at the omens which +accompanied the wedding ceremonies of the Prince and Princess of Wales. +When Goethe, then a youth, surveyed the preparations for the reception +of Marie Antoinette at Strasbourg, on her way to Paris, he observed +significantly on the inauspicious fact that in the grand chamber adorned +for her coming, the tapestry represented the wedding of Jason and Medea. +The civil authorities of London certainly did not greet the fair +stranger with any such grisly and ghastly emblazonings; but there were +other and even more inauspicious omens offered by chance and the hour. +The sky darkened, a dreary wind whistled; presently the rain came down +in drenching streams that would not abate. There was a mourning-garb at +the wedding--the black dress of the Queen, who would not lay aside her +widow's-weeds even for that hour; and the night of the wedding, when the +streets of London were illuminated, the crowd was so great that, as on a +memorable occasion in the early married life of Marie Antoinette, people +were crushed and trampled to death amid the universal jubilation. + +Well, we defy augury, with Hamlet. But I think some at least in the +crowd who welcomed Alexandra felt a kind of doubt and pity as to her +future, which needed no inspiration from omens and superstition. No +foreign princess has ever been so popular in England as Alexandra; and +assuredly some at least of the affection felt for her springs from a +pity which, whether called for or not, is genuine and universal. The +last time I saw the Princess of Wales was within a very few days of my +leaving England to visit the United States. It was in Drury Lane +Theatre, then fitted up as an opera house in consequence of the recent +burning of Her Majesty's Theatre. The Prince of Wales, his wife, and one +of his sisters were in their box. I had not seen the Princess for some +time, and I was painfully impressed with the change which had come over +her. Remembering, as it was easy to do, the brightness of her beauty +during the early days of her marriage, there was something almost +shocking in the altered appearance of her face. It looked wasted and +haggard; the complexion, which used to be so dazzlingly fair, had grown +dull, and, if I may say so, discolored; and I must be ungracious enough +to declare bluntly that, to my eyes at least, there seemed little trace +indeed of the beauty of a few years before left in that dimmed and worn +countenance. "Only the eyes remained--they would not go." Of course, it +must be remembered that the Princess was then only just recovering from +a long, painful, and exhausting illness; and she may have--I truly hope +she has--since then regained all her brightness and beauty. In any case, +it would be unjust indeed to assume that the wasted look of the Princess +was to be attributed to domestic unhappiness. But even a very +matter-of-fact and unsentimental person, looking at her then, and +remembering what she so lately was, might be excused if he fancied that +some of the unpropitious omens which surrounded the Princess's marriage +had already begun to justify themselves in practical fulfilment. + +For even at the time of the marriage of the Prince and Princess there +were not wanting prophets of evil who predicted that this royal union +would not prove much happier than state-made marriages commonly are. +Even then there were stories and reports afloat which ascribed to the +Prince habits and tendencies not likely to promote the domestic +happiness of a delicate and refined young wife, hardly more than a mere +child in years. Indeed, there was already considerable doubt in the +public mind as to the personal character of the Prince of Wales. He +certainly did not look a very intellectual or refined sort of person +even then, and some at least were inclined to think him, as Steerforth +says of little Em'ly's lover, "rather a chuckle-headed kind of fellow," +to get such a girl. There was, certainly, a breath of serious distrust +abroad. On the Prince's coming of age, and again, I think, on the +announcement of his approaching marriage, the London daily papers had +set themselves to preaching sermons at him; and a very foolish chorus of +sermons that was which broke out from all those tongues together. The +only marked effect of this outburst of lay-preaching was, I fancy, to +impress the public mind with the idea that the Prince was really a very +much more dreadful young man than there was any good reason to believe +him. People naturally imagined that the writers who poured forth such +eloquent, wise, and suggestive admonitions must know a great deal more +than they felt disposed to hint at; whereas, I venture to think that, in +truth, the majority of the writers were disposed to hint at a great deal +more than they knew. For, indeed, almost all that is generally and +substantially known of the Prince of Wales has been learned and observed +since his marriage. + +Still, even before, and long before the marriage, there were ominous +rumors. Those that I mention I give simply as rumors--not, indeed, the +mere babble of the streets, but as the kind of thing which people told +you who professed to know--the talk of the House of Commons, and the +clubs, and the fashionable drawing-rooms and smoking-rooms. People told +you that the Prince and his father had had many quarrels arising out of +the extravagance, dissipation, and wrong-headedness of the former; and +there was even a painful and cruel report thus whispered about that the +death of Prince Albert was the result of a cold he had taken from +walking incautiously in a heavy rain during excitement caused by a +quarrel with his son. Stories were told of this and that _amour_ and +_liaison_ in Ireland when the Prince of Wales was with the camp on the +Curragh of Kildare; of his excesses when he was a student at the +University; of his escapades at many other times and places. Certain +actresses of a low class, and other women of a still lower class, were +pointed out in London as special favorites of the Prince of Wales. Of +course every man of sense knew, first, that stories of this kind must be +taken with a large amount of allowance for exaggeration; and, next, that +the public must not expect all the virtues of a saint to belong to the +early years of a prince of the family of Guelph. In England public +opinion, although it has grown much more exacting of late years on the +score of decorum than it used to be, is still disposed to look over +without censure a good deal of extravagance and dissipation in young and +unmarried men, especially if they be men of rank. Therefore, if the +rumors which attended the early career of the Prince of Wales had not +followed him into his married years, the world would soon have forgotten +all about his youthful indiscretions. But it became a serious question +for the whole nation when it began to be whispered everywhere that the +Prince was growing worse instead of better during his married life, and +when to the suspicion that he was wasting his own youth and his own +credit came to be added the belief that he was neglecting and injuring +the young and beautiful woman whom state reasons had assigned to him as +a wife. In good truth, it is really a question of public and historical +interest whether the Queen of England is likely to be succeeded by an +Albert the Good or another George the Fourth; and I am not therefore +inviting the readers of THE GALAXY to descend to the useless discussion +of a mere piece of idle court scandal when I ask them to consider with +me the probabilities of the future from such survey as we can take of +the aspects of the present. + +Those who saw the Prince of Wales when he visited this country, would +surely fail to recognize the slender, fair-haired, rather graceful youth +of that day in the heavy, fat, stolid, prematurely bald, +elderly-young-man of this. It would not be easy to see in any assembly a +more stupid-looking man than the Prince of Wales is now. On horseback he +shows to best advantage. He rides well, and the pleasure he takes in +riding lends something of animation to his usually inexpressive face. +But when his eyes and features lapse into their habitual condition of +indolent, good-natured, stolid repose, all light of intellect seems to +have been banished. The outline of the head and face, and the general +expression, seemed to me of late to be growing every day more and more +like the head and face of George the Third. Anybody who may happen to +have a shilling or half-crown of George the Third's time, can see on the +coin a very fair presentment of the countenance of the present +heir-apparent of the English throne. Whether the Prince of Wales +resembles George the Fourth in character and tastes or not, he certainly +does not resemble him in face. Even a court sycophant could not pretend +to see beauty or grace in our present Prince. + +I think that to the eye of the cynic or the satirist the Prince of Wales +shows to greatest advantage when he sits in his box at an advanced hour +of some rather heavy classic opera, or has to endure a long succession +of speeches at a formal public dinner. The heavy head droops, the heavy +jaws hang, the languid eyes close, the heir-apparent sinks into a doze. +Loyalty itself can see nothing dignified or kingly in him then. I have +watched him thus as he sat in his box during some high-class, and to +him, doubtless, very heavy performance at the Italian opera, and have +thought that at times he might remind irreverent and disloyal observers +of Pickwick's immortal fat boy. I have sometimes observed that his +little dozes appeared to afford innocent amusement to his sisters, if +any of them happened to be in the box; and occasionally one of the +Princesses would playfully poke her slumbering brother in the princely +ribs, and the Heir of all the Ages would open his eyes and smile +languidly, and try to look at the stage and listen to the music; and +then, after a while, the heavy head would sink once more on the vast +expanse of shirt-front in which the Prince seems to delight, and the fat +boy would go to sleep again. But this would only happen at certain +performances. There were times when the Prince had eyes and ears open +and attentive, even in the opera house. His tastes in general, however, +are not for high art in music or the drama. He is very fond of the +little theatres where the vivacious blondes display their unconcealed +attractions. There are, as everybody knows, several minor theatres in +London where the audience, or, I should say more properly, the +spectators, will be found to consist chiefly of men, while, on the other +hand, the performers are chiefly women. These are the temples of the leg +drama. "_Pièce aux jambes? Pièce aux cuisses!_" indignantly exclaims +Eugene Pelletan, denouncing such performances in his "Nouvelle +Babylone"; and he goes on to add some cumulative illustrations which I +omit. Well, the Prince of Wales loves the _pièce aux jambes_, and the +theatres where it flourishes. He constantly visits theatres at which his +wife and sisters are never seen, and in which it would be idle to deny +that there are actresses who have made themselves conspicuous objects of +popular scandal. + +Now, I am far from saying that this necessarily implies anything worse +than a low taste on the part of the Prince of Wales. But there are +stations in life which render private bad taste a public sin. In London, +of late, there has been a just outcry against a certain kind of +theatrical performance. It is held to be demoralizing and degrading that +the stage should be made simply a show-place for the exhibition of +half-naked women, for the audacious display of legs and bosoms. Now, I +beg to say for myself that I have entire faith in the dramatic as in +every other art; that I believe it always when truthfully pursued +vindicates itself, and that I think any costume which the true and +legitimate needs of the drama require is fitting, proper, and modest. I +regard the ballet, in its place, as a graceful and delightful +entertainment; and I do not believe that any healthy and pure mind ought +to be offended by the kind of costume which the dance requires. But +artists and moralists in London alike objected, and justly objected, to +performances the whole purpose, and business, and attraction of which +was the exhibition of a crowd of girls as nearly naked as they could +venture to show themselves in public. + +Now this was undoubtedly the kind of exhibition which the Prince of +Wales especially favored and patronized. Night after night, even during +the long and lamentable illness of his young wife, he visited such +theatres, and gazed upon "those prodigies of myriad nakednesses." +Likewise did he much delight in the performances of Schneider--that high +priestess of the obscene, rich with the spoils of princes. I say +emphatically that there were actions, gestures, _bouffonneries_ +performed amid peals of laughter and thunders of applause by this fat +Faustina in the St. James's Theatre, London, which were only fit to have +gladdened the revels of Sodom and Gomorrah. And this woman was, +artistically at least, the prime favorite of the Prince of Wales; and +when his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, reached England for the first +time after his escape from the Fenian bullet in Sydney, the _par nobile +fratrum_ celebrated the auspicious event by hastening to the theatre +where Schneider kicked and wriggled and helped out the point of +lascivious songs by a running accompaniment of obscene gestures. + +So much at least has to be said against the Prince of Wales, and cannot +be gainsaid. All that he could do by countenance and patronage to +encourage a debauching and degrading style of theatric entertainment, he +has done. He is said to be fond of the singing of the vulgar and low +buffoons of the music-halls, and to have had such persons brought +specially to his residence, Marlborough House, to sing for him. I have +been assured of this often by persons who professed to know; but I do +not know anything of it myself, nor is it indeed a matter of any +importance. The other facts are known to everybody who reads the London +papers. The manager or manageress of a theatre takes good care to +announce in the journals when a visit from the Prince of Wales has taken +place, and we all thus come to know how many times a week the little +theatric temples of nakedness have been honored by his presence. + +Am I attaching too much importance to such matters as this? I think not. +The social influence and moral example of a royal personage in England +are now almost the only agencies by which the royal personage can affect +us for good or evil. I hold that no man thoughtful or prudent enough, no +matter what his morals, to be fit to occupy the position assigned to the +Prince of Wales, would be guilty of lending his public and constant +patronage to such exhibitions and amusements as those which he +especially patronizes. Moreover, the Prince has often shown a disregard, +either cynical or stupid--probably the latter--for public opinion, a +heedlessness of public scandal, in other matters as well. He has made +companionship for himself among young noblemen conspicuous for their +debauchery. At a time, not very long ago, when the Divorce Court was +occupied with the hearing of a scandalous cause, in which a certain +young duke figured most prominently and disgracefully, this young duke +was daily and nightly to be seen the close companion of the Prince of +Wales. + +Let me touch upon another subject, of a somewhat delicate nature. I have +said that there were times when our Prince was always wide awake at the +opera house. There is a certain brilliant and capricious little singer +whom all England and Germany much admire, and who in certain operatic +parts has, I think, no rival. Now, public scandal said that the Prince +of Wales greatly admired this lady, and paid her the most marked +attentions. Public scandal, indeed, said a great deal more. I hasten to +record my conviction that, so far as the fair artiste was concerned, the +scandal was wholly unfounded, and that she is a woman of pure character +and honor. But the Prince was credited with a special admiration for +her; and I am sure the Prince's father under such circumstances would +have taken good care to lend no foundation, afford no excuse, for +scandal to rest upon. Now, I speak of what I have myself observed when I +say that the Prince of Wales, whenever he had an opportunity, always +demeaned himself as if he really desired to give the public good reason +for believing the scandal, or as if he was too far gone in infatuation +to be able to govern his actions. For he was always at the opera when +this lady sang; and he always conducted himself as if he wished to +blazon to the world his ostentatious and demonstrative admiration. When +the prima donna went off the stage, the Prince disappeared from his box; +when she came on the stage again, he returned to his seat; he lingered +behind all his party at the end, that he might give the last note of +applause to the disappearing singer; he made a more pertinacious show of +his enthusiasm than even the military admirer of Miss Snevellicci was +accustomed to do. Now, all this may have been only stolidity or +silliness, and may not have denoted anything like cynicism or coarse +disdain of public opinion; but whatever it indicated, it certainly did +not, I think, testify to the existence of qualities likely to be found +admirable or desirable in the heir to a throne. + +Of the truth or falsehood of the private scandals in general circulation +concerning the Prince of Wales I know nothing whatever. But everybody in +England is aware that such stories are told, and can name and point out +this or that titled lady as the heroine of each particular story. It +need hardly be said that when a man acquires the sort of reputation +which attaches to the Prince of Wales, nothing could be more unjust or +unreasonable than to accept, without some very strong ground of belief, +any story which couples his name with that of any woman belonging to the +society in which he moves. Obviously, it would be enough, in the eyes of +an English crowd, that the Prince should now pay any friendly attention +to any handsome duchess or countess in order to convert her into an +object of scandal. I am myself morally convinced that some of the titled +ladies who are broadly and persistently set down by British gossip as +mistresses of the Prince of Wales are as innocent of such a charge as if +they had never been within a thousand miles of a court. But the Prince +is a little unlucky wherever he goes, for scandal appears to pursue him +as Horace's black care follows the horseman. When the Prince of Wales +happens to be in Paris, he seems to be surrounded at once by the same +atmosphere of suspicion and evil report. Some two years ago I chanced to +be in Paris at the time the Prince was there, and I can answer for it +that observers who had never heard or read of the common gossip of +London formed the same impression of his general character that the +public of London had already adopted. The Prince was then paying special +attention to a brilliant and beautiful lady moving in the court circles +of the French capital, a lady who had but very recently distinguished +herself by appearing at one of the fancy balls of the Tuileries in the +character of the Archangel Michael or Raphael--it does not much matter +which--and attired in a costume which left the company no possibility of +doubting the symmetry of her limbs and the general shapeliness of her +person. Malicious satirists circulated thereupon an announcement that +the lady was to appear at the next fancy ball as "La Source," the +beautiful naked nymph so exquisitely painted by Ingres. This lady +received the special attentions of the Prince of Wales. He followed her, +people said, like her shadow; and a smart pun was soon in circulation, +which I refrain from giving because it contrives ingeniously to blend +with his name the name of the lady in question, and I am not writing a +scandalous chronicle. This was the time when the Prince made his royal +mother so very angry by attending the Chantilly races on a Sunday. When +he came back to London he had to take part in some public ceremonial--I +forget now what it was--at which the Queen had consented to be present. +Her Majesty was present, and I have been assured by a friend who stood +quite near that a sort of little scene was enacted which much +embarrassed those who had to take part in the official pageantry of the +occasion. Up came the Prince, who had travelled in hot haste from Paris, +and with a somewhat abashed and sheepish air approached his royal +mother. She looked at him angrily, and turned away. The Duke of +Cambridge, her cousin, made an awkward effort to mend matters by +bringing up the Prince again, and with the action of a friendly and +deprecating intercessor presenting the delinquent. This time, I am +assured, the Queen, with determined and angry gestures, and some words +spoken in a low tone, repelled intercessor and offender at once; and the +Prince of Wales retired before the threatened storm. The Duke of +Edinburgh, who had been lingering a little in the background--he, too, +had just come from Paris, and he had been to Chantilly--anxious to see +what kind of reception would be accorded to his brother, thought, +apparently, that he had seen enough to warrant him in keeping himself at +a modest distance on that occasion, and not encountering the terrors of +what Thackeray, in "The Rose and the Ring," describes as "the royal +eye." + +I have little doubt that Queen Victoria is a somewhat rigorous and +exacting mother, and I should be far from accepting her frown as +decisive with regard to the delinquencies of one of her sons. +Cigar-smoking alone would probably be accounted by the Queen a sin +hardly allowing of pardon. Her husband, Prince Albert, was a man so pure +of life, so free from nearly all the positive errors of manhood, so +remarkably endowed with at least all the negative virtues, that his +companionship might easily have spoiled her for the toleration of +natures less calm and orderly. I suspect that the Queen is one of that +class of thoroughly good women who, from mere lack of wide sympathies +and genial toleration, are not qualified to deal to the best advantage +with children who show a little inclination for irregularity and +self-indulgence. Nor do I believe that the Prince of Wales is the wicked +and brutal profligate that common libel makes him out. The shocking +story which one sees so often alluded to in the London correspondence of +certain American papers, and which attributes the long illness of the +Princess of Wales to the misconduct of her husband, I believe to be +utterly unfounded and unjustifiable. One of the London medical journals, +the "Lancet" I think it was, had the courage to refer directly to this +monstrous statement, and to give it an emphatic and authoritative +refutation. If the worst things said of the Prince of Wales with any +appearance of foundation were true, it is certain that he would still +not be any worse than many other European princes and sovereigns. I have +never heard anything said of the Prince of Wales half so bad as the +stories which are believed everywhere in Paris of the enormous +profligacies of Prince Napoleon; and it would be hardly possible for +charity itself to doubt that up to a very recent period the private life +of the Emperor of the French himself was stained with frequent and +reckless dissipation. Those who were in Vienna anywhere about the autumn +of 1866, will remember the stories which were told about the fatal +results of the exalted military command given by the imperial will to +certain favored generals, and the kind of influence by which those +generals had acquired imperial favor. Common report certainly describes +the Empress of Austria as being no happier in her domestic relations +than the Princess of Wales. Everybody knows what Victor Emanuel's +private character is, and what sort of hopeful youth is his eldest son, +Umberto. Therefore, the Prince of Wales could doubtless plead that he is +no worse than his neighbors; and even in his own family he might point +to other members no better than himself. The Duke of Cambridge, for +instance, has often been accused of profligacy and profligate +favoritism. I wish I could venture to repeat here, for the sake of the +genuine wit and keen satire of it, a certain epigram in Latin, composed +by an English military officer, to describe the influence which brought +about the sudden and remarkable promotion of another officer who was not +believed to be personally quite deserving of the rank conferred on him +by the Duke of Cambridge, commander-in-chief of the British army. But +the position of the Prince of Wales is very different from that of the +Duke of Cambridge, and he has to face a public opinion quite unlike that +which surrounds Prince Napoleon or the Emperor of the French. People in +France are not inclined to make any very serious complaint about the +amours of a prince, or even of an emperor. I do not venture to say that +there is much more of actual immorality in Paris than in London; but, +assuredly, a man may, without harm to his public and political +influence, acknowledge an amount of immorality in Paris which would be +utterly fatal to his credit and reputation in London. Moreover, some of +the illustrious profligates I have mentioned are distinguished by other +qualities as well as profligacy; but I cannot say that I have ever heard +any positively good quality, either of heart or intellect, ascribed to +the Prince of Wales. + +Unless his face, his head, his manners in public, and the tastes he so +conspicuously manifests wholly belie him, the heir to the British throne +is a remarkably dull young man. He cannot even deliver with any decent +imitation of intelligence the little speeches which Arthur Helps or +somebody else usually gets up for him when the exigencies of the +situation compel the Prince to make a speech in public. He is reputed to +be parsimonious even in his pleasures, and has managed to get himself +deeply into debt without being supposed to have wasted any of his +substance in obedience to a generous impulse. The Prince inherited a +splendid property. His prudent father had looked well after the revenues +of the duchy of Cornwall, which is the appanage of the Prince of Wales +(even in some very dingy parts of London you may if you hire a house +find that you have the Prince of Wales for a landlord), and the property +of the heir must have been raised to its very highest value. Yet it is +notorious that a very few years after he had attained his majority, +Albert Edward had contrived to get deeply immersed in debt. There was +for some time a scheme in contemplation to apply to Parliament for an +addition to the huge allowance made to the Prince of Wales; and the +"Times" and other newspapers were always urging the fact that the Queen +left the Prince to perform nearly all her social duties for her, as a +reason why the nation ought to award him an augmented income. It puzzles +people in London, who read the papers and who study, as most Britons do, +the occupations and pastimes of royalty, to know where the lavish and +regal hospitalities take place which the Prince of Wales is supposed to +dispense on behalf of his mother. However, the project for appealing to +the generosity of Parliament seems to have been put aside or to have +fallen through--I have read somewhere that the Queen herself has agreed +to increase her son's allowance out of her own ample and well-hoarded +purse--and the English public are not likely to be treated to any +Parliamentary debate on the subject just yet. But this much is certain, +that the same almost universal rumor which attributes coarse and +dissipated habits to the Prince of Wales attributes to him likewise a +mean and stingy parsimony where aught save his own pleasure is +concerned; and even there, if by any possibility the pleasure can be +obtained without superfluous cost. + +This then is the character which the son of the Queen of England bears, +in the estimation of the vast majority of his mother's subjects. Almost +any and every one you meet in London will tell you, as something beyond +doubt, that the Prince of Wales is dull, stingy, coarse, and profligate. +As for the anecdotes which are told of his habits and tastes by the +artists and officials of the theatres which he frequents, I might fairly +leave them out of the question, because most of them that I have heard +seem to me obvious improbabilities and exaggerations. They have +nevertheless a certain value in helping us to a sort of historical +estimate of the Prince's character. Half the stories told of the humors +and debaucheries of Sheridan and Fox are doubtless inventions or +exaggerations; but we are quite safe in assuming that the persons of +whom such stories abound were not frugal, temperate, and orderly men. If +the Prince of Wales is not a young man of dissipated habits, then a +phenomenon is exhibited in his case which is, I fancy, without any +parallel in history--the phenomenon of a whole watchful nation, +studying the character and habits of one whose position compels him to +live as in a house of glass, and coming, after years of observation, to +a conclusion at once unanimous and erroneous. But were it proved beyond +the remotest possibility of doubt that the Prince is personally chaste +as a Joseph, temperate as Father Mathew, tender to his wife as the elder +Hamlet, attached to his mother as Hamlet the younger, it would still +remain a fact indisputable to all of us in London, who have eyes to see +and ears to hear, that the Prince is addicted to vulgar amusements; that +he patronizes indecent exhibitions; that he is given to the +companionship of profligate men, and lends his helping hand to the +success and the popularity of immoral and lascivious women. + +What is to be the effect upon England of the reign of the Prince of +Wales? Will England and her statesmen endure the rule of a profligate +sovereign? No country can have undergone in equal time a greater +revolution in public taste and sentiment at least, if not in morals, +than England has since the time of George the Fourth. No genius, no +eloquence, no political wisdom or merits could now induce the English +people to put up with the open and undisguised excesses of a Fox; nor +could any English statesman of the rank of Fox be found now who would +condescend to pander to the vices of a George the Fourth. Thirty years +of decorum in the Court, the Parliament, and the press have created a +public feeling in England which will not long bear to be too openly +offended by any one. But, although I may seem at first to be enunciating +a paradox, I must say that all this is rather in favor of the chances of +the Prince of Wales than against them. It will take so small a sacrifice +on his part to satisfy everybody, that only the very extravagance of +folly could lead him long astray on any unsatisfactory course, when once +he has become directly responsible to the nation. We are not exacting in +England as regards the private conduct of our great people. We only ask +them to be publicly decorous. Everywhere in English society there is a +quite unconscious, naive sort of Pharisaism, the unavowed but actual +principle of which is that it matters very little if a man does the +wrong thing, provided he publicly acts and says the right thing. I am +perfectly satisfied that the great bulk of respectable and Philistine +society in England would regard Robert Dale Owen, with his pure life and +his views on the question of divorce, as a far more objectionable person +than the veriest profligate who did evil stealthily, and professed to +maintain the theory of a rigid marriage bond. The Prince of Wales will +therefore need very little actual improvement in his way of life, in +order to be all that his future subjects will expect, or care to ask. No +one wants the Prince to be a man of ability; no one wishes him to be a +good speaker. If Albert Edward were to rise in the House of Lords some +night, and deliver a powerful and eloquent speech, as Prince Napoleon +has often done in the French Senate, the English public would be not +only surprised but shocked. Such a feat performed by a Prince would seem +almost as much out of place, as if he were to follow the example of +Caligula or Nero and exhibit himself in the arena as a gladiator. Of +course the idea of the Prince of Wales fulminating against the policy of +the Crown and the Government, after the fashion of Prince Napoleon, +would be simply intolerable to the British mind of to-day--a thing so +outrageous as indeed to be practically inconceivable. The Prince of +Wales's part during the coming years, whether as first subject or as +ruler, is as easy as could well be assigned to man. It is the very +reverse of Bottom's; it is to avoid all roaring. He must be decorous, +and we will put up with any degree of dulness; he must be decent, and we +will all agree to know nothing of any private compensations wherewith he +may repay himself for public propriety. All the influences of English +statesmanship, rank, religion, journalism, patriotism, Philistinism, and +flunkeyism, will instinctively combine to screen the throne against +scandal, if only the throne will consent to allow of the possibility of +such a protection. I have hardly ever known an Englishman whose +hostility to monarchical institutions went so far that he would not be +ready to say, "We have got a monarchy; let us try to make the best we +can of it." Therefore the Prince of Wales must be the very Marplot or +L'Etourdi of princes, if he cannot contrive to make himself endurable to +a people who will bear so much rather than be at the trouble of a +change. Of course it is possible that his faults may become grosser and +more unmanageable with years (indeed, he is quite old enough already to +have sown his wild oats long since); and it would be a hard trial upon +decorous English statesmen and the English public to endure an openly +profligate King. Yet even that nuisance I think would be endured for one +lifetime at all events, rather than encounter the danger and trouble of +any organic change. + +So long as the Prince of Wales keeps out of politics, he may hold his +place well enough; the England of to-day could far better endure even a +George the Fourth than a George the Third. I have little doubt that the +Prince of Wales, when he comes to be King, will be discreet in this +matter at least. He has never indeed shown any particular interest in +political affairs, so far as I have heard. He seems to care little or +nothing about the contests of parties. Some three or four years ago, at +the time of the celebrated Adullamite secession from the Liberal party, +there was some grumbling among Radicals because it was reported that the +Prince of Wales had expressed a wish to make the acquaintance of Robert +Lowe, the brilliant, eccentric chief of the secession, and had had Lowe +brought to him and spent a long time talking with him; and it was urged +that this was done by the Prince to mark his approval of the Adullamites +and his dislike of radicalism. But just about the very same time the +Prince took some trouble to make the acquaintance of John Bright, and +paid what might have been considered very flattering attentions to the +great popular tribune. The Prince has more than once visited the Pope, +and he has likewise more than once visited Garibaldi. Indeed, he seems +to have a harmless liking for knowing personally all people who are +talked about; and I fancy he hunted up the Pope, and Garibaldi, and John +Bright, and Robert Lowe, just as he sends for Mr. Toole the comic actor, +or Blondin, or Chang the giant. Nothing can be safer and better for the +Prince in the future than to keep to this wholesome indifference to +politics. In England we could stand any length of the reign of King Log. +I shall not venture to conjecture what might happen if the Prince of +Wales were to develop a perverse inclination to "meddle and muddle" in +politics, because I think such a thing highly improbable. My impression +is, on the whole, that things will go on under the reign of the next +sovereign in England very much as they have been going on under the +present; that the Prince of Wales will be induced to pay a little more +attention to decorum and public propriety than he has hitherto done; and +that the people of England will laugh at him and cheer for him, talk +scandal about him and sing God save him, and finally endure him, on +somewhat the same principle as that which induces the New York public to +endure overcrowded street-cars and miserable postal arrangements--just +because it is less trouble to each individual to put up with his share +of a defective institution, than to go out of his way for the purpose of +endeavoring to organize any combination to get rid of it. + + + + +THE KING OF PRUSSIA. + + +Ronsard, in one of his songs addressed to his mistress, tells her that +in her declining years she will be able to boast that "When I was young +a poet sang of me." In a less romantic spirit the writer of this article +may boast in old age, should he attain to such blest condition, that +"When I was young a king spoke to me." That was the only king or +sovereign of any kind with whom I ever exchanged a word, and therefore I +may perhaps be allowed to be proud of the occasion and reluctant to let +it sleep in oblivion. The king was William, King of Prussia, and the +occasion of my being spoken to by a sovereign was when I, with some +other journalists, was formally presented to King William after his +coronation, and listened to a word or two of commonplace, good-humored +courtesy. + +The coronation of King William took place, as many readers of THE GALAXY +are probably aware, in the old historic town of Königsberg, on the +extreme northeastern frontier of Prussia, a town standing on one of the +inlets of the Baltic Sea, where once the Teutonic Knights, mentioned by +Chaucer, were powerful. Carlyle's "Frederick the Great" had brought +Königsberg prominently before the eyes and minds of English-speaking +readers, just previously to the ceremony in which King William was the +most conspicuous performer. It is the city where Immanuel Kant passed +his long and fruitful life, and which he never quitted. It is a +picturesque city in its way, although not to be compared with its +neighbor Dantzic. It is a city of canals and streams, and many bridges, +and quaint, narrow, crooked streets, wherein are frequent long-bearded +and gabardined Jews, and where Hebrew inscriptions are seen over many +shop-windows and on various door-plates. In its centre the city is +domineered over by a Schloss, or castle-palace, and it was in the chapel +of this palace that the ceremony of coronation took place, which +provoked at the time so many sharp criticisms and so much of popular +ridicule. + +The first time I saw the King was when he rode in procession through the +ancient city, some two or three days before the performance of the +coronation. He seemed a fine, dignified, handsome, somewhat bluff old +man--he was then sixty-four or sixty-five years of age--with gray hair +and gray moustache, and an expression which, if it did not denote +intellectual power, had much of cheerful strength and the charm of a +certain kind of frank manhood about it. He rode well--riding is one of +the accomplishments in which kings almost always excel--and his military +costume became him. Certainly no one was just then disposed to be very +enthusiastic about him, but every one was inclined to make the best of +the sovereign and the situation; to forget the past and look hopefully +into the future. The manner in which the coronation ceremony was +conducted, and the speech which the King delivered soon after it, +produced a terrible shock of disappointment; for in each the King +manifested that he understood the crown to be a gift not from his +people, but from heaven. To me the ceremonies in the chapel, splendid +and picturesque as was the _mise en scène_, appeared absurd and even +ridiculous. The King, bedizened in a regal costume which suggested Drury +Lane or Niblo's Garden, lifting a crown from off the altar (was it, by +the way, an altar?) and, without intervention of human aid other than +his own hands, placing it upon his head, to signify that he had his +crown from heaven, not from man; then putting another crown upon the +head of his wife, to show that _she_ derived her dignities from him; and +then turning round and brandishing a gigantic sword, as symbolical of +his readiness to defend his State and people--all this seemed to me too +suggestive of the _opéra comique_ to suit the simple dignity of the +handsome old soldier. Far better and nobler did he look in his military +uniform and with his spiked helmet, as he sat on his horse in the +streets, than when, arrayed in crimson velvet cloak and other such stage +paraphernalia of conventional royalty, he stood in the castle chapel, +the central figure in a ceremonial of mediæval splendor and worse than +mediæval tediousness. + +But the King's face, bearing, and manner, as I saw him in Königsberg, +and immediately afterwards in Berlin, agreeably disappointed me. It was +one of the best faces to be seen among all the throng at banquet and +ball and pageant during those days of gorgeous and heavy ceremonial. At +the coronation performances there were two other personages who may be +said to have divided public curiosity and interest with the King. One +was the illustrious Meyerbeer, who composed and conducted the coronation +ode, which thus became almost his swan-song, his latest notes before +death. The other was a man whose name has lately again divided attention +with that of the King of Prussia--Marshal MacMahon, Duke of Magenta. +MacMahon was sent to represent the Emperor of the French at the +coronation, and he was then almost fresh from the glory of his Lombardy +battles. There was great curiosity among the Königsberg public to get a +glimpse of this military hero; and although even Prussians could hardly +be supposed to take delight in a fame acquired at the expense of other +Germans, I remember being much struck by the quiet, candid good-humor +with which people acknowledged that he had beaten their countrymen. +There was, indeed, a little vexation and anger felt when some of the +representatives of Posen, the Prussian Poland, cheered somewhat too +significantly for MacMahon as he drove in his carriage from the palace. +The Prussians generally felt annoyed that the Poles should have thus +publicly and ostentatiously demonstrated their sympathy with France and +their admiration of the French general who had defeated a German army. +But except for this little ebullition of feeling, natural enough on both +sides, MacMahon was a popular figure at the King's coronation; and +before the ceremonies were over, the King himself had become anything +but popular. The foreigners liked him for the most part because his +manners were plain, frank, hearty, and agreeable, and to the foreigners +it was a matter of little consequence what he said or did in the +accepting of his crown. But the Germans winced under his blunt +repudiation of the principle of popular sovereignty, and in the minds of +some alarmists painful and odious memories began to revive and to +transform themselves into terrible omens for the future. + +For this pleasant, genial, gray-haired man, whose smile had so much of +honest frankness and even a certain simple sweetness about it, had a +grim and bloodstained history behind him. Not Napoleon the Third himself +bore a more ominous record when he ascended the throne. The blood of the +Berliners was purple on those hands which now gave so kindly and cheery +a welcome to all comers. The revolutionists of Baden held in bitter hate +the stern prince who was so unscrupulous in his mode of crushing out +popular agitation. From Cologne to Königsberg, from Hamburg to Trieste, +all Germans had for years had reason only too strong to regard William +Prince of Prussia as the most resolute and relentless enemy of popular +liberty. When the Pope was inspiring the hearts of freemen and patriots +everywhere in Europe with sudden and splendid hopes doomed to speedy +disappointment, the Prince of Prussia was execrated with the Hapsburgs, +the Bourbons, and the Romanoffs. The one only thing commonly said in his +favor was that he was honest and would keep his word. The late Earl of +Clarendon, one of the most incautious and blundering of diplomatists +(whom after his death the English newspapers have been eulogizing as a +very sage and prince of statesmen), embodied this opinion sharply in a +few words which he spoke to a friend of mine in Königsberg. Clarendon +represented Queen Victoria at the coronation ceremonies, and my friend +happened in conversation with him to be expressing a highly disparaging +opinion of the King of Prussia. "There is just this to be said of him," +the British Envoy remarked aloud in the centre of a somewhat +miscellaneous group of listeners--"he is an honest man and a man of his +word; he is not a Corsican conspirator." + +Yes, this was and is the character of the King of Prussia. In good and +evil he kept his word. You might trust him to do as he had said. During +the greater part of his life the things he promised to do and did were +not such as free men could approve. He set out in life with a genuine +detestation of liberal principles and of anything that suggested popular +revolution. William of Prussia is certainly not a man of intellect or +broad intelligence or flexibility of mind. He would be in private life a +respectable, steady, rather dull sort of man, honest as the sun, just as +likely to go wrong as right in his opinions, perhaps indeed a shade more +likely to go wrong than right, and sure to be doggedly obstinate in any +opinion which he conceived to be founded on a principle. Horror of +revolution was naturally his earliest public sentiment. He was one of +the princes who entered Paris in 1815 with the allied sovereigns when +they came to stamp out Bonapartism; and he seemed to have gone on to +late manhood with the conviction that the mission of honest kings was to +prevent popular agitation from threatening the divine right of the +throne. Naturally enough, a man of such a character, whose chief merits +were steadfastness and honesty, was much disgusted by the vacillation, +the weakness, the half-unconscious deceitfulness of his brother, the +late Frederick William. Poor Frederick William! well-meaning, ill-doing +dreamer, "wind-changing" as Warwick, a sort of René of Anjou placed in a +responsible position and cast into a stormy age. What blighted hopes and +bloody streets were justly laid to his charge--to the charge of him who +asked nothing better than to be able to oblige everybody and make all +his people happy! Frederick William loved poetry and poets in a feeble, +_dilettante_ sort of way. He liked, one might say, to be thought to like +the Muses and the Graces. He used to insist upon Tieck the poet reading +aloud his new compositions to the royal circle of evenings; and when the +bard began to read the King would immediately fall asleep, and nod until +he nodded himself into wakefulness again; and then he would start up and +say, "Bravo, Tieck! Delightful, Tieck! Go on reading, Tieck!" and then +to sleep again. He liked in this sort of fashion the poetic and +sentimental aspects of revolution, and he dandled popular movements on +his royal knee until they became too demonstrative and frightened him, +and then he shook them off and shrieked for the aid of his strong-nerved +brother. One day Frederick William would be all for popular government +and representative monarchy, and what not; the next day he became +alarmed and receded, and was eager to crush the hopes he had himself +awakened. He was always breaking his word to his people and his country, +and yet he was not personally an untruthful man like English Charles the +First. In private life he would have been amiable, respectable, gently +æsthetical and sentimental; placed in a position of responsibility amid +the seething passions and conflicting political currents of 1848, he +proved himself a very dastard and caitiff. Germany could hardly have +had upon the throne of Prussia a worse man for such a crisis. He was +unlucky in every way; for his vacillation drew on him the repute of +hypocrisy, and his whimsical excitable manners procured for him the +reproach of intemperance. A sincerely pious man in his way, he was +almost universally set down as a hypocrite; a sober man who only drank +wine medicinally on the order of his physicians, he was favored +throughout Europe with the nickname of "King Clicquot." His utter +imbecility before and after the massacre of those whom he called his +"beloved Berliners," made him more detestable to Berlin than was his +blunt and stern brother, the present King, who gave with his own lips +the orders which opened fire on the population. A more unkingly figure +than that of poor, weak, well-intentioned, sentimental, lachrymose +Frederick William, never in our days at least has been seen under a +royal canopy. + +It was but natural that such a character or no-character as this should +disgust his brother and successor, the present King. Frederick William, +as everybody knows, had no son to succeed him. The stout-hearted William +would have liked his brother and sovereign to be one thing or the other; +a despot of course he would have preferred, but he desired consistency +and steadfastness on whatever side. William, it must be owned, was for +many years a downright stupid, despotic old feudalist. At one of his +brother's councils he flung his sword upon the table and vowed that he +would rather appeal to that weapon than consent to rule over a people +who dared to claim the right of voting their own taxes. He appears to +have had the sincere stupid faith that Heaven directly tells or teaches +kings how to rule, and that a king fails in his religious duty who takes +counsel of aught save his own convictions. Perhaps a good many people in +lowlier life are like William of Prussia in this respect. He certainly +was not the only person in our time who habitually accepted his own +likings and dislikings as the appointed ordinances of Heaven. In my own +circle of acquaintance I think I have known such individuals. + +Thus William of Prussia strode through life sword in hand menacing and, +where he could, suppressing popular movement. Yet he was saved from +utter detestation by the admitted integrity of his character--a virtue +so dear to Germans, that for its sake they will pardon harshness and +sometimes even stupidity. People disliked or dreaded him, but they +despised his brother. There was a certain simplicity, too, always seen +in William's mode of living which pleased the country. There was no +affectation about him; he was almost as much of a plain, unpretending +soldier as General Grant himself. Since he became King, anybody passing +along the famous Unter den Linden might see the white-haired, simple old +man writing or reading at the window of his palace. He was in this +respect a sort of military Louis Philippe; a Louis Philippe with a +strong purpose and without any craft. Therefore, when the death of his +brother in 1861 called him to the throne, he found a people anxious to +give him credit for every good quality and good purpose, willing to +forget the past and look hopefully into the coming time. They only +smiled at his renewal of the coronation ceremonies at Königsberg, +believing that the old soldier thought there was something of a +religious principle somehow mixed up in them, and that it was the +imaginary piety, not the substantial pomp, which commended to his mind +so gorgeous and costly an anachronism. After the coronation ceremonies, +however, came back the old unpopularity. The King, people said, has +learned nothing and forgotten nothing since he was Prince of Prussia. +Every act he did after his accession to the crown seemed only more and +more to confirm this impression. It was, I think, about this time that +the celebrated "Diary" of Varnhagen von Ense was published by the niece +of the deceased diplomatist; a diary full in itself of the most piquant +interest, but made yet more piquant and interesting by the bitter and +foolish persecution with which the King's officials endeavored to +suppress the work and punish its publishers. I have not read or even +seen the book for years, but the impression it made on me is almost as +distinct just now as it was when I laid down the last of its many and +vivacious volumes. + +Varnhagen von Ense was a bitter creature, and the pen with which he +wrote his diary seems to have been dipped in gall of special acridity. +The diary goes over many years of Berlin court life, and the present +King of Prussia is one of its central figures. The author does not seem +to have had much respect for anybody; and King William was evidently an +object of his particular detestation. All the doings of the days of 1848 +are recorded or commented on, and the pages are interspersed with +notices of the sharp ungenial things said by one royal personage of +another. If the late Frederick William chose to say an ill-natured thing +of Queen Victoria of England, down goes the remark in Varnhagen's pages, +and it is chronicled for the perusal of all the world. We learn from the +book that the present King of Prussia does not live on the most genial +terms with his wife Augusta; that Augusta has rather a marked +inclination towards Liberalism, and would find nothing more pleasant +than a little coquetry with Revolution. Varnhagen intimates that the +illustrious lady loved lions and novelties of any kind, and that at the +time he writes she would have been particularly glad to make the +acquaintance of Louis Blanc; and he more than hints at a decided +inclination on her part to _porter le pantalon_--an inclination which +her husband was not at all likely to gratify, consciously at least. Of +the progressive wife Varnhagen speaks with no whit more respect than of +the reactionary husband; and indeed he seems to look with irreverent and +cynical eyes on everything royal that comes under his observation. +Throughout the whole of the diary, the figure of the present King comes +out consistently and distinctly. William is always the blunt, dull, +wrong-headed, I might almost say pig-headed soldier-fanatic, who will do +and suffer and make others do and suffer anything, in a cause which he +believes to be right. With all Varnhagen von Ense's bitterness and +scorn, he gives us no worse idea of King William than just this. But +judging from the expression of the King's face, from his manner, and +from what I have heard of him in Berlin and elsewhere, I should say +there was a good deal of individual kindness and bonhomie in him for +which the critic did not give him credit. I think he is, on the whole, +better than Varnhagen von Ense chose to paint him or see him. + +From Alexander Humboldt, as well as from Varnhagen von Ense, we learn a +good deal of the inner life of kings and queens and princes in Berlin. +There is something almost painful in reflecting on the kind of life +which Humboldt must have led among these people, whom he so cordially +despised, and whom in his private chroniclings he so held up to scorn. +The great philosopher assuredly had a huge treasure of hatred locked up +in his heart. He detested and scorned these royal personages, who so +blandly patronized him, or were sometimes so rough in their +condescending familiarity. Nothing takes the gilt off the life of courts +so much as a perusal of what Humboldt has written about it. One hardly +cares to think of so great, and on the whole so noble a man, living a +life of what seems so like perpetual dissimulation; of his enduring +these royal dullards and pert princesses, and doubtless seeming +profoundly reverential, and then going home of nights to put down on +paper his record of their vulgarity, and selfishness, and impertinence. +Sometimes Humboldt was not able to contain himself within the limits of +court politeness. The late King of Hanover (father of the now dethroned +King George) was a rough brutal trooper, who had made himself odious in +England as the Duke of Cumberland, and was accused by popular rumors of +the darkest crimes--unjustly accused certainly, in the case where he was +charged with the murder of his valet. The Duke did not make a very bad +sort of King, as kings then went; but he retained all his roughness and +coarseness of manner. He once accosted Humboldt in the palace of the +late King of Prussia, and in his pleasant graceful way asked why it was +that the Prussian court was always full of philosophers and loose +women--describing the latter class of visitors by a very direct and +expressive word. "Perhaps," replied Humboldt blandly, "the King invites +the philosophers to meet me, and the other persons to please your +Majesty!" Humboldt seems to have had little liking for any of the +illustrious personages he met under the roof of the King of Prussia. A +brief record he made of a conversation with the late Prince Albert (for +whom he expressed a great contempt) went far when it was published to +render the husband of Queen Victoria more unpopular and even detested in +Ireland than another George the Fourth would have been. The Irish people +will probably never forget that, according to the statement of Humboldt, +the Prince spoke contemptuously of Irish national aspirations, declared +he had no sympathy with the Irish, and that they were as restless, idle, +and unmanageable as the Poles--a pretty speech, the philosopher remarks, +to be made by the husband of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. +Some attempt was made when this record of Humboldt's came to light to +dispute the truth of it; but Humboldt was certainly not a liar--and +anyhow the Irish people believed the story and it did no little +mischief; and Humboldt in his grave might have had the consolation of +knowing that he had injured one prince at least. + +What we learn of the King of Prussia through Humboldt is to the same +effect as the teaching of Varnhagen's cynical spirit; and I think, if +these keen irreverent critics did not do him wrong, his Majesty must +have softened and improved with the responsibilities of royalty. In many +respects one might be inclined to compare him with the English George +the Third. Both were indeed dull, decent, and fanatical. But there are +some wide differences. George the Third was obstinate in the worst +sense; his was the obstinacy of a stupid, self-conceited man who +believes himself wise and right in everything. Now, I fancy the King of +Prussia is only obstinate in what he conceives, rightly or wrongly, to +be questions of duty and of principle; and that there are many subjects, +political and otherwise, of which he does not believe himself to be the +most competent judge, and which therefore he is quite willing to leave +to the consideration and decision of others. For instance, it was made +evident that in the beginning of the transactions which were followed by +(although they cannot be said to have caused) the present war, the King +more than once expressed himself willing to do certain things, of which, +however, Count von Bismarck subsequently disapproved; and the King +quietly gave way. "You know better than I do; act as you think best," +is, I believe, a quite common sentence on the lips of King William, when +he is talking with this or that trusted minister. Then again it has been +placed beyond all doubt that George the Third could be, when he thought +fit, the most unabashed and unscrupulous of liars; and not even hatred +itself will charge King William with any act or word of falsehood or +duplicity. + +Steadily did the King grow more and more unpopular after his coronation. +All the old work of prosecuting newspapers and snubbing, or if possible +punishing, free-spoken politicians, came into play again. The King +quarrelled fiercely with his Parliament about the scheme of army +reorganization. I think he was right as to the scheme, although terribly +wrong-headed and high-handed in his way of forcing it down the throats +of the people, and, aided by his House of Peers, he waged a sort of war +upon the nation's representatives. Then first came to the front that +extraordinary political figure, which before very long had cast into the +shade every other in Europe, even including that of the Emperor +Napoleon; that marvellous compound of audacity and craft, candor and +cunning, the profound sagacity of a Richelieu, the levity of a +Palmerston; imperturbably good-humored, illimitably unscrupulous; a +patriot without lofty emotion of any kind, a statesman who could +sometimes condescend to be a juggler; part bully, part buffoon, but +always a man of supreme courage, inexhaustible resources of brain and +tongue--always in short a man of genius. I need hardly add that I am +speaking of the Count von Bismarck. + +At the time of the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, there was probably no +public man in Europe so generally unpopular as the King of Prussia, +except perhaps his Minister, the Count von Bismarck. In England it was +something like an article of faith to believe that the King was a +bloodthirsty old tyrant, his Prime Minister a combination of Strafford +and Sejanus, and his subjects generally a set of beer-bemuddled and +servile blockheads. The dislike felt toward the King was extended to the +members of his family, and the popular conviction in England was that +the Princess Victoria, wife of the King's son, had a dull coarse +drunkard for a husband. It is perfectly wonderful how soon an absurdly +erroneous idea, if there is anything about it which jumps with the +popular humor, takes hold of the public mind of England. The English +people regarded the Prussians with utter detestation and contempt. Not +only that, but they regarded it as quite a possible and even likely +thing that poor brave little Denmark, with a population hardly larger +than that of the city of New York, could hold her own, alone, against +the combined forces of Austria and Prussia. One might have thought that +there never was a Frederick the Great or an Archduke Charles; that the +only part ever played in history by Germans was that of impotent +braggarts and stupid cowards. When there seemed some prospect of +England's drawing the sword for Denmark, "Punch" published a cartoon +which was very popular and successful. It represented an English sailor +and soldier of the conventional dramatic style, looking with utter +contempt at two awkward shambling boobies with long hair and huge +meerschaums--one booby supposed to represent Prussia, the other Austria; +and Jack Tar says to his friend the redcoat: "They can't expect us to +_fight_ fellows like those, but we'll kick them, of course, with +pleasure." This so fairly represented the average public opinion of +England that there was positively some surprise felt in London when it +was found that the Prussians really could fight at all. Towards the +Austrians there was nothing like the same ill-feeling; and when +Bismarck's war against Austria (I cannot better describe it) broke out +shortly after, the sympathy of England went almost unanimously with the +enemy of Prussia. Ninety-nine men out of every hundred firmly believed +that Austria would clutch Italy with one hand and Prussia with the +other, and easily choke the life out of both. About the merits of the +quarrel nobody in England outside the range of a very few politicians +and journalists troubled himself at all. It was settled that Austria had +somehow come to represent the cause of human freedom and progress; that +the King of Prussia was a stupid and brutal old trooper, hurried to his +ruin by the evil counsels of a drunken Mephistopheles; and that the +Austrian forces would simply walk over the Prussians into Berlin. There +was but one newspaper in London (and it has since died) which ventured +to suggest, first, that perhaps the Prussians had the right side of the +quarrel, and next, that perhaps they would have the better in the fight. + +With the success of Prussia at Sadowa ended King William's personal +unpopularity in Europe. Those who were prepared to take anything like a +rational view of the situation began to see that there must be some +manner of great cause behind such risks, sacrifices, and success. Those +who disliked Prussia more than ever, as many in France did, were +disposed to put the King out of their consideration altogether, and to +turn their detestation wholly on the King's Minister. In fact, Bismarck +so entirely eclipsed or occulted the King, that the latter may be said +to have disappeared from the horizon of European politics. His good +qualities or bad qualities no longer counted for aught in the estimation +of foreigners. Bismarck was everything, the King was nothing. Now I wish +the readers of THE GALAXY not to take this view of the matter. In +everything which has been done by Prussia since his accession to the +throne, King William has counted for something. His stern uncompromising +truthfulness, seen as clearly in the despatches he sent from recent +battle-fields as in any other deeds of his life, has always counted for +much. So too has his narrow-minded dread of anything which he believes +to savor of the revolution. So has his thorough and devoted Germanism. I +am convinced that it would have been far more easy of late to induce +Bismarck to make compromises with seemingly powerful enemies at the +expense of German soil, than it would have been to persuade Bismarck's +master to consent to such proposals. The King's is far more of a typical +German character (except for its lack of intellect) than that of +Bismarck, in whom there is so much of French audacity as well as of +French humor. On the other hand, I would ask my readers not to rush into +wild admiration of the King of Prussia, or to suppose that liberty owes +him personally any direct thanks. King William's subjects know too well +that they have little to thank him for on that score. Strange as the +comparison may seem at first, it is not less true that the enthusiasm +now felt by Germans for the King is derived from just the same source as +the early enthusiasm of Frenchmen for the first Napoleon. In each man +his people see the champion who has repelled the aggression of the +insolent foreigner, and has been strong enough to pursue the foreigner +into his own home and there chastise him for his aggression. The blind +stupidity of Austria and the crimes of Bonapartism have made King +William a patriot King. When Thiers wittily and bitterly said that the +Second Empire had made two great statesmen, Cavour and Bismarck, he +might have said with still closer accuracy that it had made one great +sovereign, William of Prussia. Never man attained such a position as +that lately won by King William with less of original "outfit" to +qualify him for the place. Five or six years ago the King of Prussia was +as much disliked and distrusted by his own subjects as ever the Emperor +of the French was by the followers of the Left. Look back to the famous +days when "Bockum-Dolff's hat" seemed likely to become a symbol of civil +revolution in Germany. Look back to the time when the King's own son and +heir apparent, the warrior Crown Prince who since has flamed across so +many a field of blood, felt called upon to make formal protest in a +public speech against the illiberal, repressive, and despotic policy of +his father! Think of these things, and say whether any change could be +more surprising than that which has converted King William into the +typical champion and patriot of Germany; and when you seek the +explanation of the change, you will simply find that the worst enemies +of Prussia have been unwittingly the kindest friends and the best +patrons of Prussia's honest and despotic old sovereign. + +I think the King of Prussia's subjects were not wrong when they disliked +and dreaded him, and I also think they are now not wrong when they trust +and applaud him. It has been his great good fortune to reign during a +period when the foreign policy of the State was of infinitely greater +importance than its domestic management. It became the business of the +King of Prussia to help his country to assert and to maintain a national +existence. Nothing better was needed in the sovereign for this purpose +than the qualities of a military dictator, and the King, in this case, +was saved all trouble of thinking and planning. He had but to accept and +agree to a certain line of policy--a certain set of national +principles--and to put his foot down on these and see that they were +carried through. For this object the really manly and sturdy nature of +the King proved admirably adapted. He upheld manfully and firmly the +standard of the nation. His defective qualities were rendered inactive, +and had indeed no occasion or chance to display themselves, while all +that was good of him came into full activity and bold relief. But I do +not believe that the character of the King in any wise changed. He was a +dull, honest, fanatical martinet when he turned his cannon against +German liberals in 1848; he was a dull, honest, fanatical martinet when +he unfurled the flag of Prussia against the Austrians in 1866 and +against the French in 1870. The brave old man is only happy when doing +what he thinks right; but he wants alike the intellect and the +susceptibilities which enable people to distinguish right from wrong, +despotism from justice, necessary firmness from stolid obstinacy. But +for the wars and the great national issues which rose to claim instant +decision, King William would have gone on dissolving Parliaments and +punishing newspapers, levying taxes without the consent of +representatives, and making the police-officer the master of Berlin. The +vigor which was so popular when employed in resisting the French, would +assuredly otherwise have found occupation in repressing the Prussians. I +see nothing to admire in King William but his courage and his honesty. +People who know him personally speak delightedly of his sweet and genial +manners in private life; and I have observed that, like many another old +_moustache_, he has the art of making himself highly popular with the +ladies. There is a celebrated little _prima donna_ as well known in +London as in Berlin, who can only speak of the bluff monarch as _der +süsse König_--"the sweet King." Indeed, there are not wanting people who +hint that Queen Augusta is not always quite pleased at the manner in +which the venerable soldier makes himself agreeable to dames and +demoiselles. Certainly the ladies seem to be generally very enthusiastic +about his Majesty when they come into acquaintanceship with him, and to +the _prima donna_ I have mentioned his kindness and courtesy have been +only such as are well worthy of a gentleman and of a king. Still we all +know that it does not take a great effort on the part of a sovereign to +make people, especially women, think him very delightful. I do not, +therefore, make much account of King William's courtesy and _bonhomie_ +in estimating his character. For all the service he has done to Germany +let him have full thanks; but I cannot bring myself to any warmth of +personal admiration for him. It is indeed hard to look at him without +feeling for the moment some sentiment of genuine respect. The fine head +and face, with its noble outlines and its frank pleasant smile, the +stately, dignified form, which some seventy-five years have neither +bowed nor enfeebled, make the King look like some splendid old paladin +of the court of Charlemagne. He is, indeed, despite his years, the +finest physical specimen of a sovereign Europe just now can show. +Compare him with the Emperor Napoleon, so many years his junior--compare +his soldierly presence, his manly bearing, his clear frank eyes, his +simple and sincere expression, with the prematurely wasted and crippled +frame, the face blotched and haggard, the lack-lustre eyes which seem +always striving to avoid direct encounter with any other glance, the +shambling gait, the sinister look of the nephew of the great Bonaparte, +and you will say that the Prussians have at least had from the beginning +of their antagonism an immense advantage over their rivals in the +figurehead which their State was enabled to exhibit. But I cannot make a +hero out of stout King William, although he has bravery enough of the +common, military kind, to suit any of the heroes of the "Nibelungen +Lied." He never would, if he could, render any service to liberty; he +cannot understand the elements and first principles of popular freedom; +to him the people is always, as a child, to be kept in leading strings +and guided, and, if at all boisterous or naughty, smartly birched and +put in a dark corner. There is nothing cruel about King William; that is +to say, he would not willingly hurt any human creature, and is, indeed, +rather kind-hearted and humane than otherwise. He is as utterly +incapable of the mean spites and shabby cruelties of the great +Frederick, whose statue stands so near his palace, as he is incapable of +the savage brutalities and indecencies of Frederick's father. He is, in +fact, simply a dull old disciplinarian, saturated through and through +with the traditions of the feudal party of Germany, his highest merit +being the fact that he keeps his word--that he is "a still strong man" +who "cannot lie;" his noblest fortune being the happy chance which +called on him to lead his country's battles, instead of leaving him free +to contend against, and perhaps for the time to crush, his country's +aspirations after domestic freedom. Kind Heaven has allowed him to +become the champion and the representative of German unity--that unity +which is Germany's immediate and supreme need, calling for the +postponement of every other claim and desire; and this part he has +played like a man, a soldier, and a king. But one can hardly be expected +to forget all the past, to forget what Humboldt and Varnhagen von Ense +wrote, what Jacobi and Waldeck spoke, what King William did in 1848, and +what he said in 1861; and unless we forget all this and a great deal +more to the same effect, we can hardly help acknowledging that but for +the fortunate conditions which allowed him to prove himself the best +friend of German unity, he would probably have proved himself the worst +enemy of German liberty. + + + + +VICTOR EMANUEL, KING OF ITALY. + + +I have before me just now a little silver coin picked up in Savoy very +soon after Italy had become a kingdom, and Savoy had ceased to be part +of it. That was in truth the only thing that made the coin in any way +specially interesting--the fact that it happened to be in chance +circulation through Savoy when Savoy had no longer any claim to it. So, +for that little scrap of melancholy interest I have since kept the coin +in my purse, and it has made many journeys with me in Europe and +America; and I suppose I can never be utterly destitute while it remains +in my possession. Now, the head which is displayed upon that coin is not +of kingly mould. The mint has flattered its royal master much less than +is usual with such portrait painters. An English silver or gold coin of +this year's mintage will still represent Her Majesty Queen Victoria as a +beautiful young woman of twenty, with features worthy of a Greek statue +and a bust shapely enough for Dryden's Iphigenia. But the coin of King +Victor Emanuel has little flattery in it. There is the coarse, bulldog +cast of face; there are the heavy eye-brows, the unshapely nose, the +hideous moustache, the receding forehead, and all the other beauties and +graces of the "bloat King's" countenance. Certainly the face on the coin +is not bloated enough, and there is too little animalism displayed in +the back of the head, to do justice to the first King of Italy. +Moreover, the coin gives somehow the idea of a small man, and the King +of Italy finds it not easy to get a horse strong enough to bear the load +of Antony. But for a coin it is a wonderfully honest and truthful piece +of work, quite a model to other mints, and it gave when it was issued as +fair an idea as a little piece of silver could well give of the head and +face of Europe's most ill-favored sovereign. + +What a chance Victor Emanuel had of being a hero of romance! No king +perhaps ever had such a chance before, and missed it so persistently. +Europe seemed at one time determined, whether he would or no, to make a +hero, a knight, a _preux chevalier_, out of the son of Charles Albert. +Not Charles Edward, the brilliant, unfortunate Stuart himself, not +Gustavus Adolphus even seemed to have been surrounded by such a romantic +rainbow of romance and of hope. When, after the crowning disaster of +Novara, Victor Emanuel's weak, vacillating, unlucky, and not very +trustworthy father abdicated the crown of Sardinia in favor of his son, +the latter seemed in the eyes of liberal Europe to represent not merely +the hopes of all true Italians, but the best hopes of liberty and +progress all over the world. There was even then a vague idea afloat +through Europe--although Europe did not know how Cavour had already +accepted the idea as a principle of action--that with her tremendous +defeats Piedmont had won the right to hoist the standard of one Italy. +This then was the cause which the young King was taken to represent. He +had been baptized in blood to that cause. He represented Italy united +and free--free from Austrian and Pope, from political and religious +despotism. He was at all events no carpet knight. He had fought bravely +on more than one fearful field of battle; he had looked on death closely +and undismayed; he had been wounded in fighting for Italy against the +Austrian. It was said of the young sovereign--who was only Duke of Savoy +then--that on the night of Novara, when all was over save retreat and +humiliation, he shook his dripping sword at the ranks of the conquering +Austrians and exclaimed, "Italy shall make herself for all that!" +Probably the story is substantially true, although Victor Emanuel may +perhaps have used stronger expressions if he spoke at all; for no one +ever doubted his courage and coolness in the hour of danger. But true or +not, the anecdote exactly illustrated the light in which the world was +prepared to regard the young sovereign of Sardinia--as the hope of Italy +and of freedom, the representative of a defeat which he was determined +and destined to convert into a victory. + +Not many years after this, and while the lustre of his misfortunes and +the brilliancy of his hopes still surrounded him, King Victor Emanuel +visited England. He was welcomed everywhere with a cordiality of +personal interest and admiration not often accorded by any people to a +foreign king. Decidedly it was a hard thing to look at him and yet +retain the thought of a hero of romance. He was not then nearly so +bloated and burly as he is now; and he was at least some dozen or +fourteen years younger. But even then how marvellously ill-favored he +was; how rough and coarse-looking; how unattractive in manner; how +brusque and uncouth in gesture and bearing; how liable to fits of an +apparently stolid silence; how utterly devoid of grace and dignity! His +huge straw-colored moustache, projecting about half a foot on each side +of his face, was as unsightly a piece of manly decoration as ever royal +countenance displayed. Yet the public tried to forget all those external +defects and still regard him as a hero of romance somehow, anyhow. So +fully was he believed to be a representative of civil and religious +freedom in Italy, that one English religious society of some kind--I +forget which it was--actually went the length of presenting an address +to him, in which they flourished about the errors of Popery as freely as +if they were appealing to an Oliver Cromwell or Frederick the Great. +Cavour gave them very neatly and tersely the snub that their ignorance +and presumption so well deserved; and their address did not obtain an +honored place among Victor Emanuel's memorials of his visit to England. + +He was very hospitably entertained by Queen Victoria, who is said to +have suffered agonies of martyrdom from her guest's everlasting +cigar--the good soul detests tobacco as much as King James himself +did--and even more from his occasional outbursts of roystering +compliment and canteen love-making toward the ladies of her staid and +modest court. One of the household edicts, I think, of Queen Elizabeth's +court was that no gallant must "toy with the maids, under pain of +fourpence." Poor Victor Emanuel's slender purse would have had to bear a +good many deductions of fourpence, people used to hint, if this penal +decree had prevailed in his time at Windsor or Osborne. But Queen +Victoria was very patient and friendly. Cavour has left some pleasant +descriptions of her easy, unaffected friendliness toward himself. +Guizot, it will be remembered, has described her as the stiffest of the +stiff, freezing into petrifaction a whole silent circle by her +invincible coldness and formality. I cannot pretend to reconcile the +conflicting accounts of these two eminent visitors, but certainly Cavour +has drawn some animated and very attractive pictures of Queen Victoria's +almost girlish good-humor and winning familiarity. However that may be, +the whole heart of free England warmed to Victor Emanuel, and was ready +to dub him in advance the chosen knight of liberty, the St. George of +Italy, before whose resistless sword every dragon of despotism and +superstition was to grovel in the dust. + +So the King went his way, and the next thing the world heard of him was +that he was in league with Louis Napoleon against the Austrian, and that +the child his daughter was to be married to the obese and elderly Prince +Napoleon, whose eccentric genius, varied accomplishments, and thrilling +eloquence were then unrecognized and unknown. Then came the triumphs of +Magenta and Solferino, and it was made plain once more to the world +that Victor Emanuel had the courage of a true soldier. He actually took +a personal share of the fighting when the Italians were in action. He +did not sit on his horse, far away from the bullets, like his imperial +ally, and direct the movements of the army by muttering "_C'est bien_," +when an aide-de-camp galloped up to announce to him as a piece of solemn +farce that this or that general had already accomplished this or that +operation. No; Victor Emanuel took his share of the fighting like a +king. In the affair of San Martino he led an attack himself, and +encouraged his soldiers by bellowing in stentorian voice quite a clever +joke for a king, just as he was about to charge. A crack regiment of +French Zouaves (the French Zouaves were soldiers in those days) was so +delighted with the Sardinian King that it elected him a corporal of the +regiment on the field of battle--a quite wonderful piece of compliment +from a Zouave regiment to a foreign sovereign. Not so long before had +Lamoricière declared that "Italians don't fight," and here was a crack +Zouave regiment enthusiastic about the fighting capacity of an Italian +King. The irony of fate, it will be remembered, decreed soon after that +Lamoricière should himself lay down his arms before an Italian general +and Italian soldiers. + +Out of that war, then, Victor Emanuel emerged still a hero. But the +world soon began to think that he was only a hero in the field. The sale +of Savoy and Nice much shocked the public sentiment of Europe. The house +of Savoy, as an English orator observed, had sprung from the womb of the +mountains which the unworthy heir of Savoy sold to a stranger. As the +world had given to Victor Emanuel the credit of virtues which he never +possessed, it was now ready to lay on him all the burden of deeds which +were not his. Whether the cession of Savoy was right or wrong, Victor +Emanuel was not to blame, under the hard circumstances, for withdrawing, +according to the first Napoleon's phrase, "_sous les draps d'un roi +constitutionnel_," and allowing his ministers to do the best they could. +In fact, the thing was a necessity of the situation. Napoleon the Third +had to make the demand to satisfy his own people, who never quite +"seemed to see" the war for Italy. The Sardinian ministers had to yield +to the demand to satisfy Napoleon the Third. Had Prussia been a raw, +weak power in September, 1866, she must have ceded some territory to +France. Sardinia or Italy was raw and weak in 1860, and had no choice +but to submit. There were two things to be said for the bargain. First, +Italy got good value for it. Next, the Savoyards and Nizzards never were +good Italians. They rather piqued themselves on not being Italians. The +Savoy delegates would not speak Italian in the old Turin Parliament. The +ministers had to answer their French "interpellations" in French. + +Still all this business did an immense harm to the reputation of King +Victor Emanuel. He had acted like a quiet, sensible man--not in any way +like a hero of romance, and Europe desired to see in him a hero of +romance. Then he did not show himself, people said, very grateful to +Garibaldi when the latter opened the way for the expulsion of the +Bourbons from Naples, and did so much to crown Victor Emanuel King of +Italy. Now I am a warm admirer of Garibaldi. I think his very weaknesses +are noble and heroic. There is carefully preserved among the best +household treasures of my family a vine leaf which Garibaldi once +plucked and gave me as a _souvenir_ for my wife. But I confess I should +not like to be king of a new monarchy partly made by Garibaldi and with +Garibaldi for a subject. The whole policy of Garibaldi proceeded on the +gallant and generous assumption that Italy alone ought to be able to +conquer all her enemies. We have since seen how little Italy availed +against a mere fragment of the military power of Austria--that power +which Prussia crushed like a nutshell. Events, I think, have vindicated +the slower and less assuming policy of Victor Emanuel, or, I should say, +the policy which Victor Emanuel consented to adopt at the bidding of +Cavour. + +But all the same the _prestige_ of Victor Emanuel was gone. Then Europe +began to look at the man coolly, and estimate him without glamour and +without romance. Then it began to listen to the very many stories +against him which his enemies could tell. Alas! these stories were not +all untrue. Of course there were grotesque and hideous exaggerations. +There are in Europe some three or four personages of the highest rank +whom scandal delights to assail, and of whom it tells stories which +common sense and common feeling alike compel us to reject. It would be +wholly impossible even to hint at some of the charges which scandal in +Europe persistently heaped on Victor Emanuel, the Emperor Napoleon III., +Prince Napoleon, and the reigning King of the Netherlands. If one-half +the stories told of these four men were true, then Europe would hold at +present four personages of the highest rank who might have tutored +Caligula in the arts of recondite debauchery, and have looked down on +Alexander the Sixth as a prudish milksop. But I think no reasonable +person will have much difficulty in sifting the probable truth out of +the monstrous exaggerations. No one can doubt that Victor Emanuel is a +man of gross habits and tastes, and is, or was, addicted to coarse and +ignoble immoralities. "The manners of a mosstrooper and the morality of +a he goat," was the description which my friend John Francis Maguire, +the distinguished Roman Catholic member of the House of Commons, gave, +in one of his Parliamentary speeches, of King Victor Emanuel. This was +strong language, and it was the language of a prejudiced though honest +political and religious partisan; but it was not, all things considered, +a very bad description. Moreover, it was mildness, it was +compliment--nay, it was base flattery--when compared with the hideous +accusations publicly and distinctly made against Victor Emanuel by one +of Garibaldi's sons, not to speak of other accusers, and privately +whispered by slanderous gossip all over Europe. One peculiarity about +Victor Emanuel worthy of notice is that he has no luxury in his tastes. +He is, I believe, abstemious in eating and drinking, caring only for the +homeliest fare. He has sat many times at the head of a grand state +banquet, where the rarest viands, the most superb wines were abundant, +and never removed the napkin from his plate, never tasted a morsel or +emptied a glass. He had had his plain fare at an earlier hour, and cared +nothing for the triumphs of cookery or the choicest products of the +vine. He has thus sat, in good-humored silence, his hand leaning on the +hilt of his sword, through a long, long banquet of seemingly endless +courses, which to him was a pageant, a ceremonial duty, and nothing +more. He delights in chamois-hunting--in hunting of almost any kind--in +horses, in dogs, and in women of a certain coarse and gross description. +There is nothing of the Richelieu or Lauzun, or even the Francis the +First, about the dull, I had almost said harmless, immoralities of the +King of Italy. Men in private and public station have done far greater +harm, caused far more misery than ever he did, and yet escaped almost +unwhipt of justice. The man has (or had, for people say he is reformed +now) the coarse, easily-gratified tastes of a sailor turned ashore after +a long cruise--and such tastes are not kingly; and that is about all +that one feels fairly warranted in saying either to condemn or to +palliate the vices of Victor Emanuel. He absolutely wants all element of +greatness. He is not even a great soldier. He has boisterous animal +courage, and finds the same excitement in leading a charge as in +hunting the chamois. But he has nothing even of the very moderate degree +of military capacity possessed by a dashing _sabreur_ like Murat. It +seems beyond doubt that it was the infatuation he displayed in +attempting the personal direction of affairs which led to the breakdown +at Custozza. The man is, in fact, like one of the rough jagers described +in Schiller's "Wallenstein's Camp"--just this, and nothing more. When +Garibaldi was in the zenith of his fortunes and fame in 1860, Victor +Emanuel declared privately to a friend that the height of his ambition +would be to follow the gallant guerilla leader as a mere soldier in the +field. Certainly, when the two men entered Naples together, every one +must have felt that their places ought to have been reversed. How like a +king, an ideal king--a king of poetry and painting and romance--looked +Garibaldi in the superb serenity of his untaught grace and sweetness and +majesty. How rude, uncouth, clownish, even vulgar, looked the big, +brawny, ungainly trooper whom people had to salute as King. When +Garibaldi went to visit the hospitals where the wounded of the short +struggle were lying, how womanlike he was in his sympathetic tenderness; +how light and noiseless was his step; how gentle his every gesture; what +a sweet word of genial compassion or encouragement he had for every +sufferer. The burly King strode and clattered along like a dragoon +swaggering through the crowd at a country fair. Not that Victor Emanuel +wanted good nature, but that his rude _physique_ had so little in it of +the sympathetic or the tender. + +Was there ever known such a whimsical, harmless, odd saturnalia as +Naples presented during those extraordinary days? I am thinking now +chiefly of the men who, mostly uncalled-for, "rallied round" the +Revolution, and came from all manner of holes and corners to offer their +services to Garibaldi, and to exhibit themselves in the capacity of +freedom's friends, soldiers, and scholars. Hardly a hero, or crackbrain, +or rantipole in Europe, one would think, but must have been then on +exhibition somewhere in Naples. Father Gavazzi harangued from one +position; Alexandre Dumas, accompanied by his faithful "Admiral Emile," +directed affairs from another. Edwin James, then a British criminal +lawyer and popular member of Parliament, was to be seen tearing round in +a sort of semi-military costume, with pistols stuck in his belt. The +worn, thoughtful, melancholy face of Mazzini was, for a short time at +least, to be seen in juxtaposition with the cockney visage of an +ambitious and restless common councilman from the city of London, who +has lived all his life since on the glorious memories and honors of that +good time. The House of Lords, the House of Commons, and the Guildhall +of London were lavishly represented there. Men like Türr, the dashing +Hungarian and Mieroslawski, the "Red" leader of Polish revolution--men +to whom battle and danger were as the breath of their nostrils--were +buttonholed and advised by heavy British vestrymen and pert Parisian +journalists. Hardly any man or woman entered Naples from a foreign +country at that astonishing time who did not believe that he or she had +some special counsel to give, which Victor Emanuel or Garibaldi or some +one of their immediate staff was bound to listen to and accept. Woman's +Rights were pretty well represented in that pellmell. There was a +Countess something or other--French, they said--who wore short +petticoats and trousers, had silver-mounted pistols in her belt and +silver spurs on her heels, and was generally believed to have done +wonders in "the field"--what field no one would stop to ask. There was +Jessie Mario White, modest, pleasant, fair-haired woman, wife of a +gallant gentleman and soldier--Jessie White, who made no exhibition of +herself, but did then and since faithful and valuable work for Italian +wounded, such as Italy ought not soon to forget. There was Mrs. +Chambers--Mrs. Colonel Chambers--the Mrs. "Putney Giles" of Disraeli's +"Lothair"--very prominent everywhere, sounding the special eulogies of +Garibaldi with tireless tongue, and utterly overshadowing her quiet +husband, who (the husband I mean) afterwards stood by Garibaldi's side +at Aspromonte. Exeter Hall had sent out powerful delegations, in the +firm faith apparently that Garibaldi would at their request order Naples +forthwith to break up its shrines and images of saints and become +Protestant; and that Naples would at once obey. Never was such a time of +dreams and madness and fussiness, of splendid aspirations and silly +self-seeking vanity, of chivalry and daring, and true wisdom and +nonsense. It was a time naturally of many disappointments; and one +disappointment to almost everybody was His Majesty King Victor Emanuel. +His Majesty seemed at least not much to care about the whole affair from +the beginning. He went through it as if he didn't quite understand what +it was all about, and didn't think it worth the trouble of trying. +People who saw him at that splendid moment when, the forces of Garibaldi +joining with the regular Sardinian troops after all had been won, +Garibaldi and the King met for the first time in that crisis, and the +soldier hailed the sovereign as "King of Italy!"--people who saw and +studied that picturesque historic meeting have told me that there was no +more emotion of any kind on Victor Emanuel's face than if he were +receiving a formal address from the mayor of a country town. "I thank +you," were his only words of reply; and I am assured that it was not "I +thank _you_," with emphasis on the last word to indicate that the King +acknowledged how much he owed to his great soldier; but simply "I thank +you," as he might have thanked a groom who opened a stable door for him. +Perhaps the very depth and grandeur of the King's emotions rendered him +incapable of finding any expression for them. Let us hope so. But I have +had the positive assurances of some who saw the scene, that if any such +emotions were felt the royal countenance concealed them as completely as +though they never had been. + +In truth, I presume that the whole thing really was a terrible bore to +the royal Rawdon Crawley, who found himself compelled by cursed spite to +play the part of a patriot king. The Pope, the ultramontane bishops, and +the ultramontane press have always been ringing fierce changes on the +inordinate and wicked ambition of Victor Emanuel. I am convinced the +poor man has no more ambition than his horse. If he could have chalked +out his own career for himself, he would probably have asked nothing +better than to be allowed to devote his life to chamois-hunting, with a +hunter's homely fare, and the companionship of a few friends (some fat +ladies among the number) with whom he could talk and make jokes in the +_patois_ of Piedmont. This, and perhaps a battle-field and a dashing +charge every now and then, would probably have realized his dreams of +the _summum bonum_. But some implacable destiny, embodied in the form of +a Cavour or a Garibaldi, was always driving on the stout King and +bidding him get up and attempt great things--be a patriot and a hero. +Fancy Rawdon Crawley impelled, or rather compelled by the inexorable +command of Becky his wife, to go forth in quest of the Holy Grail, and +one may perhaps be able to guess what Victor Emanuel's perplexity and +reluctance were when he was bidden to set out for the accomplishment of +the regeneration of Italy. "Honor to those to whom honor is due; honor +to old Mother Baubo," says some one in "Faust." Honor on that principle, +then, to King Victor Emanuel. He did get up and go forth and undertake +to bear his part in the adventure. And here seriously let me speak of +the one high merit of Victor Emanuel's career. He is not a hero; he is +not a statesman or even a politician; he is not a patriot in any grand, +exalted sense. He would like to be idle, and perhaps to be despotic. But +he has proved that he understands the true responsibilities and duties +of a constitutional King better than many sovereigns of higher intellect +and better character. He always did go, or at least endeavor to go, +where the promptings of his ministers, the commands of his one imperious +minister, or the voice of the country directed. There must be a great +struggle in the mind of Victor Emanuel between his duty as a king and +his duty as a Roman Catholic, when he enters into antagonism with the +Pope. Beyond doubt Victor Emanuel is a superstitious Catholic. Of late +years his constitution has once or twice threatened to give way, and he +is probably all the more anxious to be reconciled with the Church. +Perhaps he would be glad enough to lay down the load of royalty +altogether and become again an accepted and devoted Catholic, and hunt +his chamois with a quieted conscience. But still, impelled by what must +be some sort of patriotism and sense of duty, he accepts his uncongenial +part of constitutional King, and strives to do all that the voice of his +people demands. It is probable that at no time was the King personally +much attached to his illustrious minister Cavour. The genius and soul of +Cavour were too oppressively imperial, high-reaching, and energetic for +the homely, plodding King. With all his external levity Count Cavour was +terribly in earnest, and he must often have seemed a dreadful bore to +his sovereign. Cavour knew himself the master, and did not always take +pains to conceal his knowledge. He would sometimes adopt the most direct +and vigorous language in remonstrating with the King if the latter did +not act on valuable advice at the right moment. Sometimes, when things +went decidedly against Cavour's wishes, the minister would take the +monarch to task more roundly than even the most good-natured monarchs +are likely to approve. When Napoleon the Third disappointed Cavour and +all Italy by the sudden peace of Villafranca, I have heard that Cavour +literally denounced Victor Emanuel for consenting to the arrangement. +Count Arrivabene, an able writer, has given a very vivid and interesting +description of Cavour's demeanor when he reached the Sardinian +headquarters on his way to an interview with the King and learned what +had been done. He was literally in a "tearing rage." He tore off his hat +and dashed it down, he clenched his hands, he stamped wildly, +gesticulated furiously, became red and purple, foamed at the mouth, and +grew inarticulate for very passion. He believed that he and Italy were +sold--as indeed they were; and it was while this temper was yet on him +that he went to see the King, and denounced him, as I have said. Now +this sort of thing certainly could not have been agreeable to Victor +Emanuel; and yet he patiently accepted Cavour as a kind of glorious +necessity. He never sought, as many another king in such _duresse_ would +have done, to weaken his minister's influence and authority by showing +open sullenness and dissatisfaction. Ratazzi, with his pliable ways and +his entire freedom from any wearisome earnestness or devotion to any +particular cause, was naturally a far more companionable and agreeable +minister for the King than the untiring and imperious Cavour. +Accordingly, it was well known that Ratazzi was more of a personal +favorite; but the King never seems to have acted otherwise than loyally +and honestly toward Cavour. Ricasoli was all but intolerable to the +King. Ricasoli was proud and stern; and he was, moreover, a somewhat +rigid moralist, which Cavour hardly professed to be. The King writhed +under the government of Ricasoli, and yet, despite all that was at the +time whispered, he cannot, I think, be fairly accused of having done +anything personally to rid himself of an obnoxious minister. Indeed, +the single merit of Victor Emanuel's character, if we put aside the +element of personal courage, is its rough integrity. He is a +_galantuomo_, an honest man--in that sense, a man of his word. He gave +his word to constitutional government and to Italy, and he appears to +have kept the word in each case according to his lights. + +But his popularity among his subjects, the interest felt in him by the +world, have long been steadily on the wane. Years and years ago he +ceased to retain the faintest gleam of the halo of romance that once +was, despite of himself, thrown around him. His people care little or +nothing for him. Why, indeed, should they care anything? The military +_prestige_ which he had won, such as it was, vanished at Custozza, and +it was his evil destiny, hardly his fault, to be almost always placed in +a position of antagonism to the one only Italian who since Cavour's +death had an enthusiastic following in Italy. Aspromonte was a calamity +for Victor Emanuel. One can hardly blame him; one can hardly see how he +could have done otherwise. The greatest citizen or soldier in America or +England, if he attempted to levy an army of his own, and make war from +American or English territory upon a neighboring State, would surely +have seen his bands dispersed and found himself arrested by order of his +government; and it would never have occurred to any one to think that +the government was doing a harsh, ungrateful, or improper thing. It +would be the necessary, rightful execution of a disagreeable duty, and +that is all. But the conditions of Garibaldi's case, like the one +splendid service he had rendered, were so entirely abnormal and without +precedent, the whole thing was from first to last so much more a matter +of national sentiment than of political law, that national sentiment +insisted on judging Garibaldi and the King in this case too, and at +least a powerful, passionate minority declared Victor Emanuel an ingrate +and a traitor. Mentana was almost as bad for the King as Custozza. The +voice of the country, so far as one could understand its import, seemed +to declare that when the King had once ordered the Italian troops to +cross the frontier, he should have ordered them to go on; that if they +had actually occupied Rome, France would have recognized accomplished +facts; that as it was, Italy offended France and the Pope by stepping +over the barrier of the convention of September, only to humiliate +herself by stepping back again without having accomplished anything. +Certainly the policy of the Italian Government at such a crisis was +weak, miserable, even contemptible. Then indeed Italy might well have +exclaimed, "Oh for one hour of Cavour!" One hour of the man of genius +and courage, who, if he had moved forward, would not have darted back +again! Perhaps it was unfair to hold the King responsible for the +mistakes of his ministers. But when a once popular King has to be +pleaded for on that sole ground, it is pretty clear that there is an end +to his popularity. So with Victor Emanuel. The world began to forget +him; his subjects began to despise him. Even the thrilling events that +have lately taken place in Italy, the sudden crowning of the national +edifice--the realization of that hope which so long appeared but a +dream--which Cavour himself declared would be the most slow and +difficult to realize of all Italy's hopes--even the possession of Rome +hardly seems to have brought back one ray of the old popularity on the +heavy head of King Victor Emanuel. Again the wonderful combination of +good luck and bad--the good fortune which brought to the very door of +the house of Savoy the sudden realization of its highest dreams--the +misfortune which allowed that house no share in the true credit of +having accomplished its destiny. What had Victor Emanuel to do with the +sudden juncture of events which enabled Italy to take possession of her +capital? Nothing whatever. His people have no more reason to thank him +for Rome than they have to thank him for the rain or the sunshine, the +olive and the vine. The King seems to have felt all this. His short +visit to Rome, and the formal act of taking possession, may perhaps have +been made so short because Victor Emanuel knew that he had little right +to claim any honors or expect any popular enthusiasm. He entered Rome +one day and went away the next. I confess, however, that I should not +wonder if the visit was made so short merely because the whole thing was +a bore to the honest King, and he could only make up his mind to endure +a very few hours of it. + +Victor Emanuel, King of United Italy, and welcomed by popular +acclamation in Rome--his second son almost at the same moment proclaimed +King of the Spaniards--his second daughter Queen of Portugal. How +fortune seems to have delighted in honoring this house of Savoy. I only +say "seems to have." I do not venture yet to regard the accession of +King Amadeus to the crown of Spain as necessarily an honorable or a +fortunate thing. Every one must wish the poor young prince well in such +a situation; perhaps we should rather wish him well out of it. Never +king assumed a crown with such ghastly omens to welcome him. Here is the +King putting on his diadem; and yonder, lying dead by the hand of an +assassin, is the man who gave him the diadem and made him King! But for +Juan Prim there would be no Amadeus, King of the Spaniards; and for that +reason Juan Prim lies dead. The young King must have needed all his +hereditary courage to enable him to face calmly and bravely, as he seems +to have done, so terrible a situation. Macaulay justly says that no +danger is so trying to the nerves of a brave man as the danger of +assassination. Men utterly reckless in battle--like "bonny Dundee" for +example--have owned that the knowledge of the assassin's purpose and +haunting presence was more than they could endure. The young Italian +prince seems to have shown no sign of flinching. So far as anything +indeed is known of him, he is favorably known to the world. He bore +himself like a brave soldier at Custozza, and obtained the special +commendation of the Austrian victor, the gallant old Archduke Albrecht. +He married for love a lady of station decidedly inferior to that of a +royal prince; the lady had the honor of being sneered at even in her +honeymoon for the modest, inexpensive simplicity of her toilet, as she +appeared with her young husband at one of the watering-places; he had +not made himself before marriage the subject of as much scandal as used +to follow and float around the bachelor reputation of his elder brother +Humbert. He is believed to be honestly and manfully liberal in his +views. He ought to make a good King as kings go--if the murderers of +General Prim only give him the chance. + +As I have mentioned the name of the man whose varied, brilliant, daring, +and turbulent career has been so suddenly cut short, I may perhaps be +excused for wandering a little out of the path of my subject to say that +I think many of the American newspapers have hardly done justice to +Prim. Some of them have written of him, even in announcing his death, as +if it were not possible for a man to be honest and yet not to be a +republican. In more than one instance the murder of Prim was treated as +a sort of thing which, however painful to read of, was yet quite natural +and even excusable in the case of a man who endeavored to give his +country a King. There was a good deal too much of the "Sic semper +tyrannis" tone and temper about some of the journals. Now, I do not +believe that Prim was a patriot of that unselfish and lofty group to +which William the Silent, and George Washington, and Daniel Manin +belong. His was a very mixed character, and ambition had a large place +in it. But I believe that he sincerely loved and tried to serve Spain; +and I believe that in giving her a King he honestly thought he was doing +for her the thing most suited to her tendencies and her interests. If +Prim could have made Spain a republic, he could have made himself her +President, even perhaps for life; while he could not venture, she being +a kingdom, to constitute himself her King. Many times did Prim himself +say to me, before the outbreak of his successful revolt, that he +believed the republican to be the ultimate form of government +everywhere, and that he would gladly see it in Spain; but that he did +not believe Spain was yet suited for it, or numbered republicans enough. +"To have a republic you must first have republicans," was a common +saying of his. New England is a very different sort of place from Old +Castile. At all events, Prim is not to be condemned as a traitor to his +country and to liberty, even if it were true that he could have created +a Spanish republic. We have to show first that he knew the thing was +possible and refused to do it, for selfish or ignoble motives. This I am +satisfied is not true. I think Prim believed a republic impossible in +the Spain of to-day, and simply acted in accordance with his +convictions. He came very near to being a great man; he wanted not much +of being a great patriot. He was, I think, better than his fame. As +Spain has decreed, he "deserved well of his country." It seems hardly +reasonable or just to decry him or condemn him because he did not +deserve better. Such as he was, he proved himself original. "He walked," +as Carlyle says, "his own wild road, whither that led him." In an age +very prolific of great political men, he made a distinct name and place +for himself. "Name thou the best of German singers," exclaims Heine with +pardonable pride, "and my name must be spoken among them." Name the +half-dozen really great, originating characters in European politics +during our time, and the name of Prim must come in among them. + +But I was speaking of Victor Emanuel and his children. All I have heard +then of the Duke of Aosta leads me to believe that he is qualified to +make a respectable and loyal constitutional sovereign. High intellectual +capacity no one expects from the house of Savoy, but there will probably +be good sense, manly feeling, and no small share of political +discretion. In the Duke of Aosta, too, Spain will have a King who can +have no possible sympathy with slave systems and their products of +whatever kind, and who can hardly have much inclination for the coercing +and dragooning of reluctant populations. If Spain in his day and through +his influence can get decently and honorably rid of Cuba, she will have +entered upon a new chapter of her national existence, as important for +her as that grand new volume which opens upon France when defeat has +purged her of her thrice-accursed "militaryism." The dependencies have +been a miserable misfortune to Spain. They have entangled her in all +manner of complications; they have filled her with false principles; +they have created whole corrupt classes among her soldiers and +politicians. General Prim himself once assured me that the real revenues +of Spain were in no wise the richer for her colonial possessions. +Proconsuls made fortunes and spread corruption round them, and that was +all. If her new King could only contrive to relieve Spain of this source +of corruption and danger, he would be worth all the cost and labor of +the revolution which gives him now a Spanish throne. + +Why did fate decree that the very best of all the children of Victor +Emanuel should have apparently the worst fortune? The Princess Clotilde +is an exile from the country and the palace of her husband; and if the +sweetness and virtue of one woman might have saved a court, the court of +the Tuileries might have been saved by Victor Emanuel's eldest daughter. +I have heard the Princess Clotilde talked of by Ultramontanes, +Legitimists, Orleanists, Republicans, Red Republicans (by some among the +latter who firmly believed that the poor Empress Eugénie was wickeder +than Messalina), and I never heard a word spoken of her that was not in +her praise. Every one admitted that she was a pure and noble woman, a +patient wife, a devoted mother; full of that unpretending simplicity +which, let us own it frankly, is one of the graces which very high birth +and old blood do sometimes bring. The Princess must in her secret soul +have looked down on some of the odd _coteries_ who were brought around +her at the court of the Tuileries. She comes of a house in whose +genealogy, to quote Disraeli's humorous words, "Chaos was a novel," and +she found herself forced into companionship with ladies and gentlemen +whose fathers and mothers, good lack! sometimes seemed to have omitted +any baptismal registration whatever. I presume she was not ignorant of +the parentage of De Morny, or Walewski, or Walewski's son, or the Jerome +David class of people. I presume she heard what every one said of the +Countess this and the Marchioness that, and so on. Of course the +Princess Clotilde did not like these people--how could any decent woman +like them?--but she accepted the necessities of her position with a +self-possession and dignity which, offending no one, marked the line +distinctly and honorably between her and them. Her joy was in her +children. She loved to show them to friends, and to visitors even whom +she felt that she could treat as friends. Perhaps she is not less happy +now that the ill-omened, fateful splendors of the Palais Royal no longer +help to make a gilded cage for the darlings of her nursery. Of the whole +family, hers may be called the only career which has been doomed to what +the world describes and pities as failure. It may well be that she is +now happiest of all the children of the house of Savoy. + +Meanwhile, Victor Emanuel has been welcomed at the Quirinal, and is +indeed, at last, King of Italy. We may well say to him, as Banquo says +of Macbeth, "Thou hast it all!" Lombardy, Tuscany, Parma, Modena, the +Two Sicilies, Venetia, and Rome--what gathering within less than a fifth +of an ordinary lifetime! And on the Quirinal Victor Emanuel may be said +to have stood alone. Of all the men who mainly wrought to bring about +that grand consummation, not one stood by his side. Daniel Manin, the +pure, patient, fearless, patriot hero; Cavour, the consummate statesman; +Massimo d'Azeglio, the Bayard or Lafayette of Italy's later days, the +soldier, scholar, and lover of his country--these are dead, and rest +with Dante. Mazzini is still a sort of exile--homeless, unshaken, seeing +his prophecies fulfil themselves and his ideas come to light, while he +abides in the gloom and shadow, and the world calls him a dreamer. +Garibaldi is lending the aid of his restless sword to a cause which he +cannot serve, and a people who never understood him; and he is getting +sadly mixed up somehow in ordinary minds with General Cluseret and +George Francis Train. Louis Napoleon, who, whatever his crimes, did +something for the unity of Italy, is a broken man in captivity. Only +Victor Emanuel, least gifted of all, utterly unworthy almost to be named +in the same breath with any of them (save Louis Napoleon alone)--only he +comes forward to receive the glories and stand up as the representative +of one Italy! Let us do him the justice to acknowledge that he never +sought the position or the glory. He accepted both as a necessity of his +birth and his place, a formal duty and a bore. His was not the character +which goes in quest of greatness. As Falstaff says of rebellion and the +revolted English lord, greatness "lay in his way, and he found it." + + + + +LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS. + + +Guizot quietly at work in the preparation of a history of France for the +instruction of children--Thiers taking his place in a balloon to fly +from one seat of government in France to another! Such were the +occupations, at a given time in last November, of the two distinguished +men whose rivalries and contentions disturbed the politics of France for +so many years. + +An ill-natured person might feel inclined to say that the adventures in +the balloon were a proper crowning of the edifice of M. Thiers's fitful +career. Was not his whole political life (_non meus hic sermo_, please +to understand--it is the ill-natured person who says this) an enterprise +in a balloon, high out of all the regions where common sense, +consistency, and statesmanship are ruling elements? Did he not overleap +with aëronautic flight when it so suited him, from liberalism to +conservatism, from advocating freedom of thought to enforcing the +harshest repression? Was not his literary reputation floated into high +air by that most inflated and gaseous of all balloons, the "History of +the Consulate and the Empire"? Thiers in a balloon is just where he +ought to be, and where he ever has been. Condense into one meagre little +person all the egotism, all the self-conceit, all the vainglory, all the +incapacity for looking at anything whatever from the right point of +view, which belong to the typical Frenchman of fiction and satire, and +you have a pretty portrait of M. Thiers. + +Doubtless, the ill-natured person who should say all this would be able +to urge a good many plausible reasons in justification of his +assertions. Still, one may be allowed to admire--one cannot help +admiring--the astonishing energy and buoyancy which made M. Thiers, +despite his seventy-three years, the most active emissary of the French +Republic during the past autumn, the aëronautic rival of the vigorous +young Corsican Gambetta, who was probably hardly grown enough for a +merry-go-round in the Champs Elysées when Thiers was beginning to be +regarded as an old fogy by the ardent revolutionists of 1848. About the +middle of last September, a few days after the sudden creation of the +French Republic, M. Thiers precipitated himself on London. An account in +the newspapers described him as "accompanied by five ladies." Thus +gracefully escorted, he marched on the English capital. He had +interviews with Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville, the French Ambassador, +and divers other great personages. He was always rushing from diplomatic +office to office. He "interviewed" everybody in London who could by any +possibility be supposed capable of influencing in the slightest degree +the fortunes of France. He never for a moment stopped talking. Great men +excel each other in various qualities; but there never was a great man +who could talk against M. Thiers. He could have shut up the late Lord +Macaulay in no time; and I doubt whether Mr. Seward could have contrived +to edge in a word while Thiers was in the same room. M. Thiers stayed in +London little more than two days. He arrived, I think, on a Wednesday +night, and left on the following Saturday. During that time he managed +to do all the interviewing, and was likewise able to take his family to +see the paintings in the National Gallery, where he was to be observed +keenly eyeing the pictures, and eloquently laying down critical law and +gospel on their merits, as if he had come over on a little autumnal +holiday from a settled and peaceful country, which no longer needed +looking after. Then he started from London in a steam-yacht, cruised +about the North Sea and the Baltic, dropped in upon the King of +Denmark, sounded the views of Sweden, collected the general opinion of +Finland, visited the Emperor of Russia and talked him into +semi-bewilderment, and then travelled down by land to Vienna, where he +used all his powers of persuasion on the Emperor Francis Joseph, and to +Florence, where by the sheer force of argument and fluency he drove +Victor Emanuel nearly out of his senses. Since that time, he all but +concluded an armistice with Bismarck, and when last I heard of him +(previous to this writing) he was, as I have said, going on a mission +somewhere in a balloon. + +During his recent diplomatic flights, M. Thiers constantly offered to +encounter much greater fatigues and responsibilities if needful. He was +ready to go anywhere and talk to anybody. He would have hunted up the +Emperor of China or the Mikado of Japan, if either sovereign seemed in +the remotest degree likely to intervene on the side of France. I believe +I can say with confidence, that at the outset of his expedition he had +no official authority or mission whatever from the Provisional +Government. He told Jules Favre and the rest that he was about to start +on a tour of inspection round the European cabinets, and that they had +better let him try what he could do; and they did not refuse to let him +try, and it would not have mattered in the least whether they refused or +not. He came, in the first instance, altogether "on his own hook." +Perhaps, at first, the Republican Government was not very anxious to +accept the services of M. Thiers as a messenger of peace. No living +Frenchman had done half so much to bring about the state of national +feeling which enabled Louis Napoleon to precipitate the nation into a +war against Prussia. Perhaps they thought the man whose bitterest +complaint against the Emperor was that he failed to take advantage of +the chance of crushing Prussia in 1866, was not the most likely emissary +to conciliate victorious Prussia in 1870. But Thiers was determined to +make himself useful, and the Republican Government had to give in at +last, and concede some sort of official authority to him. Like the young +lady who said she married the importunate suitor to get rid of him, +Jules Favre and his colleagues probably accepted M. Thiers for their +spokesman as the only way of escaping from his eloquence. His mission +was heroic and patriotic, or egotistical and fussy, just as you are +pleased to regard it. In certain lights Cardinal Richelieu looks +wonderfully like Bottom the weaver. But it is impossible not to admire +the energy and courage of the irrepressible, inexhaustible, +fragile-looking, shabby old Orleanist. Thiers does not seem a personage +capable of enduring fatigue. He appears a sapless, withered, wasted old +creature. But the restless, fiery, exuberant, egotistical energy which +carried him along so far and so fast in life, has apparently gained +rather than lost in strength and resource during the forty years which +have elapsed since the subject of this sketch, then editor of the +"National," drew up in Paris the famous protest against the five +infamous _ordonnances_ of Charles the Tenth, and thus sounded the +prelude to the Revolution of July. + +It must have been no common stock of self-possession and +self-complacency which enabled M. Thiers to present himself before the +great Prussian Chancellor as a messenger of peace. Bismarck, who has a +happy knack of apt Shakespearian quotation, might have accosted him in +the words of Beatrice and said, "This is a man's office, but not yours." +For M. Thiers, throughout his whole career, devoted his brilliant gifts +to the promotion of that spirit of narrow national vainglory which of +late years has made France dreaded and detested in Germany. M. Thiers is +like Æsop's trumpeter--guilty not of making war himself, but of blowing +the blasts which set other men fighting. The very speech in which he +protested last summer against the war initiated by the Imperial +Government, was inspired by a principle more immoral, and more +calculated to inflame Germany with resentment, than the very declaration +of war itself. For Thiers only condemned the war on the ground that +France was not properly prepared to crush Germany; that she had lost her +opportunity by not falling on Prussia while the latter was in the +death-grapple with Austria in 1866; and that as France had not done the +thing at the right time, she had better not run the risk of doing it +incompletely, by making the effort at an inopportune moment. + +These considerations, however, did not trouble M. Thiers. He advanced to +meet Count von Bismarck with the easy confidence of one who feels that +he has a right to be treated as the best of friends and most appropriate +of envoys. If, immediately after the conclusion of the American war, +John Bright had been sent to Washington by England to endeavor to settle +the Alabama dispute, he probably would not have approached the President +with anything like the confident assurance of a genial welcome which +inspired M. Thiers when he offered himself as a messenger to the +Prussian statesman. This very sublimity of egotism is, and always was, +one of the sources of the success of M. Thiers. No man could with more +perfect composure and self-satisfaction dare to be inconsistent. His was +the very audacity and Quixotism of inconsistency. In office to-day, he +could advocate and enforce the very measures of repression which +yesterday, out of office, he was the foremost to denounce--nay, which he +obtained office by opposing and denouncing. He whose energetic action in +protesting against the celebrated five _ordonnances_ of Charles the +Tenth did so much to bring about the Revolution of July, was himself the +chief official author of the equally celebrated "laws of September," +introduced in Louis Philippe's reign, which might have suited the +administration of a Peter the Great, or any other uncompromising despot. +In practical politics, of course, almost every minister is occasionally +compelled by the force of circumstances to do things which bear a +considerable resemblance to acts warmly condemned by him while he sat in +opposition. But M. Thiers invariably, when in power, exhibited himself +as the author and champion of principles and policy which he had +denounced with all the force of his eloquent tongue when he was the +opponent of the Government. He seemed in fact to be two men rather than +one, so entirely did Thiers in office contrast with Thiers in +opposition. But Thiers himself never appeared conscious of +inconsistency. Indeed, he was always consistent with his one grand +essential principle and creed--faith in the inspiration and the destiny +of M. Thiers. + +To one other principle too let it be said in justice that this brilliant +politician has always been faithful--the principle which maintains the +right of France to throw her sword into the scale where every or any +foreign question is to be weighed. When, after a long absence from the +parliamentary arena, he entered the Imperial Corps Législatif as one of +the deputies for Paris, he soon proved himself to be "old Cassius +still." Age, study, experience, retirement, reflection, had in no wise +dimmed the fire of his ardent nationalism. Eagerly as ever he contended +for the sacred right of France to dragoon all Europe into obedience, to +chop up the Continent into such symmetrical sections as might seem +suitable to the taste and the convenience of French statesmen. +Undoubtedly he was a sharp, tormenting thorn in the side of the Imperial +Government when he returned to active political life. Louis Napoleon had +no minister who could pretend to compare with Thiers in debate. He was +an aggravating and exasperating enemy, against whom fluent and shallow +men like Billault and Baroche, or even speakers of heavier calibre like +Rouher, had no chance whatever. But there were times when to any +impartial mind the invectives of Thiers made the Imperial policy look +noble and enlightened in comparison with the canons of detestable +egotism which he propounded as the true principles of government. I +remember thinking more than once that if Louis Napoleon's Ministers +could only have risen to the real height of the situation and appealed +to whatever there was of lofty unselfish feeling in France, they might +have overwhelmed their remorseless and envenomed critic. In 1866 and +1867, for example, Thiers made it a cardinal point of complaint and +invective against the French Government that it had not prevented by +force of arms the progress of Germany's unity. Nothing could be more +pungent, brilliant, bitter, than the eloquence with which he proclaimed +and advocated his doctrines of ignoble and unscrupulous selfishness. Why +did not the Imperial spokesmen assume a virtue if they had it not, and +boldly declare that the Government of France scorned the shallow and +envious policy which sees calamity and danger in the union and growing +strength of a neighboring people? Such a chord bravely struck would have +awakened an echo in every true and generous heart. But the Imperial +Ministers feebly tried to fight M. Thiers upon his own ground, to accept +his principles as the conditions of contest. They endeavored in a +paltering and limping way to show that the French Government had been +selfish and only selfish, and had taken every care to keep Germany +properly weak and divided. It was during one of these debates, thus +provoked by M. Thiers, that occasion was given to Count von Bismarck for +one of his most striking _coups de théâtre_. The French Minister (if I +remember rightly, it was M. Rouher), tortured and baited by M. Thiers, +stood at bay at last, and boldly declared that the Government of France +had taken measures to render impossible any political cohesion of North +and South Germany. A day or two after, Count von Bismarck effectively +and contemptuously replied to this declaration by unfolding in the +Prussian Chamber the treaties of alliance already concluded between his +Government and the South German States. + +It has always been a matter of surprise to me that Thiers did not prove +a success at the bar, to which at first he applied his abilities. He +seems to have the very gifts which would naturally have made a great +pleader. All through his political career he displayed a wonderful +capacity for making the worse appear the better cause. The adroitness +which contends skilfully that black is white to-day, having argued with +equal force and fluency that white was green yesterday, would have been +highly appropriate and respectable in a legal advocate. But M. Thiers +did not somehow get on at the bar, and having no influential friends (he +was, I think, the son of a locksmith), but plenty of ambition, courage, +and confidence, he strove to enter political life by the avenue of +journalism. Much of Thiers's subsequent success as a debater was +probably due to that skill which a practised journalist naturally +acquires--the dexterity of arraying facts and arguments so as not to +bear too long on any one part of the subject, and not to offer to the +mind of the reader more than his patience and interest are willing to +accept. Most of the events of his political career, up to his +reappearance in public life in 1863, belong wholly to history and the +past. His long rivalry with Guizot, his intrigues out of office, and his +conduct as a Minister of Louis Philippe, have hardly a more direct and +vital connection with the affairs of to-day than the statecraft of +Mazarin or the political vicissitudes of Bolingbroke. One indeed of the +projects of M. Thiers has now come rather unexpectedly into active +operation. The fortifications of Paris were the offspring of the +apprehension M. Thiers entertained, thirty years ago, that the Eastern +question of that day might provoke another great European war. Since +that time many critics sneered and laughed a good deal at M. Thiers's +system of fortifications; but the whirligig of time has brought the +statesman his revenge. No one could mistake the meaning of the smile of +self-satisfaction which used last autumn to light up the unattractive +features of the veteran Orleanist, as he made tour after tour of +inspection around the defences of Paris. This chain of fortifications +alone, one might almost say, connects the Thiers of the present +generation with the Thiers of the past. There were malignant persons who +did not scruple to say that the author of the scheme of defences was not +altogether sorry for the national calamity which had brought them into +use, and apparently justified their construction. It is very hard to be +altogether sorry for even a domestic misfortune which gives one who is +especially proud of his foresight and sagacity an opportunity of +pointing out that the precautions which he recommended, and other +members of the family scorned, are now eagerly adopted by unanimous +concurrence. There certainly was something of the pardonable pride of +the author of a long misprized invention visible in the face of M. +Thiers as he used to gaze upon his beloved system of fortifications any +time in last September. Little did even he himself think when, after +Sadowa, he accused the Emperor's Government of having left itself no +blunder more to commit, that it had yet to perpetrate one crowning and +gigantic mistake, and that one effect at least of this stupendous error +would be to compel Paris to treat _au sérieux_, and as a supreme +necessity, that system of defences so long regarded as good for little +else than to remind the present generation that Louis Adolphe Thiers was +once Prime Minister of France. + +Thiers was not far short of seventy years old when, in 1863, he entered +upon a new chapter of his public life as one of the deputies for Paris +in the Imperial Corps Législatif. A new generation had meantime arisen. +Men were growing into fame as orators and politicians who were boys when +Thiers was last heard as a parliamentary debater. He returned to +political life at an eventful time and accompanied by some notable +compeers. The elections which sent Thiers to represent the department of +the Seine made the venerable and illustrious Berryer one of the +delegates from Marseilles. I doubt whether the political life of any +country has ever produced a purer, grander figure than that of Berryer; +I am sure that an obsolete and hopeless cause never had a nobler +advocate. The genius and the virtues of Berryer are indeed the loftiest +claims modern French legitimacy can offer to the respect of posterity. I +look back with a feeling of something like veneration to that grand and +kingly form, to the sweet, serene, unaffected dignity of that august +nature. Berryer belonged to a totally different political order from +that of Thiers. As John Bright is to Disraeli, as John Henry Newman is +to Monsignore Capel, as Montalembert was to Louis Veuillot, as Charles +Sumner is to Seward, so was Berryer to Thiers. Of the oratorical merits +of the two men I shall speak hereafter; now I refer to the relative +value of their political characters. With Thiers and Berryer there came +back to political life some men of mark and worth. Garnier-Pagès was +one, the impulsive, true-hearted, not very strong-headed Republican; a +man who might be a great leader if fine phrases and good intentions +could rule the world. Carnot was another, not much perhaps in himself, +but great as the son of the illustrious organizer of victory (oh, if +France had lately had one hour of Carnot!), and personally very popular +just then because of his scornful rejection of Louis Napoleon's offer to +bring back the ashes of his father from Magdeburg in Prussia to France. +Eugène Pelletan, who had been suffering savage persecution because of +his fierce attack on the Empire in his book, "The New Babylon"; Jules +Simon, a superior sort of French Tom Hughes--Tom Hughes with republican +convictions and strong backbone--and several other men of name and +fibre, were now companions in the Corps Législatif. All these, differing +widely in personal opinions, and indeed representing every kind of +political view, from the chivalrous and romantic legitimacy of Berryer +to the republican religion or fetichism of Garnier-Pagès, combined to +make up an opposition to the Imperial Government. Up to that time the +opposition had consisted simply of five men. For years those five had +fought a persevering and apparently hopeless fight against the strength +of Imperial arms, Imperial gold, and the lungs of Imperial hirelings. Of +the five the leader was Jules Favre. The second in command was Emile +Ollivier, whose treason to liberty, truth, and peace has since been so +sternly avenged by destiny. The other three were Picard, a member of the +Republican Government of September, and MM. Darimon and Henon. +Numerically the opposition, now strengthened by the new accessions, +became quite respectable; morally and politically it wholly changed the +situation. It was no longer a Leonidas or Horatius Cocles desperately +holding a pass; it was an army encountering an army. The Imperialists of +course still far outnumbered their opponents; but there were no men +among the devotees of Imperialism who could even pretend to compare as +orators with Berryer, Thiers, or Favre. Of these three men, it seems to +me that Berryer was by far the greatest orator, but Thiers left him +nowhere as a partisan leader. Thiers undoubtedly pushed Jules Favre +aside and made him quite a secondary figure. Thiers delighted in +worrying a ministry. He never needed, as Berryer did, the impulse of a +great principle and a great purpose. He felt all the joy of the strife +which distinguishes the born gladiator. He soon proved that his years +had in no degree impaired his oratorical capacity. It became one of the +grand events of Paris when Thiers was to speak. Owing to the peculiar +regulations of the French Chamber, which required that those who meant +to take part in a debate should inscribe their names beforehand in the +book, and speak according to their turn--an odious usage, fatal to all +genuine debate--it was always known in advance through Paris that +to-morrow or the day after Thiers was to speak. Then came a struggle for +places in what an Englishman would call the strangers' gallery. The +Palais Bourbon, where the Corps Législatif held its sittings, opposite +the Place de la Concorde, has the noble distinction of providing the +least and worst accommodation for the public of any House of Assembly in +the civilized world. The English House of Commons is miserably defective +and niggardly in this respect, but it is liberal and lavish when +compared with the French Corps Législatif. Therefore, when M. Thiers was +about to speak, there was as much intriguing, clamoring, beseeching, +wrangling, storming for seats in the public _tribunes_ as would have +sufficed to carry an English county election. The trouble had its +reward. Nobody could be disappointed in M. Thiers who merely desired an +intellectual exercise and treat. Thiers never was heavy or dull. He is, +I think, the most interesting of all the great European debaters. I do +not know whether I convey exactly the meaning I wish to express when I +used the word "interesting." What I mean is that there is in M. Thiers +an inexhaustible vivacity, freshness, and variety which never allows the +attention to wander or flag. He never dwells too long on any one part of +his subject; or if he has to dwell long anywhere, he enlivens the theme +by a lavish copiousness of novel argument, application, and +illustration, which is irresistibly piquant and fascinating. Reëntering +public life in his old age, M. Thiers had physically something like the +advantage which I have known to be possessed by certain mature +actresses, who, never having had any claim to personal beauty in their +youth, were visited with hardly any penalty of time when they began to +descend into age. Thiers always had an insignificant presence, a +dreadfully bad voice, and an unpleasant delivery. Time added nothing, +and probably could add nothing, to these disadvantages. Already John +Bright has lost, already Gladstone is losing, those magnificent +qualities of voice and intonation which till lately distinguished both +from all other living English orators. One of the only fine passages in +Disraeli's "Life of Lord George Bentinck" is that in which he describes +the melancholy sensation created in the House of Commons when Daniel +O'Connell, feeble and broken down, tried vainly to raise above a +mumbling murmur those accents which once could thrill and vibrate to the +furthest corner of the most capacious hall. But the voice and delivery +of Thiers at seventy were no whit worse than those of Thiers at forty; +and in energy, vivacity, and variety, I think the opposition leader of +1866 had rather gained upon the Minister of 1836. In everything that +makes a great orator he was far beneath Berryer. The latter had as +commanding a presence as he had a superb voice, and a manner at once +graceful and dignified. Berryer, too, had the sustaining strength of a +profound conviction, pure and lofty as a faith. If Berryer was a +political Don Quixote, Thiers was a political Gil Blas. Thiers was all +sparkle, antithesis, audacity, sophistry. His _tours de force_ were +perfect masterpieces of fearless adroitness. He darted from point to +point, from paradox to paradox, with the bewildering agility of a +squirrel. He flashed through the heavy atmosphere of a dull debate with +the scintillating radiancy of a firefly. He propounded sentiments of +freedom which would positively have captivated you if you had not known +a little of the antecedents of the orator. He threw off concise and +luminous maxims of government which would have been precious guides if +human politics could only be ruled by epigram. His long experience as a +partisan leader, in and out of office, had made him master of a vast +array of facts and dates, which he was expert to marshal in such a +manner as often to bewilder his opponents. His knowledge of the +mechanism and regulations of diplomatic and parliamentary practice was +consummate. He was singularly clear and attractive in statement; his +mode of putting a case had something in it that was positively +fascinating. He was sharp and severe in retort, and there was a cold, +self-complacent _hauteur_ in his way of putting down an adversary, which +occasionally reminded one of a peculiarity of Earl Russell's style when +the latter was still a good parliamentary debater. M. Thiers had the +great merit of never talking over the heads, above the understandings of +his audience. His style of language was of the same character perhaps as +that of Mr. Wendell Phillips. Of course no two men could possibly be +more unlike in the manner of speaking, but the rhetorical vernacular of +both has a considerable resemblance. The diction in each case is clear, +incisive, penetrating--never, or hardly ever, rising to anything of +exalted oratorical grandeur, never involved in mist or haze of any kind, +and with the same habitual acidity and sharpness in it. I presume M. +Thiers wrote the greater part of his speeches beforehand, but he +evidently had the happy faculty, rare even among accomplished orators, +which enables a speaker to blend the elaborately prepared portions of +his discourse with the extemporaneous passages originated by the +impulses and the incidents of the debate. Some of the cleverest +arguments, and especially some of the cleverest sarcastic hits in M. +Thiers's recent speeches, were provoked by questions and interruptions +which must have been quite unexpected. But a strange peculiarity about +the whole body of the speeches, the written parts as well as the +extemporaneous, was that they bore no resemblance whatever to the +glittering and gorgeous style which is so common and so objectionable in +the pages of the author's history of the French Revolution, and of the +Consulate and the Empire. I must say that I think M. Thiers's historical +works are decidedly heavy reading. I think his speeches are more +interesting and attractive to read than those of any political speaker +of our day. As an orator I set him below Berryer, below Gladstone and +Bright, below Wendell Phillips, and not above Disraeli. But as an +interesting speaker--I can think of no better qualification for him--I +place M. Thiers above any of those masters of the art of eloquence. + +I have not compared M. Thiers with Jules Favre. Any juxtaposition of the +two ought rather perhaps to be in the way of contrast than of +comparison. Jules Favre is probably the most exquisite and perfect +rhetorician practising in the public debates of our time. No one else +can lend so brilliant an effect, so delightful an emphasis to words and +phrases by the mere modulations of his tone. I once heard a French +workingman say that Jules Favre _parlait comme un ange_--talked like an +angel; and there was a simple appropriateness in the expression. An +angel, if he had to address so unsympathetic and uncongenial an audience +as the Imperial Corps Législatif, could hardly lend more musical effect +to the meaning of his words than was given by Jules Favre's consummate +rhetorical skill. But I must acknowledge that to me at least there never +seemed to be much in what Jules Favre said. It seemed to me too often to +want marrow and backbone. It was an eloquence of fine phrases and +splendid vague generalities. "Flow on, thou shining river," one felt +sometimes inclined to say as the bright, broad, shallow stream glided +away. If Thiers spoke for half a day, and the discourse covered a dozen +columns of the closely-printed "Moniteur," yet the listener or reader +came away with the impression that the orator had crammed quite a +surprising quantity of matter into his speech, and could have found ever +so much more to say on the same subject. The impression produced on me +at least by the speeches of Jules Favre was always of the very opposite +character. They seemed to be all rhetoric and modulation; they were +without depth and without fibre. The essentially declamatory character +of Jules Favre's eloquence received its most complete illustration in +that remarkable document--so painful and pathetic because of its obvious +earnestness, so ludicrous and almost contemptible because of its turgid +and extravagant outbursts--the report of his recent interviews with +Count von Bismarck at the Prussian headquarters near Versailles. One +must keep constantly in mind the awful seriousness of the situation, and +the genuine suffering which it must have imposed upon Jules Favre, not +to laugh outright or feel disgusted at the inflated, hyperbolical, and +melodramatic style in which the Republican Minister describes his +interview with the Prussian Chancellor. Now, whatever faults of style M. +Thiers might commit, he never could thus make himself ridiculous. He +never allows himself to be out of tune with the occasion and the +audience. You may differ utterly from him, you may distrust and dislike +him; but Thiers, the parliamentary orator, will not permit you to laugh +at him. + +Thiers was always very happy in his replies and retorts, and he never +allowed if he could an interruption to one of his speeches in the Corps +Législatif to pass without seizing its meaning and at once dissecting +and demolishing it. He rejoiced in the light sword-play of such +exercises. He would never have been contented with the superb quietness +of contempt by which Berryer in one of his latest speeches crushed +Granier de Cassagnac, the abject serf and hireling of Imperialism. While +Berryer was speaking, Granier de Cassagnac suddenly expressed his coarse +dissent from one of the orator's statements by crying out, "That is not +true." Berryer was not certain as to the source of this insolent +interruption. He gazed all round the assembly, and demanded in accents +of subdued and noble indignation who had dared thus to challenge the +truth of his statement. There was a dead pause. Even enemies looked up +with reverence to the grand old orator, and were ashamed of the rude +insult flung at him. De Cassagnac quailed, but every eye was on him, and +he was compelled to declare himself. "It was I who spoke," said the +Imperial servant. Berryer looked at him for a moment, and then said, +"Oh, it was _you_!--then it is of no consequence," and calmly resumed +the thread of his discourse. Nothing could have been finer, nothing more +demolishing than the cold, grand contempt which branded De Cassagnac as +a creature incapable of meriting, even by insult, the notice of a man of +honor. But Thiers would never have been satisfied with such a mode of +crushing an adversary; and indeed it needed all the majesty of Berryer's +presence and the moral grandeur of his character to give it full force +and emphasis. Thiers would have showered upon the head of the Imperial +lacquey a whole fiery cornucopia of sarcasm and sharp invective, and De +Cassagnac would have gone home rather proud of having drawn down upon +his head the angry eloquence of the great Orleanist orator. + +Thiers threw his whole soul into his speeches--not merely as to their +preparation, but as to their revision and publication. According to the +Imperial system, no independent reports of speeches in the Chambers were +allowed to appear in print. The official stenographers noted down in +full each day's debate, and the whole was published next day in the +"Moniteur Universel." These reports professed to give every word and +syllable of the speeches--every whisper of interruption. Sometimes, +therefore, the "Moniteur" came out with twenty of its columns filled up +with the dull maunderings of some provincial blockhead, for whom +servility and money had secured an official candidature. Besides these +stupendous reports, the Government furnished a somewhat condensed +version, in which the twenty-column speech was reduced say to a dozen +columns. Either of these reports the public journals might take, but +none other; and no journal must alter or condense by the omission of a +line or the substitution of a word the text thus officially furnished. +When Thiers had spent the whole day in delivering a speech, he was +accustomed to spend the whole night in reading over and correcting the +proof-sheets of the official report. The venerable orator would hurry +home when the sitting was over, change his clothes, get into his +arm-chair before his desk, and set to work at the proof-sheets according +as they came. Over these he would toil with the minute and patient +inspection of a watchmaker or a lapidary, reading this or that passage +many times, until he had satisfied himself that no error remained and +that no turn of expression could well be improved. Before this task was +done, the night had probably long faded and the early sun was already +lighting Paris; but when the Corps Législatif came to assemble at noon, +the inexhaustible septuagenarian was at his post again. That evening he +would be found, the central figure of a group, in some salon, scattering +his brilliant sayings and acrid sarcasms around him, and in all +probability exercising his humor at the expense of the Imperial +Ministers, the Empire, and even the Emperor himself. After 1866 he was +exuberant in his _bons mots_ about the humiliation of the Imperial +Cabinet by Prussia. "Bismarck," he once declared, "is the best supporter +of the French Government. He keeps it always in its place by first +boxing it on one ear and then maintaining the equilibrium by boxing it +on the other." + +If one could have been present at the recent interviews between Count +Bismarck and M. Thiers, he would doubtless have enjoyed a curious and +edifying intellectual treat. Bismarck is a man of imperturbable good +humor; Thiers a man of imperturbable self-conceit. Thiers has a tongue +which never lacks a word, and that the most expressive word. Bismarck +has a rare gift of shrewd satirical humor, and of phrases that stick to +public memory. Each man would have regarded the other as a worthy +antagonist in a duel of words. Neither would care to waste much time in +lofty sentiment and grandiose appeals. Each would thoroughly understand +that his best motto would be, "_A corsaire, corsaire et demi_." Bismarck +would find in Thiers no feather-headed Benedetti; assuredly, Thiers +would favor Bismarck with none of Jules Favre's sighs and tears, and +bravado and choking emotions. Thiers would have the greater part of the +talk, that is certain; but Bismarck would probably contrive to compress +a good deal of meaning and significance into his curt interjected +sentences. Thiers assuredly must have long since worn out any freshness +of surprise or thrilling emotion of any kind at the political +convulsions of France. To him even the spectacle of the standard of +Prussia hoisted on the pinnacles of Versailles could hardly have been an +overpowering wonder. He had seen the soldiers of Prussia picketed in +Paris; he could remember when a fickle Parisian populace, weary of war, +had thronged into the streets to applaud the entrance of the conquering +Czar of Russia. He had seen the Bourbon restored, and had helped to +overthrow him. He had been twice the chief Minister of that Louis +Philippe of Orleans, who in his youth had had to save the Princess his +sister by carrying her off in her night-gown, without time to throw a +shawl around her, and whose long years of exile had led him, in +fulfilment of the prophecy of Danton, to the throne of France at last. +He had helped towards the downfall of that same King his master, and had +striven vainly at the end to stand between him and his fate. He had seen +a second Republic rise and sink; he had now become the envoy of a third +Republic. He had refused to serve an Imperial Napoleon, although his own +teaching and preaching had been among the most effective agencies in +debauching the mind and heart of the nation, and thus rendering a second +Empire possible. People say M. Thiers has no feelings, and I shall not +venture to contradict them--I have often heard the statement from those +who know better than I can pretend to do. It would have been personally +unfortunate for him in his interview with Count von Bismarck if he had +been burthened with feelings. For he must surely in such a case have +felt bitterly the consciousness that the misfortunes which had fallen on +his country were in great measure the fruit of his own doctrines and his +own labors. If the public conscience of France had not been seared and +hardened against all sentiment of obligation to international principle, +where French glory and French aggrandizement were concerned; if France +had not learned to believe that no foreign nation had any rights which +she was bound to respect; if she had not been saturated with the +conviction that every benefit to a neighbor was an injury to herself; if +she had not accepted these views as articles of national faith, and +followed them out wherever she could to their uttermost consequences, +then M. Thiers might be said to have written and spoken and lived in +vain. + +It is probable that a new career presents itself as a possibility to the +indomitable energy, and, as many would say, the insatiable ambition of +M. Thiers. Certainly, there seems not the faintest indication that the +veteran believes himself to lag superfluous on the stage. It is likely +that he rushed into the recent peace negotiations with the hope of +playing over again the part so skilfully played by Talleyrand at the +time of the Congress of Vienna, by virtue of which France obtained so +much advantage which might hardly have been expected, and Germany got so +little of what she might naturally have looked for. I certainly shall +not venture to say whether M. Thiers may not even yet have an important +official career before him. His recent enterprises and expeditions give +evidence enough that he has nerve and physique for any undertaking +likely to attract him, and I see no reason to doubt that his intellect +is as fresh and active as it was thirty years ago. Thiers deserves +nothing but honor for the unconquerable energy and courage which refuse +to yield to years, and will not acknowledge the triumph of time. He +would deserve far greater honor still if we could regard him as a +disinterested patriot; highest honor of all if his principles were as +wise and just as his ambition was unselfish. But charity itself could +hardly hope to reconcile the facts of M. Thiers's long and varied career +with any theory ascribing to the man himself a pure and disinterested +purpose. That a statesman has changed his opinions is often his highest +glory, if, as in the case of Mr. Gladstone, he has thereby grown into +the light and the right. Nor is a change of views necessarily a reproach +to a politician, even though he may have retrograded or gone wrong. But +the man who is invariably a passionate liberal when out of office, and a +severe conservative when in power; who makes it a regular practice to +have one set of opinions while he leads the opposition, and another when +he has succeeded in mounting to the lead of a ministry; such a man +cannot possibly hope to obtain for such systematic alternations the +credit of even a capricious and fantastic sincerity. No one who knows +anything of M. Thiers would consent thus to exalt his heart at the +expense of his head. When the late Lord Cardigan was, rightly or +wrongly, accused of having returned rather too quickly from the famous +charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, his lordship, among other +things, alleged that his horse had run away with him. A bitter critic +thereupon declared that Lord Cardigan could not be allowed thus unfairly +to depreciate his consummate horsemanship, I am afraid we cannot allow +M. Thiers's intelligence and shrewdness to be unjustly depreciated by +the assumption that his political tergiversations were the result of +meaningless caprice. + +M. Thiers is one of the most gifted men of his day. But he is not, in my +judgment, a great man. He wants altogether the grand and stable +qualities of principle and judgment which are needed to constitute +political greatness. His statesmanship is a sort of policy belonging +apparently to the school of the Lower Empire; a Byzantine blending of +intrigue and impudence. He has never had the faculty of reading the +signs of the times, or of understanding that to-day is not necessarily +like yesterday. But for the wonderful gifts of the man, there would seem +to be something positively childish in the egotism which could believe +that it lay in the power of France to maintain, despite of destiny, the +petty princes of Germany and Italy, to arrange the political conditions +of England, and prescribe to the United States how far their principle +of internal cohesion should reach. Victor Hugo is undoubtedly an +egotistic Frenchman. Some of his recent utterances have been foolish and +ridiculous. But the folly has been that of a great soul; the folly has +consisted in appealing, out of all time and place, to sublime and +impracticable sentiments of human brotherhood and love which ought to +influence all human souls, but do not and probably never will. Far +different is the egotism of Thiers. It is the egotism of selfishness, +arrogance, and craft. In a sublime world, Victor Hugo's appeals would +cease to be ridiculous; but the nobler the world, the more ignoble would +seem the doctrines and the policy of Thiers. My own admiration of Thiers +extends only to his skill as a debater and his marvellous intellectual +vitality. The man who, despite the most disheartening disadvantages of +presence, voice, and manner, is yet the most fascinating political +debater of his time, the man who at seventy-three years of age can go up +in a balloon in quest of a new career, must surely command some interest +and admiration, let critical wisdom preach to us never so wisely. But +the best days will have arisen for France when such a political +character and such a literary career as those of M. Thiers shall have +become an anachronism and an impossibility. + + + + +PRINCE NAPOLEON. + + +Some few years ago, seven or eight perhaps, a certain sensation was +created among artists, and journalists, and literary men, and +connoisseurs, and critics, by one of Flandrin's best portraits. +Undoubtedly, the portrait was an admirable likeness; no one who had ever +seen the original could deny or question that; but yet there was an air, +a character, a certain depth of idealized expression about it which +seemed to present the subject in a new light, and threw one into a kind +of doubt as to whether he had ever truly understood the original before. +Either the painter had unduly glorified his sitter, or the sitter had +impressed upon the artist a true idea of his character and intellect +which had never before been revealed to the public at large. The +portrait was that of a man of middle age, with a smooth, broad, +thoughtful brow, a character of command about the finely-formed, +somewhat sensuous lips; chin and nose beautifully moulded, in fact what +ladies who write novels would call "chiselled;" a face degenerating a +little into mere flesh, but still dignified and imposing. Everywhere +over the face there was a tone of dissatisfaction, of disappointment, of +sullenness mingling strangely with the sensuous characteristics, and +conveying somehow the idea of great power and daring ambition unduly +repressed by outward conditions, or rendered barren by inward defects, +or actually frustrated by failure and fate. "A Cæsar out of employment!" +exclaimed a celebrated French author and critic. So much there was of +the Cæsar in the face that no school-boy, no Miss in her teens could +have even glanced at it without saying, "That is the face of a +Bonaparte!" Were not the features a little too massive, it might have +passed for an admirable likeness of the victor of Austerlitz; or, at all +events, of the Napoleon of Leipzig or the Hundred Days. Probably any +ordinary observer would at once have set it down as a portrait of the +great Napoleon, and never thought there could be any doubt about the +matter. It was, in fact, the likeness of Napoleon-Jerome, son of the +rattle-pate King of Westphalia--Prince Napoleon, as he is ordinarily +called, the Plon-plon whom soldiers jeer at, the "Red Prince" whom +priests and Legitimists denounce, the cousin of the Emperor of the +French, the son-in-law of the King of Italy. + +It was only somewhere about, or a little before the time of the Flandrin +portrait, that Prince Napoleon had the honor of becoming a mystery in +the eyes of the public. Up to 1860, his character was quite settled in +public estimation, just as that of Louis Napoleon had been up to the +time of the _coup d'etat_. Public opinion generally settles the +characters of conspicuous men at first by the intuitive process--the +most delightful and easy method possible, dispensing, as it does, with +any necessity for studying the subject, or even knowing anything at all +about it. When the intuitive process has once adjusted a man's +character, it is not easy to get people to believe in any other +adjustment. Still, there are some remarkable instances of a change in +popular opinion. The case of Louis Napoleon, the Emperor, is one +illustration; that of Prince Napoleon, his cousin, is another, not so +remarkable, certainly, but still quite worthy of some attention. + +Prince Napoleon had been before the world more or less since he appeared +as representative of Corsica, in the Constituent Assembly of 1848. He +was made conspicuous, in a negative sort of way, by having had no hand +in the _coup d'etat_, or having even opposed it, although he did not +scruple to profit by its success and enjoy its golden advantages. He +had a command in the Crimean war; he was sent into Tuscany during the +Italian campaign. All that time public opinion in Europe was unanimous +about him. He was a sensualist, a coward, an imbecile, and a blockhead. +He was a fat, stupid, muddle-headed Heliogabalus. Dulness, cowardice, +and profligacy were his principal, perhaps his only characteristics. +When the young Clotilde, of Savoy, was given to him for a wife, a +positive cry of wonder and disgust went up from every country of Europe. +In good truth, it was a scandalous thing to marry a young and innocent +girl to a man nearly as old as her father; and who, undoubtedly, had +been a _mauvais sujet_, and had led a life of dissipation so far. But +Europe cried aloud as if three out of every four princely alliances were +not made on the same principle and endowed with the same character. Had +the Princess Clotilde been affianced to a hog or a gorilla, there could +hardly have been greater wonder and horror expressed, so clear was the +public mind about the stupidity and brutality of Prince Napoleon. + +Certainly, if one looked a little deeper than mere public opinion, he +would have found, even then, that here and there some men, not quite +incapable of judging, did not accept the popular estimate of the +Emperor's cousin. All through the memorable progress of the Congress of +Paris--out of which sprang Italy--we find, by the documents subsequently +made public, that Cavour was in close and frequent consultation with +Prince Napoleon. Once we find Cavour saying that Prince Napoleon +complains of his slowness, his too great moderation, and thinks he could +serve the cause better by a little more boldness. "Perhaps he is right," +says Cavour, in words to that effect; "but I fear I lack his force of +character, his daringness of purpose." Richard Cobden makes the +acquaintance of Prince Napoleon, and is surprised and delighted with his +advanced opinions on the subject of free trade; and deliberately +describes him (I heard Cobden use the words) as "one of the best +informed, if not the very best informed, of all the public men of +Europe." Kinglake observes the Prince during the Crimean campaign--where +Napoleon-Jerome got his reputation for cowardice and his nick-name of +Plon-plon--and finds in him a genius very like that of his uncle, the +great Napoleon, especially a wonderful power of distinguishing at a +glance between the essentials and the accidentals of any question or +situation--and any one who has ever studied politics and public men will +know how rare a faculty that is--and finally declares that he sees no +reason to believe him inferior in courage to the conqueror of Marengo! +Edmond About, not a very dull personage, and not quite given up to +panegyric, bursts into a strain of almost lyrical enthusiasm about the +wit, the brilliancy, the culture, the daring ambition of Prince +Napoleon, and declares that the Prince is kept as much out of the way as +possible, because a man endowed with a soul of such unresting energy, +and the face of the great Emperor, is too formidable a personage to be +seen hanging about the steps of a throne. To close this string of +illustrations, Prince Napoleon is in somewhat frequent and confidential +intercourse with Michel Chevalier, a man not likely to cultivate the +society of heavy blockheads and dullards, even though these might happen +to wear princely coronets. Clearly, public opinion here was even more +directly at odds than it often is with the opinion of some whom we may +call experts; and the difference was so great that there seemed no +possible way of reconciling the two. A man may be a profligate and yet a +man of genius, and even a patriot; but one cannot be a profligate +blockhead and a man of genius, a Cloten and an Alcibiades, a Cæsar and a +Pyrgopolinices at once. + +It was in the early part of 1861 that Prince Napoleon contributed +something of his own spontaneous motion to help in the solution of the +enigma. That was the year when the Emperor removed the restriction which +prevented both Chambers of the Legislature from freely debating the +address, and the press from fully reporting the discussions. There was a +remarkable debate in the Senate, ranging over a great variety of +domestic and foreign questions, and one most memorable event of the +debate was the brilliant, powerful and exhaustive oration delivered, +with splendid energy and rhetorical effect, by Prince Napoleon. _Mon âne +parle et même il parle bien_, declares the astonished Joan, in +Voltaire's scandalous poem, "La Pucelle." Perhaps there was something of +a similar wonder mingled with the burst of genuine admiration which went +up first from Paris, then from France, and finally from Europe and +America, when that magnificent democratic manifesto came to be read. +Certainly, I remember no single speech which, during my time, created +anything like the same sensation in Europe. For it took the outer world +wholly by surprise. It was not a case like that of the sensation lately +created by the florid and fervid eloquence of the young Spanish orator, +Castellar. In this latter case the public were surprised and delighted +to find that there was a master of thrilling rhetoric alive, and arrayed +on the side of democratic freedom, of whose very existence most persons +had been previously ignorant. But, in the case of Prince Napoleon, the +surprise was, that a man whom the public had long known, and always set +down as a stupid sensualist, should suddenly, and without any previous +warning, turn out a great orator, whose eloquence had in it something so +fresh, and genuine, and forcible that it recalled the memory of the most +glorious days of the French Tribune. I write of this celebrated oration +now only from recollection; and, of course, I did not hear it spoken. I +say "of course," because the rules of the French Senate, unlike those of +the Corps Legislatif, forbid the presence of any strangers during the +debates. But those who heard it spoke enthusiastically of the force and +freedom with which it was delivered; the sudden, impulsive fervor of +occasional outbursts; and the wonderful readiness with which the +speaker, when interrupted, as he was very frequently, passed from one +topic to another in order to dispose of the interruption, and replied to +sudden challenge with even prompter repartee. No one could read the +speech without admiring the extent and variety of the political +knowledge it displayed; the prodigality of illustration it flung over +every argument; the thrilling power of some of its rhetorical "phrases;" +the tone of sustained and passionate eloquence which made itself heard +all throughout; and, perhaps above all, that flexible, spontaneous +readiness of language and resource to which every interruption, every +interjected question only acted like a spur to a generous horse, calling +forth new and greater, and wholly unexpected efforts. In the French +Senate I need, perhaps, hardly tell my readers, it is the habit to allow +the utmost license of interruption, and Prince Napoleon's audacious +onslaught on the reactionists and the _parti prêtre_ called out even an +unusual amount of impatient utterance. Those who interrupted took little +by their motion. The energetic Prince tossed off his assailants as a +bull flings the dogs away on the points of his horns. "Our principles +are not yours," scornfully exclaims a Legitimist nobleman--the late +Marquis de la Rochejaquelein, if I remember rightly. "Your principles +are not ours!" vehemently replies the orator. "No, nor are your +antecedents ours. Our pride is that our fathers fell on the battle-field +resisting the foreign invaders whom your fathers brought in for the +subjugation of France!" The speech is studded with sudden replies +equally fervid and telling. Indeed, the whole material of the oration +is rich, strong, and genuine. There seems to be in the eloquence of the +French Chambers, of late, a certain want of freshness and natural power. +I do not speak of Berryer--he had no such want. But Thiers--by far the +ablest living debater who speaks only from preparation--with all his +wonderful science and skill as an artist in debate, appears to be always +somewhat artificial and elaborate. Jules Favre, with his exquisitely +modulated tones, and his unrivalled choice of words, hardly ever appears +to me to rise to that height where the orator, lost in his subject, +compels his hearers to lose themselves also in it. Now, I cannot help +thinking that the two or three really great speeches made by Prince +Napoleon had in them more of the native fibre, force and passion of +oratory than those of almost any Frenchman since the days of Mirabeau. + +However that may be, the effect wrought on the public mind was +unmistakable. Plon-plon had startled Europe. He entered the palace of +the Luxembourg on that memorable day without any repute but that of a +dullard and a sensualist; he came out of it a recognized orator. I have +been told that he lay back in his open carriage and smoked his cigar, as +he drove home from the Senate, to all appearance the same indolent, +sullen, heavy apathetic personage whom all Paris had previously known +and despised. + +One notable effect of this famous speech was the reply which a certain +passage in it drew from Louis Philippe's son, the Duc d'Aumale. Prince +Napoleon had indulged in a bitter sneer or two against former dynasties, +and the Duc d'Aumale, a man of great culture and ability, took up the +quarrel fiercely. The Duke assailed Prince Napoleon in one of the +keenest, most biting pamphlets which the political controversy of our +day has produced. Among other things, the Duke replied to a supposed +imputation on the weakness of Louis Philippe by admitting, frankly, that +the _bourgeois_ King had not dealt with enemies, when in his power, as a +Bonaparte would have done. "_Et tenez_, Prince," wrote the Duke, "the +only time when the word of a Bonaparte may be believed is when he avows +that he will never spare a defenceless enemy." The pamphlet bristled +with points equally sharp and envenomed. But the Duc d'Aumale was not +content with written rejoinder. He sent a challenge to the Prince, and +in serious earnest. The Prince, it need hardly be said, did not accept +the challenge. + + + Yes, like enough, high-battled Cæsar will + Unstate his greatness, and be staged to the show + Against a sworder! + + +Our Cæsar, though not "high-battled," was by no means likely to consent +to be "staged against a sworder." The Emperor hastened to prevent any +disastrous consequences, by insisting that the Prince must not accept +the challenge--and there was no duel. People winked and sneered a good +deal. It is said that the martial King Victor Emmanuel grumbled and +chafed at his son-in-law; but there was no fight. Let me say, for my own +part, that I think Prince Napoleon was quite right in not accepting the +challenge, and that I do not believe him to be wanting in personal +courage. + +From that moment, Prince Napoleon became a conspicuous figure in +European politics, and when any great question arose, men turned +anxiously toward him, curious to know what he would do or say. In three +or four successive sessions he spoke in the Senate, and even with the +impression of the first surprise still strong on the public mind, the +speeches preserved abundantly the reputation which the earliest of them +had so suddenly created. He might be the _enfant terrible_ of the +Bonaparte family; he might be utterly wanting in statesmanship; he +might be insincere; he might be physically a coward; but all the world +now admitted him to be an orator, and, in his way, a man of genius. + +Then it became known to the public, all at once, that the Prince, +whatever his failings, had some rare gifts besides that of eloquence. He +was undoubtedly a man of exquisite taste in all things artistic; he had +an intelligent and liberal knowledge of practical science; he had a +great faculty of organization; he was a keen humorist and wit. He loved +the society of artists, and journalists, and literary men; he associated +with them _en bon camarade_, and he could talk with each upon his own +subject; his _bon mots_ soon began to circulate far and wide. He was a +patron of Revolution. In the innermost privacy of the Palais Royal men +like Mieroslawski, the Polish Red Revolutionist, men like General Türr, +unfolded and discussed their plans. Prince Gortschakoff, in his +despatches at the time of the Polish Rebellion, distinctly pointed to +the palace of Prince Napoleon as the headquarters of the insurrection. +The "Red Prince" grew to be one of the mysterious figures in European +policy. Was he in league with his cousin, the Emperor--or was he his +cousin's enemy? Did he hope, on the strength of that Bonaparte face, and +his secret league with Democracy, to mount one day from the steps of the +throne to the throne itself? Between him and the succession to that +throne intervened only the life of one frail boy. Was Prince Napoleon +preparing for the day when he might play the part of a Gloster (without +the smothering), and, pushing the boy aside, succeed to the crown of the +great Emperor whom in face he so strikingly resembled? + +At last came the celebrated Ajaccio speech. The Emperor had gone to +visit Algeria; the Prince went to deliver an oration at the inauguration +of a monument to Napoleon I., at Ajaccio. The speech was, in brief, a +powerful, passionate denunciation of Austria, and the principles which +Austria represented before Sadowa taught her a lesson of tardy wisdom. +Viewed as the exposition of a professor of history, one might fairly +acknowledge the Prince's speech to have illustrated eloquently some +solid and stern truths, which Europe would have done well even then to +consider deeply. Subsequent events have justified and illuminated many +of what then seemed the most startling utterances of the orator. +Austria, for example, practically admits, by her present policy, the +justice of much that Prince Napoleon pleaded against her. But as the +speech of the Emperor's cousin; of one who stood in near order of +succession to the throne; of one who had only just been raised to an +office in the State so high that in the absence of the sovereign it made +him seem the sovereign's proper representative, it was undoubtedly a +piece of marvellous indiscretion. Europe stood amazed at its outspoken +audacity. The Emperor could not overlook it; and he publicly repudiated +it. Prince Napoleon resigned his public offices--including that of +President of the Commissioners of the International Exhibition, which +undertaking suffered sadly from lack of his organizing capacity and his +admirable taste and judgment--and the Imperial orator of Democracy +disappeared from the public stage as suddenly, and amid as much tumult, +as he had entered upon it. + +Prince Napoleon has, indeed, been taken into favor since by his Imperial +cousin, and has been sent on one or two missions, more or less important +or mysterious; but he has never, from the date of the Ajaccio speech up +to the present moment, played any important part as a public man. He is +not, however, "played out." His energy, his ambition, his ability, will +assuredly bring him prominently before the public again. Let us, +meanwhile, endeavor to set before the readers of THE GALAXY a fair and +true picture of the man, free alike from the exaggerated proportions +which wondering _quid nuncs_ or parasites attribute to him, and from +the distortions of unfriendly painters. Exaggeration of both kinds +apart, Prince Napoleon is really one of the most remarkable figures on +the present stage of French history. He is, at least, a man of great +possibilities. Let us try to ascertain fairly what he is, and what are +his chances for the future. + +Born of a hair-brained, eccentric, adventure-seeking, negligent, selfish +father, Prince Napoleon had little of the advantages of a home +education. His boyhood, his youth, were passed in a vagrant kind of way, +ranging from country to country, from court to court. He started in life +with great natural talents, a strong tendency to something not very +unlike rowdyism, an immense ambition, an almost equally vast indolence, +a deep and genuine love of arts, letters, and luxury, an eccentric, +fitful temper, and a predominant pride in that relationship to the great +Emperor which is so plainly stamped upon his face. Without entering into +any questions of current scandal, everybody must know that Napoleon III. +has nothing of the Bonaparte in his face, a fact on which Prince +Napoleon, in his earlier and wilder days, was not always very slow to +comment. Indolence, love of luxury, and a capricious temper have, +perhaps, been the chief enemies which have hitherto prevented the latter +from fulfilling any high ambition. It would be affectation to ignore the +fact that Prince Napoleon flung many years away in mere dissipation. +Stories are told in Paris which would represent him almost as a +Vitellius or an Egalité in profligacy--stories some of which simply +transcend belief by their very monstrosity. Even to this day, to this +hour, it is the firm conviction of the general public that the Emperor's +cousin is steeped to the lips in sensuality. Now, rejecting, of course, +a huge mass of this scandal, it is certain that Prince Napoleon was, for +a long time, a downright _mauvais sujet_; it is by no means certain that +he has, even at his present mature age, discarded all his evil habits. +His temper is much against him. People habitually contrast the unvarying +courtesy and self-control of the Emperor with the occasional +brusqueness, and even rudeness, of the Prince. True that Prince Napoleon +can be frankly and warmly familiar with his intimates, and even that, +like Prince Hal, he sometimes encourages a degree of familiarity which +hardly tends to mutual respect. But the outer world cannot always rely +on him. He can be undiplomatically rough and hot, and he has a gift of +biting jest which is perhaps one of the most dangerous qualities a +statesman can cultivate. Then there is a personal restlessness about him +which even princes cannot afford safely to indulge. He has hardly ever +had any official position assigned to him which he did not sometime or +other scornfully abandon on the spur of some sudden impulse. The Madrid +embassy in former days, the Algerian administration, the Crimean +command--these and other offices he only accepted to resign. He has +wandered more widely over the face of the earth than any other living +prince--probably than any other prince that ever lived. It used to be +humorously said of him that he was qualifying to become a teacher of +geography, in the event of fortune once more driving the race of +Bonaparte into exile and obscurity. What port is there that has not +sheltered his wandering yacht? He has pleasant dwellings enough to +induce a man to stay at home. His Palais Royal is one of the most +elegant and tasteful abodes belonging to a European prince. The stranger +in Paris who is fortunate enough to obtain admission to it--and, indeed, +admission is easy to procure--must be sadly wanting in taste if he does +not admire the treasures of art and _vertu_ which are laid up there, and +the easy, graceful manner of their arrangement. Nothing of the air of +the show-place is breathed there; no rules, no conditions, no watchful, +dogging lacqueys or sentinels make the visitor uncomfortable. Once +admitted, the stranger goes where he will, and admires and examines what +he pleases. He finds there curiosities and relics, medals and statues, +bronzes and stones from every land in which history or romance takes any +interest; he gazes on the latest artistic successes--Doré's magnificent +lights and shadows, Gérome's audacious nudities; he observes autograph +collections of value inestimable; he notices that on the tables, here +and there, lie the newest triumphs or sensations of literature--the poem +that every one is just talking of, the play that fills the theatres, +George Sand's last novel, Rénan's new volume, Taine's freshest +criticism: he is impressed everywhere with the conviction that he is in +the house of a man of high culture and active intellect, who keeps up +with the progress of the world in arts, and letters, and politics. Then +there was, until lately, the famous Pompeiian Palace, in one of the +avenues of the Champs Elysées, which ranked among the curiosities of +Paris, but which Prince Napoleon has at last chosen, or been compelled, +to sell. On the Swiss shore of the lake of Geneva, one of the most +remarkable objects that attract the eye of the tourist who steams from +Geneva to Lausanne, is La Bergerie, the palace of Prince Napoleon. But +the owner of these palaces spends little of his time in them. His wife, +the Princess Clotilde, stays at home and delights in her children, and +shows them with pride to her visitors, while her restless husband is +steaming in and out of the ports of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, or +the Baltic. Prince Napoleon has not found his place yet, say Edmond +About and other admirers--when he does he will settle firmly to it. He +is a restless, unmanageable idler and scamp, say his enemies--unstable +as water, he shall not excel. Meanwhile years go by, and Prince Napoleon +has long left even the latest verge of youth behind him; and he is only +a possibility as yet, and is popular with no political party in France. + +Strange that this avowed and ostentatious Democrat, this eloquent, +powerful spokesman of French Radicalism, is not popular even with +Democrats and Red Republicans. They do not trust him. They cannot +understand how he can honestly extend one hand to Democracy, while in +the other he receives the magnificent revenues assigned to him by +Despotism. One might have thought that nothing would be more easy than +for this man, with his daring, his ambition, his brilliant talents, his +commanding eloquence, his democratic principles, and his Napoleon face, +to make himself the idol of French Democracy. Yet he has utterly failed +to do so. As a politician, he has almost invariably upheld the rightful +cause, and accurately foretold the course of events. He believed in the +possibility of Italy's resurrection long before there was any idea of +his becoming son-in-law to a King of Italy; he has been one of the most +earnest friends of the cause of Poland; he saw long ago what every one +sees now, that the fall of the Austrian system was an absolute necessity +to the progress of Europe; he was a steady supporter of the American +Union, and when it was the fashion in France, as in England, to regard +the independence of the Southern Confederacy as all but an accomplished +fact, he remained firm in the conviction that the North was destined to +triumph. With all his characteristic recklessness and impetuosity, he +has many times shown a cool and penetrating judgment, hardly surpassed +by that of any other European statesman. Yet the undeniable fact +remains, that his opinion carries with it comparatively little weight, +and that no party recognizes him as a leader. + +Is he insincere? Most people say he is. They say that, with all his +professions of democratic faith, he delights in his princely rank and +his princely revenues; that he is selfish, grasping, luxurious, arrogant +and deceitful. The army despises him; the populace do not trust him. +Now, for myself, I do not accept this view of the character of Prince +Napoleon. I think he is a sincere Democrat, a genuine lover of liberty +and progress. But I think, at the same time, that he is cursed with some +of the vices of Alcibiades, and some of the vices of Mirabeau; that he +has the habitual indolence almost of a Vendôme, with Vendôme's +occasional outbursts of sudden energy; that a love of luxury, and a +restlessness of character, and fretfulness of temper stand in his way, +and are his enemies. I doubt whether he will ever play a great +historical part, whether he ever will do much more than he has done. His +character wants that backbone of earnest, strong simplicity and faith, +without which even the most brilliant talents can hardly achieve +political greatness. He will probably rank in history among the +Might-Have-Beens. Assuredly, he has in him the capacity to play a great +part. In knowledge and culture, he is far, indeed, superior to his +uncle, Napoleon I.; in justice of political conviction, he is a long way +in advance of his cousin, Napoleon III. Taken for all in all, he is the +most lavishly gifted of the race of the Bonapartes--and what a part in +the cause of civilization and liberty might not be played by a Bonaparte +endowed with genius and culture, and faithful to high and true +convictions! But the time seems going by, if not gone by, when even +admirers could expect to see Prince Napoleon play such a part. Probably +the disturbing, distracting vein of unconquerable levity so conspicuous +in the character of his father, is the marplot of the son's career, too. +After all, Prince Napoleon is perhaps more of an Antony than a +Cæsar--was not Antony, too, an orator, a wit, a lover of art and +letters, a lover of luxury and free companionship, and woman? Doubtless +Prince Napoleon will emerge again, some time and somehow, from his +present condition of comparative obscurity. Any day, any crisis, any +sudden impulse may bring him up to the front again. But I doubt whether +the dynasty of the Bonapartes, the cause of democratic freedom, the +destinies of France, will be influenced much for good or evil, by this +man of rare and varied gifts--of almost measureless possibilities--the +restless, reckless, eloquent, brilliant Imperial Democrat of the Palais +Royal, and Red Republican of the Empire--the long misunderstood and yet +scarcely comprehended Prince Napoleon. + + + + +THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. + + +There used to be a story current in London, which I dare say is not +true, to the effect that her gracious Majesty Queen Victoria once +demurred to the Prince and Princess of Wales showing themselves too +freely in society, and asked them angrily whether they meant to make +themselves "as common as the Cambridges." + +Certainly the Duke of Cambridge and his sister the Princess Mary, now +Princess of Teck, were for a long time, if not exactly "common," if not +precisely popular, the most social, the most easily approached, and the +most often seen in public pageantry of all members of the royal family. +The Princess Mary might perhaps fairly be called popular. The people +liked her fine, winsome face, her plump and buxom form. If she has not a +kindly, warm, and generous heart, then surely physiognomy is no index of +character. But the Duke of Cambridge, although very commonly seen in +public, and ready to give his presence and his support to almost any +philanthropic meeting and institution which can claim to be fashionable, +never seems to have attained any degree of popularity. Like his father, +who enjoyed the repute of being the worst after-dinner speaker who ever +opened his mouth, the Duke of Cambridge is to be found acting as +chairman of some public banquet once a week on an average during the +London season. He is president or patron of no end of public charities +and other institutions. Yet the people do not seem to care anything +about him, or even to like him. His appearance is not in his favor. He +is handsome in a certain sense, but he is heavy, stolid, +sensual-looking, and even gross in form and face. He has indeed nearly +all the peculiarities of physiognomy which specially belong to the most +typical members of the Guelph family, and there is, moreover, despite +the obesity which usually suggests careless good-humor, something +sinister or secret in his expression not pleasant to look upon. He seems +to be a man of respectable average abilities. He is not a remarkably bad +speaker. I think when he addresses the House of Lords, which he does +rarely, or a public meeting or dinner-party, which he does often, he +acquits himself rather better than the ordinary county member of +Parliament. Judging by his apparent mental capacity and his style as a +speaker, he ought to be rather popular than otherwise in England, for +the English people like respectable mediocrity and not talent in their +princes. "He is so respectable and such an ass," says Thackeray speaking +of somebody, "that I positively wonder he didn't get on in England." The +Duke of Cambridge is so respectable (in intellectual capacity) and so +dull that I positively wonder he has not been popular in England. But +popular he never has been. No such clamorous detestation follows him as +used to pursue the late Duke of Cumberland, subsequently King of +Hanover. No such accusations have been made against him as were +familiarly pressed against the Duke of York. Even against the living +Prince of Wales there are charges made by common scandal more serious +than any that are usually talked of in regard to the Duke of Cambridge. +But the English public likes the Duke as little as it could like any +royal personage. England has lately been growing very jealous of the +manner in which valuable appointments are heaped on members of the +Queen's family. The Duke of Cambridge has long enjoyed some sinecure +places of liberal revenue, and he holds one office of inestimable +influence, for which he has never proved himself qualified, and for +which common report declares him to be utterly disqualified. He is +Commander-in-Chief of the British army; and that I believe to be his +grand offence in the eyes of the British public. Many offences incident +to his position are indeed charged upon him. It is said that he makes an +unfair use, for purposes of favoritism, of the immense patronage which +his office places at his disposal. Some years ago scandal used to charge +him with advancing men out of the same motive which induced the Marquis +of Steyne to obtain an appointment for Colonel Rawdon Crawley. The +private life of the Duke is said to have been immoral, and unluckily for +him it so happened that some of his closest friends and favorites became +now and then involved in scandals of which the law courts had to take +cognizance. But had none of these things been so, or been said, I think +the Duke of Cambridge would have lacked popularity just as much as he +does. The English people are silently angry with him, mainly because he +is an anachronism--a man raised to the most influential public +appointment the sovereign can bestow, for no other reason than because +he is a member of the royal family. The Duke of Cambridge in the office +of Commander-in-Chief is an anachronism at the head of an anomaly. The +system is unfit for the army or the country; the man is incompetent to +manage any military system, good or bad. As the question of army +reorganization, now under debate in England, has a grand political +importance, transcending by far its utmost possible military import, and +as the position of the Duke of Cambridge is one of the peculiar and +typical anomalies about to be abolished, it may surely interest American +readers if I occupy a few pages in describing the man and the system. +Altering slightly the words of Bugeaud to Louis Philippe in 1848, this +reorganization of the army in England is not a reform, but a revolution. +It strikes out the keystone from the arch of the fabric of English +aristocracy. + +The Duke of Cambridge is, as everybody knows, the first cousin of the +Queen of England. He is about the same age as the Queen. When both were +young it used to be said that he cherished hopes of becoming her +husband. He is now himself one of the victims of the odious royal +marriage act, which in England acknowledges as valid no marriage with a +subject contracted by a member of the royal family without the consent +of the sovereign. The Duke of Cambridge, it is well known, is privately +married to a lady of respectable position and of character which has +never been reproached, but whom, nevertheless, he cannot present to the +world as his wife because the royal consent has not ratified the +marriage. Many readers of THE GALAXY may perhaps remember that only four +or five years ago there was some little commotion created in England by +the report, never contradicted, that a princess of the royal house had +set her heart upon marrying a young English nobleman who loved her, and +that the Queen utterly refused to give her consent. Much sympathy was +felt for the princess, because, as she was not a daughter of the Queen +and was not young enough to be reasonably expected to acknowledge the +control of any relative, this rigorous exercise of a merely technical +power seemed particularly unjust and odious. It will be seen, therefore, +that the objections raised against the Duke and his position in England +are not founded on the belief that he is himself as an individual +inordinately favored by the sovereign; but on the obvious fact that +place and power are given to him because he is a member of the reigning +family. The Duke of Cambridge has never shown the slightest military +talent, the faintest capacity for the business of war. In his only +campaign he proved worse than useless, and more than once made a +humiliating exhibition, not of cowardice, but of utter incapacity and +flaccid nervelessness. His warmest admirer never ventured to pretend +that the Duke was personally the best man to take the place of +Commander-in-Chief. While he was constantly accused by rumor and +sometimes by public insinuation of blundering, of obstinacy, of +ignorance, of gross favoritism, no defence ever made for him, no eulogy +ever pronounced upon him, went the length of describing him as a +well-qualified head of the military organization. His upholders and +panegyrists were content with pleading virtually that he was by no means +a bad sort of Commander-in-Chief; that he was not fairly responsible for +this or that blunder or malversation; that on the whole there might have +been men worse fitted than he for the place. The social vindication of +the appointment was that which proved very naturally its worst offence +in the eyes of the public--the fact that the sovereign and her family +desired that the place should be given to the Duke of Cambridge, and +that the ministers then in power either had not the courage or did not +think it worth their while to resist the royal inclination. + +The Duke, if he never proved himself much of a soldier, had at least +opportunity enough to learn all the ordinary business of his profession. +He actually is, and always has been, a professional soldier--not +nominally an officer, as the late Prince Albert was, or as the Prince of +Wales is, or as the Princess Victoria (Crown Princess of Prussia) may be +said for that matter to be, the lady holding, I believe, an appointment +as colonel of some regiment, and being doubtless just as well acquainted +with her regimental duties as her fat and heavy brother. The Duke of +Cambridge was made a colonel at the age of eighteen, and he did the +ordinary barrack and garrison duties of his place. He used when young to +be rather popular in garrison towns. In Dublin, for example, I think +Prince George of Cambridge, as he was then called, was followed with +glances of admiration by many hundred pairs of bright eyes. On the death +of his father (whose after-dinner eloquence used to afford "Punch" a +constant subject for mirth) Prince George became in 1850 Duke of +Cambridge. He holds some appointments which I presume are sinecures to +him; among the rest he is keeper of some of the royal parks (I don't +know the precise title of his office), and the name of "George" may be +seen appended to edicts inscribed on various placards on the trees and +gates near Buckingham Palace. Nothing in particular was known about him +as a soldier until the Crimean war. Indeed, up to that time there had +been for many years as little chance for an English officer to prove his +capacity as there was for a West Point man to show what he was worth in +the period between the Mexican war and the attack on Fort Sumter. When +the Crimean war broke out the Duke was appointed to the command of the +first division of the army sent against the Russians. I believe it is +beyond all doubt that he proved himself unfit for the business of war. +He "lost his head," people say; he could not stand the sights and sounds +of the battle-field. It required on one occasion--at Inkerman, I +believe--the prompt and sharp interference of the late Lord Clyde, then +Sir Colin Campbell, to prevent his Royal Highness from making a sad mess +of his command. It is not likely that he wanted personal courage--few +princes do; but his nerves gave way, and as he could be of no further +use to anybody he was induced to return home. France and England each +sent a fat prince, cousin of the reigning sovereign, to the Crimean war, +and each prince rather suddenly came home again with the invidious +whispers of the malign unpleasantly criticising his retreat from the +field. After the Duke's return the corporation of Liverpool gave him +(why, no man could well say) a grand triumphal entry, and I remember +that an irreverent and cynical member of one of the local boards +suggested that among the devices exhibited in honor of the illustrious +visitor, a white feather would be an appropriate emblem. There the +Duke's active military career began and ended. He had not distinguished +himself. Perhaps he had not disgraced himself; perhaps it was really +only ill-health which prevented him from proving himself as genuine a +warrior as his relative, the Crown Prince of Prussia. But the English +people only saw that the Duke went out to the war and very quickly came +back again. Julius Cæsar or the First Napoleon or General Sherman might +have had to do the same thing under the same circumstances; but then +these more lucky soldiers did not have to do it, and therefore were able +to prove their military capacity. One thing very certain is, that +without such good fortune and such proof of capacity neither Cæsar, +Napoleon, nor Sherman would ever have been made commander-in-chief, and +therein again they were unlike the Duke of Cambridge. For it was not +long after the Duke's return home that on the death or resignation (I +don't now quite remember which) of Viscount Hardinge, our heavy "George" +was made Commander-in-Chief of the British army. I venture to think +that, taking all the conditions of the time and the appointment into +consideration, no more unreasonable, no more unjustifiable instance of +military promotion was ever seen in England. + +For observe, that the worst thing about the appointment of the Duke of +Cambridge is not that an incompetent person obtains by virtue of his +rank the highest military position in the State. If this were all, there +might be just the same thing said of almost every other European +country--indeed, of almost every other country. The King of Prussia was +Commander-in-Chief of the armies of North Germany, but no one supposed +that he was really competent to discharge all the duties of such a +position. Abraham Lincoln was Commander-in-Chief of the Federal army, by +virtue of his office of President; but no one supposed that his military +knowledge and capacity would ever have recommended him to such a post. +The appointment in each case was only nominal, and as a matter of +political convenience and propriety. It did not seem wise or even safe +that the supreme military authority should be formally intrusted to any +one but the ruler or the President. It was thoroughly understood that +the duties of the office were discharged by some professional expert, +for whose work the King or the President was responsible to the nation. +But the office of Commander-in-Chief of the English army is something +quite different from this. It is understood to be a genuine office, the +occupant actually doing the work and having the authority. In the +lifetime of the Duke of Wellington the country had the services of the +very best Commander-in-Chief England could have selected. The sound and +wise principle which dictated that appointment is really the principle +on which the office is based in England. The Commander-in-Chief is not +regarded, as on the Continent, in the light of an ornamental president +of a great bureau whose duties are done by others, but as the most +efficient military officer, the man best qualified to do the work. +Marlborough was Commander-in-Chief, and so was Schomberg, and so was +General Seymour Conway. When in 1828 the Duke of Wellington became Prime +Minister, and therefore resigned the command of the army, Lord Hill was +placed at the head of military affairs. The Duke of Wellington resumed +the command in 1842 and held it to his death, when it was given to +Viscount Hardinge, a capable man. The title of the office was not, I +believe, actually "Commander-in-Chief," but "General +Commanding-in-Chief." It was, if I remember rightly, owing to the +disasters arising out of military mismanagement in the Crimea, that the +changes were made which created a distinct Secretary of War and gave to +the office of Commander-in-Chief its present title. Therefore it will be +seen that the intrusting the command of the army to the Duke of +Cambridge is not even justifiable on the ground that it follows an old +established custom. It is, on the contrary, an innovation, and one which +illustrates the worst possible principle. There is nothing to be said +for it. No necessity justified or even excused it. When Viscount +Hardinge died, if the principle adopted in his case--that of appointing +the best man to the place--had been still in favor, there were many +military generals in England, any one of whom would have filled the +office with efficiency and credit. But the superstition of rank +prevailed. The Duke of Wellington is believed to have once recommended +that on his death Prince Albert, the Queen's husband, should be created +Commander-in-Chief. Ridiculous as the suggestion may seem, it would +probably have been a far better arrangement than that which was more +recently adopted. Prince Albert could hardly have been called a +professional soldier at all; and this would have been greatly in his +favor. For he would have filled the place merely as the King of Prussia +does; he would have intrusted the actual duties to some qualified man, +and being endowed with remarkable judgment, temper, and discretion, he +would doubtless have found the right man for the work. But the Duke of +Cambridge, as a professional soldier, although a very indifferent one, +is expected to perform and does perform the duties of his office, after +his own fashion. He is too high in rank to be openly rebuked, +contradicted, or called to account; he is not high enough to be accepted +as a mere official ornament or figurehead. He is too much of a +professional general to become willingly the pupil and instrument of a +more skilled subordinate; too little of a professional general to render +his authority of any real value, or to be properly qualified for any +high military position. So the Duke of Cambridge did actually direct the +affairs of the army, interfered in everything, was supreme in +everything, and I think it is not too much to say mismanaged everything. +He stood in the way of all useful reforms; he sheltered old abuses; he +was as dictatorial as though he had the military genius of a Wellington +or a Von Moltke; he was as independent of public opinion as the Mikado +of Japan. The kind of mistakes which were made and abuses which were +committed under his administration were not such as to attract much of +the attention or interest of the newspapers. In England the press, +moreover, is not supposed to be at liberty to criticise princes. Of late +some little efforts at daring innovation are made in this direction; but +as a rule, unless a prince does something very wrong indeed, he is +secure from any censure or even criticism on the part of the newspapers. +There was, besides, one great practical difficulty in the way of any one +inclined to criticise the military administration of the Duke of +Cambridge. The War Department in England had grown to be a kind of +anomalous two-headed institution. There is a Secretary of War, who sits +in the House of Lords or the House of Commons, as the case may be, and +whom every one can challenge, criticise, and censure as he pleases. +There is the Commander-in-Chief. Which of these two functionaries is the +superior? The theory of course is that the Secretary of War is supreme; +that he is responsible to Parliament, and that every official in the +department is responsible to him. But everybody in England knows that +this is not the actual case. There stands in Pall Mall, not far from the +residence of the Prince of Wales, a plain business-like structure, with +a statue of the late Lord Herbert of Lea (the Sidney Herbert of Crimean +days) in front of it; and this is the War Office, where the Secretary of +War is in power. But there is in Whitehall another building far better +known to Londoners and strangers alike; an old-fashioned, unlovely, +shabby-looking sort of barrack, with a clock in its shapeless cupola and +two small arches in its front, in each of which enclosures sits all day +a gigantic horseman in steel cuirass and high jack-boots. The country +visitor comes here to wonder at the size and the accoutrements of the +splendid soldiers; the nursery-maid loves the spot, and gazes with open +mouth and sparkling eyes at the athletic cavaliers, and too often, like +Hylas sent with his urn to the fountain, "_proposito florem prætulit +officio_," prefers looking at the gorgeous military carnation blazing +before her to the duty of watching her infantile charge in the +perambulator. This building is the famous "Horse Guards," where the +Commander-in-Chief is enthroned. I suppose the theory of the thing was, +that while the army system was to be shaped out and directed in the War +Office, the actual details of practical administration were to be +managed at the Horse Guards. But of late years the relations of the two +departments appear to have got into an almost inextricable and hopeless +muddle, so that no one can pretend to say where the responsibility of +the War Office ends or the authority of the Horse Guards begins. The +Duke of Cambridge, it is said, habitually acts upon his own authority +and ignores the War Office altogether. Things are done by him of which +the Secretary for War knows nothing until they are done. The late Sidney +Herbert, a man devoted to the duties of the War Department, over which +he presided for some years, once emphatically refused during a debate in +the House of Commons to evade the responsibility of some step taken at +the Horse Guards, by pleading that it was made without the knowledge of +the War Office. He declared that he considered himself, as War +Secretary, responsible to Parliament for everything done in any office +of the War Department. But it was quite evident from the tone of his +speech that the thing had been done without his knowledge or consent, +and that if anybody but the Queen's cousin had done it there would have +been a "row in the building." Now Sidney Herbert was an aristocrat of +high rank, of splendid fortune, of unsurpassed social dignity and +influence, of great political talents and reputation. If he then could +not attempt to control and rebuke the Queen's cousin, how could such an +attempt be expected from a man like Mr. Cardwell, the present War +Secretary? Mr. Cardwell is a dull, steady-going, respectable man, who +has no pretension to anything like the rank, social influence, or even +popularity of Sidney Herbert. In fact, the War Secretaries stand +sometimes in much the same relation toward the Duke of Cambridge that a +New York judge occasionally holds toward one of the great leaders of the +bar who pleads before him and is formally supposed to acknowledge his +superior authority. The person holding the position nominally superior +feels himself in reality quite "over-crowed," to use a Spenserian +expression, by the influence, importance, and dignity of the other. Let +any stranger in London who happens to be in the gallery of the House of +Lords, observe the astonishing deference with which even a pure-blooded +marquis or earl of antique title will receive the greeting of the Duke +of Cambridge; and then say what chance there is of a War Secretary, who +probably belongs to the middle or manufacturing classes, venturing to +dictate to or rebuke so tremendous a _magnifico_. Lately an audacious +critic of the Duke has started up in the person of a clever, vivacious +young member of Parliament, George Otto Trevelyan, son of one of the +ablest Indian administrators and nephew of Lord Macaulay. Trevelyan once +held, I think, some subordinate place in the War Department, and he has +lately been horrifying the conservatism and veneration of English +society by boldly making speeches in which he attacks the Queen's +cousin, declares that the latter is an injury and nuisance to the army +system, that he stands in the way of all improvement, and that he ought +to be abolished. But although most people do profoundly and potently +believe what this saucy Trevelyan says, yet his words find little echo +in public debate, and his direct motions in the House of Commons have +been unsuccessful. The Duke, I perceive, has lately, however, descended +so far from his position of supreme dignity as to defend himself in a +public speech, and to claim the merit of having always been a +progressive and indeed rather daring army reformer. But I do not believe +the English Government or Parliament would ever have ventured to take +one step to lessen the Duke of Cambridge's power of doing harm to the +military service, were it not for the pressure of events with which +England had nothing directly to do, and which nevertheless have proved +too strong for the resistance even of princes and of vested interests. +The practical dethronement of the Duke of Cambridge I hold to be as +certain as any mortal event still in the future can well be declared. +The anomaly, the inconvenience, the degradation which English +Governments and Parliaments would have endured forever if left to +themselves, may be regarded as destined to be swept away by the same +flood which overwhelmed the military organization of France, and washed +the Bonapartes off the throne of the Tuileries. The Duke of Cambridge +too had to surrender at Sedan. + +For with the overwhelming successes of Prussia and the unparalleled +collapse of France, there arose in England so loud and general a cry for +the reorganization of the decaying old army system that no Government +could possibly attempt to disregard it. Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet had the +sense and spirit to see that no middle course of reform would be worth +anything. _In medio tutissimus ibis_ would never apply to this case. Any +reform must count on the obstinate opposition of vested interests--a +tremendous power in English affairs; and the only way to bear down that +opposition would be by introducing a reform so thorough and grand as to +carry with it the enthusiasm of popular support. Therefore the +Government have undertaken a new work of revolution, certainly not less +bold than that which overthrew the Irish Church, and destined perhaps to +have a still more decisive influence on the political organization of +English society. One of the many changes this measure will +introduce--and it is certain to be carried, first or last--will be the +extinction of the anomaly now represented by the position of the Duke of +Cambridge. I shall not inflict any of the details of the measure upon my +readers in THE GALAXY, and shall even give but slight attention to such +of its main features as are of purely military character and import. But +I shall endeavor briefly to make it clear that some of the changes it +proposes to introduce will have a profound influence on the political +and social condition of England, and are in fact steps in that great +English revolution which is steadily marching on under our very eyes. + +First comes the abolition of the purchase system as regards the +commissions held by military officers. Except in certain regiments, and +certain branches of the service outside England itself, the rule is that +an officer obtains his commission by purchase. Promotion can be bought +in the same way. A commission is a vested interest. The owner has paid +so much for it, and expects to sell it for an equal sum. The regulation +price recognized by law and the Horse Guards is by no means the actual +price of the article. It is worth ever so much more to the holder, and +he must of course have its real, not its regulation value. The pay in +the English army is, for the officers, ridiculously small. The habits of +the army, among officers, are ridiculously expensive. An officer is not +expected to live upon his pay. Whether expected to do so or not, he +could hardly accomplish the feat under any conditions; under the common +conditions of an officers' mess-room the thing would be utterly +impossible. Now let any reader ask himself what becomes of a department +of the public service where you obtain admission by payment, and where +when admitted you receive practically no remuneration? Of course it +becomes a mere club and association for the wealthy and aristocratic; a +brotherhood into which admission is sought for the sake of social +distinction. Every man of rank in England will, as a matter of course, +have one of his sons in the army. It is the right sort of thing to do, +like hunting or going into the House of Commons. Then, on the other +hand, every person who has made money sends one of his sons into the +army, because thereby he acquires a stamp of gentility. Poverty and +merit have no chance and no business there. It certainly is not true, as +is commonly believed here, that promotion from the ranks never takes +place; but speaking of the system as a whole, one may fairly say that +promotion from the ranks is opposed to the ordinary regulation, and +occurs so rarely that it need hardly be taken into our consideration +here. Therefore the English army became an essentially aristocratic +service. To be an officer was the right of the aristocratic, the luxury, +ambition, and ornament of the wealthy. One is almost afraid now to +venture on saying anything in praise of the French military system; but +it had, if I do not greatly mistake, one regulation among others which +honorably distinguished it from the English. I believe it was not +permitted to a wealthy officer to distinguish himself from his fellows +while in barracks by extravagance of expenditure. He had to live as the +others lived. But the English system allowed full scope to wealth, and +the result was that certain regiments prided themselves on luxury and +ostentation, and a poor man, or even a man of moderate means, could not +live in them. Add to all this that while the expenses were great and the +pay next to nothing, there were certain valuable prizes, sinecures, and +monopolies to be had in the army, which favoritism and family influence +could procure, and which therefore rendered it additionally desirable +that the control of the military organization should be retained in the +hands of the aristocracy. John Bright described the military and +diplomatic services of England as "a gigantic system of outdoor relief +for the broken-down members of the British aristocracy." This was +especially true of the military service, which had a large number of +rich and pleasant prizes to be awarded at the uncontrolled discretion of +the authorities. It might be fairly said that every aristocratic family +had at least one scion in the army. Every aristocratic family had +likewise one in the House of Commons; sometimes two, or three, or four +sons and nephews. The mere numerical strength of the military officers +who had seats in the House of Commons was enough to hold up a tremendous +barrier in the way of army reform or political reform. It was as clear +as light that a popular Parliament would among its very first works of +reformation proceed to throw open the army to the competition of merit, +independently of either aristocratic rank or moneyed influence. So the +military men in the House of Commons were, with some few and remarkable +exceptions, steady Tories and firm opponents of all reform either in the +army or the political system. Year after year did gallant old De Lacy +Evans bring forward his motion for the abolition of the purchase system +in vain. He was always met by the supposed practical authority of the +great bulk of the military members and by the dead weight of +aristocratic influence and vested interests. The army, as then +organized, was at once the fortress and the trophy of the English +aristocracy. At last the effort at reform seemed to be given up +altogether. Though humane reformers did at last succeed in getting rid +of the detestable system of flogging in the army, the practice of +trafficking in commissions seemed safer than ever. One difficulty in the +way of its abolition was always pressed with special emphasis by persons +who otherwise were prodigal enough of the public money--the cost such a +measure would entail on the people of England. It would be impossible, +of course, to abolish such a system without compensating those who had +paid money for the commissions which thenceforward could be sold no +more. The amount of money required for such compensation would be some +forty millions of dollars. Moreover, when commissions are given away +among all classes according to merit, the pay of officers will have to +be raised. It would indeed be a cruel mockery to give poor Claude +Melnotte an officer's rank if he does not at the same time get pay +enough to enable him to live. Therefore for once the English aristocrats +and Tories were heard to raise their voices in favor of the saving of +public money; but they were only assuming the attitude of economists for +the sake of upholding their own privileges and defending their vested +interests. There will, of course, be a fierce and long fight made even +still against the change, but the change, I take it, will be +accomplished. The English army will cease to be an army officered +exclusively from among the ranks of the aristocracy and the wealthy. Our +time has seen no step attempted in English political affairs more +distinctly democratic than this. I can hardly realize to my mind what +England will be like when commissions and promotions in its military +service are the recognized prizes of merit in whatever rank of life, and +are won by open competition. + +Next, the English Government, approaching rather delicately the +difficulty about the Commander-in-Chief, propose to unite the two +departments of the service under one roof. The Commander-in-Chief and +his staff and offices will be transferred from the Horse Guards in +Whitehall to the War Office in Pall Mall, and placed more directly under +the control of the Secretary of War. This change must inevitably bring +about the end at which it aims--the abolition of the embarrassing and +injurious dualism of system now prevailing. It must indeed reduce the +General commanding-in-chief to his proper position as the executive +officer of the War Secretary, who is himself the servant of Parliament. +Such a position would entail no restriction whatever on the military +capacity or genius of the Commander-in-Chief were he another +Marlborough; but it would make him responsible to somebody who is +himself responsible to the House of Commons. I think it may be taken for +granted that this will come to mean, sooner or later, the shelving of +the Duke of Cambridge. It may be hoped that he will not consider it +consistent with his dignity as a member of the royal family to remain in +a position thus made virtually that of a subordinate. Some other place +perhaps will be found for the cousin of the Queen. I have already heard +some talk about the possibility and propriety of sending his Royal +Highness as Lord Lieutenant to govern Ireland. Why not? There is a _vile +corpus_ convenient and ready to hand for any experiment. It would be +quite in keeping with all the traditions of English rule, with the +practice which was illustrated only a few years ago when the noisy and +brainless scamp Sir Robert Peel, whom "Punch" christened "The Mountebank +Member," was made Irish Secretary, if the Duke of Cambridge were allowed +to soothe his offended dignity by practising his skilful hand on the +government of Ireland. + +Finally, the Government propose to introduce measures calculated to weld +together as far as possible the regular and irregular forces of the +country. There are in England three classes of soldiery--the regular +army, the militia, and the volunteers. The militia constitute a force as +nearly as possible corresponding with that in whose companionship Sir +John Falstaff declined to march through Coventry. Bombastes Furioso or +the Grande Duchesse hardly ever marshalled such a body of men as may be +seen when a British militia regiment is turned out for exercise. Awkward +country bumpkins and beer-swilling rowdies of the poacher class make up +the bulk of the privates. They are a terror to any small town where they +may happen to be exercising, and where not infrequently they finish up a +day's drill by a general smashing of windows, sacking of shops, and +plundering of inhabitants. The volunteers are a force composed of a +much better class of men, and are capable, I think, of great military +efficiency and service if properly organized. Of late the volunteer +force has, I believe, been growing somewhat demoralized. The Government +never gave it very cordial encouragement, its position was hardly +defined, and the national enthusiasm out of which it sprang naturally +began to languish. We in England have always owed our volunteer force to +some sudden menace or dread of French invasion. It was so in the time of +William Pitt. We all remember the famous sarcasm with which that +statesman replied to the request of some volunteer regiments not to be +sent out on foreign service. Pitt gravely assured them that they never +should be sent out of the country unless in case of England's invasion. +Erskine was a volunteer, and I think it was as an officer of volunteers +that Gibbon said he acquired a practical knowledge of military affairs, +which proved useful to him in describing the decline and fall of the +Roman empire. Our present volunteer service originated in the last of +the "three panics" described by Cobden--the fear of invasion by Louis +Napoleon, the panic which Tennyson endeavored to foment by his weak and +foolish "Form, form! Riflemen, form!" The volunteer force, however, +continued to grow stronger and stronger long after the alarm had died +away; and even though recently the progress of improvement seems to have +been somewhat checked, and the volunteer body to have become lax in its +organization, it appears to me that in its intelligence, its +earnestness, and its physical capacity there exists the material out of +which might be moulded a very valuable arm of the military service. The +War Minister now proposes to take steps which shall render the militia a +decent body, commanded by really qualified and responsible officers, +which shall give better officers to the volunteers, and place these +latter under more effective discipline, and which shall bring militia +and volunteers into closer relationship with the regular army. How far +these objects may be attained by the measures now under consideration I +do not pretend to judge; but I cannot regard the present War Minister as +a man highly qualified for the place he holds. Mr. Cardwell is an +admirable clerk--patient, plodding, untiring; but I doubt whether he has +any of the higher qualities of an administrator or much force of +character. He is perhaps the very dullest speaker holding a marked +position in the House of Commons. He is fluent, not as Gladstone and a +river are fluent, but as the sand in an hour-glass is fluent. That sand +itself is not more dull, colorless, monotonous, and dry, than is the +eloquence of the War Minister. Mr. Cardwell is not always fortunate in +his military prophecies. On the memorable night in last July when the +news reached London that France had declared war against Prussia, Mr. +Cardwell affirmed that that meant the occupation of Berlin by the French +within a month. It must be remembered, however, as an excuse for the War +Minister's unlucky prediction, that an English military commission sent +to examine the two systems had shortly before reported wholly in favor +of the French army organization and dead against that of Prussia. + +The English Government, wisely, I think, decline to attempt the +introduction of any measure for general and compulsory service, except +as a last resource in desperate exigencies. The England of the future is +not likely, I trust, to embroil herself much in Continental quarrels; +and she may be quite expected to hold her own in the improbable event of +any of her neighbors attempting to invade her. For myself, I can +recollect no instance recorded by history of any foreign war wherein +England took part, from which good temper, discretion, judgment, and +justice would not alike have counselled her to hold aloof. + +Such then are in substance the changes which are proposed for the +reconstruction of the English army. The one grand reform or revolution +is the abolition of the purchase system. This change will inevitably +convert the army into a practical and regular profession, to which all +classes will look as a possible means of providing for some of their +children. It will have one advantage over the bar, that admission to the +ranks of the officers will not necessarily involve the preliminary +payment of any sum of money, however small. The profession will cease to +be ornamental and aristocratic. It will no longer constitute one of the +great props, one of the grand privileges, of the system of aristocracy. +Its reorganization will be another and a bold step toward the +establishment of that principle of equality which is of late years +beginning to exercise so powerful a fascination over the popular mind of +England. Caste had in Great Britain no such illustration and no such +bulwark as the army system presented. I should be slow to undertake to +limit the possible depth and extent of the influence which the impulse +given by this reform may exercise over the political condition of +England. I can hardly realize to myself by any effort of imagination the +effect which such a change will work in what is called society in +England, and in the literature, especially the romantic and satirical +literature, of the country. Are we then no longer to have Rawdon +Crawley, and Sir Derby Oaks, and "Captain Gandaw of the Pinks"? Was +Black-Bottle Cardigan really the last of a race? Will people a +generation hence fail to understand what was meant by the intimation +that "the Tenth don't dance"? Is Guy Livingstone to become as utter a +tradition and myth as Guy of Warwick? Is the English military officer to +be henceforward simply a hard-working, well-qualified public servant, +who obtains his place in open competition by virtue of his merits? +Appreciate the full meaning of the change who can, it is too much for +me; I can only wonder, admire, and hope. But it is surely not possible +that the Duke of Cambridge, cousin of the Queen, can continue to preside +over a service wherein the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker +have as good a chance of obtaining commissions for their sons as the +marquis or the earl or the great millionaire. Only think of the flood of +light which will be poured in upon all the details of the military +organization, when once it becomes the direct interest of each of us to +see that the profession is properly managed in which his own son, +however poor in purse and humble in rank, has a chance of obtaining a +commission! I believe the Duke of Cambridge had and has an honest hatred +and contempt for the coarse and noisy interference of public and +unprofessional criticism where the business of the sacred Horse Guards +is concerned. Once, when goaded on to sheer desperation by comments in +the papers, his Royal Highness actually wrote or dictated a letter of +explanation to the "Times," signed with the monosyllabic grandeur of his +name "George," we all held up the hands and eyes of wonder that such +things had come to pass, that royal princes condescended to write to +newspapers, and yet the world rolled on. I cannot think the Duke will +abide the awful changes that are coming. He will probably pass into the +twilight and repose of some dignified office, where blundering has no +occupation and obstinacy can do no harm. Everything considered, I think +we may say of him that he might have been a great deal worse than he +was. My own impression is that he is rather better than his reputation. +If the popular voice of England were to ask in the words of +Shakespeare's "Lucio," "And was the Duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and a +coward, as you then reported him to be?" I might answer, in the language +of the pretended friar, "You must change persons with me ere you make +that my report. You indeed spoke so of him, and much more, much worse." + + + + +BRIGHAM YOUNG. + + +Those among us who are not too young to have had "Evenings at Home" for +a schoolday companion and instructor will remember the story called +"Eyes and No Eyes" and its moral. They will remember that, of the two +little boys who accomplished precisely the same walk at the same time, +one saw all manner of delightful and wonderful things, while the other +saw nothing whatever that was worth recollection or description. The +former had eyes prepared to see, and the other had not; and that made +all the difference. I have to confess that, during a recent visit to +Salt Lake City--a visit lasting nearly as many days as that out of which +my friend, Hepworth Dixon, made the better part of a volume--I must have +been in the condition of the dull little reprobate who had no eyes to +see the wonders which delighted his companion. For, so far as the city +itself, its streets and its structures, are concerned, I really saw +nothing in particular. A muddy little country town, with one or two +tolerably decent streets, wherein a few handsome stores are mixed up +with old shanties, is not much to see in any part of the civilized +world. Other travellers have seen a wondrous sight on the very same +spot. They have seen a large and beautiful city, with spacious, splendid +streets, shaded by majestic trees and watered by silvery currents +flowing in marble channels; they have seen a city combining the +cleanliness and activity of young America with the picturesqueness and +dignity of the Orient; a city which would be beautiful and wonderful +anywhere, but which, raised up here on the bare bosom of the desert, is +a phenomenon of apparently almost magical creation. Naturally, +therefore, they have gone into raptures over the energy, and industry, +and æstheticism of the Mormons; and, even while condemning sternly the +doctrine and practice of polygamy, they have nevertheless been haunted +by an uneasy doubt as to whether, after all, there is not some peculiar +virtue in the having half a dozen wives together which endows a man with +super-human gifts as a builder of cities. Otherwise how comes this +beautiful and perfect city, here on the unfriendly and unsheltering +waste? + +Well, I saw no beautiful and wonderful city, although I spent several +days in the Mormon capital, and tramped every one of its streets, and +lanes, and roads, scores of times over. Where others beheld the glorious +virgin, Dulcinea del Toboso, radiant in beauty and bedight with queenly +apparel, I saw only the homely milkmaid, with her red elbows and her +russet gown. In plain words, the Mormon city appeared to me just a +commonplace little country town, and no more. I saw in it no evidences +of preternatural energy or skill. It has one decent street, wherein may +be found, at most, half a dozen well-built and attractive-looking shops. +It has a good many comfortable residences in the environs. It has two or +three decentish hotels, like the hotels of any other fiftieth-class +country town. It has the huge Tabernacle, a gigantic barn merely, a +simple covering in and over of so much space--a thing in shape "very +like a land turtle," as President George L. Smith, First Councillor of +Brigham Young, observed to me. Salt Lake City has no lighting and no +draining, except such draining as is done by the little runnels of water +to be found in every street, and which remind one faintly and sadly of +dear, quaint old Berne in Switzerland. At night you have to trudge along +in the darkness and the mud, or slush, or dust, and it is a perilous +quest the seeking of your way home, for at every crossing you must look +or feel for the plank which bridges over the artificial brooklets +already described, or you plunge helpless and hopeless into the little +torrent. Decidedly, a "one-horse" place, in my estimation; I don't see +how men endowed with average heads and arms could for twenty years have +been occupied in the building of a city, and produced anything less +creditable than this. I do not wonder at the complacency and +self-conceit with which all the Mormon residents talk of the beauty of +their city and the wonderful things they have accomplished, when Gentile +travellers of credit and distinction have glorified this shabby, swampy, +ricketty, common-place, vulgar, little hamlet into a town of sweetness +and light, of symmetry and beauty. For my part, and for those who were +with me, I can only say that we spent the first day or so in perpetual +wonder as to whether this really could be the Mormon city of which we +had read so many bewildering and glorious descriptions. And the +theatre--oh, Hepworth Dixon, I like you much, and I think you are often +abused and assailed most unjustly; but how could you write so about that +theatre? Or was the beautiful temple of the drama which _you_ saw here +deliberately taken down, and did they raise in its place the big, gaunt, +ugly, dirty, dismal structure which _I_ saw, and in which I and my +companions made part of a dreary dozen or two of audience, and blinked +in the dim, depressing light of mediæval oil-lamps? I observe that, when +driven to bay by sceptical inquiry, complacent Mormons generally fall +back on the abundance of shade-trees in the streets. Let them have the +full credit of this plantation. They have put trees in the streets, and +the trees have grown; and, when we observe to a Mormon that we have seen +rows of trees similarly growing in even smaller towns of the benighted +European continent, he evidently thinks it is our monogamic perversity +and prejudice which force us to deny the wondrous works of Mormonism. +Making due allowance for every natural difficulty, remembering how +nearly every implement, and utensil, and scrap of raw material had to be +brought from across yonder rampart of mountains, and from hundreds of +miles away, I yet fail to see anything very remarkable about this little +Mormon town. Perhaps no other set of people could have made much more of +the place; I cannot help thinking that no other set of people who were +not Digger Indians could have made much less. + +In fact, to retain the proper and picturesque ideas of Salt Lake City, +one never ought to have entered the town at all. We ought to have +remained on this hillside, from which you can look across that most +lovely of all valleys on earth, cinctured as it is by a perfect girdle +of mountains, the outlines of which are peerless and ineffable in their +symmetry and beauty. The air is as clear, the skies are as blue, the +grass as green as the dream of a poet or painter could show him. There +below, fringed and mantled in the clustering green of its trees, you see +the city, with the long, low, rounded dome or back of the Tabernacle +rising broad and conspicuous. Looking down, you may well believe that +the city thus exquisitely placed, thus deliciously shaded and +surrounded, is itself a wonder of picturesqueness and symmetry. Why go +down into the two or three dirty, irregular, shabby little streets, with +their dust or mud for road pavement, their nozzling pigs trotting along +the sidewalks, their dung-heaps and masses of decaying vegetable matter, +their utterly commonplace, mean and disheartening aspect everywhere? But +then we did go down--and where others had seen a fair and goodly, aye, +and queenly city, we saw a muddy, uninteresting, straggling little +village, disfiguring the lovely plain on which it stood. + +Profound disappointment, then, is my first sensation in Salt Lake City. +The place is so like any other place! Certainly, one receives a bracing +little shock every now and then, which admonishes him that, despite the +small, shabby stores and the pigs, and the dunghills, he is not in the +regions of merely commonplace dirt. For instance, we learn that the +proprietor of the hotel where we are staying has four wives; and it is +something odd to talk with a civil, respectable, burgess-like man, +dressed in ordinary coat and pantaloons, and wearing mutton-chop +whiskers--a sort of man who in England would probably be a +church-warden--and who has more consorts than an average Turk. Then +again it is startling to be asked, "Do you know Mr. ----?" and when I +say "No, I don't," to be told, "Oh, you ought to know him. He came from +England, and he has lately married two such nice English girls!" One +morning, too, we have another kind of shock. There is a pretty little +chambermaid in our hotel, a new-comer apparently, and she happens to +find out that my wife and I had lived for many years in that part of the +North of England from which she comes herself, whereupon she bursts into +a perfect passion and tempest of tears, declares that she would rather +be in her grave than in Salt Lake City, that she was deceived into +coming, that the Mormonism she heard preached by the Mormon propaganda +in England was a quite different thing from the Mormonism practised +here, and that her only longing was to get out of the place, anyhow, +forever. The girl seemed to be perfectly, passionately sincere. What +could be done for her? Apparently nothing. She had spent all her money +in coming out; and she seemed to be strongly under the conviction that, +even if she had money, she could not get away. An influence was +evidently over her which she had not the courage or strength of mind to +attempt to resist, or even to elude. Doubtless, as she was a very pretty +girl, she would be very soon sealed to some ruling elder. She said her +sister had come with her, but the sister was in another part of the +city, and since their arrival--only a few days, however--they had not +met. My wife endeavored to console or encourage her, but the girl could +only sob and protest that she never could learn to endure the place, but +that she could not get away, and that she would rather be in her grave. +We spoke of this case to one of the civil officers of the United States +stationed in the city, and he shook his head and thought nothing could +be done. The influence which enslaved this poor girl was not wholly that +of force, but a power which worked upon her senses and her +superstitions. I should think an underground railway would be a valuable +institution to establish in connection with the Mormon city. + +I well remember that when I lived in Liverpool, some ten or a dozen +years ago, the Mormon propaganda, very active there, always kept the +polygamy institution modestly in the background. Proselytes were courted +and won by descriptions of a new Happy Valley, of a City of the Blest, +where eternal summer shone, where the fruits were always ripe, where the +earth smiled with a perpetual harvest, where labor and reward were +plenty for all, and where the outworn toilers of Western Europe could +renew their youth like the eagles. I remember, too, the remarkable case +of a Liverpool family having a large business establishment in the most +fashionable street of the great town, who were actually beguiled into +selling off all their goods and property and migrating, parents, sons, +and daughters, to the land of promise beyond the American wilderness, +and how, before people had ceased to wonder at their folly, they all +came back, humiliated, disgusted, cured. They had money and something +like education, and they were a whole family, and so they were able, +when they found themselves deceived, to effect a rapid retreat at the +cost of nothing worse than disappointment and pecuniary loss. But for +the poor, pretty serving-lass from Lancashire I do not know that there +is much hope. Poverty and timidity and superstitious weakness will help +to lock the Mormon chains around her. Perhaps she will get used to the +place in time. Ought one to wish that she may--or rather to echo her own +prayer, and petition that she may find an early grave? The graveyards +are densely planted with tombs here in this sacred city of Mormonism. + +The place is unspeakably dreary. Hardly any women are ever seen in the +streets, except on the Sunday, when all the families pour in to service +in the huge Tabernacle. Most of the dwelling houses round the city are +pent in behind walls. Most of the houses, too, have their dismal little +_sucursales_, one or two or more, built on to the sides--and in each of +these additions or wings to the original building a different wife and +family are caged. There are no flower gardens anywhere. Children are +bawling everywhere. Sometimes a wretched, slatternly, dispirited woman +is seen lounging at the door or hanging over the gate of a house with a +baby at her breast. More often, however, the house, or clump of houses, +gives no external sign of life. It stands back gloomy in the sullen +shade of its thick fruit trees, and might seem untenanted if one did not +hear the incessant yelling of the children. We saw the women in +hundreds, probably in thousands, at the Tabernacle on the Sunday--and +what women they were! Such faces, so dispirited, depressed, shapeless, +hopeless, soulless faces! No trace of woman's graceful pride and +neatness in these slatternly, shabby, slouching, listless figures; no +purple light of youth over these cheeks; no sparkle in these +half-extinguished eyes. I protest that only in some of the _cretin_ +villages of the Swiss mountains have I seen creatures in female form so +dull, miserable, moping, hopeless as the vast majority of these Mormon +women. As we leave the Tabernacle, and walk slowly down the street amid +the crowd, we see two prettily-dressed, lively-looking girls, who laugh +with each other and are seemingly happy, and we thank Heaven that there +are at least two merry, spirited girls in Salt Lake City. A few days +after we meet our blithesome pair at Mintah station; and they are +travelling with their father and mother on to San Francisco, whither we +too are going--and we learn that they are not Mormons, but +Gentiles--pleasant lasses from Philadelphia who had come with their +parents to have a passing look at the externals of Mormonism. + +My object, however, in writing this paper was to speak of the chief, +Brigham Young himself, rather than of his city or his system. We saw +Brigham Young, were admitted to prolonged speech of him, and received +his parting benediction. The interview took place in the now famous +house with the white walls and the gilded beehive on the top. We were +received in a kind of office or parlor, hung round with oil paintings of +the kind which in England we regard as "furniture," and which +represented all the great captains and elders of Mormonism. Joseph Smith +is there, and Brigham Young, and George L. Smith, now First Councillor; +and various others whom to enumerate would be long, even if I knew or +remembered their names. President Young was engaged just at the moment +when we came, but his Secretary, a Scotchman, I think, and President +George L. Smith, are very civil and cordial. George L. Smith is a huge, +burly man, with a Friar Tuck joviality of paunch and visage, and a roll +in his bright eye which, in some odd, undefined sort of way, suggests +cakes and ale. He talks well, in a deep rolling voice, and with a dash +of humor in his words and tone--he it is who irreverently but accurately +likens the Tabernacle to a land-turtle. He speaks with immense +admiration and reverence of Brigham Young, and specially commends his +abstemiousness and hermit-like frugality in the matter of eating and +drinking. Presently a door opens, and the oddest, most whimsical figure +I have ever seen off the boards of an English country theatre stands in +the room; and in a moment we are presented formally to Brigham Young. + +There must be something of impressiveness and dignity about the man, +for, odd as is his appearance and make up, one feels no inclination to +laugh. But such a figure! Brigham Young wears a long-tailed, +high-collared coat; the swallow-tails nearly touch the ground; the +collar is about his ears. In shape the garment is like the swallow-tail +coats which negro-melodists sometimes wear, or like the dandy English +dress coat one can still see in prints in some of the shops of St. James +street, London. But the material of Brigham's coat is some kind of +rough, gray frieze, and the garment is adorned with huge brass buttons. +The vest and trowsers are of the same material. Round the neck of the +patriarch is some kind of bright crimson shawl, and on the patriarch's +feet are natty little boots of the shiniest polished leather. I must say +that the gray frieze coat of antique and wonderful construction, the +gaudy crimson shawl, and the dandy boots make up an incongruous whole +which irresistibly reminds one at first of the holiday get-up of some +African King who adds to a great coat, preserved as an heirloom since +Mungo Park's day, a pair of modern top-boots, and a lady's bonnet. The +whole appearance of the patriarch, when one has got over the African +monarch impression, is like that of a Suffolk farmer as presented on the +boards of a Surrey theatre. But there is decidedly an amount of +composure and even of dignity about Brigham Young which soon makes one +forget the mere ludicrousness of the patriarch's external appearance. +Young is a handsome man--much handsomer than his portrait on the wall +would show him. Close upon seventy years of age, he has as clear an eye +and as bright a complexion as if he were a hale English farmer of +fifty-five. But there is something fox-like and cunning lurking under +the superficial good-nature and kindliness of the face. He seems, when +he speaks to you most effusively and plausibly, to be quietly studying +your expression to see whether he is really talking you over or not. The +expression of his face, especially of his eyes, strangely and +provokingly reminds me of Kossuth. I think I have seen Kossuth thus +watch the face of a listener to see whether or not the listener was +conquered by his wonderful power of talk. Kossuth's face, apart from its +intellectual qualities, appeared to me to express a strange blending of +vanity, craft, and weakness; and Brigham Young's countenance now seems +to show just such a mixture of qualities. Great force of character the +man must surely have; great force of character Kossuth, too, had; but +the face of neither man seemed to declare the possession of such a +quality. Brigham Young decidedly does not impress me as a man of great +ability; but rather as a man of great plausibility. I can at once +understand how such a man, with such an eye and tongue, can easily exert +an immense influence over women. Beyond doubt he is a man of genius; but +his genius does not reveal itself, to me at least, in his face or his +words. He speaks in a thin, clear, almost shrill tone, and with much +apparent _bonhomie_. After a little commonplace conversation about the +city, its improvements, approaches etc., the Prophet voluntarily goes on +to speak of himself, his system, and his calumniators. His talk soon +flows into a kind of monologue, and is indeed a curious rhapsody of +religion, sentimentality, shrewdness and egotism. Sometimes several +sentences succeed each other in which his hearers hardly seem to make +out any meaning whatever, and Brigham Young appears a grotesque kind of +Coleridge. Then again in a moment comes up a shrewd meaning very +distinctly expressed, and with a dash of humor and sarcasm gleaming +fantastically amid the scriptural allusions and the rhapsody of unctuous +words. The purport of the whole is that Brigham Young has been +misunderstood, misprized, and calumniated, even as Christ was; that were +Christ to come up to-morrow in New York or London, He would be +misunderstood, misprized, and caluminated, even as Brigham Young now is; +and that Brigham Young is not to be dismayed though the stars in their +courses should fight against him. He protests with especial emphasis and +at the same time especial meekness, with eyes half closed and +delicately-modulated voice, against the false reports that any manner of +force or influence whatever is, or ever was, exercised to keep men or +women in Salt Lake City against their will. He appeals to the evidence +of our own eyes, and asks us whether we have not seen for ourselves that +the city is free to all to come and go as they will. At this time we had +not heard the story told by the poor little maid at the hotel; but in +any case the evidence of our eyes could go no farther than to prove that +travellers like ourselves were free to enter and depart. We have, +however, little occasion to trouble ourselves about answering; for the +Prophet keeps the talk pretty well all to himself. His manner is +certainly not that of a man of culture, but it has a good deal of the +quiet grace and self-possession of what we call a gentleman. There is +nothing _prononcé_ or vulgar about him. Even when he is most rhapsodical +his speech never loses its ease and gentleness of tone. He is bland, +benevolent, sometimes quietly pathetic in manner. He poses himself _en +victime_, but with the air of one who does this regretfully and only +from a disinterested sense of duty. I begin very soon to find that there +is no need of my troubling myself much to keep up the conversation; that +my business is that of a listener; that the Prophet conceives himself to +be addressing some portion of the English or American press through my +humble medium. So I listen and my companion listens; and Brigham Young +talks on; and I do declare and acknowledge that we are fast drifting +into a hazy mental condition by virtue of which we begin to regard the +Mormon President as a victim of cruel persecution, a suffering martyr +and an injured angel! + +Time, surely, that the interview should come to a close. We tear +ourselves away, and the Prophet dismisses us with a fervent and effusive +blessing. "Good-bye--do well, mean well, pray always. Christ be with +you, God be with you, God bless you." All this, and a great deal more to +the same effect, was uttered with no vulgar, maw-worm demonstrativeness +of tone or gesture, no nasal twang, no uplifted hands; but quietly, +earnestly, as if it came unaffectedly from the heart of the speaker. We +took leave of Brigham Young, and came away a little puzzled as to +whether we had been conversing with an impostor or a fanatic, a Peter +the Hermit or a Tartuffe. One thing, however, is clear to me. I do not +say that Brigham Young is a Tartuffe; but I know now how Tartuffe ought +to be played so as to render the part more effective and more apparently +natural and lifelike than I have ever seen it on French or English +stage. + +No one can doubt the sincerity of the homage which the Mormons in +general pay to Brigham Young. One man, of the working class, apparently, +with whom I talked at the gate of the Tabernacle, spoke almost with +tears in his eyes of the condescension the Prophet always manifested. My +informant told me that he was at one time disabled by some hurt or +ailment; and, the first day that he was able to come into the street +again, President Young happened to be passing in his carriage, and +caught sight of the convalescent. "He stopped his carriage, sir, called +me over to him, addressed me by my name, shook hands with me, asked me +how I was getting on, and said he was glad to see me out again." The +poor man was as proud of this as a French soldier might have been if the +Little Corporal had recognized him and called him by his name. There is +no flattery which the great can offer to the humble like this way of +addressing the man by his right name, and thus proving that the identity +of the small creature has lived clearly in the memory of the great +being. Many a renowned commander has endeared himself to the soldiers +whom he regarded and treated only as the instruments of his business, by +the mere fact that he took care to remember men's names. They would +gladly die for one who could be so nobly gracious, and could thus prove +that they were regarded by him as worthy to occupy each a distinct place +in his busy mind. The niggardliness and selfishness of John, Duke of +Marlborough, the savage recklessness of Claverhouse, were easily +forgotten by the poor private soldiers whom each commander made it his +business, when occasion required, to address correctly by their +appropriate names of Tom, Dick, or Harry. Lord Palmerston governed the +House of Commons and most of those outside it with whom he usually came +into contact, by just such little arts or courtesies as this. In one of +Messrs. Erckmann and Chatrian's novels we read of a soldier who declares +himself ready to go to the death for Marshal Ney because the Marshal, +who originally belonged to the same district as himself, had just +recognized his fellow-countryman and called him by his name. But the +hero of the novel is somewhat grim and sarcastic, and he thinks it was +not so wonderful a condescension that Ney should have recognized an old +comrade and called him by his name. Perhaps the hero of the tale had not +himself received any such recognition from Ney--perhaps if it had been +vouchsafed to him he, too, would have been ready to go to the death. +Anyhow, this correct calling of names, and quick recognition has always +been a great power in the governing of men and women. "Deal you in +words," is the advice of Mephistophiles to the student, in Faust, "and +you may leave others to do the best they can with things." I was able to +appreciate the governing power of Brigham Young all the better when I +had heard the expression of this poor Mormon's gratitude and homage to +the great President who had shaken hands with him and addressed him +promptly and correctly by his name. + +This same Mormon was very communicative. Indeed, as a rule, I found most +of the men in Salt Lake City ready and even eager to discuss their +"peculiar institution," and to invite Gentile opinion on it. He showed +us his two wives, and declared that they lived together in perfect +harmony and happiness; never had a word of quarrel, but were contented +and loving as two sisters. He delivered a panegyric on the moral +condition of Salt Lake City, where, he declared, there was no +dishonesty, no drunkenness, and no prostitution. I believe he was +correct in his description of the place. From many quite impartial +authorities I heard the same accounts of the honesty of the Mormons. +There certainly is no drunkenness to be observed anywhere openly, and I +believe (although I have heard others assert the contrary) that Salt +Lake City is really and truly free from this vice; and I suppose it goes +without saying that there is little or no prostitution in a place where +a man is expected to keep as many wives as his means will allow him. +Intelligent Mormons rely immensely on this absence of prostitution as a +justification of their system. They seem to think that when they have +said, "We have no prostitutes," all is said; and that the Gentile, with +the shames of London, Paris and New York burning in his memory and his +conscience, must be left without a word of reply. Brigham Young, in +conversation with me, dwelt much on this absence of prostitution. Orson +Pratt preached in the Tabernacle during our stay a sermon obviously "at" +the Gentile visitors, who were just then specially numerous; and he drew +an emphatic contrast between the hideous profligacy of the Eastern +cities and the purity of the Salt Lake community. I must say, for +myself, that I do not think the question can thus be settled; I do not +think prostitution so great an evil as polygamy. If this blunt +declaration should shock anybody's moral feelings I am sorry for it; but +it is none the less the expression of my sincere conviction. Pray do +not set me down as excusing prostitution. I think it the worst of all +social evils--except polygamy. I think polygamy the worse evil, because +I am convinced that, regarded from a physiological, moral, religious, +and even merely poetical and sentimental point of view, the only true +social bond to be sought and maintained and justified is the loving +union of one man with one woman--at least until death shall part the +two. Now, I regard the existence of prostitution as a proof that some +men and women fail to keep to the right path. I look on polygamy as a +proof that a whole community is going directly the wrong way. No man +proposes to himself to lead a life of profligacy. He falls into it. He +would get out of it if he only could--if the world and the flesh and the +devil were not now and then too strong for him. But the polygamist +deliberately sets up and justifies and glorifies a system which is as +false to physiology as it is to morals. Observe that I do not say the +polygamist is necessarily an immoral man. Doubtless he is often--in Utah +I really believe he is commonly--a sincere, devoted, mistaken man, who +honestly believes himself to be doing right. But when he attempts to +vindicate his system on the ground that it banishes prostitution, I, for +myself, declare that I believe a society which has to put up with +prostitution is in better case and hope than one which deliberately +adopts polygamy. I am emphatic in expressing this opinion because, as I +am opposed to any stronghanded or legal movement whatever to put down +Brigham Young and his system, I desire to have it clearly understood +that my opinions on the subject of polygamy are quite decided, and that +no one who has clamored, or may hereafter clamor, for the uprooting of +Mormonism by fire and sword, can have less sympathy than I have with +Mormonism's peculiar institution. + +Let me return to Brigham Young. I saw the Prophet but twice--once in the +street and once in his own house, where the interview took place which I +have described. The day after that on which I last saw him he left Salt +Lake City and went into the country--some people said to avoid the +necessity of meeting Mr. Colfax, who was just then expected to arrive +with his party from the West. My impressions, therefore, of Brigham +Young and his personal character are necessarily hasty, and probably +superficial. I can only say that he did not impress me either as a man +of great genius, or as a mere _charlatan_. My impression is that he is a +sincere man--that is to say, a man who sincerely believes in himself, +accepts his own impulses, prejudices and passions as divine instincts +and intuitions to be the law of life for himself and others, and who, +therefore, has attained that supreme condition of utterly unsparing and +pitiless selfishness when the voice of self is listened to as the voice +of God. With such a sincerity is quite consistent the adoption of every +craft and trick in the government of men and women. Nobody can doubt +that Napoleon I. was perfectly sincere as regards his faith in himself, +his destiny, and his duty; and yet there was no trick of lawyer, or +play-actor, or priest, of which he would not condescend to avail himself +if it served his purpose. This is not the sincerity of a Pascal, or a +Garibaldi, or a Garrison; but it is just as genuine and infinitely more +common. It is the kind of sincerity which we meet every day in ordinary +life, when we see some dogmatic, obstinate father of a family or +sense-carrier of a small circle trying to mould every will and +conscience and life under his control according to his own pedantic +standard, and firmly confident all the time that his own perverseness +and egotism are a guiding inspiration from heaven. After all, the +downright, conventional stage-hypocrite is the rarest of all beings in +real life. I sometimes doubt whether there ever was _in rerum naturâ_ +any one such creature. I suppose Tartuffe had persuaded himself into +self-worship, into the conviction that everything he said and did must +be right. I look upon Brigham Young as a man of such a temperament and +character. Cunning and crafty he undoubtedly is, unless all evidences of +eye, and lip, and voice belie him; but we all know that many a fanatic +who boldly and cheerfully mounted the funeral pile or the scaffold for +his creed had over and over again availed himself of all the tricks of +craft and cunning to maintain his ascendancy over his followers. The +fanatic is often crafty just as the madman is: the presence of craft in +neither case disproves the existence of sincerity. + +I believe Brigham Young to be simply a crafty fanatic. That he professes +and leads his creed of Mormonism merely to obtain lands and beeves and +wives, I do not believe, although this seems to be the general +impression among the Gentiles who visit his city. I am convinced that he +regards himself as a prophet and a heaven-appointed leader, and that +this belief prevents him from seeing how selfish he is in one sense and +how ridiculous in another. Any man who can deliberately put on such a +coat in combination with such a pair of boots, as Brigham Young +displayed during my interview with him, must have a faith in himself +which would sustain him in anything. No human creature capable of +looking at any two sides of a question where he himself was concerned, +ever did or could present himself in public and expect to be reverenced +when arrayed in such uncouth and preposterous toggery. + +I cannot pretend to have had any extraordinary revelations of the inner +mysteries or miseries of Mormonism made to me during my stay at Salt +Lake City. Other travellers, nearly all other travellers indeed, have +apparently been more fortunate or more pushing and persevering. I fancy +it is rather difficult just now to get to know much of the interior of +Mormon households; and I confess that I never could quite understand how +people, otherwise honorable and upright, can think themselves justified +in worming their way into Mormon confidences, and then making profit one +way or another by revelations to the public. But one naturally and +unavoidably hears, in Salt Lake City, of things which are deeply +significant and which he may without scruple put into print. For +example--there was a terrible pathos to my mind in the history of a +respectable and intelligent woman who, years and years ago, when her +life, now fading, was in its prime, married a man now a shining light of +Mormonism, whose photograph you may see anywhere in Salt Lake City. She +has been superseded since by divers successive wives; she is now +striving in a condition far worse than widowhood to bring up her seven +or eight children, and she has not been favored with even a passing call +for more than a year and a half by the husband of her youth, who lives +with the newest of his wives a few hundred yards away. I am told that +such things are perfectly common; that the result of the system is to +plant in Utah a number of families which may be described practically as +households without husbands and fathers. I believe the lady of whom I +have just spoken accepts her destiny with sad and firm resignation. Her +faith in the religion of Mormonism is unshaken, and she regards her +forlorn and widowed life as the heaven-appointed cross, by the bearing +of which she is to win her eternal crown. Of course the Indian widows +regard their bed of flames, the Russian women-fanatics behold their +mutilated and mangled breasts with a similar enthusiasm of hope and +superstition. But none the less ghastly and appalling is the monstrous +faith which exacts and glorifies such unnatural sacrifices. These dreary +homes, widowed not by death, seem to be the saddest, most shocking birth +of Mormonism. After all, this is not the polygamy of the East, bad as +that may be. "Give us," exclaimed M. Thiers in the French Chamber, three +or four years ago, when Imperialism had reached the zenith of its +despotic power--"give us liberty as in Austria!" So I can well imagine +one of these superseded and lonely wives in Salt Lake City, crying +aloud in the bitterness of her heart, "Give us polygamy as in Turkey!" + +That the thing is a religion, however hideously it may show, I do not +doubt. I mean that I feel no doubt that the great majority of the Mormon +men are drawn to and kept in Mormonism by a belief in its truth and +vital force as a religion. I do not believe that conscious and +hypocritical sensuality is the leading impulse in making them or keeping +them members of the Mormon church. I never heard of any community where +a sensual man found any difficulty in gratifying his sensuality; nor are +the vast majority of the Mormons men belonging to a class on whom a +severe public opinion would bear so directly that they must necessarily +wander thousands of miles away across the desert in order to be able +comfortably to gratify their immoral propensities. To me, therefore, the +possibility which appears most dangerous of all is the chance of any +sudden crusade, legal or otherwise, being set on foot against this +perverted and unfortunate people. Left to itself, I firmly believe that +Mormonism will never long bear the glare of daylight, the throng of +witnesses, the intelligent rivalry, the earnest and active criticism, +poured in and forced in upon it by the Pacific railroads. But if it can +bear all this then it can bear anything whatever which human ingenuity +or force can put in arms against it; and it will run its course and have +its day, let the Federal Hercules himself do what he may. Meanwhile it +would be well to bear in mind that Mormonism has thus far cumbered the +earth for comparatively a very few years; that all its members there in +Utah counted together would hardly equal the population of a respectable +street in London; and that at this moment the whole concern is ricketty +and shaky, and threatens to tumble to pieces. I know that some of the +ruling elders are panting for persecution; that they are openly doing +their very best to "draw fire;" that they are daily endeavoring to work +on the fears or the passions of Federal officials resident at Salt Lake +by threats of terrible deeds to be done in the event of any attempt +being made to interfere with Mormonism. Many of these Mormon apostles, +dull, vulgar and clownish as they seem, have foresight enough to see +that their system sadly needs just now the stimulus of a little +persecution, and have fanatical courage enough to put themselves gladly +in the front of any danger for the sake of sowing by their martyrdom the +seed of the church. "That man," said William the Third of England, +speaking of an inveterate conspirator against him "is determined to be +made a victim, and I am determined not to make him one." I hope the +United States will deal with the Mormons in a similar spirit. At the +same time, I would ask my brothers of the pen whether those of them who +have visited Salt Lake City have not made the place seem a good deal +more wonderful, more alluringly mysterious, more grandly paradoxical in +its nature, than it really is? I feel convinced that if people in +Lancashire and Wales and Sweden had all been made distinctly aware that +Salt Lake City is only a dusty or muddy little commonplace country +hamlet, where labor is not less hard and is not any better paid than in +dozens or scores of small hamlets this side the Missouri, one vast +temptation to emigrate thither, the temptation supplied by morbid +curiosity and ignorant wonder, would never have had any conquering +power, and Mormonism would have been deprived of many thousand votaries. +For, regarded in an artistic point of view, the City of the Saints is a +vulgar sham; a trumpery humbug; and I verily believe that it has swelled +into importance not more through the fanatical energy of its governing +elders and the ignorance of their followers, than through the +extravagant exaggeration and silly wonder of most of its hostile +visitors and critics. + + + + +THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND. + + +A year ago I happened to be talking with some French friends at a +dinner-table in Paris, about the Reform agitation then going on in +England. "We admire your great orators and leaders," said an +enthusiastic French gentleman; "your Bright, your Beales"--and he was +warming to the subject when he saw that I was smiling, and he at once +pulled up, and asked me earnestly whether he had said anything +ridiculous. I endeavored to explain to him gently that in England we did +not usually place our Bright and our Beales on exactly the same +level--that the former was our greatest orator, our most powerful +leader, and the latter a respectable, earnest gentleman of warm emotions +and ordinary abilities whom chance had made the figure-head of a passing +and vehement agitation, and who would probably be forgotten the day +after to-morrow or thereabouts. + +My French friend did not seem convinced. He had seen Mr. Beales's name +in the London papers quite as often and as prominently for some months +as Mr. Bright's; and, moreover, he had met Mr. Beales at dinner, and did +not like to be told that he had not thereby made the acquaintance of a +great tribune of the British people. So I dropped the subject and +allowed our Bright and and our Beales to rank together without farther +protest. + +Here in New York, where English politics are understood infinitely +better than in Paris, I have noticed not a little of this "Bright and +Beales" classification when people talk of the leaders of English +Liberalism. I have heard, with surprise, this or that respectable member +of Parliament, who never for a moment dreamed of being classed among the +chiefs of his party, exalted to a place of equality with Gladstone or +Bright. In truth the English Liberal party (I mean now the advancing and +popular party--not the old Whigs) has only three men who can be called +leaders. After Gladstone, Bright, and Mill there comes a huge gap--and +then follow the subalterns, of whom one might name half a dozen having +about equal rank and influence, and of whom you may choose any favorite +you like. Take, for example, Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. +Thomas Hughes, the O'Donoghue, Mr. Coleridge (who, however, is marked +out for the judicial bench, and therefore need hardly be counted), and +one or two others, and you have the captains of the advanced Liberal +party. The Liberals are not rich in rising talent; at least there seems +no man of the younger political generation who gives any promise of +commanding ability. They have many good debaters and clever politicians, +but I see no "pony Gladstone" to succeed him who used to be called the +"pony Peel;" and the man has yet to show himself in whom the House of +Commons can hope for a future Bright. The great Liberals of our day have +apparently not the gift of training disciples in order that the latter +may become apostles in their time. Like Cavour, they are too earnest +about the work and do too much of it themselves to have leisure or +inclination for teaching and pushing others. + +Officially Mr. Gladstone has been, of course, for several years the +leader of the party. He is formally invested with all the insignia of +command. He is indeed the only possible leader; for he is the only man +who has the slightest chance just now of commanding the allegiance of +the old Whigs with their dukes and earls, and the young Radicals with +their philosophers, their Comtists, their Irish Nationalists, and their +working men. But the true soul and voice and heart of the Liberal party +pay silent allegiance to John Bright. He is, by universal +acknowledgment, the maker of the Reform agitation and the Reform Bill. + +Mr. Disraeli has over and over again flung in the face of Mr. Gladstone +the fact that Bright, and not he, is the master spirit of Radicalism. Of +late the Tories have taken to praising and courting Bright incessantly +and ostentatiously, and contrasting his calm, consistent wisdom with +Gladstone's impetuosity and fitfulness. Of course both Bright and +Gladstone thoroughly understand the meaning of this, and smile at it and +despise it. The obvious purpose is to try to set up a rivalry between +the two. If Gladstone's authority could be damaged that would be quite +enough; for it would be impossible at present to get the Whig dukes and +earls to follow Bright, and the dethronement of Gladstone would be the +break-up of the party. The trick is an utter failure. Bright is +sincerely and generously loyal to Gladstone, and is a man as completely +devoid of personal vanity or self-seeking as he is of fear. No personal +question will ever divide these two men. + +Gladstone is beyond doubt the most fluent and brilliant speaker in the +English Parliament. No other man has anything like his inexhaustible +flow and rush of varied and vivid expression. His memory is as +surprising as his fluency. Grattan spoke of the eloquence of Fox as +"rolling in resistless as the waves of the Atlantic." So far as this +description conveys the idea of a vast volume of splendid words pouring +unceasingly in, it may be applied to Gladstone. A listener new to the +House is almost certain to prefer him to any other speaker there, and to +regard him as the greatest English orator of the present generation. I +was myself for a long time completely under the spell, and a little +impatient of those who insisted on the superiority of Bright. But when +one becomes accustomed to the speaking of the two men it is impossible +not to find the fluency, the glitter, the impetuous volubility, the +involved and complicated sentences, the Latinized, sesquipedalian words +of Gladstone gradually losing their early charm and influence, just as +the pure noble Saxon, the unforced energy, the exquisite simplicity, the +perfect "fusion of reason and passion" which are the special +characteristics of Bright's eloquence, grow more and more fascinating +and commanding. Perhaps the same effect may be found to arise from a +study or a contrast (if one must contrast them) between the political +characters of the two men. + +It is a somewhat singular fact that one English county has produced the +three men who undoubtedly rank beyond all others in England as +Parliamentary orators. The Earl of Derby, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Bright +are all Lancashire men. But Gladstone is only Lancashire by birth. His +shrewd old Scotch father came to Liverpool from across the Tweed, and +made his money and founded his family in the great port of the Mersey. +The Gladstones had, and have, large West Indian property; and when +England emancipated her slaves by paying off the planters, the +Gladstones came in for no small share of the national purchase-money. +When the great Liberal orator came out so impetuously and unluckily with +his celebrated panegyric on Jefferson Davis, a few years ago, some +people shook their heads and remarked that the old planter spirit does +not quite die out in the course of one generation; and I heard bitter +allusion made to the celebrated declaration flung by Cooke, the great +tragedian, in the face of an indignant theatre in Liverpool, that there +was not a stone in the walls of that town which was not "cemented by the +blood of Africans." But, indeed, Gladstone's outburst had no +traditional, or hereditary, or other such source. It came straight from +the impulsive heart and nature of the speaker. His strength and his +weakness are alike illustrated by that sudden, indiscreet, +unjustifiable, and repented outburst. Thus he every now and then +disappoints his friends and shakes the confidence of his followers. A +keen, intellectual, cynical member of the Liberal party, Mr. Grant Duff, +not long since publicly reproached Mr. Gladstone with this trick of +suddenly "turning round and firing his revolver in the face of his +followers." Certain it is that there is little or no enthusiasm felt +toward Gladstone personally, by his party. Admirers of Mr. Disraeli are +usually devotees of the man himself. Young men, especially, delight in +him and adore him. Mr. Gladstone is followed as a leader, admired as an +orator; but I have heard very few of his followers ever express any +personal affection or enthusiasm for him; but it is quite notorious in +London that some of his adherents can hardly control their dislike of +him. Mr. Bright, although a man of somewhat cold and reserved demeanor, +and occasionally _brusque_ in manner, is popular everywhere in the +House. Mr. Gladstone is not personally popular even among his own +followers. What is the reason? His enemies say that he has a bad temper +and an unbending intellectual pride, which is as untrue as if they were +to say he had a hoarse voice and a stammer. The obscurest man in the +House of Commons is not more modest; and there is nothing ungenial in +his manner or his temper. But the truth is that people cannot rely upon +him, or think they cannot, which, so far as they are concerned, amounts +to the same thing. His strongest passion in life--stronger than his love +of figures, or of Homer, or even of liberty--is a love of argument. He +is always ready to sacrifice his friend, or his party, or even his +cause, to his argument. Add to this that he has a conscience so +sensitive that it can hardly ever find any cause or deed smooth enough +to be wholly satisfactory; add, moreover, that he has an eloquence so +fluent as to flow literally away from him, or with him, and the wonder +will be how such a man ever came to be the successful leader of a great +party at all. He is always reconsidering what he has done, always +penitent for something he has said, always turning up to-day the side of +the question which everybody supposed was finally put away and done with +yesterday. + +You can read all this in his face. Furrowed with deep and rigid lines, +it proclaims a certain self-torturing nature--the nature of the +penitent, self-examining ascetic, whose heart is always vexed by doubts +of his own worth and purity, and past and future. Decidedly, Gladstone +wants force of character, and force of intellect as well. He is not a +man of great thought. Every such man settles a question, so far as he is +himself concerned, finally, one way or the other, before long; sees and +accepts what the human limitations of thinking are; recognizes the +necessity of being done with mere thinking about it, and so decides and +is free to act. There is intellectual weakness in Gladstone's +interminable consideration and reconsideration, qualification and +requalification of every subject and branch of a subject. But there is +also a strong, genuine, unmingled delight in mere argument--perhaps as +barren a delight as human intellect can yield to. + +Last year there were three Fenian prisoners lying under sentence of +death in Manchester. Their crime was such as undoubtedly all civil +governments are accustomed to punish by death. But there was +considerable sympathy for them, partly because of their youth, partly +because the deed they had done--the killing of a policeman in order to +rescue a political conspirator--did not seem to be a mere base and +malignant murder. Some eminent Liberals, Mr. Bright among the rest, +endeavored to obtain a mitigation of the sentence. The Tory Government +refused; then a point of law was raised on their behalf, and argued in +the House of Commons. The point was new, the Tory law-officers, dull men +at the best, were taken by surprise, and broke down in reply. Yet there +was a reply, and legally, a sufficient one. Mr. Gladstone saw it; saw +where the point raised was defective, and how it might be disposed of. +He sprang to his feet, pulled the Tory law-officers out of their +difficulty, and upset the case for the Fenians. Now this must have +seemed to a conscientious man quite the right thing to do. To a lover of +argument the temptation of upsetting a defective plea was irresistible. +But most of Mr. Gladstone's Irish followers, on whom he must needs rely, +were surprised and angry, and even some of his English friends thought +he might have left the Tories unaided to hang their own political +prisoners. Gladstone's conduct was eminently characteristic. No +impartial man could honestly say that he had done a wrong thing; but no +one acquainted with political life could feel surprised that a leader +who habitually does such things, is almost always being grumbled at by +one or other section of his followers. + +There is an obvious lack of directness as well as of robustness in the +whole intellectual and political character of the man. I think it was +Nathaniel Hawthorne who said of General McClellan that if he could only +have shut one eye he might have gone straight into Richmond almost at +any time during his command of the Army of the Potomac. I am sure if +Gladstone would only close one eye now and then he might lead his party +much more easily to splendid victory. With all his great, varied, +comprehensive faculties, he is not a man to make a deep mark on the +history of his country. He has to be driven on. Somebody must stand +behind him. He is not self-sufficing. His style of eloquence is not +straightforward, cleaving its way like an arrow. It goes round and round +a subject, turning it up, holding it to the light, now this way, now +that, examining and re-examining it. Even his reform speeches are as +Disraeli once said very happily of Lord Palmerston, rather speeches +about Reform than orations on behalf of it. He is indeed the brilliant +Halifax of his age--at least he is a complete embodiment of Lord +Macaulay's Halifax. A leader with so many splendid gifts and merits, no +English parliamentary party of modern times has ever had. Taking manner, +voice, elocution and all into account, as is but right in judging of a +speaker, I think he is the most splendid of all English orators. Burke's +manner and accent were terribly against him; Fox was full of repetition, +and often stammered and stuttered in the very rush and tumult of his +thoughts; Sheridan's glitter was sometimes tawdriness; both the Pitts +were given to pompousness and affectation; Bright has neither the silver +voice nor the varied information of Gladstone; Disraeli I do not rank +among orators at all. Gladstone has none of the special defects of any +of these men, yet I am convinced that Fox was a _greater_ orator than +Gladstone; I know that Bright is; while Burke's speeches are, as +intellectual studies, incomparably beyond anything that Gladstone will +ever bequeath to posterity; and as instruments to an end, some of +Disraeli's speeches have been more effective and triumphant than +anything ever spoken by his present rival. + +In brief, Gladstone is not, to my thinking, a _great_ orator; and I do +not believe he is a great statesman. A great statesman, I presume, is +tested by a crisis, and is greatest at a crisis. Such was Chatham; such +was Washington; such was Napoleon Bonaparte; such was Cavour; such is +Bismarck. All I have seen of Gladstone compels me to believe that he is +not such a man. He is just the man to lead the Liberal party at this +time; but I should despair of the triumph of that party for the present +generation, if there were not stronger and simpler minds behind his to +keep him in the right way, to drive him on--and, above all, to prevent +him from recoiling after he has made an effective stride forward. + +One of the great questions likely to arise soon in English political +discussion is that of national education. On educational questions I +fancy Mr. Gladstone is rather narrow-minded and old-fashioned; taking +too much the tone and view of a college Don. His recent severance from +the political representation of Oxford may have done something to +release his mind from tradition and pedantry; but I much doubt whether +he will not be found sadly wanting when a serious attempt is made to +revolutionize the principles and the system of the English universities, +and to substitute there (I quote again the language of Grant Duff) "the +studies of men for the studies of children." Gladstone is a devotee of +classical study; and his whole nature is under the influence of +æstheticism, or of what is commonly called "sentiment." The sweet and +genial traditions of the past have immense influence over him. His love +of Greek poetry and of Italian art follow him into politics. With the +Teuton, his poetry and his politics he has little or no sympathy; and I +think the question to be decided shortly as regards the university +system in England maybe figuratively described as a question between +Classic and Teuton. Gladstone is a profound Greek and Latin scholar--a +master of Italian, a connoisseur of Italian art; he does not, I believe, +know or care much about German literature. Accordingly, he was a devoted +Philhellene and a passionate champion of Italian independence; while the +outbreak of the recent struggle between the past and the present in +Germany found him indifferent, and probably even ignorant. So it was in +regard to the American crisis the other day. He knew little of American +politics and national life; and the whole thing was a bewilderment and a +surprise to him. If the Laocoon had been the work of a New England +artist I think the North would have found at once a warm advocate in Mr. +Gladstone. + +Of a mould utterly different is John Bright, at the very root of whose +character are found simplicity and straightforwardness. By simplicity I +do not mean freedom from pretence or affectation; for no man can be more +thoroughly unaffected and sincere than Gladstone. I mean that purely +intellectual attribute which frees the judgment from the influence of +complex emotions; which distinguishes at once essentials from +non-essentials; which sees at a glance the true end and the real way to +it, and can go directly onward. Men supremely gifted with this great +practical quality are commonly set down as men of one idea. In this +sense, undoubtedly, John Bright is a man of one idea; but the phrase +does not justly describe him, or men like him, who are peculiar merely +in having an accurate appreciation of what I may call political +perspective, and thus knowing what proportion of public consideration +certain objects ought, under certain circumstances, to obtain. + +So far as ideas are the offspring of information, Mr. Bright has +undoubtedly fewer ideas than some of his contemporaries. He is not a +profound classical scholar like Gladstone; he has had nothing like the +varied culture of Lowe; he makes, of course, no pretence to the +attainments of Mill, who is at once a master of science, of classics, +and of _belles-lettres_. But given a subject, almost any subject, coming +at all within the domain of politics or economics, and time to think +over it, and he is much more likely to be right in his judgment of it +than any of the three men I have named. He is gifted beyond any +Englishman now living with the rare and admirable faculty of seeing +right into the heart of a subject, and discerning what it means and what +it is worth. Nor is this ever a lucky jump at a conclusion. Bright never +gives an opinion at random or off-hand. Some new policy is announced; +some new subject is broached in the House of Commons; and Bright sits +silent and listens. Friends and followers come round him and ask him +what he thinks of it. "Wait until to-morrow and I will tell you," is +almost invariably, in whatever form of words, the tenor of his +reply--and to-morrow's judgment is certain to be right. I can remember +no great public question coming up in England for the past dozen years +in regard to which Mr. Bright's deliberate judgment did not prove itself +to be just. + +This quality of sagacious judgment, however valuable and uncommon, would +not of itself make a man a great statesman or even a great party leader; +but it is only one of many remarkable attributes which are found +harmoniously illustrated in the character of Mr. Bright. I do not mean, +however, to dwell at any length here on the place John Bright holds in +English political life or the qualities which have won him that place. +He has lately been the subject of an article in this magazine, and he is +indeed better known to American readers than any other English political +man now living. One or two observations are all that just now seem +necessary to make. + +Men who have not heard Bright speak, and who only know him by repute as +a powerful tribune of the people, a demagogue ("John of Bromwicham," +Carlyle calls him, classing him with John of Leyden), are naturally apt +to think of him as an impetuous, passionate, stormy orator, shaking +people's souls with sound and fury. Almost anybody who only knew the two +men vaguely and by rumor, would be likely to assume that the style of +the classical Gladstone was stately, calm, and regular; that of the +popular orator and democrat, impetuous, rugged, and vehement. Now, the +great characteristic of Gladstone, after his fluency, is his +impetuosity; that of Bright is his magnificent composure and +self-control. Intensity is his great peculiarity. He never foams or +froths or bellows, or wildly gesticulates. The heat of his oratorical +passion is a white heat which consumes without flash or smoke or +sputter. Some of his greatest effects have been produced by passages of +pathetic appeal, of irony, or of invective, which were delivered with a +calm intensity that might almost have seemed coldness, if the fire of +genius and of eloquence did not burn beneath it. Another remark I should +make is that Mr. Bright is the greatest master of pure Saxon English now +speaking the English language. As the blind commonly have their sense of +sound and of touch intensified, so it may be that Mr. Bright's +comparative indifference to classic and foreign literature has tended to +concentrate all his attention upon the culture of pure English, and +given him a supreme faculty of appreciating and employing it. Certain it +is that his unvarying choice of the very best Saxon word in every case +seems to come from an instinct which is in itself something like genius. + +Finally, let me remark, that the extent of Mr. Bright's democratic +tendencies would probably disappoint some Americans. I may say now what +I should probably have been laughed at for saying two or three years +ago, that there is a good deal of the conservative about John Bright; +that he is by nature disposed to shrink from innovation; that change for +the mere sake of change is quite abhorrent to him; and that he is about +the last man in England who would care to make political war for an +idea. He seems to me to be the only one Englishman I have lately spoken +with who retains any genuine feeling of personal loyalty toward the +sovereign of England. But for his eloquence and his power, I fancy Mr. +Bright would seem rather a slow sort of politician to many of the +younger Radicals. The "Times" lately attributed Mr. Bright's +conservatism to his advancing years. This was merely absurd. Mr. Bright +is little older now than O'Connell was when he began his Parliamentary +career. He is considerably younger than Disraeli, or Gladstone, or Mill. +What Bright now is he always was. A dozen years ago he was defending the +Queen and Prince Albert against the attacks of Tories and of some +Radicals. He never was a Democrat in the French or Italian sense. He has +always been wanting even, in sympathy, with popular revolution abroad. +He never showed the slightest interest in speculative politics. I doubt +if he ever talked of the "brotherhood of peoples." He has been driven +into political agitation only because, like Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, he +saw positive, practical, and pressing grievances bearing down upon his +neighbors, which he felt called by duty to make war against. I have many +times heard Mr. Bright say that he detests the House of Commons, and +would be glad if it were permitted him never to mount a platform again. + +But if Mr. Bright had little natural inclination for a Parliamentary +career, what is one to say of Mr. John Stuart Mill's natural +disinclination for such a path of life? + +Physical constitution, intellectual peculiarities, temperament, +habits--all seemed to mark out Mr. Mill as a man destined to close his +career, as he had so long conducted it--in almost absolute seclusion. He +is a silent, shy, shrinking man, of feeble frame and lonely ways. Until +the general election of three years back, Mr. Mill was to his countrymen +but as an oracle--as a voice--almost as a myth. The influence of his +writings was immense. Personally he was but a name. He never came into +any public place; he knew nobody. When the promoters of the movement to +return him to Parliament came to canvass the Westminster electors, the +great difficulty they had to contend with was, that three out of every +four of the honest traders and shopkeepers had never heard of him; and +the few who knew anything of his books had a vague impression that the +author was dead years before. The very men who formed the executive of +his committee could not say that they knew him, even by sight. Half in +jest, half for a serious purpose, some of the Tories sent abroad over +Westminster an awful report that there was no such man in existence as +John Stuart Mill. "Did you ever see him?" was the bewildering question +constantly put to this or that earnest canvasser, and invariably +answered with an apologetic negative. I believe the services of my +friend Dr. Chapman, editor of the "Westminster Review," were brought +into pressing requisition, because he was one of the very few who really +could boast a personal acquaintance with Stuart Mill. The day when the +latter first entered the House of Commons was the first time he and +Bright ever saw each other. I believe Cobden and Mill never met. Mill +had no university acquaintances--he had never been to any university. He +had no school friends--he had never been to a school. Perhaps the best +educated man of his time in England, he owes his education to the +personal care and teaching of his distinguished father, James Mill, who +would have been illustrious if his son had not overshadowed his fame. +Assuredly, to know James Mill intimately was, if I may thus apply Leigh +Hunt's saying, in itself a liberal education. Following his father's +steps at the India House, John Mill worked there methodically and +quietly, until he rose to the highest position his father had occupied; +and then he resigned his office, declined an offer of a seat at the +Indian Council Board, subsequently made by Lord Stanley, and lapsed +wholly into private life. Of late he rarely met even his close and +early friends. Some estrangement, not necessary to dwell on, had taken +place, I believe, between him and his old friend Thomas Carlyle, and I +suppose they ceased to meet. After the death of the wife whom he so +loved and revered, Mill lived almost always at Avignon, in the south of +France, where she died, and where he raised a monument over her remains, +which he visits and tends with a romantic devotion and constancy worthy +of a Roland. + +Only a profound sense of duty could drag such a man from his scholarly +and sacred seclusion into the stress and storm of a parliamentary life. +But it was urged upon Mill that he could do good to the popular cause by +going into Parliament; and he is not a man to think anything of his +personal preference in such a case. He accepted the contest and won. +Some of his warmest admirers regretted that he had ever given his +consent. They feared not so much that he might damage his reputation as +that he might weaken the influence of his authority, and with it the +strength of every great popular cause. Certainly those who thought thus, +and who met Mr. Mill for the first time during the progress of the +Westminster contest, did not feel much inclined to take a more +encouraging view of the prospect. + +Mr. Mill seems cut out by nature not to be a parliamentary success. He +has a thin, fragile, awkward frame; he has a nervous, incessant +twitching of the lips and eyes; he has a weak voice and a sort of +stammer; he is over sixty years of age; he had never, so far as I know, +addressed a political meeting of any kind up to the time of the +Westminster contest. Yet with all these disadvantages, Mill has, as a +political leader and speaker, been an undoubted success with the +country, and a sort of success in the House. An orator of any kind he +never could be. One might call him a wretchedly bad speaker, if his +speaking were not so utterly unlike anybody else's, as to refuse to be +classified with any other speaking, good or bad. But, so far as the best +selection of words, the clearest style, the most coherent and convincing +argument can constitute eloquence, Mill's speeches are eloquent. They +are, of course, only spoken essays. They differ in no wise from the +speaker's writings; and I need hardly say that a speech, to be +effective, must never be just what the speaker would have written if it +were to be consigned at once to print as a letter or an essay. As +speeches, therefore, Mr. Mill's utterances in the House have little or +no effect. Indeed, they are only listened to by a very few men of real +intelligence and judgment on both sides. Some of the more boisterous of +the Tories made many attempts to cough and laugh Mill into silence; +indeed, there was obviously a deliberate plan of this kind in operation +at one time. But Mill is a man whom nothing can deter from saying or +doing what he thinks right. A more absolutely fearless being does not +exist. He is even free from that fear which has sometimes paralyzed the +boldest spirits, the fear of becoming ridiculous. So the Tory trick +failed. Mill went on with patient, imperturbable, proud good-humor, +despite all interruption--now and then paying off his Tory enemies by +some keen contemptuous epigram or sarcasm, made all the more pungent by +the thin, bland tone in which it was uttered. So the Tories gave up +shouting, groaning and laughing; the more quickly because one at least +of their chiefs, the Marquis of Salisbury (then in the House of Commons +as Lord Cranbourne) had the spirit and sense to express openly and +loudly his anger and disgust at the vulgar and brutal behaviour of some +of his followers. Therefore Mr. Mill ceased to be interrupted; but he is +not much listened to. That supreme, irrefutable evidence that a man +fails to interest the House--the fact that a hum and buzz of +conversation may be heard all the time he is speaking--is always fatally +manifest when Mr. Mill addresses the Commons. But the House, after all, +is only a platform from which a man endeavors to speak to the country, +and if Mill does not always get the ear of the House, he never fails to +be heard by the nation. I have no doubt that even the Tory members of +the House read Mill's speeches when they appear in print; assuredly all +intelligent Tories do. These speeches, in any case, are never lost on +the country. They form at once a part of the really successful +literature of each session. They always excite controversy of some +kind--not even the great orations of Bright and Gladstone are more +talked of. + +So far they are a success, and there is something in the personal +character of Mr. Mill himself, which makes him specially popular with +the working classes of England. I doubt if there is now any Englishman +whose name would be received with a more cordial outburst of applause at +a popular meeting. Working-men, in fact, are very proud of Mr. Mill's +scholarship, culture, and profundity. They can perceive easily enough +that he is remarkable for just those intellectual qualities which the +conventional demagogue never has. Tory newspapers and the "Saturday +Review" sometimes affect to regard Mr. Bright as a man of defective +education, but it is impossible to pretend to think that Mill is +ignorant of Greek or superficial in his knowledge of history. When such +a man makes himself especially the champion of working-men, the +working-men think of him very much as the Irish peasants of '98 and '48 +did of Edward Fitzgerald and Smith O'Brien, the aristocrats of birth and +rank, who stepped down from their high places and gave themselves up to +the cause of the unlettered and the poor. + +There is something fascinating, moreover, about the singular blending of +the emotional, and even the romantic, with the keen, vigorous, logical +intellect, which is to be observed in Mill. Even political economy, in +Mill's mind, is strangely guided and governed by mere feeling. Somebody +said he was a combination of Ricardo and Tom Hughes--somebody else said, +rather more happily, I think, that he is Adam Smith and Fénélon revived +and rolled into one. The "Pall Mall Gazette" found his picture well +painted in Lord Macaulay's analysis of the motives which influenced +Edmund Burke, when he flung his soul into the impeachment of Warren +Hastings. The mere eccentricities, the very defects of such a nature +have in them something captivating. The admirers of Mr. Mill are +therefore not unusually somewhat given to exalting admiration into +idolatry. The classes who most admire him are the scholarly and +adventurous young Radicals, who have a dash of Positivism in them; the +extreme Radicals, who are prepared to go any and all lengths for the +mere sake of change; and the working-men. + +This is the Triumvirate of the English Liberal Party. Combined they +represent, guide, and govern every section and fraction of that party +that is worth taking into any consideration. Mr. Gladstone represents +official Liberalism; Mr. Bright speaks for and directs the +old-fashioned, robust, popular Liberalism of which Manchester was the +school; Mr. Mill is the exponent of the new Liberalism, the Liberalism +of Idea and Logic. Bright's programme is a little ahead of Gladstone's, +but Gladstone will probably be easily pulled up to it. Mill goes far +beyond either, far beyond any point at which either is ever likely to +arrive. Indeed, Mr. Mill may be fairly described by a phrase, which I +believe is German, as a man in advance of every possible future--at +least in England. But he is quite prepared to act loyally and steadily +with his party and its leader on all momentous issues. On some minor +questions he has lately gone widely away from them, and given thereby +much offence; and indeed I am sure there are not a few of the +old-fashioned Liberals and the Manchester men who would rather Mr. Mill +had never come into Parliament and sat at their side. But on nearly all +questions of Parliamentary Reform, and on that of the Irish Church, Mill +and his Liberal colleagues will pull cordially together. So, too, on +most economic questions, reduction of taxation, imposition of duties and +the like. Where a sharp difference is likely to arise will only be in +relation to some subject having an idea behind it--some question of +foreign policy perhaps, something not at present imminent; and, let us +hope, not destined in any case to be vital to the interests of the +party. Only where an idea is involved will Mr. Mill refuse to allow his +own judgment to bend to the general necessities of the party. It was his +objection (a very unwise one, I think) to the idea behind the system of +the ballot, which led him to separate himself sharply from Bright and +other Liberals on that subject; it was the idea which lies at the bottom +of a representation of minorities, which beguiled him into lending his +advocacy to that most chimerical, awkward, and absurd piece of political +mechanism which we know in England as the three-cornered constituency. +The cohesion of Gladstone and Bright is decidedly more close and likely +to endure than that between Bright and Mill. But on all immediate +questions of great importance, these two men are sure to be found side +by side. Mill has a deep and earnest admiration for Bright, who is +sometimes, perhaps, a little impatient of the Politics of Idea. + +During the session of 1868, I attended a meeting of a few representative +Liberals of all classes, brought together to decide on some course of +agitation with regard to Ireland. Mr. Mill was there, so were Professor +Fawcett, Mr. Thomas Hughes, Lord Amberley, and other members of +Parliament; Mr. Frederick Harrison, with some of his Positivist +colleagues, and several representative working men. Mr. Bright was +unable to attend. A certain course of action being recommended, Mr. Mill +expressed his own approval of it, but emphatically declared that he +considered Mr. Bright's judgment was entitled to be regarded as +authoritative, and that should Mr. Bright recommend the meeting not to +go on, the scheme had better be given up. Mr. Bright subsequently +discouraged the scheme, and it was, on Mr. Mill's recommendation, at +once abandoned. I mention this fact to illustrate the loyalty which Mr. +Mill, with all his tendency to political eccentricity, usually displays +toward the men whom he regards as the leaders of the party. + +Mill and Bright are alike warm admirers of Gladstone and believers in +him. Indeed one sometimes feels ashamed to doubt for a moment the +steadfastness of a man in whom Bright and Mill put so full a faith. + +Certainly the English Liberal has reason to congratulate himself, and +feel proud when he remembers what sort of men his party's leaders used +to be, and sees what men they are to-day. It will not do to study too +closely the private characters of the chiefs of any political band in +the House of Commons, from the days of Bolingbroke to those of Fox. The +man who was not a sinecurist or a peculator was pretty sure to be a +profligate or a gambler. Not a few eminent men were sinecurists, +peculators, profligates, and gamblers. The political purity of the +English Liberal leaders to-day is absolutely without the faintest shade +of suspicion--it never even occurs to any one to suspect them, while +their private lives, it may be said without indelicacy, are in pure and +perfect accord with the noble principles they profess. Not often has +there been a political triumvirate of greater men; of better men, never. + + + + +THE ENGLISH POSITIVISTS. + + +Some few months ago, a little bubble of interest was made on the surface +of London life, by a course of Sunday lectures of a peculiar kind. + +These lectures were given in a small room in Bouverie street, off Fleet +street--Bouverie street, sacred to publishing and newspaper offices--and +only a very small stream of persons was drawn to the place. There was +something very peculiar, however, about the lectures, the lecturer, and +the audience, which might well have repaid a stranger in London for the +trouble of going there. I doubt whether such a proportion of +intellectual faces could have been seen among the congregation of any +London church on these Sunday mornings; and I know one, at least, who +attended the lectures, less for the sake of what he heard than because +such listeners as the authoress of "Romola" were among the audience. The +lecturer was Mr. Richard Congreve, and the subject of his discourses was +the creed of Positivism. + +I do not know how familiar Mr. Congreve and his writings and his +doctrines are to the American public. In London, Mr. Congreve is, in a +quiet way, a sort of celebrity or peculiarity. He is the head of the +small, compact band of English Positivists. It is understood that he +goes as far in the direction of the creed which was the dream of Auguste +Comte's later years as any sane human creature can well go. I have, +however, very little to say here of Mr. Congreve, individually; and I +take his recent course of Sunday lectures only as a convenient starting +point from which to begin a few remarks on the political principles, +character, and influence of that small, resolute, aggressive body of +intellectual, highly-educated and able men who are beginning to be known +in the politics and society of England as the London Positivists. + +A discourse on the principles of Positivism would be quite out of place +here; but even those who understand the whole subject will, perhaps, +allow me, for the benefit of those who do not, to explain very briefly +what an English Positivist is. Positivism, it is known to my readers, is +the name given to the philosophy which Auguste Comte, more than any +other man, helped to reduce to a system. Regarded as a philosophy of +history and human society, its grand and fundamental doctrine merely is +that human life evolves itself in obedience to certain fixed laws, of +which we could obtain a knowledge if only we applied ourselves to this +study as we do to all other studies in practical science, by the patient +observation of phenomena. Auguste Comte's reduction of this +philosophical theory to a scientific system is undoubtedly one of the +grandest achievements of human intellect. The philosophy did not begin +with him or his generation, or, indeed, any generation of which we have +authentic record. Whenever there were men capable of thinking at all, +there must have been some whose minds were instinct with this doctrine; +but Comte made it a system at once simple, grand, and fascinating, and +he will always remain identified with its development, in the memory of +the modern world. Unfortunately, Comte, in his later years, set to +founding a _religion_ also--a religion which has, perhaps, called down +upon its founder and its followers more ridicule, contempt, and +discredit than any vagary of human imagination in our day. I speak of +all this only to explain to my readers that there is some little +difficulty in defining what is meant by a Positivist. If we mean merely +a believer in the philosophical theory of history, then Positivists +are, indeed, to be named as legion, and their captains are among the +greatest intellects of the world to-day. In England, we regard Mr. John +Stuart Mill as, in this sense, the greatest Positivist, and undoubtedly +he is so regarded here. But Mill utterly rejects and ridicules the +fantastic religion which Comte, in his days of declining mental power, +sought to graft on his grand philosophy. In his treatise on Comte, Mr. +Mill showed no mercy to the Positivist religion, and, indeed, bitterly +offended many of its votaries by his contemptuous exposure of its +follies. What is said of Mill may be said of nineteen out of every +twenty, at least, of the English followers of Comte. They accept the +philosophy as grand, scientific, inexorable truth; they reject the +religion with pity or with scorn, as a fantastic and barren chimera. Mr. +Congreve is, in London, the leader of the small school who go for taking +all or nothing, and to whom Auguste Comte is the prophet of a new and +final religion, as well as the teacher of a new philosophy. Now this +little school is the nucleus of the body of Englishmen of whom I write. + +When I speak, therefore, of English Positivists, I do not mean the men +who go no farther than John Stuart Mill does. These men are to be found +everywhere; they are of all schools, and all religions. I mean the much +smaller body of votaries who go, or feel inclined to go, much farther, +and accept Comte's religious teaching as a law of life. It is quite +probable that, even among the men who are now identified more or less, +in the public mind, with Mr. Congreve and his school, there may be some +who do not adopt, or even concern themselves about the religion of +Positivism. A community of sentiment on historical and political +questions, the habit of meeting together, consulting together, writing +for publication together, might naturally bring into the group men who +may not go the length of adopting the Comte worship. It is quite +possible, therefore, that, in mentioning the names of English +Positivists, I may happen to speak of some who have no more to do with +that worship than I have. + +I mean, then, only the group of men, most of whom are young, most of +whom are highly cultured, many of whom are endowed with remarkable +ability, who are to be found in a literary and political phalanstery +with Mr. Congreve, and of whom the majority are understood to be actual +votaries of the religion of Comte. Of course I have nothing to do here +with their faith or their practices. If they adopt the worship of woman +I think they do a better thing after all than the increasing and popular +class of writers, whose principal business in life is to persuade us +that our wives and sisters are all Messalinas in heart and nearly all +Messalinas in practice. If, when they pray, they touch certain cranial +bumps at certain passages of the prayer, I do not see that they +institute anything worse than the genuflections of the Ritualist or the +breast-beating of the Roman Catholics. If, finally, one is sometimes a +little puzzled when he receives a letter from a Positivist friend, and +finds it dated "5th Marcus Aurelius," or "12th Auguste Comte," instead +of July or December, as the case may be, one must remember that there +never yet was a young sect which did not delight in puzzling outsiders +by a new and peculiar nomenclature. I never heard anything worse charged +against the Positivists than that they worship woman, touch their +foreheads when they pray, and arrange the calendar according to a plan +of their own invention; except, of course, the general charge of +Atheism; but as that is made in England against anybody whom all his +neighbors do not quite understand, I hardly think it worth discussing in +this particular instance. We are all Atheists in England in the +estimation of our neighbors, whose political opinions are different from +our own. + +The English Positivists, then, are beginning to stand out sharply +against the common background of political life. They are a little +school; as distinctly a school for their time and chances as the +Girondists were, or the Manchester school, or the Massachusetts +Abolitionists, or the Boston Transcendentalists. They are Radical, of +course, but their Radicalism has a curious twist in it. On any given +question of Radicalism they go as far as any practical politician does; +but then they also go in most cases so very much farther that they often +alarm the practical politician out of his ordinary composure. They are +generally incisive of speech, aggressive of purpose, defiant of +political prudery, and even of political prudence. Their politics are +always politics of idea. + +Some three or four years ago the Positivists published a large and +ponderous volume of essays on subjects of international policy. Each man +who contributed an essay signed his name, and although a general +community of idea and principle pervaded the book, it was not understood +that everybody who wrote necessarily adopted all the views of his +associates. The book, in fact, was constructed on the model of the +famous "Essays and Reviews" which had sent such a thrill through the +religious world a few years before. The political essays naturally +failed to create anything like the sensation which was produced by their +theological predecessors; but they did excite considerable attention, +and awoke the echoes. They astonished a good many Liberal politicians of +the steady old school, and they set many men thinking. What surprised +people at first was the singular combination of literary culture and +ultra-Radical opinion. Literary young men in England, of late, are +generally to be divided into two classes--the smart writers for +periodicals, the minor novelists and dramatists, and so forth, who know +no more and care no more about politics than ballet girls do, and the +University men, the men of "culture," who affect Toryism as something +fine and distinguished, and profess a patrician horror of democracy and +the "mob." If at the time this volume was published one had taken aside +some practical politician in London and said, "Here is a collection of +practical essays written by a cluster of young men who all have +University degrees after their names--will you read it?" the answer +would certainly have been--"Not I, it's sure to be some contemptible +sham Tory rubbish; some 'blood-and-culture' trash; some schoolboy +impertinence about demagoguism and the mob." Therefore the surprise was +not slight to such men when they read the book and found that its +central idea, its connecting thread, was a Radicalism which might well +be called thorough; a Radicalism which made Bright look like a steady +old Conservative; invited Mill to push his ideas a little farther; and +poured scorn upon the Radical press for its slowness and its timidity. A +simple, startling foreign policy was prescribed to England. Its gospel, +after all, was but an old one--so old that it had been forgotten in +English politics. It was merely--Be just and fear not. Renounce all +aggression; give back the spoils of conquest. Give Gibraltar back to the +Spaniards who own it; prepare to cast loose your colonial dependencies; +prepare even to quit your loved India; ask the Irish people fairly and +clearly what they want, and if they desire to be free of your rule, bid +them go and be free and Godspeed. All the old traditional policies +seemed to these men only obsolete and odious superstitions. They would +have England, the State, to stand up and act precisely as an Englishman +of honor and conscience would do, and they treated with utter contempt +any policy of expediency or any policy whatever that aimed at any end +but that of finding out the right thing to do and then doing it at once. +This seemed to me, studying the school quite as an outside observer, its +one great central idea; and it would of course be impossible not to +honor the body of writers who proposed to show how it was to be +accomplished. + +But no school lives on one grand idea; and this school had its chimeras +and crotchets--almost its crazes. For example, the leader of the +Positivist band took great trouble to argue that Europe ought to form +herself into a noble federation of States, to the exclusion of Russia, +which was to be regarded as an Oriental, barbarous, unmanageable, +intolerable sort of thing, and pushed out of the European system +altogether. Then a good many of the leading minds of the school are +imbued with a passionate love for a sort of celestial despotism, an +ideal imperialism which the people are first to create and then to +obey--which is to teach them, house them, keep them in employment, keep +them in health, and leave them nothing to do for themselves, while yet +securing to them the most absolute freedom. To some of these men the +condition of New York, where the State does hardly anything for the +individual, would seem as distressing and objectionable as that of +despotic Paris or even Constantinople. A distinguished member of the +school declared that nothing was to him more odious than any manner of +voluntaryism, and that he hoped to see State operation introduced into +every department of English social organization. The connection of this +theory with the principle of Positivism, which would mould all men into +a sort of hierarchy, is natural and obvious enough, and there is, to +support it, a certain reaction now in England against the voluntary +principle, in education and in public charities. But, as it is put +forward and argued by men of the school I describe, it may be taken as +one of the most remarkable points of departure from the common tendency +of thought in England. The Positivists are all, indeed, un-English, in +the common use of a phrase which is ceasing of late to be so dreaded a +stigma as it once used to be in British politics. They are, as I have +already said, a somewhat aggressive body, and are imbued with a +contempt, which they never care to conceal, for the average public +opinion of the British Philistine, whether he present himself as a West +End tradesman or a West End Peer. + +The Positivists are almost always to be found in antagonism with this +sort of public opinion. They attack the Philistine, and they attack no +less readily the dainty scholar and critic who lately gave the +Philistine his name, and whose over-refining love of sweetness and light +is so terribly offended by the rough and earnest work of Radical +politics. Whatever way average opinion tends, the influence of the +Positivists is sure to tend the other way. + +There was a time, nearly two years ago, when the average English mind +was suddenly seized with a passion of blended hate, fear, and contempt +for Fenianism. The thing was first beginning to show itself in a serious +light and it had not gone far enough to show what it really was. It +looked more formidable than it proved to be, and it seemed less like an +ordinary rebellious organization than like some mysterious and +demoniacal league against property and public security. When I say it +seemed, I mean it seemed to the average English mind, to the ordinary +swell and the ordinary shopkeeper. Just at this time the Positivists +drew up a petition to be presented to the House of Commons, in which +they called upon the House to insist that lenity should be shown to all +Fenian prisoners, that they should be regarded as men driven into +rebellion by a deep sense of injustice, and that measures should be +taken to prevent the British troops from committing such excesses in +Ireland as had been perpetrated in the suppression of the Indian mutiny, +and more lately in Jamaica. Now, if there was anything peculiarly +calculated to vex and aggravate the House of Commons and the English +public generally, it was such a view of the business as this. Fenianism +had not acquired the solemn and tragic interest which it obtained a few +months afterward. It is only just to say that Englishmen in general +began to look with pity and a sort of respect on Fenianism, once it +became clear that it had among its followers men who, to quote the +language of one of the least sympathetic of London newspapers, "knew how +to die." But, at the time I speak of, Fenianism was a vague, mystic, +accursed thing, which it was proper to regard as utterly detestable and +contemptible. Imagine then what the feeling of the English county member +must have been when he learned that there were actually in London a set +of educated Englishmen, nearly all trained in the universities and +nearly all moving in good society, who regarded the Fenians just as he +himself regarded rebels against the Emperor of Austria or the Pope of +Rome, and who not merely asked that consideration should be shown toward +them, but went on to talk of the necessity of protecting them against +the brutality of the loyal British soldier! The petition was signed by +all who had a share in its preparation. Such men as Richard Congreve, T. +M. Ludlow, Frederick Harrison and Professor Beesly, were among the +petitioners who risked their admission into respectable society by +signing the document. The petitioners did not feel quite sure about +getting any one of mark to present their appeal; and it is certain that +a good many professed Liberals, of advanced opinions and full of +sympathy with foreign rebels of any class or character, would have +promptly refused to accept the ungenial office. The petitioners, +however, applied to one who was not likely to be influenced by any +considerations but those of right and justice, and whom, moreover, no +body in the House of Commons would think of trying to put down. They +asked Mr. Bright to present their petition, and there was, of course, no +hesitation on his part. Mr. Bright not merely presented the petition, +but read it amid the angry and impatient murmurs of an amazed and +indignant House; and he declared, in tones of measured and impressive +calmness, that he entirely approved of and adopted the sentiments which +the petitioners expressed. There was, of course, a storm of indignation, +and some members went the length of recommending that the petition +should not even be received--an extreme and indeed extravagant course in +a country where the right of petition is supposed to be held sacred, and +which the good sense even of some Tory members promptly repudiated. Mr. +Disraeli did his very best to aggravate the feeling of the House against +the petitioners. During the Indian mutiny he had himself loudly +protested against the spirit of vengeance which our press encouraged; +asked whether we meant to make Nana Sahib the model for a British +officer, and whether Moloch or Christ was our divinity. Yet he now +declared that the language of the petition was a libel on the Indian +army, and that nothing had ever occurred during the Bengal outbreak to +warrant the imputations cast on the humanity of our soldiers. + +I suppose it is not easy to convey to an American reader a correct idea +of the degree of boldness involved in the presentation of this +celebrated petition. It really was a very bold thing to do. It was +running right in the very teeth of the public opinion of all the classes +which are called respectable in England. It was, however, strictly +characteristic of the men who signed it. Most, if not all of them, took +a prominent part in the prosecution of Governor Eyre of Jamaica, for the +lawless execution of George William Gordon and the wholesale and +merciless floggings and hangings by which order was made to reign in the +island. Most of them, indeed, have a pretty spirit of contradiction of +their own, and a pretty gift of sarcasm. I think I hardly remember any +man who received, during an equal length of time, a greater amount of +abuse from the press than Professor Beesly drew down on himself not very +long ago. It was at the time when the public mind was in its wildest +thrill of horror at the really fearful revelations of organized murder +in connection with the Sawgrinders' Union in Sheffield. The whole +question of trades' union organization had been under discussion; and +even before the Sheffield revelations came out, the general voice of +English respectability was against the workmen's societies altogether. +But when the disclosures of organized murder in connection with one +union came out, a sort of panic took possession of the public mind. The +first, and not unnatural impulse was to assume that all trades' unions +must be very much the same sort of thing, and that the societies of +workmen were little better than organized Thuggism. Now, Professor +Beesly, Mr. Frederick Harrison and other signers of the petition for the +Fenians, had long been prominent and influential advocates of the +trades' union principle. They had been to the English artisan something +like what the Boston Abolitionist was so long to the negro. The trades' +union bodies, who felt aggrieved at the unjust suspicion which made them +a party to hideous crimes they abhorred, began to hold public meetings +to repudiate the charge, and record their detestation of the Sheffield +outrages. Professor Beesly attended one of these meetings in London. He +made a speech, in which he told the working men that he thought enough +had been done in the way of disavowing crimes which no one had a right +to impute to them; that there was no need of their further humiliating +themselves; and that it was rather odd the English Aristocracy had such +a horror of murderers among the poorer classes, seeing how very fond +they were of men like Eyre, of Jamaica! In fact, Professor Beesly +uplifted his voice very honestly, but rather recklessly and out of time, +against the social hypocrisy which is the stain and curse of London +society, and which is never so happy as when it can find some chance of +denouncing sin or crime among Republicans, or Irishmen, or workingmen. +There was nothing Professor Beesly said which had not sense and truth in +it; but it might have been said more discreetly and at a better time; +and it was said with a sarcastic and scornful bitterness which is one of +the characteristics of the speaker. For several days the London press +literally raged at the professor. "Punch" persevered for a long time in +calling him "Professor Beastly;" a a strong effort was made to obtain +his expulsion from the college in which he has a chair. He was talked of +and written of as if he were the advocate and the accomplice of +assassins, instead of being, as he is, an honorable gentleman and an +enlightened scholar, whose great influence over the working classes had +always been exerted in the cause of peaceful progress and good order. It +was a common thing, for days and weeks, to see the names of Broadhead +and Beesly coupled with ostentatious malignity in the leading columns of +London newspapers. + +I give these random illustrations only to show in what manner the school +of writers and thinkers I speak of usually present themselves before the +English public. Now Mr. Harrison devotes himself to a pertinacious, +powerful series of attacks on Eyre, of Jamaica, at a time when that +personage is the hero and pet martyr of English society; now Professor +Beesly horrifies British respectability by pointing out that there are +respectable murderers who are quite as bad as Broadhead; now Mr. John +Morley undertakes even to criticise the Queen; now Mr. Congreve assails +the anonymous writers of the London press as hired and masked assassins; +now the whole band unite in the defence of Fenians. This sort of thing +has a startling effect upon the steady public mind of England; and it +is thus, and not otherwise, that the public mind of England ever comes +to hear of these really gifted and honest, but very antagonistic and +somewhat crochetty men. Several of them are brilliant and powerful +writers. Professor Beesly writes with a keen, caustic, bitter force +which has something Parisian in it. I know of no writer in English +journalism who more closely resembles in style a certain type of the +literary gladiator of French controversy. He has much of Eugene Pelletan +in him, and something of Henri Rochefort, blended with a good deal that +reminds one of Jules Simon. Frederick Harrison is fast becoming a power +in the Radical politics and literature of England. John Morley is a +young man of great culture, and who writes with a quite remarkable +freshness and force. I could mention many other men of the same school +(I have already said that I do not know whether each and every one of +these is or is not a professed Positivist) who would be distinguished as +scholars and writers in the literature of any country. However they may +differ on minor points, however they may differ in ability, in +experience, in discretion, they have one peculiarity in common: they are +to be found foremost in every liberal and radical cause; they are always +to be found on the side of the weak, and standing up for the oppressed; +they are inveterate enemies of cant; they hate vulgar idolatry and +vulgar idols. Looking back a few years, I can remember that almost, if +not quite, every man I have alluded to was a fearless and outspoken +advocate of the cause of the North, at a time when it was _de rigueur_ +among men of "culture" in London to champion the cause of the South. +Some of the men I have named were indefatigable workers at that time on +the unfashionable side. They wrote pamphlets; they wrote leading +articles; they made speeches; they delivered lectures in out-of-the-way +quarters to workingmen and poor men of all kinds; they hardly came, in +any prominent way, before the public, in most of this work. It brought +them, probably, no notoriety or recognition whatever on this side of the +ocean; but their work was a power in England. I feel convinced that, in +any case, the English workingmen would have gone right on such a +question as that which was at issue between North and South. As Mr. +Motley truly said in his address to the New York Historical Society, the +workers and the thinkers were never misled; but I am bound to say that +the admirable knowledge of the realities of the subject; the clear, +quick, and penetrating judgment, and the patient, unswerving hope and +confidence which were so signally displayed by the London workingmen +from first to last of that great struggle, were in no slight degree the +result of the teaching and the labor of men like Professor Beesly and +Frederick Harrison. + +If I were to set up a typical Positivist, in order to make my American +reader more readily and completely familiar with the picture which the +word calls up in the minds of Londoners, I should do it in the following +way: I should exhibit my model Positivist as a man still young for +anything like prominence in English public life, but not actually young +in years--say thirty-eight or forty. He has had a training at one of the +great historical Universities, or at all events at the modern and +popular University of London. He is a barrister, but does not practise +much, and has probably a modest competence on which he can live without +working for the sake of living, and can indulge his own tastes in +literature and politics. He has immense earnestness and great +self-conceit. He has an utter contempt for dull men and timid or +half-measure men, and he scorns Whigs even more than Tories. He devotes +much of his time generously and patiently to the political and other +instruction of working men. He writes in the "Fortnightly Review," and +sometimes in "MacMillan," and sometimes in the "Westminster Review." He +plunges into gallant and fearless controversy with the "Pall Mall +Gazette," and he is not easily worsted, for his pen is sharp and his ink +very acrid. Nevertheless, is any great question stirring, with a serious +principle or a deep human interest at the heart of it, he is sure to be +found on the right side. Where the controversy is of a smaller kind and +admits of crotchet, then he is pretty sure to bring out a crotchet of +some kind. He is perpetually giving the "Saturday Review" an opportunity +to ridicule him and abuse him, and he does not care. He writes pamphlets +and goes to immense trouble to get up the facts, and expense to give +them to the world, and he never grudges trouble or money, where any +cause or even any crotchet is to be served. He is ready to stand up +alone, against all the world if needs be, for his opinions or his +friends. Benevolent schemes which are of the nature of mere charity he +never concerns himself about. I never heard of him on a platform with +the Earl of Shaftesbury, and I fancy he has a contempt for all patronage +of the poor or projects of an eleemosynary character. He is for giving +men their political rights and educating them--if necessary compelling +them to be educated; and he has little faith in any other way of doing +good. He has, of course, a high admiration for and faith in Mr. Mill. +His nature is not quite reverential--in general he is rather inclined to +sit in the chair of the scorner; but if he reverenced any living man it +would be Mill. He admires the manly, noble character of Bright, and his +calm, strong eloquence. I do not think he cares much about Gladstone--I +rather fancy our Positivist looks upon Gladstone as somewhat weak and +unsteady--and with him to be weak is indeed to be miserable. Disraeli is +to him an object of entire scorn and detestation, for he can endure no +one who has not deeply-rooted principles of some kind. He has a crotchet +about Russia, a theory about China; he gets quite beside himself in his +anger over the anonymous leading articles of the London press. He is not +an English type of man at all, in the present and conventional sense. He +cares not a rush about tradition, and mocks at the wisdom of our +ancestors. The bare fact that some custom, or institution, or way of +thinking has been sanctioned and hallowed by long generations of usage, +is in his eyes rather a _prima facie_ reason for despising it than +otherwise. He is pitilessly intolerant of all superstitions--save his +own--that is to say, he is intolerant in words and logic and ridicule, +for the wildest superstition would find him its defender, if it once +came to be practically oppressed or even threatened. He is "ever a +fighter," like one of Browning's heroes; he is the knight-errant, the +Quixote of modern English politics. He admires George Eliot in +literature, and, I should say, he regards Charles Dickens as a sort of +person who does very well to amuse idlers and ignorant people. I do not +hear of his going much to the theatre, and it is a doubt to me if he has +yet heard of the "Grande Duchesse." Life with him is a very earnest +business, and, although he has a pretty gift of sarcasm, which he uses +as a weapon of offence against his enemies, I cannot, with any effort of +imagination, picture him to myself as in the act of making a joke. + +A small drawing-room would assuredly hold all the London Positivists who +make themselves effective in English politics. Yet I do not hesitate to +say that they are becoming--that they have already become--a power which +no one, calculating on the chances of any coming struggle, can afford to +leave out of his consideration. Their public influence thus far has been +wholly for good; and they set up no propaganda that I have ever seen or +heard of, as regards either philosophy or religion. The course of +lectures I have already mentioned was the nearest approach to any +public diffusion of their peculiar doctrines which I can remember, and +it created little or no sensation in London. Indeed, little or no +publicity was sought for it. I have read lately somewhere that a +newspaper, specially devoted to the propagation and vindication of +Positivism, is about to be, or has been started in London. I do not know +whether this is true or not; but for any such journal I should +anticipate a very small circulation, and an existence only to be +maintained by continual subsidy. + +So quietly have these men hitherto pursued their course, whatever it may +be, in religion or religious philosophy, that it was long indeed before +any idea got abroad that the cluster of highly-educated, ultra-radical +thinkers, who were to be found sharpshooting on the side of every great +human principle and every oppressed cause, and who seemed positively to +delight in standing up against the vulgar rush of public opinion, were +anything more than chance associates, or were bound by any tie more +close and firm than that of general political sympathy. Even now that +people are beginning to know them, and to classify them, in a vague sort +of way, as "those Positivists," they make so little parade of any +peculiarity of faith that, without precise and personal knowledge, it +would be rash to say for certain that this or that member of the group +is or is not an actual professor of the Comtist religion. I read a few +days ago, in one of the few sensible books written on America by an +Englishman, some remarks made about a peculiar view of Europe's duty to +Egypt, which was described as being held by "the Comtists." I do not +know whether the men referred to hold the view ascribed to them or not; +but, assuredly, if they do, the fact has no more direct connection with +their Comtism than Bright's free-trade views have with Bright's +Quakerism. An illustration, however, will serve well enough as an +example of the vague and careless sort of way in which doctrines and the +men who profess them get mixed up together insolubly in the public mind. +The Sultan of a generation back, who told the European diplomatist that +if he changed his religion at all he would become a Roman Catholic, +because he observed that Roman Catholic people always grew the best +wine, was not more unreasonable in his logic than many well-informed men +when they are striving to connect cause and effect in dealing with the +religion of others. + +I do not myself make any attempt to explain why a follower of Comte's +worship should, at least in England, be always on the side of liberty +and equality and human progress. Indeed, if inclined to discuss such a +question at all, I should rather be disposed to put it the other way and +ask how it happens that men so enlightened and liberal in education and +principles should yield a moment's obedience to the ghostly shadow of +Roman Catholic superstition, which Auguste Comte, in the decaying years +of his noble intellect, conjured up to form a new religion. But I am +quite content to let the question go unanswered--and should be willing, +indeed, to leave it unasked. I wish just now to do nothing more than to +direct the attention of American readers to the fact that a new set or +sect has arisen to influence English politics, and that their influence +and its origin are different from anything which, judging by the history +of previous generations, one might naturally have been led to expect. +"Culture" in England has, of late years, almost invariably ranked itself +on the side of privilege. The Oxford undergraduate shouts himself hoarse +in cheering for Disraeli and groaning for Bright. Oxford rejects +Gladstone the moment he becomes a Liberal. The vigorous Radicalism of +Thorold Rogers costs him his chair as professor of political economy, +although no man in England is a more perfect master of some of the more +important branches of that science. The journals which are started for +the sake of being read by men of "culture" are sure to throw their +influence, nine times out of ten, into the cause of privilege and class +ascendency. The "Saturday Review" does this deliberately; the "Pall Mall +Gazette" does it instinctively. Suddenly there comes out from the bosom +of the universities themselves a band of keen, acute, fearless +gladiators, who throw themselves into the van of every great movement +which works for democracy, equality and freedom. They invade the press +and the platform; they write in this journal and in that; they are +always writing, always printing; they are ready for any assailant, +however big, they are willing to work with any ally, however small; they +shrink from no logical consequence or practical inconvenience of any +argument or opinion; they take the working man by the hand and talk to +him and tell him all they know--and it is something worth studying, the +fact that their scholarship and his no-scholarship so often come to the +same conclusion. They will work with anybody, because they go farther +than almost anybody; and they will allow anybody the full swing of his +own crotchet, even though he be not so willing to give them scope enough +for theirs. Thus they are commonly associated with Goldwin Smith, who +has a perfect horror of French Democracy and French Imperialism, and who +sees in Mirabeau only a "Voltairean debauchee;" with Tom Hughes, who is +a sturdy member of the Church of England, and does not, I fancy, care +three straws about the policy of ideas; with Bright, whose somewhat +Puritanical mind draws back with a kind of dread from anything that +savors of free-thinking; with Auberon Herbert, the mild young +aristocrat, converted from Toryism by pure sentimentalism and +philanthropy; with Connolly, the eloquent Irish plasterer, whose +vigorous stump oratory aroused the warm admiration of Louis Blanc. It +would be impossible that such a knot of men, so gifted and so fearless, +so independent and so unresting, so keen of pen, and so unsparing of +logic, should be without a clear and marked influence on the politics of +England. It is quite a curious phenomenon that such a group of men +should be found in close and constant co-operation with the English +artisan, his trades' union organizations, and his political cause. +Frederick Harrison represented the working men in the Parliamentary +commission lately held to inquire into the whole operation of the +trades' unions. Professor Beesly writes continually in the "Beehive," +the newspaper which is the organ of George Potter and the trades' +societies. I cannot see how the cause of Democracy can fail to derive +strength and help from this sort of alliance, and I therefore welcome +the influence upon English politics of the little group of Positivist +penmen, believing that it will have a deeper reach than most people now +imagine, and that where it operates effectively at all, it will be for +good. + + + + +ENGLISH TORYISM AND ITS LEADERS. + + +Sir John Mandeville tells a story of a man who set out on a voyage of +discovery, and sailing on and on in a westerly direction, at last +touched a land where he was surprised to find a climate the same as his +own; animals like those he had left behind; men and women not only +having the same dress and complexion, but actually speaking the same +language as the people of his own country. He was so struck with this +unexpected and wonderful discovery, that he took to his ship again +without delay, and sailed back eastward to impart to his own people the +news that in a far-off, strange, western sea he had found a race +identical with themselves. The truth was that the simple voyager had +gone round the world, reached his own country without recognizing it, +and then went round the world again to get home. + +If the voyage were made in our time, and the explorer were a British +Tory who had left England in the opening of the year 1867, and after +unconsciously sailing round the world had fallen in with British Tories +again in the autumn of the same year, one could easily excuse his +failing to recognize his own people. For in the interval of time from +February to August, British Toryism underwent the most sudden and +complete transformation known outside the sphere of Ovid's +Metamorphoses. If any of my American readers will try to imagine a whole +political party, great in numbers, greater still in wealth, station and +influence, suddenly performing just such a turn-round as the "New York +Herald" accomplished at a certain early crisis of the late civil war, he +will have some idea of the marvellous and unprecedented feat which was +executed by the English Tories, when, renouncing all their time-honored +traditions, watchwords and principles, they changed a limited and +oligarchical franchise into household suffrage. It is singular, indeed, +that such a thing should have been done. It is more singular still that +it should have been done, as it most assuredly was done, in order that +one man should be kept in power. It is even more singular yet that it +should have been done by a party of men individually high principled, +honorable, unselfish, incapable of any deliberate meanness--and of whom +many if not most actually disliked and distrusted the man in whose +interest and by whose influence the surrender of principle was made. + +Perhaps when I have said a little about the leadership of the English +Tories, the phenomenon will appear less wonderful or at least more +intelligible. It was not a mere epigram which Mr. Mill uttered when he +described the Tories as the stupid party. An average Tory really is a +stupid man. He is a gentleman in all the ordinary acceptation of the +word. He has been to Oxford or Cambridge; he has received a decent +classical education; he has travelled along the beaten tracks--made what +would have been called in Mary Wortley Montague's day "the grand tour;" +he has birth and high breeding; he is a good fellow, with manly, +honorable ways, and that genial consideration for the feelings of others +which is the fundamental condition, the vital element of gentlemanly +breeding. But he is, with all this, stupid. His mind is narrow, dull, +inflexible; he cannot connect cause with effect, or see that a change is +coming, or why it should come; with him _post hoc_ always means _propter +hoc_; he cannot account for Goodwin Sands otherwise than because of +Tenterden steeple. You cannot help liking him, and sometimes laughing at +him. It may seem paradoxical, but I at least am unable to get out of my +mind the conviction that there is a solid basis of stupidity in the mind +of the great Conservative Chief, Lord Derby. Let me explain what I mean. +The Earl of Derby is in one sense a highly accomplished man. He is a +good classical scholar, and can make a speech in Latin. He has produced +some very spirited translations from Horace; and I like his version of +the Iliad better on the whole than any other I know. He is a splendid +debater--Macaulay said very truly that with Lord Derby the science of +debate was an instinct. He will roll out resonant, rotund, verbose +sentences by the hour, by the yard; he is great at making hits and +points; he has immense power of reply and repartee--of a certain easy +and obvious kind; his voice is fine, his manner is noble, his invective +is powerful. But he has no ideas. The light he throws out is a polarized +light. He adds nothing new to the political thought of the age. I have +heard many of his finest speeches; and I can remember that they were +then very telling, in a Parliamentary point of view; but I cannot +remember anything he said. He is always interpreting into eloquent and +effective words the commonplace Philistine notions, the hereditary +conventionalities of his party--and nothing more. His mind is not open +to new impressions, and he is not able to appreciate the cause, the +purpose or the tendency of change. This I hold to be the essential +characteristic of stupidity; and this is an attribute of Lord Derby, +with all his Greek, his Latin, his impetuous rhetoric, his debating +skill and his audacious blunders, which sometimes almost deceive one +into thinking him a man of genius. Now the Earl of Derby is the greatest +Tory living; and if I have fairly described the highest type of Tory, +one can easily form some conception of what the average Tory must be. +Every one likes Lord Derby, and I fully believe it to be the fact that +those who know him best like him best. I cannot imagine Lord Derby doing +a mean thing; I cannot imagine him haughty to a poor man, or +patronizingly offensive to a timid visitor of humble birth. Look at Lord +Derby through the wrong end of the intellectual telescope and you have +the average British Tory. The Tory's knowledge is confined to classics +and field sports--when he knows anything. Even Lord Derby has been +guilty of the most flagrant mistakes in geography and modern history. +People are never tired of alluding to a famous blunder of his about +Tambov in Russia. It is also told of him that he once spoke in +Parliament of Demerara as an island; and when one of his colleagues +afterward remonstrated with him on the mistake, he asked with +ingenuousness and _naïvete_ "How on earth was I to know that Demerara +was not an island?" He once, at a public meeting, spoke of himself very +frankly as having been born "in the pre-scientific period"--the period +but too recently closed, when English Universities and high class +schools troubled themselves only about Greek and Latin, and thought it +beneath their dignity to show much interest in such vulgar, practical +studies as chemistry and natural history, to say nothing of that +ungentlemanly and ungenerous study, the science of political economy. +The average British Tory is a Lord Derby without eloquence, brains, +official habits and political experience. + +How, then, do the Tories exist as a party? How do they continue to +believe themselves to be Tories, and speak of themselves as Tories, when +they have surrendered all, or nearly all, the great principles which are +the creed and faith, and business of Toryism? Because they have, in our +times, never had Tories for leaders. A man is not a Tory merely because +he fights the Tory battles, any more than a captain of the Irish Brigade +was a Frenchman because he fought for King Louis, or Hobart Pasha is a +Turk because he commands the Ottoman navy. The Tory party has always, +of late years, had to call in the aid of brilliant outsiders, political +renegades, refugees from broken-down agitations, disappointed and +cynical deserters from the Liberal camp, or mere adventurers, to fight +their battles for them. It used to be quite a curious sight, some three +or four years ago, when the Tories were, as they are now again, in +opposition, to look down from the gallery of the House of Commons and +see the men who did gladiatorial duty for the party. Along the back +benches, above and below the "gangway," were stretched out huge at +length the stalwart, handsome, manly country gentlemen, the bone and +sinew of the Tory party--the only real Tories to be found in the House. +But _they_ did not bear the brunt of debate. They could cheer +splendidly, and vote in platoons; but you don't suppose they were just +the sort of men to confront Gladstone, and reply to Bright? Not they; +and they knew it. There sat Disraeli, the brilliant renegade from +Radicalism, who was ready to think for them and talk for them: and who +were his lieutenants? Cairns, the successful, adroit, eloquent lawyer, a +North of Ireland man, with about as much of the genuine British Tory in +him as there is in Disraeli himself; Seymour Fitzgerald, the clever, +pushing Irishman, also a lawyer; Whiteside, the voluble, eloquent, +rather boisterous advocate, also a lawyer, and also an Irishman; smart, +saucy Pope Hennessy, a young Irish adventurer, who had taken up with +Toryism and ultramontanism as the best way of making a career, and who +would, at the slightest hint from his chief, have risen, utterly +ignorant of the subject under debate, and challenged Gladstone's finance +or Roundel Palmer's law. These men, and such men--these and no +others--did the debating and the fighting for the great Tory party of +England at a most critical period of that party's existence. Needless to +say that the party who were compelled by their own poverty of idea, +their own stupidity, to have these men for their representatives, were +stupid enough to be led anywhere and into anything by the force of a +little dexterity and daring on the part of the one man into whose hands +they had confided their destinies. + +In speaking, therefore, of the leaders of Toryism, I must distinctly say +that I am not speaking of Tories. The rank and file are Tories; the +general and officers belong to another race. Mr. Disraeli is so well +known on this side of the Atlantic that I need not occupy much time or +space in describing him. He is the most brilliant specimen of the +adventurer or political soldier of fortune known to English public life +in our days. I do not suppose anybody believes Mr. Disraeli's Toryism to +be a genuine faith. This is not merely because he has changed his +opinions so completely since the time when he came out as a Radical, +under the patronage of O'Connell, and wrote to William Johnson Fox, the +Democratic orator, a famous letter, in which he, Disraeli, boasted that +"his forte was revolution." Men have changed their views as completely, +and even as suddenly, and yet obtained credit for sincerity and +integrity. It is not even because, in all of Mr. Disraeli's novels, a +prime and favorite personage is a daring political adventurer, who +carries all before him by the audacity of his genius and his +unscrupulousness; it is not even that Mr. Disraeli, in private life, +frequently speaks of success in politics as the one grand object worth +striving for or living for. "What do you and I come to this House of +Commons night after night for?" said Mr. Disraeli once to a great +Englishman, and when the latter failed to reply very quickly, he +answered his own question by saying, "You know we come here for fame." +The man to whom he spoke declared, in all truthfulness, that he did not +follow a political career for the sake of fame. But Disraeli was quite +incredulous, and probably could not, by any earnestness and apparent +sincerity of asseveration, be got to believe that there lives a being +who could sacrifice time, and money, and intellect, and eloquence merely +for the sake of serving the public. Yet it is not alone this cynical +avowal of selfishness which makes people so profoundly sceptical as to +Mr. Disraeli's Toryism. It is the fact that he always escapes into +Liberalism whenever he has an opportunity; that he lives by hawking +Toryism, not by imbibing it himself; that he is ready to sell it, or +betray it, or drag it in the dirt whenever he can safely serve himself +by doing so; that he can become the most ardent of Freetraders, the most +uncompromising champion of a Popular Suffrage to-day, when it is for his +interest, after having fought fiercely against both yesterday, when to +fight against them was for his interest. Mr. Disraeli is decidedly a man +without scruple. Those who have read his "Vivian Grey" will remember +with what zest and unction he describes his hero bewildering a company +and dumbfoundering a scientific authority by extemporizing an imaginary +quotation from a book which he holds in his hand, and from which he +pretends to read the passage he is reciting. It is not long since Mr. +Disraeli himself publicly ventured on a bold little experiment of a +somewhat similar kind. The story is curious, and worth hearing; and it +is certain that it cannot be contradicted. + +Three or four years ago, a bitter factious attack was made in the House +of Commons upon Mr. Stansfeld, then holding office in the Liberal +government, because of his open and avowed friendship for, and intimacy +with Mazzini. This was at a time when the French government were +endeavoring to connect Mazzini with a plot to assassinate the Emperor +Napoleon. Mr. Disraeli was very stern in his condemnation of Mr. +Stansfeld for his friendship with one who, twenty odd years before, had +encouraged a young enthusiast (as the enthusiast said) in a design to +kill Charles Albert, King of Sardinia. Mr. Bright, in a moderate and +kindly speech, deprecated the idea of making unpardonable crimes out of +the hotheaded follies of enthusiastic men in their young days; and he +added that he believed there would be found in a certain poem, written +by Disraeli himself some twenty-five or thirty years before, and called +"A Revolutionary Epick," some lines of eloquent apostrophe in praise of +tyrannicide. Up sprang Mr. Disraeli, indignant and excited, and +vehemently denied that any such sentiment, any such line, could be found +in the poem. Mr. Bright at once accepted the assurance; said he had +never seen the poem himself, but only heard that there was such a +passage in it; apologized for the mistake--and there most people thought +the matter would have ended. In truth, the volume which Mr. Disraeli had +published a generation before, with the grandiloquent title, "A +Revolutionary Epick" (not "epic," in the common way, but dignified, +old-fashioned "epick"), was a piece of youthful, bombastic folly long +out of print, and almost wholly forgotten. But Disraeli chose to attach +great importance to the charge he supposed to be made against him; and +he declared that he felt himself bound to refute it utterly by more than +a mere denial. Accordingly, in a few weeks, there came out a new edition +of the Epick, with a dedication to Lord Stanley, and a preface +explaining that, as the first edition was out of print, and as a charge +founded on a passage in it had been made against the author, said author +felt bound to issue this new edition, that all the world might see how +unfounded was the accusation. Sure enough, the publication did seem to +dispose of the charge effectually. There was only one passage which in +any way bore on the subject of tyrannicide, and that certainly did not +express approval. What could be more satisfactory? Unluckily, however, +the gentleman on whose hint Mr. Bright spoke, happened to possess one +copy of the original edition. He compared this, to make assurance +doubly sure, with the copy at the British Museum, the only other copy +accessible to him, and he found that the passage which contained the +praise of tyrannicide had been partly altered, partly suppressed, in the +new edition specially issued by Mr. Disraeli, in order to prove to the +world that he had not written a line in the poem to imply that he +sanctioned the slaying of a tyrant. Now, this was a small and trifling +affair; but just see how significant and characteristic it was! It +surely did not make much matter whether Mr. Disraeli, in his young, +nonsensical days, had or had not indulged in a burst of enthusiasm about +the slaying of tyrants, in a poem so bombastical that no rational man +could think of it with any seriousness. But Mr. Disraeli chose to regard +his reputation as seriously assailed; and what did he do to vindicate +himself? He published a new edition, which he trumpeted as not merely +authentic, but as issued for the sole purpose of proving that he had not +praised tyrannicide, and he deliberately excised the lines which +contained the passage in question! The controversy turned on some two +lines and a half; and of these Mr. Disraeli cut out all the dangerous +words and gave the garbled version to the world as his authoritative +reply to the charge made against him! This, too, after the famous +"annexation" of one of Thiers's speeches, and the delivery of it as a +panegyric on the memory of the Duke of Wellington, and after the +appropriation of a page or two out of an essay by Macaulay, and its +introduction wholesale, as original, into one of Mr. Disraeli's novels. + +The truth is that Disraeli is so reckless a gladiator that he will catch +up any weapon of defence, use any means of evasion and escape; will +fight anyhow, and win anyhow. In political affairs, at least, he has no +moral sense whatever; and the public seems to tolerate him on that +understanding. Certainly, escapades and practices which would ruin the +reputation of any other public man do not seem to bring Disraeli into +serious disrepute. The few high-toned men of his own party and the other +who hold all trickery in detestation, had made up their minds about him +long ago; and nothing could hurt him more in their esteem--the great +majority of politicians laugh at the whole thing, and take no thought. +The feeling seems to be, "We don't expect grave and severe virtue from +this man; we take him as he is. It would be ridiculous to apply a grave +moral test to anything he may say or do." In Lockhart's "Life of Walter +Scott," it is told that the great novelist went one morning very early +to call on a certain friend. The friend was in bed, and Scott, pushing +into the room familiarly, found that his friend was--not alone, as he +expected him to be. Scott was a highly moral man, and he would have +turned his back indignantly on any other of his friends whom he found +guilty of vice; but his biographer says that he took the discovery he +had made very lightly in this instance; and he afterward explained that +the delinquent was so ridiculously without depth of character it would +be absurd to find serious fault with anything he did. Perhaps it is in a +similar spirit that the British public regard Mr. Disraeli. He delivered +a memorable peroration one night last year in the House of Commons, the +utterance and the language of which were so peculiar that charity itself +could not affect to be ignorant of the stimulating cause which sent +forth such extraordinary eloquence. Yet hardly anybody seemed to regard +it as more than a good joke; and the newspapers which were most +indignant and most scandalized over Andrew Johnson's celebrated +inaugural address made no allusion whatever to Mr. Disraeli's +bewildering outburst. One reason, probably, is that Disraeli, in +private, is much liked. He is very kindly; he is a good friend; he is +sympathetic in his dealings with young politicians, and is always glad +to give a helping hand to a young man of talent. Personal ambition, +which, in Mr. Bright's eyes, is something despicable, and which Mr. +Gladstone probably regards as a sin, is, in Disraeli's acceptation, +something generous and elevating, something to be fostered and +encouraged. Therefore, young men of talent admire Disraeli, and are glad +and proud to gather round him. The men who have any brains in the Tory +ranks are usually of the adventurer class; and they form a phalanx by +the aid of which Disraeli can do great things. No matter how the honest, +dull bulk of his party may distrust him, they cannot do without him and +his phalanx; and they allow him to win his battles by the force of their +votes, and they think he is winning their battles all the time. + +One young man of brains there was on the Tory side of the House of +Commons, who did not like Disraeli, and never professed to like him. +This was Lord Robert Cecil, who subsequently became Viscount Cranbourne, +and now sits in the House of Lords as Marquis of Salisbury. Lord Robert +Cecil was by far the ablest scion of noble Toryism in the House of +Commons. Younger than Lord Stanley he had not Lord Stanley's solidity +and caution; but he had much more of original ability; he had brilliant +ideas, great readiness in debate, and a perfect genius for saying bitter +things in the bitterest tone. The younger son of a wealthy peer, he had, +in consequence of a dispute with his father, manfully accepted honorable +poverty, and was glad, for no short time, to help out his means by the +use of his pen. He wrote in the "Quarterly Review," the time-honored +organ of Toryism; and after a while certain political articles regularly +appearing in that periodical became identified with his name. One great +object of these articles seemed to be to denounce Mr. Disraeli and warn +the Tory party against him as a traitor, certain in the end to sell and +surrender their principles. Lord Robert Cecil was an ultra-Tory--or at +least thought himself so--I feel convinced that his intellect and his +experience will set him free one day. He was a Tory on principle and +would listen to no compromise. People did not at first see how much +ability there was in him--very few indeed saw how much of genuine +manhood and nobleness there was in him. His tall, bent, awkward figure; +his prematurely bald crown, his face with an outline and a beard that +reminded one of a Jew pedler from the Minories, his ungainly gestures, +his unmelodious voice, and the extraordinary and wanton bitterness of +his tongue, set the ordinary observer strongly against him. He seemed to +delight in being gratuitously offensive. Let me give one illustration. +He assailed Mr. Gladstone's financial policy one night, and said it was +like the practice of a pettifogging attorney. This was rather coarse and +it was received with loud murmurs of disapprobation, but Lord Robert +went on unheeding. Next night, however, when the debate was resumed, he +rose and said he feared he had used language the previous evening which +was calculated to give offence, and which he could not justify. There +were murmurs of encouraging applause--nothing delights the House of +Commons like an unsolicited and manly apology. Yes, he had, on the +previous night, in a moment of excitement, compared the policy of the +Chancellor of the Exchequer to the practice of a pettifogging attorney. +That was language which on sober consideration he felt he could not +justify and ought not to have used, "and therefore," said Lord Robert, +"I beg leave to offer my sincere apology"--here Mr. Gladstone half rose +from his seat, with face of eager generosity, ready to pardon even +before fully asked--"I beg leave to tender my sincere apology--to the +attorneys!" Half the House roared with laughter, the other half with +anger--and Gladstone threw himself back in his seat with an expression +of mingled disappointment, pity and scorn, on his pallid, noble +features. + +There was something so wanton, something so nearly approaching to +outrageous buffoonery, in conduct like this, on the part of Lord Robert +Cecil, that it was long before impartial observers came to recognize the +fine intellect and the manly character that were disguised under such an +unprepossessing exterior. When the Tories came into power, the great +place of Secretary for India was given to Lord Robert, who had then +become Viscount Cranbourne, and the responsibilities of office wrought +as complete a change in him as the wearing of the crown did in Harry the +Fifth. No man ever displayed in so short a time greater aptitude for the +duties of the office he had undertaken, or a loftier sense of its +tremendous moral and political responsibility, than did Lord Cranbourne +during his too brief tenure of the Indian Secretaryship. The cynic had +become a statesman, the intellectual gladiator an earnest champion of +exalted political principle. The license of tongue, in which Lord +Cranbourne had revelled while yet a free lance, he absolutely renounced +when he became a responsible minister. He extorted the respect and +admiration of Gladstone and Bright, and indeed of every one who took the +slightest interest in the condition and the future of India. The manner +of his leaving office became him, too, almost as much as his occupation +of it. He was sincerely opposed to a sudden lowering of the franchise, +and he insisted that his party ought to think nothing of power when +compared with principle. He found that Disraeli was determined to +surrender anything rather than power, and he withdrew from the +uncongenial companionship. He resigned office, and dropped into the +ranks once more, never hesitating to express his conviction of the utter +insincerity of the Conservative leader. He would have been a sharp and +stinging thorn in Disraeli's side, only that death intervened and took +away, not him, but his father. The death of his elder brother had made +Lord Robert Cecil, Viscount Cranbourne; the death of his father now +converted Viscount Cranbourne into the Marquis of Salisbury, and +condemned him to the languid, inert, lifeless atmosphere of the House of +Peers. The sincere pity of all who admired him followed the brilliant +Salisbury in his melancholy descent. I should despair of conveying to an +American reader unacquainted with English politics any adequate idea of +the profundity and hopelessness of the fall which precipitates a young, +ardent and gifted politician from the brilliant battle-ground of the +House of Commons into the lifeless, Lethean pool of the House of Lords. + +Still, the Tory party may be led, as it has been, by a chief in the +House of Lords, although its great and splendid fights must be fought in +the Commons. If then, in our time, Toryism ever should again become a +principle which a man of genius and high character could fairly fight +for, it has a leader ready to its hand in the Marquis of Salisbury. For +the present it has Lord Cairns. The Earl of Derby's health no longer +allows him to undertake the serious and laborious duties of party +leadership. When he withdrew from the front, an attempt was made to put +up with Lord Malmesbury. But Malmesbury is stupid and muddle-headed to a +degree which even Tory peers cannot endure in a Tory peer; and it has +somehow been "borne in upon him" that he had better leave the place to +some one really qualified to fill it. Now, the Tories in the House of +Commons, the country gentlemen of England, the men whose ancestors came +over, perhaps, with the Conqueror, the men who imbibed family Toryism +from the breasts of their mothers, are driven, when they want a capable +leader, to follow a renegade Radical, the son of a middle-class Jew. In +like manner the Tory Lords, also sadly needing an efficient leader, are +compelled to take up with a lawyer from Belfast, the son of middle-class +parents in the North of Ireland, who has fought his way by sheer talent +and energy into the front rank of the bar, into the front bench of the +Parliamentary Opposition, and at last into a peerage. Lord Cairns is a +very capable man; his sudden rise into high place and influence proves +the fact of itself, for he was not a young man when he entered +Parliament, obscure and unknown, and he is now only in the prime of +life, while he leads the Opposition in the House of Lords. He is one of +the most fluent and effective debaters in either House; he has great +command of telling argument; his training at the bar gives him the +faculty of making the very most, and at the shortest notice, of all the +knowledge and all the facts he can bring to bear on any question. He has +shown more than once that he is capable of pouring forth a powerful, +almost indeed, a passionate invective. An orator in the highest sense he +certainly is not. No gleam of the poetic softens or brightens his lithe +and nervous logic; no deep feeling animates, inspires and sanctifies it. +He has made no speeches which anybody hereafter will care to read. He +has made, he will make, no mark upon his age. When he dies, he wholly +dies. But living, he is a skilful and a capable man--far better +qualified to be a party leader than an Erskine or a Grattan would be. A +North of Ireland Presbyterian, he has made his way to a peerage, and now +to be the leader of peers, with less of native genius than that which +conducted Wolfe Tone, another North of Ireland Presbyterian, to +rebellion and failure and a bloody death. He has, above all things, +skill and discretion; and he can lead the Tory party well, so long as no +great cause has to be vindicated, no splendid phantom of a principle +maintained. His name and his antecedents are useful to us now, inasmuch +as they serve still farther to illustrate the fact that Toryism is not +led by Tories. + +In speaking of Tory leaders one ought not, of course, to leave out the +name of Lord Stanley. But Lord Stanley is only a Tory _ex officio_, and +by virtue of his position as the eldest son and heir of the great Earl +of Derby. I have never heard of Lord Stanley's uttering a Tory +sentiment, even when he had to play a Tory part. His speeches are all +the speeches of a steady, respectable, thoughtful sort of Liberal, +inclined to study carefully both or all sides of a question, and opposed +to extreme opinions either way. He will never, it is quite clear, be +guilty of the audacity of openly breaking with his party while his +father lives; and perhaps when he becomes Earl of Derby, there may be +nothing distinctively Tory worth fighting about. Lord Stanley is indeed +totally devoid of that generous ardor which makes men open converts. He +is no longer young, and he will probably remain all his life where he +stands at present. But a genuine Tory he is not. I confess that at one +time I looked to him with great hope, as a man likely to develop into +statesmanship of the highest order, and to announce himself as a votary +of political and intellectual progress. Some years ago I wrote an +article in the "Westminster Review," the object of which was to point to +Lord Stanley as the future colleague of Gladstone in a great and a +really liberal government. I have changed my opinion since. Lord Stanley +wants, not the brains, but the heart for such a place. He has not the +spirit to step out of his hereditary way. He is one of the sort of men +of whom Goethe used to say, "If only they would commit an extravagance +even, I should have some hope for them." He seems to care for little +beyond accuracy of judgment and propriety; and I do not suppose accuracy +of judgment and propriety ever made a great statesman. There is nothing +venturesome about Lord Stanley--therefore there is nothing great. A man +to be great must brave being ridiculous; and I do not remember that Lord +Stanley has ever run the risk of being ridiculous. One of the finest and +most celebrated passages of modern Parliamentary eloquence is that in +which George Canning, vindicating his recognition of the South American +republics, proclaimed that he had called in the New World to redress the +balance of the Old. I once heard a member of the House of Lords, now +dead, who sat in the House of Commons near Canning, when Canning spoke +that famous speech, say that when the orator came to the great climax +the House was actually breaking into a titter, so absurd then did any +grandiloquence about South American republics seem; and it was only the +earnestness and resolve of his manner that commanded a respectful +attention, and thus compelled the House to recognize the genuine +grandeur of the idea, and to break into a tempest of applause. I have +heard something the same told of one of the grandest passages in any of +Bright's speeches--that in one of his orations against the Crimean War, +in which he declared that he already heard, during the debate, the +beating of the wings of the Angel of Death. The House was under the +influence of a war fever, and disposed to scoff at all appeals to +prudence or to pity; and it was just on the verge of a laugh at the +orator's majestic apostrophe, when his earnestness conquered, the +grandeur of the moment was recognized, and a peal of irrepressible +applause proclaimed the triumph of his eloquence. Now, these are the +risks that a man like Lord Stanley never will run. Only genius makes +such ventures. He is always safe: great statesmen must sometimes brave +terrible hazards. In England he has received immense praise for the part +he took in averting a war between France and Prussia on the Luxembourg +question. Now, it is quite true that he did much; that, in fact, he lent +all the influence of England to the mode of arrangement by which both +the contending Powers were enabled to back decently out of a dangerous +and painful position. But the idea of such a mode of settlement did not +come from him. It was originated by Baron von Beust, the Austrian Prime +Minister, and it was quietly urged a good deal before Lord Stanley saw +it. Von Beust, who has a keener wit than Stanley, knew that if the +proposition came directly from him it would, _ipso facto_, be odious to +Prussia; and he was, therefore, rejoiced when Lord Stanley took it up +and adopted it as his own and England's. Von Beust was well content, and +so was Lord Stanley--just as Cuddie Headrigg, in "Old Mortality," is +content that John Gudyill shall have the responsibility and the honor of +the shot which the latter never fired. The one original thing which Lord +Stanley did during the controversy was to write a dispatch to Prussia +recommending her to come to terms, because of the superior navy of +France, and the certainty, in the event of war, that France would have +the best of it at sea. + +Now, this was a capital argument to influence a man like Lord Stanley +himself--calm, cold-blooded, utterly rational. But human ingenuity could +hardly have devised an appeal less likely to influence Prussia in the +way of peace. Prussia, flushed with her splendid victories over Austria, +and deeply offended by the arrogant and dictatorial conduct of France, +was much more likely to be stung by such an argument, if it affected her +at all, into flinging down the gauntlet at once, and inviting France to +come if she dared. The use of such a mode of persuasion is, indeed, an +adequate illustration of the whole character of Lord Stanley. Cool, +prudent, and rational, he is capable enough of weighing things fairly +when they are presented to him; but he can neither create an opportunity +nor run a risk. Therefore, he remains officially a Tory, mentally a +Liberal, politically neither the one nor the other. His bones are +marrowless, his blood is cold. He can forfeit his own career, and hazard +his reputation for his party; but that is all. He cannot give his mind +to it, and he cannot redeem himself from his futile bondage to it. He is +a respectable speaker, despite his defective articulation and his +lifeless manner; he will be a respectable politician, despite his want +of faith in, or zeal for the cause he tries to follow. That is his +career; that is the doom to which he voluntarily condemns himself. + +I do not know that there are any other Tory chiefs worth talking about. +Sir Stafford Northcote looks like a Bonn or Heidelberg professor, and +has a fair average intellect, fit for commonplace finance and elementary +politics; there is not a ghost of an idea in him. Walpole is a pompous, +well-meaning, gentlemanlike imbecile. Gathorne Hardy is fluent, as the +sand in an hourglass is fluent--he can pour out words and serve to mark +the passing of time. Sir John Pakington is an educated Dogberry, a +respectable Justice Shallow. Not upon men like these do the political +fortunes of the Tory party of our day depend, although Walpole and +Pakington fairly represent the sincerity, the manhood, and the +respectability of Toryism. + +I come back to the point from which I started--that Toryism, in itself, +is only another word for stupidity, and that any triumphs the party have +won or may win are secured by the surrender of the principle they +profess to be fighting for, and by the skilful management of men whose +conscience permits them to adapt the means unscrupulously to the end. +Were the Tory party led by genuine Tories it would have been extinct +long ago. It lives and looks upon the earth, it has its triumphs and its +gains, its present and its future, only because by very virtue of its +own dulness it has allowed itself to be led by men whom it ought to +detest, whom it sometimes does distrust, but who have the wit to sell +principle in the dearest market, and buy reputation in the cheapest. + + + + +"GEORGE ELIOT" AND GEORGE LEWES. + + +Literary reputations are, in one respect, like wines--some are greatly +improved by a long voyage, while others lose all zest and strength in +the process of crossing the ocean. There ought to be hardly any +difference, one would think, between the literary taste of the public of +London and that of the public of New York; and yet it is certain that an +author or a book may be positively celebrated in the one city and only +barely known and coldly recognized in the other. Every one, of course, +has noticed the fact that certain English authors are better known and +appreciated in New York than in London; certain American writers more +talked of in London than in New York. The general public of England do +not seem to me to appreciate the true position of Whittier and Lowell +among American poets. The average Englishman knows hardly anything of +any American poet but Longfellow, who receives, I venture to think, a +far more wholesale and enthusiastic admiration in England than in his +own country. Robert Buchanan, the Scottish poet, lately, I have read, +described "Evangeline" as a far finer poem than Goethe's "Hermann und +Dorothea," a judgment which I presume and hope it would be impossible to +get any American scholar and critic to indorse or even to consider +seriously. On the other hand, it is well known that both the +Brownings--certainly Mrs. Browning--found quicker and more cordial +appreciation in America than in England. Lately, we in London have taken +to discussing and debating over Walt Whitman with a warmth and interest +which people in New York do not seem to manifest in regard to the author +of "Leaves of Grass." Charles Dickens appears to me to have more devoted +admirers among the best class of readers here than he has in his own +country. Of course, it would be hardly possible for any man to be more +popular and more successful than Dickens is in England; but New York +journals quote him and draw illustrations from him much more frequently +than London papers do--I do not think any day has passed since first I +came to this country, six or seven months ago, that I have not seen at +least two or three allusions to Dickens in the leading articles of the +daily papers--and I question whether, among critics standing as high in +London as George William Curtis does here, Dickens could find the +enthusiastic, the almost lyrical devotion of Curtis's admiration. +Charles Reade, again, is more generally and warmly admired here than in +England. Am I wrong in supposing that the reverse is the case with +regard to the authoress of "Romola" and "The Mill on the Floss?" All +American critics and all American readers of taste, have doubtless +testified practically their recognition of the genius of this +extraordinary woman; but there seems to me to be relatively less +admiration for her in New York than in London. The general verdict of +English criticism would, I feel no doubt, place George Eliot on a higher +pedestal than Charles Dickens. We regard her as belonging to a higher +school of art, as more nearly affined to the great immortal few whose +genius and fame transcend the fashion of the age and defy the caprice of +public taste. So far as I have been able to observe, I do not think this +is the opinion of American criticism. + +In any case, the mere question will excuse my writing a few pages about +a woman whom I regard as the greatest living novelist of England; as, on +the whole, the greatest woman now engaged in European literature. Only +George Sand and Harriet Martineau could fairly be compared with her; +and, while Miss Martineau, of course, is far inferior in all the higher +gifts of imagination and the higher faculties of art, George Sand, with +all her passion, her rich fancy, and daring, subtle analysis of certain +natures, has never exhibited the serene, symmetrical power displayed in +"Romola" and in "Silas Marner." Mrs. Lewes (it would be affectation to +try to assume that there is still any mystery about the identity of +"George Eliot") is what George Sand is not--a great writer, merely as a +writer. Few, indeed, are the beings who have ever combined so many high +qualities in one person as Mrs. Lewes does. Her literary career began as +a translator and an essayist. Her tastes seemed then to lead her wholly +into the somewhat barren fields where German metaphysics endeavor to +come to the relief or the confusion of German theology. She became a +contributor to the "Westminster Review;" then she became its assistant +editor, and worked assiduously for it under the direction of Dr. John +Chapman, the editor, with whose family she lived for a time, and in +whose house she first met George Henry Lewes. She is an accomplished +linguist, a brilliant talker, a musician of extraordinary skill. She has +a musical sense so delicate and exquisite that there are tender, simple, +true ballad melodies which fill her with a pathetic pain almost too keen +to bear; and yet she has the firm, strong command of tone and touch, +without which a really scientific musician cannot be made. I do not +think this exceeding sensibility of nature is often to be found in +combination with a genuine mastery of the practical science of music. +But Mrs. Lewes has mastered many sciences as well as literatures. +Probably no other novel writer, since novel writing became a business, +ever possessed one tithe of her scientific knowledge. Indeed, hardly +anything is rarer than the union of the scientific and the literary or +artistic temperaments. So rare is it, that the exceptional, the almost +solitary instance of Goethe comes up at once, distinct and striking, to +the mind. English novelists are even less likely to have anything of a +scientific taste than French or German. Dickens knows nothing of +science, and has, indeed, as little knowledge of any kind, save that +which is derived from observation, as any respectable Englishman could +well have. Thackeray was a man of varied reading, versed in the lighter +literature of several languages, and strongly imbued with artistic +tastes; but he had no care for science, and knew nothing of it but just +what every one has to learn at school. Lord Lytton's science is a mere +sham. Charlotte Bronté was all genius and ignorance. Mrs. Lewes is all +genius and culture. Had she never written a page of fiction, nay, had +she never written a line of poetry or prose, she must have been regarded +with wonder and admiration by all who knew her as a woman of vast and +varied knowledge; a woman who could think deeply and talk brilliantly, +who could play high and severe classical music like a professional +performer, and could bring forth the most delicate and tender aroma of +nature and poetry lying deep in the heart of some simple, old-fashioned +Scotch or English ballad. Nature, indeed, seemed to have given to this +extraordinary woman all the gifts a woman could ask or have--save one. +It will not, I hope, be considered a piece of gossipping personality if +I allude to a fact which must, some day or other, be part of literary +history. Mrs. Lewes is not beautiful. In her appearance there is nothing +whatever to attract admiration. Hers is not even a face like that of +Charlotte Cushman, which, at least, must make a deep impression, and +seize at once the attention of the gazer. Nor does it seem, like that of +Madame de Staël or Elizabeth Barrett Browning, informed and illuminated +by the light of genius. Mrs. Lewes is what we in England call decidedly +plain--what people in New York call homely; and what persons who did not +care to soften the force of an unpleasant truth would describe probably +by a still harder and more emphatic adjective. + +This woman, thus rarely gifted with poetry and music and +imagination--thus disciplined in man's highest studies and accustomed to +the most laborious of man's literary drudgery--does not seem to have +found out, until she had passed what is conventionally regarded as the +age of romance, that she had in her, transcendent above all other gifts, +the faculty of the novelist. When an author who is not very young makes +a great hit at last, we soon begin to learn that he had already made +many attempts in the same direction, and his publishers find an eager +demand for the stories and sketches which, when they first appeared, +utterly failed to attract attention. Thackeray's early efforts, +Trollope's, Charles Reade's, Nathaniel Hawthorne's, all these have been +lighted into success by the blaze of the later triumph. But it does not +seem that Miss Marion Evans, as she then was, ever published anything in +the way of fiction previous to the series of sketches which appeared in +"Blackwood's Magazine," and were called "Scenes of Clerical Life." These +sketches attracted considerable attention, and were much admired; but I +do not think many people saw in them the capacity which produced "Adam +Bede" and "Romola." With the publication of "Adam Bede" came a complete +triumph. The author was elevated at once and by acclamation to the +highest rank among living novelists. I think it was in the very first +number of the "Cornhill Magazine" that Thackeray, in a gossiping +paragraph about novelists of the day, whom he mentioned alphabetically +and by their initials, spoke of "E" as a "star of the first magnitude +just risen on the horizon." Thackeray, it will be remembered, was one of +the first, if not, indeed, the very first, to recognize the genius +manifested in "Jane Eyre." The publishers sent him some of the proof +sheets for his advice, and Thackeray saw in them the work of a great +novelist. + +The place which Mrs. Lewes thus so suddenly won, she has, of course, +always maintained. Her position of absolute supremacy over all other +women writers in England is something peculiar and curious. She is +first--and there is no second. No living authoress in Britain is ever +now compared with her. I read, not long since, in a New York paper, a +sentence which spoke of George Eliot and Miss Mulock as being the +greatest English authoresses in the field of fiction. It seemed very odd +and funny to me. Certainly, an English critic would never have thought +of bracketing together such a pair. Miss Mulock is a graceful, +true-hearted, good writer; but Miss Mulock and George Eliot! Robert +Lytton and Robert Browning! "A. K. H. B." (I think these are the +initials) and John Stuart Mill! Mark Lemon's novels and Charles +Dickens's! Mrs. Lewes has made people read novels who perhaps never read +fiction from any other pen. She has made the novel the companion and +friend and study of scholars and thinkers and statesmen. Her books are +discussed by the gravest critics as productions of the highest school of +art. Men and journals which have always regarded, or affected to regard, +Thackeray as a mere cynic, and Dickens as little better than a +professional buffoon, have discussed "The Mill on the Floss" and +"Romola" as if these novels were already classic. Of course it would be +a very doubtful kind of merit which commanded the admiration of literary +prigs or pedants; but that is not the merit of George Eliot. Her books +find their way to all hearts and intelligences, but it is their +peculiarity that they compel, they extort the admiration of men who +would disparage all novels, if they could, as frivolous and worthless, +but who are forced even by their own canons and principles to recognize +the deep clear thought, the noble culture, the penetrating, analytical +power, which are evident in almost every chapter of these stories. Most +of our novelists write in a slipslop, careless style. Dickens is +worthless, if regarded merely as a prose writer; Trollope hardly cares +about grammar; Charles Reade, with all his masculine force and +clearness, is terribly irregular and rugged. The woman writers have +seldom any style at all. George Eliot's prose might be the study of a +scholar anxious to acquire and appreciate a noble English style. It is +as luminous as the language of Mill; far more truly picturesque than +that of Ruskin; capable of forcible, memorable expression as the robust +Saxon of Bright. I am not going into a criticism of George Eliot, who +has been, no doubt, fully criticised in America already. I am merely +engaged in pointing out the special reasons why she has won in England a +certain kind of admiration which, it seems to me, hardly any novelist +ever has had before. I think she has infused into the novel some +elements it never had before, and so thoroughly infused them that they +blend with all the other materials, and do not form anywhere a solid +lump or mass distinguishable from the rest. There are philosophical +novels--"Wilhelm Meister," for example--which are weighed down and +loaded with the philosophy, and which the world admires in spite of the +philosophy. There are political novels--Disraeli's, for instance--which +are only intelligible to those who make politics and political +personalities a study, and which viewed merely as stories would not be +worth speaking about. There are novels with a great direct purpose in +them, such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin," or "Bleak House," or Charles Reade's +"Hard Cash;" but these, after all, are only magnificent pamphlets, +splendidly illustrated diatribes. The deep philosophic thought of George +Eliot's novels suffuses and illumines them everywhere. You can point to +no sermon here, no lecture there, no solid mass interposing between this +incident and that, no ponderous moral hung around the neck of this or +that personage. Only you feel that you are under the control of one who +is not merely a great story-teller but who is also a deep thinker. + +It is not, perhaps, unnecessary to say to American readers that George +Eliot is the only novelist who can paint such English people as the +Poysers and the Tullivers just as they really are. She looks into the +very souls of these people. She tracks out their slow peculiar mental +processes; she reproduces them fresh and firm from very life. Mere +realism, mere photographing, even from the life, is not in art a very +great triumph. But George Eliot can make her dullest people interesting +and dramatically effective. She can paint two dull people with quite +different ways of dulness--say a dull man and a dull woman, for +example--and you are astonished to find how utterly distinct the two +kinds of stupidity are--and how intensely amusing both can be made. Look +at the two pedantic, pompous, dull advocates in the later part of Robert +Browning's "The Ring and the Book." How distinct they are; how +different, how unlike, and how true, are the two portraits. But then it +must be owned that the poet is himself terribly tedious just there. His +pedants are quite as tiresome as they would be in real life, if each +successively held you by the button. George Eliot never is guilty of +this great artistic fault. You never want to be rid of Mrs. Poyser or +Aunt Glegg, or the prattling Florentines in "Romola." It is almost +superfluous to say that there never was or could be a Mark Tapley, or a +Sam Weller. We put up with these impossibilities and delight in them, +because they are so amusing and so full of fantastic humor. But Mrs. +Poyser lives, and I have met Aunt Glegg often; and poor Mrs. Tulliver's +cares and hopes, and little fears, and pitiful reasonings, are animating +scores of Mrs. Tullivers all over England to-day. I would propose a safe +and easy test to any American or other "foreigner" (I am supposing +myself now again in England), who is curious to know how much he +understands of the English character. Let him read any of George Eliot's +novels--even "Felix Holt," which is so decidedly inferior to the +rest--and if he fails to follow, with thorough appreciation, the talk +and the ways of the Poysers and such like personages, he may be assured +he does not understand one great phase of English life. + +Are these novels popular in England? Educated public opinion, I repeat, +ranks them higher than the novels of any other living author. But they +are not popular--that is, as Wilkie Collins or Miss Braddon is popular; +and I do not mean to say anything slighting of either Wilkie Collins or +Miss Braddon, both of whom I think possess very great talents, and have +been treated with quite too much of the _de haut en bas_ mood of the +great critics. George Eliot's novels certainly are not run after and +devoured by the average circulating library readers, as "The Woman in +White," and "Lady Audley's Secret" were. She has, of course, nothing +like the number of readers who follow Charles Dickens; nor even, I +should say, nearly as many as Anthony Trollope. When "Romola," which the +"Saturday Review" justly pronounced to be, if not the greatest, +certainly the noblest romance of modern days, was being published as a +serial in the "Cornhill Magazine," it was comparatively a failure, in +the circulating library sense; and even when it appeared in its complete +form, and the public could better appreciate its artistic perfection, it +was anything but a splendid success, as regarded from the publisher's +point of view. Perhaps this may be partly accounted for by the nature of +the subject, the scene and the time; but even the warmest admirer of +George Eliot may freely admit that "Romola" lacks a little of that +passionate heat which is needed to make a writer of fiction thoroughly +popular. When a statue of pure and perfect marble attracts as great a +crowd of gazers as a glowing picture, then a novel like "Romola" will +have as many admirers as a novel like "Consuelo" or "Villette." + +I am not one of the admirers of George Eliot who regret that she +ventured on the production of a long poem. I think "The Spanish Gypsy" a +true and a fine poem, although I do not place it so high in artistic +rank as the best of the author's prose writings. But I believe it to be +the greatest story in verse ever produced by an Englishwoman. This is +not, perhaps, very high praise, for Englishwomen have seldom done much +in the higher fields of poetry; but we have "Aurora Leigh;" and I think +"The Spanish Gypsy," on the whole, a finer piece of work. Most of our +English critics fell to discussing the question whether "The Spanish +Gypsy" was to be regarded as poetry at all, or only as a story put into +verse; and in this futile and vexatious controversy the artistic value +of the work itself almost escaped analysis. I own that I think criticism +shows to little advantage when it occupies itself in considering whether +a work of art is to be called by this name or that; and I am rather +impatient of the critic who comes with his canons of art, his +Thirty-Nine articles of literary dogma, and judges a book, not by what +it is in itself, but by the answer it gives to his self-invented +catechism. I do not believe that the art of man ever can invent--I know +it never has invented--any set of rules or formulas by which you can +decide, off-hand and with certainty, that a great story in verse, which +you admit to have power and beauty and pathos and melody, does not +belong to true poetry. One great school of critics discovered, by the +application of such high rules and canons that Shakespeare, though a +great genius was not a great poet; a later school made a similar +discovery with regard to Schiller; a certain body of critics now say the +same of Byron. I don't think it matters much what you call the work. +"The Spanish Gypsy" has imagination and beauty; it has exquisite +pictures and lofty thoughts; it has melody and music. Admitting this +much, and the most depreciating critics did admit it, I think it hardly +worth considering what name we are to apply to the book. Such, however, +was the sort of controversy in which all deep and true consideration of +the artistic value of "The Spanish Gypsy" evaporated. I am not sorry +Mrs. Lewes published the poem; but I am sorry she put her literary name +to it in the first instance. Had it appeared anonymously it would have +astonished and delighted the world. But people compared "The Spaniel +Gypsy" with the author's prose works, and were disappointed because the +woman who surpassed Dickens in fiction did not likewise surpass Tennyson +and Browning in poetry. Thus, and in no other sense, was "The Spanish +Gypsy" a failure. No woman had written anything of the same kind to +surpass it; but some men, even of our own day, had--and no man of our +day has written novels which excel those of George Eliot. Mrs. Lewes +will probably not write any more long poems; but I think English poetry +has gained something by her one venture. + +Mrs. Lewes's mind is of a class which, however varied its power, is not +fairly described by the word "versatile." Versatility is a smaller kind +of faculty, a dexterity of intellect and capacity--the property of a +mind of the second order. If we want a perfect type and pattern of +versatility, we may find it very close to the authoress of "Silas +Marner," in the person of her husband, George Henry Lewes. What man of +our day has done so many things and done them so well? He is the +biographer of Goethe and of Robespierre; he has compiled the "History of +Philosophy," in which he has something really his own to say of every +great philosopher, from Thales to Schelling; he has translated Spinoza; +he has published various scientific works; he has written at least two +novels; he has made one of the most successful dramatic adaptations +known to our stage; he is an accomplished theatrical critic; he was at +one time so successful as an amateur actor that he seriously +contemplated taking to the stage as a profession, in the full +conviction, which he did not hesitate frankly to avow, that he was +destined to be the successor to Macready. He did actually join a company +at one of the Manchester theatres, and perform there for some time under +a feigned name; but the amount of encouragement he received from the +public did not stimulate him to continue on the boards, although I +believe his confidence in his own capacity to succeed Macready remained +unshaken. Mr. Lewes was always remarkable for a frank and fearless +self-conceit, which, by its very sincerity and audacity, almost disarmed +criticism. Indeed, I do not suppose any man less gifted with +self-confidence would have even attempted to do half the things which +George Henry Lewes has done well. Margaret Fuller was very unfavorably +impressed by Lewes when she met him at Thomas Carlyle's house, and she +wrote of him contemptuously and angrily. But these were the days of +Lewes's Bohemianism; days of an audacity and a self-conceit unsubdued as +yet by experience and the world, and some saddening and some refining +influences; and Margaret Fuller failed to appreciate the amount of +intellect and manliness that was in him. Charlotte Bronté, on the other +hand, was quite enthusiastic about Lewes, and wrote to him and of him +with an almost amusing veneration. Indeed, he is a man of ability and +versatility that may fairly be called extraordinary. His merit is not +that he has written books on a great variety of subjects. London has +many hack writers who could go to work at any publisher's order and +produce successively an epic poem, a novel, a treatise on the philosophy +of the conditioned, a handbook of astronomy, a farce, a life of Julius +Cæsar, a history of African explorations, and a volume of sermons. But +none of these productions would have one gleam of genuine native +vitality about it. The moment it had served its purpose in the literary +market it would go, dead, down to the dead. Lewes's works are of quite +a different style. They have positive merit and value of their own, and +they live. It was a characteristically audacious thing to attempt to +cram the history of philosophy into a couple of medium-sized volumes, +polishing off each philosopher in a few pages--draining him, plucking +out the heart of his mystery and his system, and stowing him away in the +glass jar designed to exhibit him to an edified class of students. But +it must be avowed that Lewes's has been a marvellously clever and +successful attempt. He certainly crumples up the whole science of +metaphysics, sweeps away transcendental philosophy, and demolishes _a +priori_ reasoning, in a manner which strongly reminds one of Arthur +Pendennis upsetting, in a dashing criticism and on the faith of an +hour's reading in an encyclopædia, some great scientific theory of which +he had never heard previously, and the development of which had been the +life's labor of a sage. But Lewes does, somehow or other, very often +come to a right conclusion, and measure great theories and men with +accurate estimate; and the work is immensely interesting, and it is not +easy to see how anybody could have done it better. His "Life of Goethe" +is undoubtedly a very successful, symmetrical, and comprehensive piece +of biography. Some of his scientific studies have a genuine value, and +they are all fascinating. One of his pieces--adapted from the French, of +course, as most so-called English pieces are--will always be played +while Charles Mathews lives, or while there are actors who can play in +Charles Mathews's style. I wonder whether any of the readers of THE +GALAXY read, or having read remember, Lewes's novels? I only recollect +two of them, and I do not know whether he wrote any others. One was +called "Ranthorpe," and it had, in its day, quite a sort of success. How +long ago was it published? Fully twenty years, I should think: I +remember quite well being thrown into youthful raptures with it at the +time. But I do not go upon my boyish admiration for it. I came across it +somewhere much more recently, and read it through. There was a good deal +of inflation, and audacity, and nonsense in it; but at the same time it +showed more of brains and artistic impulse and constructive power than +nine out of every ten novels published in England to-day. It was all +about a young poet, who came to London and made, for a moment, a great +success, and was dazzled by it, and became intoxicated with love for a +lustrous beauty of high rank, who only played with him; and how he +forgot, for a time, the modest, delightful, simple girl to whom he was +pledged at home; and how he did not get on, and the public and the +_salons_ grew tired of him; and he became miserable, and was going to +drown himself (I think), but was prevented by some wise and timely +person; and how, of course, it all came right in the end, and he was +redeemed. This outline, probably, will not suggest much of originality +to any reader; but there was a great deal of freshness and thought in +the book, some of the incidents and one or two of the characters had a +flavor of originality about them; and the style was, for the most part, +animated and attractive. It was the work of a man of brains, and +culture, and taste; and one felt this all through, and was not ashamed +of the time spent in reading it. The other of Lewes's novels was called +"Rose, Blanche, and Violet." It charmed me a good deal when I read it; +but I have not read it lately, and so I forbear giving any decided +opinion as to its merits. It is, of course, quite settled now that +George Lewes had not in him the materials to make a successful novelist; +but men of far less talent have produced far worse novels than his, and +been, in their way, successful. + +Lewes first became prominent in literature as a contributor to the +"Leader," a very remarkable weekly organ of advanced opinions on all +questions, which was started in London seventeen or eighteen years ago, +and died, after much flickering and lingering, in 1861 or thereabouts. +The "Leader," in its early and best days, fairly sparkled all over with +talent, originality and audacity. It was to extreme philosophical +radicalism, (with a dash of something like atheism) what the "Saturday +Review" now is to cultured swelldom and Belgravian Sadduceeism. Miss +Martineau wrote for it. Lewes and Thornton Hunt (they were then +intimates, unfortunately for Lewes) were among its principal +contributors; Edward Whitty flung over its pages the brilliant eccentric +light which was destined to immature and melancholy extinction. Lewes's +theatrical criticisms, which he used to sign "Vivian," were inimitable +in their vivacity, their wit, and their keenness, even when their +soundness of judgment was most open to question. Poor Charles Kean was +an especial object of Lewes's detestation, and was accordingly pelted +and peppered with torturingly clever and piquant pasquinades in the form +of criticism. Lewes has got wonderfully sober and grave in style since +those wild days, and his occasional contributions in the shape of +dramatic criticism to the "Pall Mall Gazette" are doubtless more +generally accurate, are certainly much more thoughtful, but are far less +amusing than the admirable fooling of days gone by. It was in the +"Leader," I think, that Lewes carried on his famous controversy with +Charles Dickens on the possibility of such spontaneous combustion as +that of the old brute in "Bleak House," and it was in the "Leader" that +he made an equally famous exposure of a sham spiritualist medium, about +whom London was then much agitated. The "Leader," probably, never paid; +it was far too iconoclastic and eccentric to be a commercial success, +but it made quite a mark and will always be a memory. It did not succeed +in its object; but, like the arrow of the hero in Virgil, it left a long +line of sparkles and light behind it. Lewes has abandoned Bohemia long +since, and Edward Whitty is dead, and Thornton Hunt has come to +nothing--and there is another "Leader" now in London which bears about +as much resemblance to the original and real "Leader" as Richard +Cromwell did to Oliver, or Charles Kean to Edmund. + +Bohemianism, and novel-writing, and amateur acting, and persiflage, and +epigram, are all gone by now with Lewes. He has settled into a grave and +steady writer, for the most part of late confining himself to scientific +subjects. A few years ago he started the "Fortnightly Review," in the +hope of establishing in England a counterpart of the "Revue des Deux +Mondes." The first number was enriched by one of the most thoughtful, +subtle, beautiful essays lately contributed to literature; and it bore +the signature of George Eliot. Lewes himself wrote a series of essays on +"The Principles of Success in Literature," very good, very sound, but +not very lively reading. A great English novelist was pleased graciously +to say, _apropos_ of these essays, "Success in literature! What does +Lewes know about success in literature?" and the small devotees of the +great successful novelist laughed and repeated the joke. It is certain +that the "Fortnightly Review" was not a success under the editorship of +George Henry Lewes; and people said, I do not know how truly, that a +good deal of the nobly-earned money paid for "Silas Marner" and the +"Mill on the Floss" disappeared in the attempt to erect a British "Revue +des Deux Mondes." The "Fortnightly" lives still, and is called +"Fortnightly" still, although it now only comes out once a month, but +Lewes has long ceased to edit it. I think the present editor, John +Morley, a young man of great ability and promise, is better suited for +the work than Lewes was--indeed I doubt whether Lewes, with all his +varied gifts and acquirements, possesses the peculiar qualities which +make a man a genuine editor. But, the difference between wild Hal, the +Prince of Gadshill, and grave, wise Henry the Fifth, could hardly be +greater than that between the Vivian of the "Leader" and the late +editor of the solemn, ponderous "Fortnightly Review." + +Lewes wrote at one time a great deal for the "Westminster Review." It +was during his connection with it that he became acquainted, at Dr. +Chapman's house, with Marion Evans. There was a great similarity between +their tastes. Both loved the study of languages, and of philosophical +thought, and of literature and science generally. Both were splendid in +conversation, brilliant in epigram; both loved music and were intensely +susceptible to its influence. The mind of the woman was, I need hardly +say, far the stronger, wider, deeper of the two; but the affinity was +clear and close. A great misfortune had fallen on Lewes; and he was +probably in that condition of mind which makes a man not unlikely to +lose his faith in everything and drift into hopeless, perpetual +cynicism. From this, if this impended over him, Lewes was saved by his +intercourse with the rarely-gifted woman he had met in so timely an +hour. The result is, as every one knows, a companionship and union +unusual indeed in literary life. Very seldom has a distinguished author +had for wife a distinguished authoress, or _vice versa_; indeed, it used +to be one of the dear delightful theories of blockheads that such +unions, if they could take place, would be miserably unhappy. This +theory, so soothing to complacent dulness, was hardly borne out in the +instance of the Brownings; it is just as little corroborated by the +example of "George Eliot" and George Lewes. I believe, too, the example +of George Eliot is highly unsatisfactory to the devotees of that other +theory, so long cherished by dolts of both sexes, that a woman of talent +and culture can never do anything in the way of mending or making, of +cooking a chop or ordering a household. People tell us they can trace +the influence of Lewes's varied scholarship and critical judgment in the +novels of George Eliot. It is hardly possible to doubt that some such +influence must be there, but I certainly never saw it anywhere +distinctly and openly evident. It would be poor art which allowed a thin +stream of Lewes to be seen sparkling through the broad, deep, luminous +lake which mirrors the genius of George Eliot. I am, however, rather +inclined to fancy that Lewes, in general, abstains from critical +_surveillance_ or restraint over the productions of his greater +companion, believing, perhaps, that the higher mind had better be a law +to itself. If this be so, I think it is a wholesome principle pushed +sometimes too far, for one can hardly believe that the calm judgment of +any sincere and qualified adviser would not have discouraged and +condemned the painful, unnecessary underplot of past intrigue and sin +which is so great a blot in "Felix Holt," or suggested a rapider +dramatic movement in some passages of "The Spanish Gypsy." Lewes once +wrote to Charlotte Bronté that he would rather be the author of Miss +Austen's stories than of the whole of the Waverley Novels. I certainly +do not agree with him in that opinion; but it is strange that one who +held it should not have endeavored to prevent an authoress greater than +Miss Austen, and far more directly under his influence than Charlotte +Bronté, from sinking, in one or two instances, into faults which neither +Miss Austen nor Miss Bronté would ever have committed. Many things are +strange about this literary and domestic companionship; this +comparatively trifling fact seems to me not the least strange. + +Finally let me say that I fully expect George Eliot yet to give to the +world some work of art even greater than any she has already produced. +She is not a woman to close with even a comparative failure. Her maxim, +I feel confident, would be that of the Emperor Napoleon--offer terms of +peace and repose after a great victory; never otherwise. + + + + +GEORGE SAND. + + +We are all of us probably inclined now and then to waste a little time +in vaguely speculating on what might have happened if this or that +particular event had not given a special direction to the career of some +great man or woman. If there had been an inch of difference in the size +of Cleopatra's nose; if Hannibal had not lingered at Capua; if Cromwell +had carried out his idea of emigration; if Napoleon Bonaparte had taken +service under the Turk--and so on through all the old familiar +illustrations dear to the minor essayist and the debating society. I +have sometimes felt tempted thus to lose myself in speculating on what +might have happened if the woman whom all the world knows as George Sand +had been happily married in her youth to the husband of her choice. +Would she ever have taken to literature at all? Would she, loving as she +does, and as Frenchwomen so rarely do, the changing face of inanimate +nature--the fields, the flowers, and the brooks--have lived a peaceful +and obscure life in some happy country place, and been content with +home, and family, and love, and never thought of fame? Or if, thus +happily married, she still had allowed her genius to find an expression +in literature, would she have written books with no passionate purpose +in them--books which might have seemed like those of a good Miss Mulock +made perfect--books which Podsnap might have read with approval and put +without a scruple into the hands of that modest young person, his +daughter? Certainly one cannot but think that a different kind of early +life would have given a quite different complexion to the literary +individuality of George Sand. + +Bulwer Lytton, in one of his novels, insists that true genius is always +quite independent of the individual sufferings or joys of its possessor, +and describes some inspired youth in the novel as sitting down while +sorrow is in his heart and hunger gnawing at his vitals, to throw off a +sparkling and gladsome little fairy tale. Now this is undoubtedly true +in general of any high order of genius; but there are at least some +great and striking exceptions. Rousseau and Byron are, in modern days, +remarkable illustrations of genius, admittedly of a very high rank, +governed and guided almost wholly by the individual fortunes of the men +themselves. So too must we speak of the genius of George Sand. Not +Rousseau, not even Byron, was in this sense more egotistic than the +woman who broke the chains of her ill-assorted marriage with a crash +that made its echoes heard at last in every civilized country in the +world. Just as people are constantly quoting _nous avons changé tout +cela_ who never read a page of Molière, or _pour encourager les autres_ +without even being aware that there is a story of Voltaire's called +"Candide," so there have been thousands of passionate protests uttered +in America and Europe for the last twenty years by people who never saw +a volume of George Sand, and yet are only echoing her sentiments and +even repeating her words. + +In a former number of THE GALAXY I expressed casually the opinion that +George Sand is probably the most influential writer of our day. I am +still, and deliberately, of the same opinion. It must be remembered that +very few English or American authors have any wide or deep influence +over peoples who do not speak English. Even of the very greatest authors +this is true. Compare, for example, the literary dominion of Shakespeare +with that of Cervantes. All nations who read Shakespeare read +Cervantes: in Stratford-upon-Avon itself Don Quixote is probably as +familiar a figure in people's minds as Falstaff; but Shakespeare is +little known indeed to the vast majority of readers in the country of +Cervantes, in the land of Dante, or in that of Racine and Victor Hugo. +In something of the same way we may compare the influence of George Sand +with that of even the greatest living authors of England and America. +What influence has Charles Dickens or George Eliot outside the range of +the English tongue? But George Sand's genius has been felt as a power in +every country of the world where people read any manner of books. It has +been felt almost as Rousseau's once was felt; it has aroused anger, +terror, pity, or wild and rapturous excitement and admiration; it has +rallied around it every instinct in man or woman which is revolutionary; +it has ranged against it all that is conservative. It is not so much a +literary influence as a great disorganizing force, riving the rocks of +custom, resolving into their original elements the social combinations +which tradition and convention would declare to be indissoluble. I am +not now speaking merely of the sentiments which George Sand does or did +entertain on the subject of marriage. Divested of all startling effects +and thrilling dramatic illustrations, these sentiments probably amounted +to nothing more dreadful than the belief that an unwedded union between +two people who love and are true to each other is less immoral than the +legal marriage of two uncongenial creatures who do not love and probably +are not true to each other. But the grand, revolutionary idea which +George Sand announced was that of the social independence and equality +of woman--the principle that woman is not made for man in any other +sense than as man is made for woman. For the first time in the history +of the world woman spoke out for herself with a voice as powerful as +that of man. For the first time in the history of the world woman spoke +out as woman, not as the servant, the satellite, the pupil, the +plaything, or the goddess of man. + +Now I intend at present to write of George Sand rather as an individual, +or an influence, than as the author of certain works of fiction. +Criticism would now be superfluously bestowed on the literary merits and +peculiarities of the great woman whose astonishing intellectual activity +has never ceased to produce, during the last thirty years, works which +take already a classical place in French literature. If any reputation +of our day may be looked upon as established, we may thus regard the +reputation of George Sand. She is, beyond comparison, the greatest +living novelist of France. She has won this position by the most +legitimate application of the gifts of an artist. With all her +marvellous fecundity, she has hardly ever given to the world any work +which does not seem at least to have been the subject of the most +elaborate and patient care. The greatest temptation which tries a +story-teller is perhaps the temptation to rely on the attractiveness of +story-telling, and to pay little or no attention to style. Walter +Scott's prose, for example, if regarded as mere prose, is rambling, +irregular, and almost worthless. Dickens's prose is as bad a model for +imitation as a musical performance which is out of tune. Of course, I +need hardly say that attention to style is almost as characteristic of +French authors in general, as the lack of it is characteristic of +English authors; but even in France, the prose of George Sand stands out +conspicuous for its wonderful expressiveness and force, its almost +perfect beauty. Then of all modern French authors--I might perhaps say +of all modern novelists of any country--George Sand has added to +fiction, has annexed from the worlds of reality and of imagination, the +greatest number of original characters--of what Emerson calls new +organic creations. Moreover, George Sand is, after Rousseau, the one +only great French author who has looked directly and lovingly into the +face of Nature, and learned the secrets which skies and waters, fields +and lanes, can teach to the heart that loves them. Gifts such as these +have won her the almost unrivalled place which she holds in living +literature, and she has conquered at last even the public opinion which +once detested and proscribed her. I could therefore hope to add nothing +to what has been already said by criticism in regard to her merits as a +novelist. Indeed, I think it probable that the majority of readers in +this country know more of George Sand through the interpretation of the +critics than through the pages of her books. And in her case criticism +is so nearly unanimous as to her literary merits, that I may safely +assume the public in general to have in their minds a just recognition +of her position as a novelist. My object is rather to say something +about the place which George Sand has taken as a social revolutionist, +about the influence she has so long exercised over the world, and about +the woman herself. For she is assuredly the greatest champion of woman's +rights, in one sense, that the world has ever seen; and she is, on the +other hand, the one woman out of all the world who has been most +commonly pointed to as the appalling example to scare doubtful and +fluttering womanhood back into its sheepfold of submissiveness and +conventionality. There is hardly a woman's heart anywhere in the +civilized world which has not felt the vibration of George Sand's +thrilling voice. Women who never saw one of her books, nay, who never +heard even her _nom de plume_, have been stirred by emotions of doubt or +fear or repining or ambition, which they never would have known but for +George Sand, and perhaps but for George Sand's uncongenial marriage. For +indeed there is not now, and has not been for twenty years, I venture to +think, a single "revolutionary" idea, as slow and steady-going people +would call it, afloat anywhere in Europe or America, on the subject of +woman's relations to man, society, and destiny, which is not due +immediately to the influence of George Sand, and to the influence of +George Sand's unhappy marriage upon George Sand herself. + +The world has of late years grown used to this extraordinary woman, and +has lost much of the wonder and terror with which it once regarded her. +I can quite remember--younger people than I can remember--the time when +all good and proper personages in England regarded the authoress of +"Indiana" as a sort of feminine fiend, endowed with a hideous power for +the destruction of souls and an inextinguishable thirst for the +slaughter of virtuous beliefs. I fancy a good deal of this sentiment was +due to the fearful reports wafted across the seas, that this terrible +woman had not merely repudiated the marriage bond, but had actually put +off the garments sacred to womanhood. That George Sand appeared in men's +clothes was an outrage upon consecrated proprieties far more astonishing +than any theoretical onslaught upon old opinions could be. Reformers +indeed should always, if they are wise in their generation, have a care +of the proprieties. Many worthy people can listen with comparative +fortitude when sacred and eternal truths are assailed, who are stricken +with horror when the ark of propriety is never so lightly touched. +George Sand's pantaloons were therefore regarded as the most appalling +illustration of George Sand's wickedness. I well remember what +excitement, scandal, and horror were created in the provincial town +where I lived some twenty years ago, when the editor of a local +Panjandrum (to borrow Mr. Trollope's word) insulted the feelings and the +morals of his constituents and subscribers by polluting his pages with a +translation from one of George Sand's shorter novels. Ah me, the little +novel might, so far as morality was concerned, have been written every +word by Miss Phelps, or the authoress of the "Heir of Redcliffe"; it +had not a word, from beginning to end, which might not have been read +out to a Sunday school of girls; the translation was made by a woman of +the purest soul, and in her own locality the highest name; and yet how +virtue did shriek out against the publication! The editor persevered in +the publishing of the novel, spurred on to boldness by some of his very +young and therefore fearless coadjutors, who thought it delightful to +confront public opinion, and liked the notion of the stars in their +courses fighting against Sisera, and Sisera not being dismayed. That +charming, tender, touching little story! I would submit it to-day +cheerfully to the verdict of a jury of matrons, confident that it would +be declared a fit and proper publication. But at that time it was enough +that the story bore the odious name of George Sand; public opinion +condemned it, and sent the magazine which ventured to translate it to an +early and dishonored grave. I remember reading about that time a short +notice of George Sand by an English authoress of some talent and +culture, in which the Frenchwoman's novels were described as so +abominably filthy, that even the denizens of the Paris brothels were +ashamed to be caught reading them. Now this declaration was made in all +good faith, in the simple good faith of that class of persons who will +pass wholesale and emphatic judgment upon works of which they have never +read a single page. For I need hardly tell any intelligent person of +to-day, that whatever may be said of George Sand's doctrines, she is no +more open to the charge of indelicacy than the authoress of "Romola." I +cannot myself remember any passage in George Sand's novels which can be +called indelicate; and indeed her severest and most hostile critics are +fond of saying, not without a certain justice, that one of the worst +characteristics of her works is the delicacy and beauty of her style, +which thus commends to pure and innocent minds certain doctrines that, +broadly stated, would repel and shock them. Were I one of George Sand's +inveterate opponents, this, or something like it, is the ground I would +take up. I would say: "The welfare of the human family demands that a +marriage, legally made, shall never be questioned or undone. Marriage is +not a union depending on love or congeniality, or any such condition. It +is just as sacred when made for money, or for ambition, or for lust of +the flesh, or for any other purpose, however ignoble and base, as when +contracted in the spirit of the purest mutual love. Here is a woman of +great power and daring genius, who says that the essential condition of +marriage is love and natural fitness; that a legal union of man and +woman without this is no marriage at all, but a detestable and +disgusting sin. Now the more delicately, modestly, plausibly she can put +this revolutionary and pernicious doctrine, the more dangerous she +becomes, and the more earnestly we ought to denounce her." This was in +fact what a great many persons did say; and the protest was at least +consistent and logical. + +But horror is an emotion which cannot long live on the old fuel, and +even the world of English Philistinism soon ceased to regard George Sand +as a mere monster. Any one now taking up "Indiana," for example, would +perhaps find it not quite easy to understand how the book produced such +an effect. Our novel-writing women of to-day commonly feed us on more +fiery stuff than this. Not to speak of such accomplished artists in +impurity as the lady who calls herself Ouida, and one or two others of +the same school, we have young women only just promoted from +pantalettes, who can throw you off such glowing chapters of passion and +young desire as would make the rhapsodies of "Indiana" seem very feeble +milk-and-water brewage by comparison. Indeed, except for some of the +descriptions in the opening chapters, I fail to see any extraordinary +merit in "Indiana"; and toward the end it seems to me to grow verbose, +weak, and tiresome. "Leone Leoni" opens with one of the finest dramatic +outbursts of emotion known to the literature of modern fiction; but it +soon wanders away into discursive weakness, and only just toward the +close brightens up into a burst of lurid splendor. It is not those which +I may call the questionable novels of George Sand--the novels which were +believed to illustrate in naked and appalling simplicity her doctrines +and her life--that will bear up her fame through succeeding generations. +If every one of the novels which thus in their time drew down the +thunders of society's denunciation were to be swept into the wallet +wherein Time, according to Shakespeare, carries scraps for oblivion, +George Sand would still remain where she now is, at the head of the +French fiction of her day. It is true, as Goethe says, that +"miracle-working pictures are rarely works of art." The books which make +the hair of the respectable public stand on end, are not often the works +by which the fame of the author is preserved for posterity. + +It is a curious fact that at the early time to which I have been +alluding, little or nothing was known in England (or, I presume, in +America) of the real life of Aurore Amandine Dupin, who had been pleased +to call herself George Sand. People knew, or had heard, that she had +separated from her husband, that she had written novels which +depreciated the sanctity of legal marriage, and that she sometimes wore +male costume in the streets. This was enough. In England, at least, we +were ready to infer any enormity regarding a woman who was unsound on +the legal marriage question, and who did not wear petticoats. What would +have been said had people then commonly known half the stories which +were circulated in Paris; half the extravagances into which a passionate +soul and the stimulus of sudden emancipation from restraint had hurried +the authoress of "Indiana" and "Lucrezia Floriani"? For it must be owned +that the life of that woman was, in its earlier years, a strange and +wild phenomenon, hardly to be comprehended perhaps by American or +English natures. I have heard George Sand bitterly arraigned even by +persons who protested that they were at one with her as regards the +early sentiments which used to excite such odium. I have heard her +described by such as a sort of Lamia of literature and passion; a +creature who could seize some noble, generous, youthful heart, drain it +of its love, its aspirations, its profoundest emotions, and then fling +it, squeezed and lifeless, away. I have heard it declared that George +Sand made "copy" of the fierce and passionate loves which she knew so +well how to awaken and to foster; that she distilled the life-blood of +youth to obtain the mixture out of which she derived her inspiration. +The charge so commonly (I think unjustly) made against Goethe, that he +played with the girlish love of Bettina and of others in order to obtain +a subject for literary dissection, is vehemently and deliberately urged +in an aggravated form, in many aggravated forms, against George Sand. +Where, such accusers ask, is that young poet, endowed with a lyrical +genius rare indeed in the France of later days, that young poet whose +imagination was at once so daring and so subtle; who might have been +Béranger and Heine in one, and have risen to an atmosphere in which +neither Béranger nor Heine ever floated? Where is he, and what evil +influence was it which sapped the strength of his nature, corrupted his +genius, and prepared for him a premature and shameful grave? Where is +that young musician, whose pure, tender, and lofty strains sound sweetly +and sadly in the ears, as the very hymn and music of the +Might-Have-Been--where is he now, and what was the seductive power which +made a plaything of him and then flung him away? Here and there some man +of stronger mould is pointed out as one who was at the first conquered, +and then deceived and trifled with, but who ordered his stout heart to +bear, and rose superior to the hour, and lived to retrieve his nature +and make himself a name of respect; but the others, of more sensitive +and perhaps finer organizations, are only the more to be pitied because +they were so terribly in earnest. Seldom, even in the literary history +of modern France, has there been a more strange and shocking episode +than the publication by George Sand of the little book called "Elle et +Lui," and the rejoinder to it by Paul de Musset called "Lui et Elle." I +can hardly be accused of straying into the regions of private scandal +when I speak of two books which had a wide circulation, are still being +read, and may be had, I presume, in any New York bookstore where French +literature is sold. The former of the two books, "She and He," was a +story, or something which purported to be a story, by George Sand, +telling of two ill-assorted beings whom fate had thrown together for a +while, and of whom the woman was all tenderness, love, patience, the man +all egotism, selfishness, sensuousness, and eccentricity. The point of +the whole business was to show how sublimely the woman suffered, and how +wantonly the man flung happiness away. Had it been merely a piece of +fiction, it must have been regarded by any healthy mind as a morbid, +unwholesome, disagreeable production; a sin of the highest æsthetic kind +against true art, which must always, even in its pathos and its tragedy, +leave on the mind exalted and delightful impressions. But every one in +Paris at once hailed the story as a chapter of autobiography, as the +author's vindication of one episode in her own career--a vindication at +the expense of a man who had gone down, ruined and lost, to an early +grave. Therefore the brother of the dead man flung into literature a +little book called "He and She," in which a story, substantially the +same in its outlines, is so told as exactly to reverse the conditions +under which the verdict of public opinion was sought. Very curious +indeed was the manner in which the same substance of facts was made to +present the two principal figures with complexions and characters so +strangely altered. In the woman's book, the woman was made the patient, +loving, suffering victim; in the man's reply, this same woman was +depicted as the most utterly selfish and depraved creature the human +imagination could conceive. Even if one had no other means whatever of +forming an estimate of the character of George Sand, it would be hardly +possible to accept as her likeness the hideous picture sketched by Paul +de Musset. No woman, I am glad to believe, ever existed in real life so +utterly selfish, base, and wicked as his bitter pen has drawn. I must +say that the thing is very cleverly done. The picture is at least +consistent with itself. As a character in romance it might be pronounced +original, bold, brilliant, and, in an artistic sense, quite natural. +There is something thoroughly French in the easy and delicate force of +the final touch with which de Musset dismisses his hideous subject. +Having sketched this woman in tints that seem to flame across the eyes +of the reader; having described with wonderful realism and power her +affectation, her deceit, her reckless caprices, her base and cruel +coquetries, her devouring wantonness, her soul-destroying arts, her +unutterable selfishness and egotism; having, to use a vulgar phrase, +"turned her inside out," and told her story backwards, the author calmly +explains that the hero of the narrative in his dying hour called his +brother to his bedside, and enjoined him, if occasion should ever arise, +if the partner of his sin should ever calumniate him in his grave, to +vindicate his memory and avenge the treason practised upon him. "Of +course," adds the narrator, "the brother made the promise--and I have +since heard that he has kept his word." I can hardly hope to convey to +the reader any adequate idea of the effect produced on the mind by these +few simple words of compressed, whispered hatred and triumph, closing a +philippic, or a revelation, or a libel of such extraordinary bitterness +and ferocity. The whole episode is, I believe and earnestly hope, +without precedent or imitation in literary controversy. Never, that I +know of, has a living woman been publicly exhibited to the world in a +portraiture so hideous as that which Paul de Musset drew of George Sand. +Never, that I know of, has any woman gone so near to deserving and +justifying such a measure of retaliation. + +For if it be assumed--and I suppose it never has been disputed--that in +writing "Elle et Lui" George Sand meant to describe herself and Alfred +de Musset, it is hard to conceive of any sin against taste and feeling, +against art and morals, more flagrant than such a publication. The +practice, to which French writers are so much addicted, of making "copy" +of the private lives, characters, and relationships of themselves and +their friends, seems to me in all cases utterly detestable. Lamartine's +sins of this kind were grievous and glaring; but were they red as +scarlet, they would seem whiter than snow when compared with the lurid +monstrosity of George Sand's assault on the memory of the dead poet who +was once her favorite. The whole affair indeed is so unlike anything +which could occur in America or in England, that we can hardly find any +canons by which to try it, or any standard of punishment by which to +regulate its censure. I allude to it now because it is the only +substantial evidence I know of which does fairly seem to justify the +worst of the accusations brought against George Sand; and I do not think +it right, when writing for grown men and women, who are supposed to have +sense and judgment, to affect not to know that such accusations are +made, or to pretend to think that it would be proper not to allude to +them. They have been put forward, replied to, urged again, made the +theme of all manner of controversy in scores of French and in some +English publications. Pray let it be distinctly understood that I am not +entering into any criticism of the morality of any part of George Sand's +private life. With that we have nothing here to do. I am now dealing +with the question, fairly belonging to public controversy, whether the +great artist did not deliberately deal with human hearts as the painter +of old is said to have done with a purchased slave--inflicting torture +in order the better to learn how to depict the struggles and contortions +of mortal agony. In answer to such a question I can only point to +"Lucrezia Floriani" and to "Elle et Lui," and say that unless the +universal opinion of qualified critics be wrong these books, and others +too, owe their piquancy and their dramatic force to the anatomization of +dead passions and discarded lovers. We have all laughed over the +pedantic surgeon in Molière's "Malade Imaginaire," who invites his +_fiancée_ as a delightful treat to see him dissect the body of a woman. +I am afraid that George Sand did sometimes invite an admiring public to +an exhibition yet more ghastly and revolting--the dissection of the +heart of a dead lover. + +But in truth we shall never judge George Sand and her writings at all if +we insist on criticising them from any point of view set up by the +proprieties or even the moralities of Old England or New England. When +the passionate young woman, in whose veins ran the wild blood of Marshal +Saxe, found herself surrendered by legality and prescription to a +marriage bond against which her soul revolted, society seemed for her to +have resolved itself into its original elements. Its conventionalities +and traditions contained nothing which she held herself bound to +respect. The world was not her friend, nor the world's law. By one great +decisive step she sundered herself forever from the bonds of what we +call society. She had shaken the dust of convention from her feet; the +world was all before her where to choose. No creature on earth is so +absolutely free as the Frenchwoman who has broken with society. There, +then, stood this daring young woman, on the threshold of a new, fresh, +and illimitable world; a young woman gifted with genius such as our +later years have rarely seen, and blessed or cursed with a nature so +strangely uniting the most characteristic qualities of man and woman as +to be in itself quite unparalleled and unique. Just think of it--try to +think of it! Society and the world had no longer any laws which she +recognized. Nothing was sacred; nothing was settled. She had to evolve +from her own heart and brain her own law of life. What wonder if she +made some sad mistakes? Nay, is it not rather a theme for wonder and +admiration that she did somehow come right at last? I know of no one who +seems to me to have been open at once to the temptations of woman's +nature and man's nature except this George Sand. Her soul, her brain, +her style may be described, from one point of view, as exuberantly and +splendidly feminine; yet no other woman has ever shown the same power of +understanding and entering into the nature of a man. If Balzac is the +only man who has ever thoroughly mastered the mysteries of a woman's +heart, George Sand is the only woman, so far as I know, who has ever +shown that she could feel as a man can feel. I have read stray passages +in her novels which I would confidently submit to the criticism of any +intelligent men unacquainted with the text, convinced that they would +declare that only a man could have thus analyzed the emotions of +manhood. I have in my mind just now especially a passage in the novel +"Piccinino" which, were the authorship unknown, would, I am satisfied, +secure the decision of a jury of literary experts that the author must +be a man. Now this gift of entire appreciation of the feelings of a +different sex or race is, I take it, one of the rarest and highest +dramatic qualities. Especially is it difficult for a woman, as our +social life goes, to enter into the feelings of a man. While men and +women alike admit the accuracy of certain pictures of women drawn by +such artists as Cervantes, Molière, Balzac, and Thackeray, there are few +women--indeed, perhaps there are no women but one--by whom a man has +been so painted as to challenge and compel the recognition and +acknowledgment of men. In THE GALAXY some months ago I wrote of a great +Englishwoman, the authoress of "Romola," and I expressed my conviction +that on the whole she is entitled to higher rank as a novelist than even +the authoress of "Consuelo." Many, very many men and women, for whose +judgment I have the highest respect, differed from me in this opinion. I +still hold it, nevertheless; but I freely admit that George Eliot has +nothing like the dramatic insight which enables George Sand to enter +into the feelings and the experiences of a man. I go so far as to say +that, having some knowledge of the literature of fiction in most +countries, I am not aware of the existence of any woman but this one who +could draw a real, living, struggling, passion-tortured man. All other +novelists of George Sand's sex--even including Charlotte Brontë--draw +only what I may call "women's men." If ever the two natures could be +united in one form, if ever a single human being could have the soul of +man and the soul of woman at once, George Sand might be described as +that physical and psychological phenomenon. Now the point to which I +wish to direct attention is the peculiarity of the temptation to which a +nature such as this was necessarily exposed at every turn when, free of +all restraint and a rebel against all conventionality, it confronted the +world and the world's law, and stood up, itself alone, against the +domination of custom and the majesty of tradition. I claim, then, that +when we have taken all these considerations into account, we are bound +to admit that Aurora Dudevant deserves the generous recognition of the +world for the use which she made of her splendid gifts. Her influence on +French literature has been on the whole a purifying and strengthening +power. The cynicism, the recklessness, the wanton, licentious disregard +of any manner of principle, the debasing parade of disbelief in any +higher purpose or nobler restraint, which are the shame and curse of +modern French fiction, find no sanction in the pages of George Sand. I +remember no passage in her works which gives the slightest encouragement +to the "nothing new, and nothing true, and it don't signify" code of +ethics which has been so much in fashion of late years. I find nothing +in George Sand which does not do homage to the existence of a principle +and a law in everything. This daring woman, who broke with society so +early and so conspicuously, has always insisted, through every +illustration, character, and catastrophe in her books, that the one only +reality, the one only thing that can endure, is the rule of right and of +virtue. Nor has she ever, that I can recollect, fallen into the +enfeebling and sentimental theory so commonly expressed in the works of +Victor Hugo, that the vague abstraction society is always to bear the +blame of the faults committed by the individual man or woman. Of all +persons in the world Aurora Dudevant might be supposed most likely to +adopt this easy and complacent theory as her guiding principle. She had +every excuse, every reason for endeavoring to preach up the doctrine +that our errors are society's and our virtues our own. But I am not +aware that she ever taught any lesson save the lesson that men and women +must endeavor to be heroes and heroines for themselves, heroes and +heroines though all the world else were craven and weak and selfish and +unprincipled. Even that wretched and lamentable "Elle et Lui" affair, +utterly inexcusable as it is when we read between the lines its secret +history, has at least the merit of being an earnest and powerful protest +against the egotistical and debasing indulgence of moral weaknesses and +eccentricities which mean and vulgar minds are apt to regard as the +privilege of genius. "Stand upon your own ground; be your own ruler; +look to yourself, not to your stars, for your failure or success; always +make your standard a lofty ideal, and try persistently to reach it, +though all the temptations of earth and all the power of darkness strive +against you"--this and nothing else, if I have read her books rightly, +is the moral taught by George Sand. She may be wrong in her principle +sometimes, but at least she always has a principle. She has a profound +and generous faith in the possibilities of human nature; in the capacity +of man's heart for purity, self-sacrifice, and self-redemption. Indeed, +so far is she from holding counsel with wilful weakness or sin, that I +think she sometimes falls into the noble error of painting her heroes as +too glorious in their triumph over temptation, in their subjugation of +every passion and interest to the dictates of duty and of honor. Take, +for instance, that extraordinary book which has just been given to the +American public in Miss Virginia Vaughan's excellent translation, +"Mauprat." If I understand that magnificent romance at all, its purport +is to prove that no human nature is ever plunged into temptation beyond +its own strength to resist, provided that it really wills resistance; +that no character is irretrievable, no error inexpiable, where there is +sincere resolve to expiate and longing desire to retrieve. Take again +that exquisite little story, "La Dernière Aldini"; I do not know where +one could find a finer illustration of the entire sacrifice of man's +natural impulse, passion, interest, to what might almost be called an +abstract idea of honor and principle. I have never read this little +story without wondering how many men one ever has known who, placed in +the same situation as that of Nello, the hero, would have done the same +thing; and yet so simply and naturally are the characters wrought out +and the incidents described, that the idea of pompous, dramatic +self-sacrifice never enters the mind of the reader, and it seems to him +that Nello could not do otherwise than as he is doing. I speak of these +two stories particularly, because in both of them there is a good deal +of the world and the flesh; that is, both are stories of strong human +passion and temptation. Many of George Sand's novels, the shorter ones +especially, are as absolutely pure in moral tone, as entirely free from +even a taint or suggestion of impurity, as they are perfect in style. +Now, if we cannot help knowing that much of this great woman's life was +far from being irreproachable, are we not bound to give her all the +fuller credit because her genius at least kept so far the whiteness of +its soul? Revolutions are not to be made with rose water; you cannot +have omelettes without breaking of eggs. I am afraid that great social +revolutionists are not often creatures of the most pure and perfect +nature. It is not to patient Griselda you must look for any protest +against even the uttermost tyranny of social conventions. One thing I +think may at least be admitted as part of George Sand's +vindication--that the marriage system in France is the most debased and +debasing institution existing in civilized society, now that the buying +and selling of slaves has ceased to be a tolerated system. I hold that +the most ardent advocates of the irrevocable endurance of the marriage +bond are bound by their very principles to admit that in protesting +against the so-called marriage system of France George Sand stood on the +side of purity and right. Assuredly she often went into extravagances in +the other direction. It seems to be the fate of all French reformers to +rush suddenly to extremes; and we must remember that George Sand was not +a Bristol Quakeress or a Boston transcendentalist, but a passionate +Frenchwoman, the descendant of one of the maddest votaries of love and +war who ever stormed across the stage of European history. + +Regarding George Sand then as an influence in literature and on society, +I claim for her at least four great and special merits. First, she +insisted on calling public attention to the true principle of marriage; +that is to say, she put the question as it had not been put before. Of +course, the fundamental principle she would have enforced is always +being urged more or less feebly, more or less sincerely; but she made it +her own question, and illuminated it by the fervid, fierce rays of her +genius and her passion. Secondly, her works are an exposition of the +tremendous reality of the feelings which people who call themselves +practical are apt to regard with indifference or contempt as mere +sentiments. In the long run the passions decide the life-question one +way or the other. They are the tide which, as you know or do not know +how to use it, will either turn your mill and float your boat, or drown +your fields and sweep away your dwellings. Life and society receive no +impulse and no direction from the influences out of which the novels of +Dickens or even of Thackeray are made up. These are but pleasant or +tender toying with the playthings and puppets of existence. George Sand +constrains us to look at the realities through the medium of her +fiction. Thirdly, she insists that man can and shall make his own +career; not whine to the stars and rail out against the powers above, +when he has weakly or wantonly marred his own destiny. Fourthly--and +this ought not to be considered her least service to the literature of +her country--she has tried to teach people to look at nature with their +own eyes, and to invite the true love of her to flow into their hearts. +The great service which Ruskin, with all his eccentricities and +extravagances, has rendered to English-speaking peoples by teaching them +to use their own eyes when they look at clouds, and waters, and grasses, +and hills, George Sand has rendered to France. + +I hold that these are virtues and services which ought to outweigh even +very grave personal and artistic errors. We often hear that this or that +great poet or romancist has painted men as they are; this other as they +ought to be. I think George Sand paints men as they are, and also not +merely as they ought to be, but as they can be. The sum of the lesson +taught by her books is one of confidence in man's possibilities, and +hope in his steady progress. At the same time she is entirely practical +in her faith and her aspirations. She never expects that the trees are +to grow up into the heavens, that men and women are to be other than men +and women. She does not want them to be other; she finds the springs and +sources of their social regeneration in the fact that they are just what +they are, to begin with. I am afraid some of the ladies who seem to base +their scheme of woman's emancipation and equality on the assumption +that, by some development of time or process of schooling, a condition +of things is to be brought about where difference of sex is no longer to +be a disturbing power, will find small comfort or encouragement in the +writings of George Sand. She deals in realities altogether; the +realities of life, even when they are such as to shallow minds may seem +mere sentiments and ecstasies; the realities of society, of suffering, +of passion, of inanimate nature. There is in her nothing unmeaning, +nothing untrue; there is in her much error, doubtless, but no sham. + +I believe George Sand is growing into a quiet and beautiful old age. +After a life of storm and stress, a life which, metaphorically at least, +was "worn by war and passion," her closing years seem likely to be +gilded with the calm glory of an autumnal sunset. One is glad to think +of her thus happy and peaceful, accepting so tranquilly the reality of +old age, still laboring with her unwearied pen, still delighting in +books, and landscapes, and friends, and work. The world can well afford +to forget as soon as possible her literary and other errors. Of the vast +mass of romances, stories, plays, sketches, criticisms, pamphlets, +political articles, even, it is said, ministerial manifestoes of +republican days, which she poured out, only a few comparatively will +perhaps be always treasured by posterity; but these will be enough to +secure her a classic place. And she will not be remembered by her +writings alone. Hers is probably the most powerful individuality +displayed by any modern Frenchwoman. The influence of Madame Roland was +but a glittering unreality, that of Madame de Staël only a boudoir and +coterie success, when compared with the power exercised over literature, +human feeling, and social law, by the energy, the courage, the genius, +even the very errors and extravagances of George Sand. + + + + +EDWARD BULWER, LORD LYTTON. + + +Ten years ago an important political question was agitating the English +House of Commons and the English public. It was the old question of +Parliamentary Reform in a new shape. Thirty years before Lord John +Russell had pleaded the right of the middle classes to have a voice in +the election of their Parliamentary representatives; this time he was +asserting a similar right for the working population. Then he had to +contend against the opposition of the aristocracy only; this time he had +to fight against the combined antagonism of the aristocracy and the +middle classes, the latter having made common cause with their old +enemies to preserve a monopoly of their new privileges. The debate in +the House of Commons on the proposed Reform Bill of 1860 was long and +bitter. When it was reaching its height, a speaker arose on the Tory +side of the House whose appearance on the scene of the debate lent a new +and piquant interest to the night's discussion. He sat on the front +bench of the Opposition, quite near to Disraeli himself. The moment he +rose, every head craned forward to see him; the moment he began to +speak, every ear was strained with keen curiosity to hear him. The ears +were for a while sorely tried and perplexed. What was he saying--nay, +what language was he speaking? What extraordinary, indescribable sounds +were those which were heard issuing from his lips? Were they articulate +sounds at all? For some minutes certainly those who like myself had +never heard the speaker before were utterly bewildered. We could only +hear what seemed to us an incoherent, inarticulate guttural jabber, like +the efforts at speech of somebody with a mutilated tongue or excided +palate. Anything like it I never heard before or since; for no +subsequent listening to the same speaker ever produced nearly the same +impression: either he had greatly improved in elocution, or his listener +had grown used to him. But the night of this famous speech, nothing +could have exceeded the extraordinary nature of the sensations produced +on those who heard the orator for the first time. After a while we began +to detect articulate sounds; then we guessed at and recognized words; +then whole sentences began to shape themselves out of the guttural fag; +and at last we grew to understand that, with an elocution the most +defective and abominable ever possessed by mortal orator, this Tory +speaker was really delivering a speech of astonishing brilliancy, +ingenuity, and power. The sentences had a magnificent, almost majestic +rotundity, energy, and power; they reminded one of something cut out of +solid and glittering marble, at once so dazzling and so impressive. The +speech was from first to last an aristocratic argument against the +fitness of the working man to be anything but a political serf. In the +true fashion of the aristocrat, the speaker was for patronizing the +working man in every possible way; behaving to him as a kind and +friendly master; seeing that he had a decent home to live in and coals +and blankets in winter; but all the time insisting that the ruin of +England must follow any successful attempt to place political power in +the hands of "poverty and passion." The speech overflowed with +illustration, ingenious analogy, felicitous quotation, brilliant +epigram, and political paradoxes that were made to sound wondrously like +maxims of wisdom. Despite all its hideous defects of delivery, this +speech was, beyond the most distant comparison, the finest delivered on +the Tory side during the whole of that long and memorable debate. For a +time one was almost cheated into the belief that that elaborate and +splendid diction, now so stately and now so sparkling, was genuine +eloquence. Yet to the last the listener was frequently baffled by some +uncouth, semi-articulate, hardly intelligible sound. "What on earth does +he mean," asked a puzzled and indeed agonized reporter of some laboring +brother, "by talking so often about the political authority of Joe +Miller?" Careful inquiry elicited the fact that the name of the +political authority to which the orator had been alluding was John Mill. +Fortunately for his readers and his fame, the speaker had taken good +care to write out his oration and send the manuscript to the newspapers. + +Now this inarticulate orator, this Demosthenes without the +pebble-training, was, as my readers have already guessed, Edward +Bulwer-Lytton, then a baronet and a member of the House of Commons, now +a peer. Undoubtedly he succeeded, by this and one or two other speeches, +in securing for himself a place among the few great Parliamentary +debaters of the day. Despite of physical defects which would have +discouraged almost any other man from entering into public life at all, +he had succeeded in winning a reputation as a great speaker in a debate +where Palmerston, Gladstone, Bright, and Disraeli were champions. So +deaf that he could not hear the arguments of his opponents, so defective +in utterance as to become often almost unintelligible, he actually made +the House of Commons doubt for a while whether a new great orator had +not come among them. It was not great oratory after all; it was not true +oratory of any kind; but it was a splendid imitation of the real +thing--the finest electroplate anywhere to be found. "If it is not Bran, +it is Bran's brother," says a Scottish proverb. If this speech of +Bulwer-Lytton's was not true oratory, it was oratory's illegitimate +brother. + +Nearly a whole generation before the winning of that late success, +Bulwer-Lytton had tried the House of Commons, and miserably, ludicrously +failed. The young Tory members who vociferously cheered his great +anti-reform speech of 1860, were in their cradles when Bulwer-Lytton +first addressed the House of Commons, and having signally failed +withdrew, as people supposed, altogether from Parliamentary life. His +failure was even more complete than that of his friend Disraeli, and he +took the failure more to heart. Rumor affirms that the first serious +quarrel between Bulwer and his wife arose out of her vexation and +disappointment at his break-down, and the bitter, provoking taunts with +which she gave vent to her anger. I know no other instance of a +rhetorical triumph so long delayed, and at length so completely +effected. Nor can one learn that it was by any intervening practice or +training that Bulwer in his declining years atoned for the failure of +his youth. He was never that I know of a public speaker; he won his +Parliamentary success in defiance of Charles James Fox's famous axiom, +that a speaker can only improve himself at the expense of his audiences. +Between his failure and his triumph Bulwer-Lytton may be said to have +had no political audience. + +A statesman Bulwer-Lytton never became, although he held high office in +a Tory Cabinet. He did little or nothing to distinguish himself, unless +there be distinction in writing some high-flown, eloquent despatches, +such as Ernest Maltravers might have penned, to the discontented +islanders of Ionia; and it was he, if I remember rightly, who thought of +sending out "Gladstone the Philhellene" on that mission of futile +conciliation which only misled the Ionians and amused England. It always +seemed to me that in his political career Bulwer acted just as one of +the heroes of his own romances might have done. Having suffered defeat +and humiliation, he vowed a vow to wrest from Fate a victory upon the +very spot which had seen his discomfiture; and he kept his word, won his +victory, and then calmly quitted the field forever. A more prosaic +explanation might perhaps be found in the fact that weak physical health +rendered it impossible for Bulwer to encounter the severe continuous +labor which English political life exacts. But I prefer for myself the +more romantic and less commonplace explanation, and I hope my readers +will do likewise. I prefer to think of the great romancist retrieving +after thirty years of silence his Parliamentary defeat, and then, having +reconciled himself with Destiny, retiring from the scene contented, to +struggle in that arena no more. In all seriousness, there must be some +quality of greatness in the man who, after bearing such a defeat for so +many years, can struggle with Fate again, and accomplish so conspicuous +a success. + +Now this is in fact one grand explanation of Bulwer-Lytton's rank in +English literature. He has the self-reliance, the patience, the courage +so rare among literary men, by which one is enabled to extract their +full and utter value from whatsoever intellectual endowments he may +possess. Bulwer-Lytton alone among all famous English authors of our +days has apparently done all that he could possibly do--obtained from +his faculties their entire tribute. Readers of the letters of poor +Charlotte Brontë may remember the impatience with which she occasionally +complained that her idol Thackeray would not put forth his whole +strength. No such fault could possibly be found with Bulwer-Lytton. +Sooner or later he always put forth his whole strength. He had many +failures, but, as in the case of his political discomfiture, he had +always the art of learning from failure the way how to succeed, and +accordingly succeeding. When he wrote his wretched "Sea Captain," the +critics all told him he could not produce a successful drama. Bulwer +thought he could. He thought the very failure of that attempt would show +him how to succeed another time. He was determined not to give in until +he had satisfied himself as to his fitness, one way or the other, and so +he persevered. Now observe the character of the man, and see how much +superior he himself is to his works, and how much of their success the +works owe to the man's peculiar temper. We all know what authors usually +are, and how they receive criticism. In ordinary cases, when the critics +declare some piece of work a failure, the author either is crushed for +the time by the fiat, or he insists that the critics are idiots, hired +assassins, personal enemies, and so forth; he defiantly adheres to his +own notions and his own method--and he probably fails. Bulwer-Lytton +looked at the matter in quite a different light. He said, apparently, to +himself: "The critics only know what I have done; I know what I can do. +From their point of view they are quite right--this thing is a failure. +But I know that it is a failure only because I went to work the wrong +way. I _can_ do something infinitely better. Their experience and their +comments have given me some valuable hints; I will forthwith go to work +on a better principle." So Bulwer-Lytton wrote "Richelieu," "Money," and +the "Lady of Lyons"--the last probably the most successful acting drama +produced in England since the days of Shakespeare, and the first hardly +below it in stage success. Of course I am not claiming for either of +these plays a high and genuine dramatic value. They probably bear the +same resemblance to the true drama that their author's Parliamentary +speech-making does to true eloquence. But of their popularity and their +transcendent technical success there cannot be the slightest doubt. +Bulwer-Lytton proved to his critics that he could do better than any +other living man the very thing they said he could never do--write a +play that should conquer the public and hold the stage. So to those who +affirmed that, whatever else he might do, he never could be a +Parliamentary speaker, he replied by standing up when approaching the +very brink of old age, and delivering speeches which won the willing and +generous applause of Disraeli, and extorted the reluctant but manly and +frank recognition of such an opponent as John Bright. + +Bulwer-Lytton once insisted, in an address delivered to some English +literary institution, that the word "versatile" is generally used +wrongly when we speak of men who do a great many things well; that it is +a comprehensive, not merely a versatile mind, each of these men has; not +a knack of adroitly turning himself to many heterogeneous labors, but a +capacity so wide that it unfolds quite naturally many fields of labor. +In this sense Bulwer-Lytton has undoubtedly a more comprehensive mind +than any of his English contemporaries. He has written the most +successful dramas and some of the most successful novels of his day; and +he has so varied the method of his novel-writing that he may be said to +have at least three distinct and separate principles of construction. +Some of his poetic translations seem to me almost absolutely the best +done in England of late years; many of his essays approach a true +literary value, while all or nearly all of them are attractive reading; +his satire, "The New Timon," is the only thing of the kind which is +likely to outlive his age; and his political speeches are what I have +already described. Now, to estimate the personal value of these +successes, let us not fail to remember that their author never was +placed in a condition to make literary or other labor a necessity, and +that for nearly a whole generation he has been in the enjoyment of +actual wealth; that in England literature adds little or no social +distinction to a man of Bulwer-Lytton's rank; and that during a +considerable portion of his life the author of "The Caxtons" and "My +Novel" has been tortured by almost incessant ill-health. Almost +everything that could tend to make a man shun continuous and patient +labor (opulence and ill-health would be quite enough to make most of us +shun it) combined to render Bulwer-Lytton an idle or at least an +indolent man. Yet almost all the literary success he attained was due to +a patient toil which would have wearied out a penny-a-liner, and a +laborious self-study and self-culture which might have overtaxed the +nerves of a Königsberg professor. "Easy writing is cursed hard reading," +is a maxim which Bulwer-Lytton fully understood, and of which he showed +his appreciation in his personal practice. + +Bulwer-Lytton was born on the fringe of the aristocratic region. He can +hardly be said to belong to the genuine aristocracy, although of late, +thanks to his political opinions and his peerage, he has come to be +ranked among aristocrats. He is the brother of a distinguished +diplomatist, Sir Henry Bulwer, and the father of a somewhat promising +diplomatist, not quite unknown to Washington people, Robert Lytton, +"Owen Meredith." Bulwer-Lytton had advanced tolerably far upon his +career when he inherited through his mother a magnificent estate, which +enabled him to set up for an aristocrat. His baronetcy had been +conferred upon him by the Crown, as his peerage lately was. He started +in political life, like Mr. Disraeli, as a Liberal; indeed, it was, if I +am not greatly mistaken, on the introduction of Bulwer-Lytton that +Disraeli obtained the early patronage of Daniel O'Connell, which he so +soon forfeited by the political tergiversation that drew down from the +great Agitator the famous outburst of fierce and savage scorn wherein, +alluding to Disraeli's boasted Jewish origin, he proclaimed him +evidently descended in a right line from the blasphemous thief who died +impenitent on the cross. Disraeli's apostasy was sudden and glaring, and +he kept the field. Bulwer-Lytton soon faded out of politics altogether +for nearly thirty years, and when he reappeared in the House of Commons +and wore the garb of a Tory, his old friend and political patron +O'Connell had long become a mere tradition. Nearly all of those who +listened with curiosity to Bulwer-Lytton's speeches in 1859 and 1860, +were curious only to hear how a great romancist and dramatist would +acquit himself in a part which, so far as they were concerned, was +entirely a new appearance. They had no personal memory of his former +efforts; no recollection of the time when the young author of the +sparkling, piquant, and successful "Pelham" endeavored to take London by +storm as a political orator, and failed in the enterprise. + +In one peculiarity, at least, Bulwer-Lytton the novelist surpassed all +his rivals and contemporaries. His range was so wide as to take in all +circles and classes of English readers. He wrote fashionable novels, +historical novels, political novels, metaphysical novels, psychological +novels, moral-purpose novels, immoral purpose novels. "Wilhelm Meister" +was not too heavy nor "Tristram Shandy" too light for him. He tried to +rival Scott in the historical romance; he strove hard to be another +Goethe in his "Ernest Maltravers"; he quite surpassed Ainsworth's "Jack +Sheppard," and the general run of what we in England call "thieves' +literature," in his "Paul Clifford"; he became a sort of pinchbeck +Sterne in "The Caxtons," and was severely classical in "The Last Days of +Pompeii." One might divide his novels into at least half a dozen +classes, each class quite distinct and different from all the rest, and +yet the one author, the one Bulwer-Lytton, showing and shining through +them all. Bulwer is always there. He is masquerading now in the garb of +a mediæval baron, and now in that of an old Roman dandy; anon he is +disguised as a thief from St. Giles's, and again as a full-blooded +aristocrat from the region of St. James's. But he is the same man +always, and you can hardly fail to recognize him even in his cleverest +disguise. It may be questioned whether there is one spark of true and +original genius in Bulwer. Certain ideas commonly floating about in this +or that year he collects and brings to a focus, and by their aid he +burns a distinct impression into the public mind. Just as he expressed +the thin and spurious classicism of one period in his Pompeian romance, +so he made copy out of the pseudoscience and bastard psychology of a +later day in his "Strange Story." Never was there in literature a more +masterly and wonderful mechanic. Many-sided he never was, although +probably the fame of many-sidedness (if one may use so ungraceful an +expression) is the renown which he specially coveted and most +strenuously strove to win. Only genius can be many-sided, and +Bulwer-Lytton's marvellous capability never can be confounded with +genius. The nearest approach to genius in all his works may be found in +their occasional outbursts and flashes of audacious, preposterous +absurdity. The power which could palm off such outrageous nonsense as in +some instances he has done on two or three generations of novel-readers, +which could compel the public to swallow it and delight in it, despite +all that the satire of a Thackeray or a Jerrold could do, must surely, +one would almost say, have had something in it savoring of a sort of +genius. For there are in some even of the very best and purest of +Bulwer's novels whole scenes and characters which it seems almost +utterly impossible that any reader whatever could follow without +laughter. I protest that I think the author of "Ernest Maltravers" owed +much of his success to the daring which assumed that anything might be +imposed on the public, and to the absence of that sense of the ludicrous +which might have made a man of a different stamp laugh at his own +nonsense. I assume that Bulwer wrote in perfect faith and seriousness, +honestly believing them to be fine, the most ridiculous, bombastic, +fantastic passages in all his novels. I take it for granted that Mr. +Morris's sad hero, "The Man who never Laughed Again," must have been +frivolity itself when compared with Bulwer-Lytton at work upon a novel. +The sensitive distrust of one's own capacity, the high-minded doubt of +the value of one's own works, which is probably the companion, the +Mentor, the tormentor often, and not unfrequently the conqueror and +destroyer of true genius, never seems to have vexed the author of +"Eugene Aram" and "Godolphin." Bulwer-Lytton won a great name partly +because he was not a man of genius. The kind of thing he tried to do +could not have been done truly and successfully, in the high artistic +sense, by any one with a capacity below that of a Shakespeare, or at +least a Goethe. A man of genius, but inferior genius, would have made a +wretched failure of it. Between the two stools of popularity and art, of +time and eternity, he must have fallen to the ground. But where genius +might fail to achieve a splendid success, talent and audacity might turn +out a magnificent sham. This is the sort of success, this and none +other, which I believe Bulwer-Lytton to have achieved. He is the finest +_faiseur_ in the literature of to-day. His wax-work gallery surpasses +Madame Tussaud's; or rather his sham art is as much superior to that of +a James or an Ainsworth as Madame Tussaud's gallery is to Mrs. Jarley's +show. That sort of sentiment which lies somewhere down in the heart of +every one, however commonplace, or busy, or cynical--the sentiment which +is represented by the applause of the galleries in a popular theatre, +and which cultivated audiences are usually ashamed to acknowledge--was +the feeling which Bulwer-Lytton could always reach and draw forth. He +had so much at least of the true artistic instinct as to recognize that +the strongest element of popularity is the sentimental; and he knew that +out of ten persons who openly laugh at such a thing, nine are secretly +touched by it. Bulwer-Lytton found much of his stock and capital in the +human emotions which sympathize with youthful ambition and youthful +love, just as Dickens makes perpetual play with the feelings which are +touched by the death of children. When Claude Melnotte, transfigured +into the splendid Colonel Morier, rushes forward just at the critical +moment, outbids yon sordid huckster for his priceless jewel Pauline, +flings down the purse containing double the needful sum, declares that +he has bought every coin of it in the cause of nations with a +Frenchman's blood, and sweeps away his ransomed bride amid the thunder +of the galleries, of course we all know that sort of thing is not +poetry, or high art, or anything but splendiferous rubbish. Yet it does +touch most of us somehow. I know I always feel divided between laughter +and enthusiastic sympathy even still, when I see it for the hundred and +fiftieth time or so. In the same way, when Paul Clifford charges on +society the crimes of his outlaw career; when Rienzi vows vengeance for +his brother's blood; when Zanoni resigns his immortal youth that "the +flower at his feet may a little longer drink the dew"; when Ernest +Maltravers silently laments amid all his splendor of success the obscure +Arcadia of his boyish love, we can all see at a glance how bombastic, +gaudy, melodramatic, is the style in which the author works out his +ideas; how utterly unlike the simple, strong majesty of true art the +whole thing is; but yet we must acknowledge that the author understands +thoroughly how to touch a certain vein of what may be called elementary +emotion, common almost to all minds, which it is the object of society +to repress or suppress, and the object of the popular artist to stir up +into activity. Preach, advise, remonstrate, demonstrate as you will, the +majority of us will always feel inclined to give alms to beggar-women +and whining little children in the snowy streets. We know we are doing +unwisely, and perhaps even wrongly; we know that the misery which +touches us is probably a trumped-up and sham misery; we know that +whatever we give to the undeserving and the insincere is practically +withdrawn from the deserving and the sincere; we are ashamed to be seen +giving the money, and yet we do give it whenever we can. Because, after +all, our common emotion of sympathy with the more obvious, intelligible, +and I would almost say vulgar forms of human suffering, are far too +strong for our moderating maxims and our more refined mental conditions. +So of the sympathies which heroes and heroines, aspirations and agonies +of the style of Bulwer-Lytton awaken in us. Virtue cannot so inoculate +our old stock but we shall relish it; and is not he something of an +artist who recognizes this great fact in human nature, and plays upon +that vibrating, imperishable chord, and compels it to give him back such +an applauding echo? After all, I think there is just as much of sham and +of Madame Tussaud, and of the beggar-child in the snow, about Paul +Dombey's deathbed and Little Dorrit's filial devotion, as about the mock +heroics of Claude Melnotte or the domestic virtues of the Caxtons. Of +course I am not comparing Bulwer-Lytton with Dickens. The latter was a +man of genius, and one of the greatest humorists known at least to +modern literature. But nearly all the pathetic side of Dickens seems to +me of much the same origin as the heroic side of Bulwer-Lytton, and I +question whether the greater part of the popularity won by the author of +"Bleak House" has not been gained by a mastery of the very same kind of +art as that which sets galleries applauding for Claude Melnotte, and +young women in tears for Eugene Aram. + +There are, moreover, two points of superiority in artistic purpose which +may be claimed for Bulwer-Lytton over either Dickens or Thackeray. They +do not, perhaps, "amount to much" in any case; but they are worth +mentioning. Bulwer-Lytton has more than once drawn to the best of his +power a gentleman, and he has often drawn, or tried to draw, a man +possessed by some great, impersonal, unselfish object in life. The +former of these personages Dickens never seemed to have known or +believed in; the latter, Thackeray never even attempted to paint. Why +has Dickens never drawn a gentleman? I am not using the word in the +artificial, conventional, snobbish sense. I mean by a gentleman a +creature with intellect as well as heart, with refined and cultivated +tastes, with something of personal dignity about him. I do not care from +what origin he may have sprung, or to what class he may have belonged: +there is no reason, even in England, why a man born in a garret might +not acquire all the ways, and thoughts, and refinements of a gentleman. +Among the class to which most of Dickens's heroes are represented as +belonging, have we not all in England known gentlemen of intellect and +culture? Yet Dickens has never painted such a being. Nicholas Nickleby +is a plucky, honest, good-hearted blockhead; Tom Pinch is a benevolent +idiot; Eugene Wrayburn is a low-bred, impertinent snob--a mere "cad," as +Londoners would say. I have had no sympathy with the "Saturday Review" +in its perpetual accusations of vulgarity against Dickens; and I think a +recent English critic was pleasantly and purposely extravagant when he +charged the author of the "Christmas Carol" with having no loftier idea +of human happiness than the eating of plum pudding and kissing girls +under the mistletoe. But I do say that Dickens never drew a cultivated +English gentleman or lady--a cultivated and refined English man or +woman, if you will; and yet I know that there are such personages to be +found without troublesome quest among the very classes of society which +he was always describing. + +Now Thackeray could draw and has drawn English gentlemen and +gentlewomen; but has he ever drawn a high-minded, self-forgetting man or +woman devoted to some, to any, great object, or cause, or purpose of +any kind in life--absorbed by it and faithful to it? Is it true that +even in London society men are wholly given up to dining, and paying +visits, and making and spending money? Is it true that all men, even in +London society, pass their lives in a purposeless, drifting way, making +good resolves and not carrying them out; doing good things now and then +out of easy, generous impulse; loving lightly, and recovering from love +quickly? Are there in London society, on the one hand, no passions; on +the other hand, no simple, strong, consistent, unselfish, high-minded +lives? Assuredly there are; but Thackeray, the greatest painter of +English society England has ever had, chose, for some reason or another, +to ignore them. Only when he comes to speak of artists, more especially +of painters, does he ever hint that he is aware of the existence of men +whose lives are consistent, steadfast, and unselfish. Surely this is a +great omission. One does not care to drag into this discussion the names +of living illustrations; but I should like to have pointed Thackeray's +attention to this and that and the other man whom, to my certain +knowledge, he knew and warmly, fully appreciated, and asked him, "Why, +when you were painting with such incomparable fidelity such +illustrations of English life as you chose to select, did you not think +fit to picture such a simple, strong, consistent, magnanimous, +self-forgetting, self-devoting nature as that, or that, or that?"--and +so on, through many examples which I or anybody could have named. I +suppose the honest answer would have been, "I cannot draw that kind of +character; I cannot quite enter into its experiences and make it look +life-like as I see it; it is not in my line, and I prefer not to attempt +it." Now, I think it to the credit of Bulwer-Lytton, as a mere artist, +that he did include such figures even in his wax-work gallery. He could +not make them look like life; but he showed at least that he was aware +of their existence, and that he did his best to teach the world to +recognize them. + +Thus then, using with inexhaustible energy and perseverance his +wonderful gifts as an intellectual mechanician, Edward Bulwer-Lytton +went on from 1828 to 1860 grinding out of his mill an almost unbroken +succession of novels and romances to suit all changes in public taste. I +do not believe he changed his themes and ways of treating them +purposely, to suit the changes of public taste; but rather that, being a +man of no true original and creative power, his style and his views were +modified by the modifying conditions of successive years. Some new idea, +some new way of looking at this or that question of human life came up, +and it attracted him who was always a close and diligent student of the +world and its fashions; and he made it into a romance. Whatever new +schools of fiction came into existence, Bulwer-Lytton, always directing +the new ideas into the channel where popular and elementary sympathies +flowed freely, succeeded in turning each change to advantage, and +keeping his place. Dickens sprang up and founded a school; and yet +Bulwer-Lytton held his own. Thackeray arose and established a new +school, and Bulwer-Lytton, whom no human being would have thought of +comparing with either as a man of genius, did not lose a reader. +Charlotte Brontë came like a shadow, and so departed; George Eliot gave +a new lift and life to romance; the realistic school was followed by the +sensational school; the Literature of Adultery ran its vulgar +course--and Bulwer-Lytton remained where he always had been, and moulted +no feather. + +It is not likely that any true critic ever thought very highly of him, +or indeed took him quite seriously; but for many, many years criticism, +which had so scoffed and girded at him once, had only civil words and +applauding smiles for him. How Thackeray once did make savage fun of +"Bullwig," and more lately how Thackeray praised him! Charles +Dickens--what an enthusiastic admirer of the genius of his friend Lytton +he too became! And Tennyson--what a fierce passage of arms that was long +ago between Bulwer and him; and now what cordial mutual admiration! +Fonblanque and Forster, the "Athenæum" and "Punch," Tray, Blanche, and +Sweetheart--how they all welcomed in chorus each new effort of genius by +the great romancist who was once the stock butt of all lively satirists. +How did this happy change come about? Nobody ever had harder dealing at +the hands of the critics than Bulwer when his powers were really most +fresh and forcible; nobody ever had more general and genial commendation +than shone of late years around his sunny way. How was this? Did the +critics really find that they had been mistaken and own themselves +conquered by his transcendent merit? Did he "win the wise who frowned +before to smile at last"? To some extent, yes. He showed that he was not +to be written down; that no critical article could snuff him out; that +he really had some stuff in him and plenty of mettle and perseverance; +and he soon became a literary institution, an accomplished fact which +criticism could not help recognizing. But there was much more than this +operating towards Bulwer-Lytton's reconciliation with criticism. He +became a wealthy man, a man of fashion, a sort of aristocrat, with yet a +sincere love for the society of authors and artists, with a taste for +encouraging private theatricals and endowing literary institutions, and +with a splendid country house. He became a genial, golden link between +literature and society. Even Bohemia was enabled by his liberal and +courteous good-will to penetrate sometimes into the regions of +Belgravia. The critics began to fall in love with him. I do not believe +that Lord Lytton made himself thus agreeable to his literary brethren +out of any motive whatever but that of honest goodfellowship and +kindness. I have heard too many instances of his frank and brotherly +friendliness to utterly obscure writers, who could be of no sort of +service to him or to anybody, not to feel satisfied of his unselfish +good-nature and his thorough loyalty to that which ought to be the +_esprit de corps_ of the literary profession. But it is certain that he +thus converted enemies into friends, and stole the gall out of many an +inkstand, and the poison from many a penman's feathered dart. Not that +the critics simply sold their birthright of bitterness for an invitation +to dinner or the kindly smile of a literary Peer. But you cannot, I +suppose, deal very rigidly with the works of a man who is uniformly kind +to you; who brings you into a sort of society which otherwise you would +probably never have a chance of seeing; who, being himself a lord, +treats you, poor critic, as a friend and brother; and whose works, +moreover, are certain to have a great public success, no matter what you +say or leave unsaid. The temptation to look for and discover merit in +such books is strong indeed--perhaps too strong for frail critical +nature. Thus arises the great sin of English criticism. It is certainly +not venal; it is hardly ever malign. Mere ill-nature, or impatience, or +the human delight of showing one's strength, may often induce a London +critic to deal too sharply with some new and nameless author; but +although we who write books are each and all of us delighted to persuade +ourselves that any disparaging criticism must be the result of some +personal hatred, I cannot remember ever having had serious reason to +believe that a London critic had attacked a book because of his personal +ill-will to the author. The sin is quite of another kind--a tendency to +praise the books of certain authors merely because the critic knows the +men so intimately, and likes them so well, that he is at once naturally +prejudiced in their favor, and disinclined to say anything which could +hurt or injure them. Thus of late criticism has had hardly anything to +say of Lord Lytton, except in the way of praise. He is the head, and +patron, and ornament of a great London literary "Ring." I use this word +because none other could so well convey to a reader in New York a clear +idea of the friendly professional unity of the coterie I desire to +describe; but I wish it to be distinctly understood that I do not +attribute anything like venality or hired partisanship of any kind to +the literary Ring of which Lord Lytton is the sparkling gem. Of course +it has become, as such cliques always must become, somewhat of a Mutual +Admiration Society; and it is certain that a place in that brotherhood +secures a man against much disparaging criticism. There are indeed +literary cliques in London, of a somewhat lower range than this, where +the influence of personal friendships does operate in a manner that +closely borders upon a sort of literary corruption. But Lord Lytton and +his friends and admirers are not of that sort. They are friends +together, and they do admire each other, and I suppose everybody (save +one person) likes Lord Lytton now; and so it is only in the rare case of +a fresh, independent outsider, like the critic who wrote in the +"Westminster Review" some two years ago, that a really impartial, keen, +artistic survey is taken of the works of him that was "Bullwig." When +Lytton published his "Caxtons," the reviewer of the "Examiner," even up +to that time a journal of great influence and prestige, having nearly +exhausted all possible modes of panegyric, bethought himself that some +unappreciative and cynical persons might possibly think there was a lack +of originality in a work so obviously constructed after the model of +"Tristram Shandy." So he hastened to confute or convince all such +persons by pointing out that in this very fact consisted the special +claim of "The Caxtons" to absolute originality. The original genius of +Lytton was proved by his producing so excellent a copy. Don't you see? +You don't, perhaps. But then if you were intimate with Lord Lytton, and +were liked by him, and were a performer in the private theatricals at +Knebworth, his country seat, you would probably see it quite clearly, +and agree with it, every word. + +There was one person indeed who had no toleration for Lord Lytton, or +for his friendly critics. That was Lord Lytton's wife. There really is +no scandal in alluding to a conjugal quarrel which was brought so +persistently under public notice by one of the parties as that between +Bulwer-Lytton and his wife. I do not know whether I ought to call it a +quarrel. Can that be called a fight, piteously asks the man in Juvenal, +where my enemy only beats and I am merely beaten? Can that be called a +quarrel in which, so far as the public could judge, the wife did all the +denunciation, and the husband made no reply? Lady Lytton wrote novels +for the purpose of satirizing her husband and his friends--his +parasites, she called them. Bulwer-Lytton she gracefully described as +having "the head of a goat on the body of a grasshopper"--a description +which has just enough of comical truthfulness in its savage ferocity to +make it specially cruel to the victim of the satire, and amusing to the +unconcerned public. Lady Lytton attributed to her husband the most +odious meannesses, vices, and cruelties; but the public, with all its +love of scandal, seems to have steadfastly refused to take her +ladyship's word for these accusations. Dickens she denounced and +vilified as a mere parasite and sycophant of her husband. At one time +she poured out a gush of fulsome eulogy on Thackeray because he +apparently was not one of Lytton's friends; afterwards, when the +relationship between "Pelham" and "Pendennis" became friendly, she +changed her tune and tried to bite the file, to satirize the great +satirist. Disraeli she caricatured under the title of "Jericho Jabber." +This sort of thing she kept always going on. Sometimes she issued +pamphlets addressed to the women of England, calling on them to take up +her quarrel--which somehow they did not seem inclined to do. Once when +Lord Lytton, then only Sir Edward, was on the hustings, addressing his +constituents at a county election, her ladyship suddenly mounted the +platform and "went for" him. Sir Edward and his friends prudently and +quietly withdrew. I do not know anything of the merits of the quarrel, +and have always been disposed to think that something like insanity must +have been the explanation of much of Lady Lytton's conduct. But it is +beyond doubt that her husband's demeanor was remarkable for its quiet, +indomitable patience and dignity. Lately the public has happily heard +little of Lady Lytton's complaints. I did not even know whether she was +still living, until I saw a little book announced the other day by some +publisher, which bore her name. Let her pass--with the one remark that +her long succession of bitter attacks upon her husband does not seem to +have done him any damage in the estimation of the world. + +It is not likely that posterity will preserve much of Lord Lytton's +writings. They do not, I think, add to literature one original +character. Even the glorified murderer or robber, the Eugene Aram or +Paul Clifford sort of person, had been done and done much better by +Schiller, by Godwin, and by others, before Bulwer-Lytton tried him at +second hand. As pictures of English society, those of them which profess +to deal with modern English life have no value whatever. The historical +novels, the classical novels, are glaringly false in their color and +tone. Some of the personages in "The Last Days of Pompeii" are a good +deal more like modern English dandies than most of the people who are +given out as such in "Pelham." The attempts at political satire in "Paul +Clifford," at broad humor in "Eugene Aram" (the Corporal and his cat for +example), are feeble and miserable. There is hardly one touch of refined +and genuine pathos--of pathos drawn from other than the old stock +conventional sources--in the whole of the romances, plays, and poems. +The one great faculty which the author possessed was the capacity to +burnish up and display the absolutely commonplace, the merely +conventional, the utterly unreal, so that it looked new, original, and +real in the eyes of the ordinary public, and sometimes even succeeded, +for the hour, in deceiving the expert. Bulwer-Lytton's romance is only +the romance of the London "Family Herald" or the "New York Ledger," plus +high intellectual culture and an intimate acquaintance with the best +spheres of letters, art, and fashion. I own that I have considerable +admiration for the man who, with so small an original outfit, +accomplished so much. So successful a romancist; occasionally almost a +sort of poet; a perfect master of the art of writing plays to catch +audiences; so skilful an imitator of oratory that, despite almost +unparalleled physical defects, he once nearly persuaded the world that +his was genuine eloquence--who shall say that the capacity which can do +all this is not something to be admired? It is a clever thing to be able +to make ornaments of paste which shall pass with the world for diamonds; +mock-turtle soup which shall taste like real; wax figures which look at +first as if they were alive. Of the literary art which is akin to this, +our common literature has probably never had so great a master as Lord +Lytton. Such a man is especially the one to stand up as the appropriate +representative of literature in such an assembly as the English House of +Lords. I should be sorry to see a Browning, a Thackeray, a Carlyle, a +Tennyson, a Dickens there; but I think Lord Lytton is in his right +place--a splendid sham author in a splendid sham legislative assembly. + + + + +"PAR NOBILE FRATRUM--THE TWO NEWMANS." + + +"The truth, friend," exclaims Mr. Arthur Pendennis, debating some +question with his comrade Warrington; "where is the truth? Show it me. I +see it on both sides. I see it in this man who worships by act of +Parliament, and is rewarded with a silk apron and five thousand a year; +in that man who, driven fatally by the remorseless logic of his creed, +gives up everything, friends, fame, dearest ties, closest vanities, the +respect of an army of churchmen, the recognized position of a leader, +and passes over, truth-impelled, to the enemy in whose ranks he is ready +to serve henceforth as a nameless private soldier; I see the truth in +that man as I do in his brother, whose logic drives him to quite a +different conclusion, and who, after having passed a life in vain +endeavors to reconcile an irreconcilable book, flings it at last down in +despair, and declares, with tearful eyes and hands up to heaven, his +revolt and recantation." + +Perhaps many American readers, meeting with this passage, may have +supposed that the two brothers here described were merely typical +figures, invented almost at random by Thackeray to enable Pendennis to +point his moral. But in England people know that the two brothers are +real personages, and still live. I saw one of them a few nights ago, the +one last mentioned by Arthur Pendennis. I saw him, as he is indeed often +to be seen, the centre and leader of a little group or knot, a hopeless +minority, vainly striving by force of argument and logic, of almost +unlimited erudition, and a keen bright intellect, to obtain public +attention for something which the public persisted in regarding as an +idle crotchet, an impotent craze. The other brother, the elder, is a man +whose secession from the Church of England has lately been described by +Disraeli, in the preface to the collected edition of his works, as +having "dealt a blow to the Church under which it still reels." "That +extraordinary event," says Disraeli, "has been 'apologized for' but has +never been explained. It was a mistake and a misfortune." Probably no +reader of "The Galaxy" will now need to be told that the typical +brothers alluded to by Pendennis are John Henry and Francis W. Newman. + +The Atlantic deals curiously and capriciously with reputations. Both +these brothers Newman seem to me to be less known in America than they +deserve to be. John Henry in especial I found to be thus comparatively +ignored in the United States. He is beyond doubt one of the greatest, +certainly one of the most influential Englishmen of our time. He has +engraved his name deeply on the history of his age. He has led perhaps +the most remarkable religious movement known to England for generations. +He is one of the very few men whose lofty and commanding intellect has +been acknowledged and admired by all sects and parties. Gather together +any company of eminent Englishmen, however select in its composition, +however splendid in its members, and John Henry Newman will be among the +few especially conspicuous. + +Perhaps most of my readers will be of opinion that Newman's intellect +has been sadly misused; that his influence has been for the most part +disastrous. But no one who knows anything of the subject can deny the +greatness alike of the intellect and of the influence. Let me add, too, +that no enemy ever yet called into question the simple sincerity, the +blameless purity of John Henry Newman's purposes and character. Of later +years he has been rarely seen in London, for his duties keep him in +Birmingham, where he is at the head of a religious and educational +institution. I have heard that years are telling heavily on him, and +that when he now preaches he is listened to with the kind of +half-melancholy reverence which hangs on the words of a great man who is +already beginning to be a portion of the past. But his influence was a +power almost unequalled in its day, and that day has not yet wholly +faded. + +The Newman brothers are Londoners by birth, sons of a wealthy banker of +Lombard street--the British Wall street. Both were educated at Ealing +school, and both went to the University of Oxford. John Henry is by some +four years the senior of Francis, who was born in 1805, and who now +looks at least a dozen or fifteen years younger than his distinguished +brother. Both men were endowed with remarkable gifts; both had a +splendid faculty of acquiring knowledge. John Henry Newman became a +clergyman of the Established Church. He was a close and intimate friend +of Keble, of Pusey, and of Manning. He grew to be regarded as one of the +rising stars of Protestantism. No name, soon, stood higher than his. His +friends loved him, and Protestant England began to revere him. Now +observe the change that came on these two brothers, alike so gifted and +earnest, alike so wooed by the promise of brilliant worldly career. Two +movements of thought, having perhaps a common origin in the +dissatisfaction with the existing intellectual stagnation of the Church, +but tending in widely different directions, carried the brothers along +with them--"seized," to use the words of Richter, "their bleeding hearts +and flung them different ways." The younger brother found himself drawn +toward rationalism. He could not subscribe the Thirty-Nine Articles for +his degree as a Master; he left Oxford. He wandered for years in the +East, endeavoring, not very successfully, to teach Christianity on its +broadest basis to the Mohammedans; and he finally returned to England to +take his place among the leaders of that school of free thought which +the ignorant, the careless, or the malignant set down as infidelity. In +the mean time his brother became one of the pioneers of a still more +unexpected movement. In the English Church for a long time every thing +had seemed to be settled and at rest. The old controversy with Rome +appeared out of date, unnecessary, and perhaps vulgar. Everything was +just as it should be--stable and respectable. But it suddenly occurred +to some earnest, unresting souls, like that of Keble--souls "without +haste and without rest," like Goethe's star--to insist that the Church +of England had higher claims and nobler duties than those of preaching +harmless sermons and enriching bishops. Keble could not bear to think of +the Church taking pleasure since all is well. He urged on some of the +more vigorous and thoughtful minds around him that they should reclaim +for the Church the place which ought to be hers as the true successor of +the Apostles. He claimed for her that she, and she alone, was the real +Catholic Church, authorized to teach all nations, and that Rome had +wandered away from the right path, foregone the glorious mission which +she might have maintained. One of Keble's closest and dearest friends +was John Henry Newman, and Keble regarded Newman as a man qualified +beyond all others to become the teacher and leader of the new movement. +Keble preached a famous sermon in 1833, and inaugurated the publication +of a series of tracts designed to vindicate the real mission of the +Church of England. This was the Tractarian movement, which had early, +various, and memorable results. John Henry Newman wrote the most +celebrated of all the tracts, the famous "No. 90," which drew down the +censure of the University authorities on the ground that it actually +tended to abolish all difference between the Church of England and the +Church of Rome. Yet a little, and the gradual workings of Newman's mind +became evident to all the world. The brightest and most penetrating +intellect in the English Protestant Church was publicly and deliberately +withdrawn from her service, and John Henry Newman became a priest of the +Church of Rome. To this had the inquiry conducted him which led his +friend Dr. Pusey merely to endeavor to incorporate some of the mysticism +and the symbols of Rome with the practice and the progress of the +English Church; which had led Dr. Keble only to a more liberal and truly +Christianlike temper of Protestant faith; which had sent Francis Newman +into radical rationalism. The two brothers were intellectually divided +forever. Each renounced a career rich in promise for mere conscience' +sake; and the one went this way, the other that. + +Disraeli has in no wise exaggerated the depth and painfulness of the +sensation produced among English Protestants by the secession of John +Henry Newman. It was of course received upon the opposite side with +corresponding exultation. No man, indeed, could be less qualified than +Mr. Disraeli to understand the tremendous, the irresistible force of +conviction in a nature like that of Newman. The brilliant master of +political tactics has made it evident that he did not understand the +motive of Newman's secession any more than he did the meaning of the +title of Newman's celebrated book, "Apologia pro Vitâ suâ." "That +extraordinary event," says Disraeli, speaking of the secession, "has +been apologized for, but has never been explained." Evidently Disraeli +believed that the English word "apology" is the correct translation of +the Latinized Greek word "apologia," which it most certainly is not. +Nothing could have been further from Newman's mind or from the purpose, +or indeed from the title of his book, than to apologize for his +secession. On the contrary, the book is sharply and pertinaciously +aggressive. It was called forth by an attack made on Dr. Newman by the +Rev. Charles Kingsley. I think Kingsley was in the main right in his +views, but he was rough and blundering in his expression of them, and he +is about as well qualified to carry on a controversy with John Henry +Newman as Governor Hoffman would be to undertake a rhetorical +competition with Mr. Wendell Phillips. Kingsley's bluff, rude, illogical +way of fighting, his "wild and skipping spirit," were placed at +ludicrous and fearful disadvantage. Newman "went for him" unsparingly, +and literally tore him with the beak and claws of logic, satire, and +invective. One was reminded of Pascal's attacks on the Jesuits--only +that this time the wit and power were on the side which might fairly be +called Jesuitical. Out of this merciless onslaught on Kingsley came the +"Apologia pro Vitâ suâ," in which Newman endeavored to vindicate and +glorify, not excuse or apologize for, his strange secession. The book is +well worth reading, if only as a curious illustration of the utter +inadequacy of human intellect and human logic to secure a soul from the +strangest wandering, the saddest possible illusion. You cannot read a +page of it without admiration for the intellect of the author, and +without pity for the poverty even of the richest intellectual gifts +where guidance is sought in a faith and in things which transcend the +limits of human logic. + +John Henry Newman threw his whole soul, energy, genius, and fame into +the cause of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome welcomed him with that +cordial welcome she always gives to a new-comer, and she utilized him +and set work for him to do. Macaulay has shown very effectively in one +of his essays how the Roman Church seldom loses any one it has gained, +because it is so skilful in finding for everybody his proper place, and +assigning him in her service the task he is best qualified to do, so +that her ambition becomes his ambition, her interest his interest, her +conquests his conquests. Newman appears to have been made a sort of +missionary from Rome to the intellect and culture of the English people. +Within the Church to which he had gone over he became an immense +influence and almost unequalled power. The Catholics delighted to have a +leader whose intellect no one could pretend to despise, whose gifts and +culture had been panegyrized in the most glowing terms, over and over +again, by the foremost statesmen and divines of the Protestant Church. +Newman was appointed head of the oratory of St. Philip Neri at +Birmingham, and was for some years rector of the Roman Catholic +University of Dublin. He rarely came before the public. In all the arts +that make an orator or a great preacher he is strikingly deficient. His +manner is constrained, awkward, and even ungainly; his voice is thin and +weak. His bearing is not impressive. His gaunt, emaciated figure, his +sharp, eagle face, his cold, meditative eye, rather repel than attract +those who see him for the first time. The matter of his discourse, +whether sermon, speech, or lecture, is always admirable, and the +language is concise, scholarly, expressive--perhaps a little +overweighted with thought; but there is nothing there of the orator. It +is as a writer, and as an "influence"--I don't know how better to +express it--that Newman has become famous. I doubt if we have many +better prose writers. He is full of keen, pungent, satirical humor; and +there is, on the other hand, a subtle vein of poetry and of pathos +suffusing nearly all he writes. One of the finest and one of the most +frequently quoted passages in modern English literature is Newman's +touching and noble apostrophe to England's "Saxon Bible." He has +published volumes of verse which I think belong to the very highest +order of verse-making that is not genuine poetry. They are full of +thought, feeling, pathos, tenderness, beauty of illustration; they are +all that verse can be made by one who just fails to be a poet. An +English critical review not long since classed the poetical works of Dr. +Newman and George Eliot together, as the nearest approach which +intellect and culture have made in our days toward the production of +genuine poetry. When Newman made his famous attack on Dr. Achilli, an +Italian priest who had renounced the Roman Church, and whom Newman +publicly accused of many crimes, the judge who had to sentence the +accuser to the payment of a fine for libel pronounced a panegyric on his +intellect and his character such as is rarely heard from an English +judgment seat. Not long after, when the subject came up somehow in the +House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone broke into an encomium of John Henry +Newman which might have seemed poetical by hyperbole to those who did +not know the merits of the one man and the conscientious truthfulness of +the other. We have heard the testimony borne by Mr. Disraeli to the +importance of Newman's intellect as a support of the English Church, and +the shock which was caused by his withdrawal. Seldom, indeed, has a man +seceded from one church and become the aggressive, unsparing, intolerant +champion of its enemy, and yet retained the esteem and the affection of +those whom he abandoned, as this good, great, mistaken Englishman has +done. + +The two brothers then are hopelessly divided. One consorts with the Pope +and Cardinal Wiseman and Archbishop Manning, and is the idol and saint +of the Ultramontanes, and devotes his noble intellect to the task of +making the Irish Catholic a more bigoted Catholic than ever. The other +falls in with the little band, that once seemed a forlorn hope, of what +we may call the philosophical radicals of England. He becomes a +professor of the rationalistic University of London, and a contributor +to the free-thinking "Westminster Review." Judging each brother's +success merely by what each sought to do, I suppose the career of the +Catholic has been the more successful. Not that I think he has made much +way toward the conversion of England to Catholicism. With all its +Puseyism and ritualism, England seems to have little real inclination +toward the doctrines of Rome. There is indeed a distinguished "convert" +every now and then--the Marquis of Bute some two years ago, Lord Robert +Montagu last year; but the great mass of the English people remain +obstinately anti-papal. The tendency is far more toward Rationalism than +toward Romanism; with the Newman who withdrew from all churches rather +than with the Newman who renounced one church to enter another. +Therefore, when I say that the career of John Newman appears to me to +have been more successful than that of Francis, I mean only that he has +been a greater influence, a more powerful instrument of his cause than +his brother ever has been. The boast was made unjustly for Voltaire that +he almost arrested the progress of Christianity in Europe. I think the +admirers of John Newman might claim for him that he actually did for a +time at least arrest the progress of Protestantism in England. He had +indeed the great advantage of passing from one organization to another. +Like Coriolanus, when he seceded he became the leader of the enemy's +army. It was quite otherwise with his brother, who leaving the English +Church was thenceforward only an individual, and for the most part an +isolated worker. But indeed, with all his intellect, his high culture, +and his indomitable courage, Francis Newman has never been an +influential man in English politics. It may be that his keen logic is +too uncompromising; and there can be no practical statesmanship without +compromise. It may be that there is something eccentric, egotistic (in +the less offensive sense), and crotchety in that sharp, independent, and +self-sufficing intelligence. Whatever the reason, nine out of ten men in +London set down Francis Newman as hopelessly given over to crotchets, +while the tenth man, admiring however much his character and his +capacity, is sometimes grieved and sometimes provoked that both together +do not make him a greater power in the nation. I never remember Francis +Newman to have been in accord with what I may call the average public +opinion of English political life, except in one instance; and in that +case I believe him to have been wrong. He was in favor of the Crimean +war; and for this once therefore he found himself on the side of the +majority. As if to mark the contrast of views which it has been the fate +of these two brothers to present during their lives, it so happened +that, so far as John Henry's opinions on the subject could be learned by +the public, they were against the war. At least they were decidedly +against the Turks. I remember hearing him deliver at that time a course +of lectures in an educational institution, having for their subject the +origin and the results of the Ottoman settlement in Europe. I well +remember how effectively and vividly he argued, with his thin voice and +his constrained, ungraceful action, that the Turk had no greater moral +right to the territory he occupies, but does not cultivate and improve, +than the pirate has to the sea over which he sails. But Francis Newman +was then for once mixed up with the majority; and I doubt whether he +could have much liked the unwonted position. He certainly took care to +explain more than once that his reasons for taking that side were not +those of the average Englishman. He thus might have given some of his +casual associates occasion to say of him, as Charles Mathews says of +woman in general, that even when he is right he is right in a wrong +sort of way. For myself I am inclined to reverse the saying, and declare +of Francis Newman that even when he is wrong he is wrong in a right sort +of way. He was right, and in a very right sort of way, when he came out +from his habitual seclusion during the American civil war, and stood up +on many a platform for the cause of the Union. Like his brother, he is a +poor public speaker. At his very best he is the professor talking to his +class, not the orator addressing a crowd. His manner is singularly +constrained, ineffective, and even awkward; his voice is thin and weak. +There is a certain very small and rare class of bad speakers, which has +yet a virtue and charm of its own almost equal to eloquence. I am now +thinking of men utterly wanting in all the arts and graces, in all the +power and effect of rhetorical delivery, but who yet with whatever +defect of manner can say such striking things, can put such noble +thoughts into expressive words, can be so entirely original and so +completely masters of their subject, that they seem to be orators in all +but voice and manner. Horace Greeley always is, to me at least, such a +speaker; so is Stuart Mill. These are bad speakers as Jane Eyre or +Consuelo may have been an unlovely woman; all the rules declare against +them, all the intelligences and sympathies are in their favor. But +Francis Newman is not a speaker of this kind. He is feeble, ineffective, +and often even commonplace. Nature has denied to him the faculty of +adequately expressing himself in spoken words. He is almost as much out +of his element when addressing a public meeting as he would be if he +were singing in an opera. Few Englishmen living can claim to be the +intellectual superiors of Francis Newman; but you would never know +Francis Newman by hearing him speak on a platform. The last time I heard +him address a public meeting was on an occasion to which I have already +alluded. He was presiding over an assemblage called together to protest +against compulsory vaccination. The Government and Parliament have +lately made very stringent the enactment for compulsory vaccination, in +consequence of the terrible increase of small-pox. There is in London, +as in all other great capitals, a certain knot of persons who would +refuse to wash their faces or kiss their wives if Government ordered or +even recommended either performance. Therefore there was a small +agitation got up against vaccination, and Francis Newman consented to +become the president of one of its meetings. This meeting was held in +Exeter Hall--not indeed in the vast hall where the oratorios are +performed, and where once upon a time Henry Ward Beecher pleaded the +cause of the Union; but in the "lower hall," as it is called, a little +subterranean den. Some eminent classic person, I really forget who, +being reproached with the small size of his apartments, declared that he +should be only too glad if he could fill his rooms, small as they were, +with men his friends. The organizers of this meeting might have been +content if they could have filled the hall, small as it was, with men +and women their friends. The attendance was not nearly up to the size of +the room. There on the platform sat the good, the gifted, and the +fearless Francis Newman; and immediately around him were some dozen +embodied and living crotchets and crazes. There was this learned +physician who has communication with the spirit-world regularly. There +was this other eminent person who has long been trying in vain to teach +an apathetic Government how to cure crime on phrenological principles. +There was Smith, who is opposed to all wars; Brown, who firmly believes +that every disease comes from the use of salt; Jones, who has at his own +expense put into circulation thousands of copies of his work against the +employment of medical men in puerperal cases; Robinson, who is ready to +spend his last coin for the purpose of proving that vaccination and +original sin are one and the same thing. How often, oh, how often have I +not heard those theories expounded! How often have I marvelled at the +extraordinary perversion of ingenuity by which figures, facts, +philosophy, and Scripture are jumbled up together to convince you that +the moon is made of green cheese! We just wanted on this memorable +occasion the awful persons who prove to you that the earth is flat, and +the indefatigable ladies who expound their claims to the British crown +feloniously usurped by Queen Victoria. There sat Francis Newman +presiding over this preposterous little conclave, and having of course +what seemed to him satisfactory and just reasons for the position he +occupied. He spoke rather better than usual, and there was a bewildering +bravery of paradox writhing through his speech which must have delighted +his listeners. The meeting came to nothing. The papers took hardly any +notice of it (London papers were never in my time so entirely +conventional, respectable, and Philistinish as they are just now); and +Newman's effort went wholly in vain. I have mentioned it only because it +was illustrative or typical of so much in the man's whole career. So +much of lovely independence; such a disdain of public opinion and public +ridicule; such an absence of all perception of the ridiculous! Thus it +was that he endeavored to rouse up the English public, who except for +the extreme democracy always have had a strong hankering for the +Austrian Government, to a sense of the crimes of the House of Hapsburg +against its subjects. Thus he was for reform in Parliament when +Parliamentary reform was a theme supposed to be dead and buried; when +Palmerston had trampled on its ashes, and Disraeli had made merry over +its coffin. Thus he came out for the American Union when John Bright +stood almost alone in the House of Commons, and Mill and Goldwin Smith +and two or three others were trying to organize public opinion outside +the House. The same qualities after all which made Newman nearly sublime +in these latter instances, were just those which made him well nigh +ridiculous in the anti-vaccination business. But in all the instances +alike the same thing can be said of Francis Newman. There is a turn or +twist of some kind in his nature and intellect which always seems to mar +his best efforts at practical accomplishment. Even his purely literary +and scholastic productions are marked by the same fatal characteristic. +All the outfit, all the materials are there in surprising profusion. +There is the culture, there is the intellect, the patience, the +sincerity. But the result is not in proportion to the value of the +materials. The blending is not complete, is not effectual. Something has +always intervened or been wanting. Francis Newman has never done and +probably never will do anything equal to his strength and his capacity. + +I am not inviting a comparison between these two brothers, so alike in +their sincerity, their devotion, their courage, and their gifts--so +singularly unlike, so utterly divided, in their creeds and their +careers. My own sympathies, of course, naturally go with Francis Newman, +who has in a vast majority of instances been a teacher of some opinion, +a champion of some political cause of which I am proud to be a disciple +and a follower. But I suppose the greater intellect and the richer gifts +were those which were given up so meekly and wholly to the service of +the dogmatism of the Roman Catholic Church. The career of John Henry +Newman may probably be regarded as having practically closed. His latest +work of note, "The Grammar of Assent," does not indeed seem to show any +falling away of his intellectual powers; but I have heard that his +physical strength has suffered severely with years, and he never was a +strong man. He is now in his seventieth year, and it is therefore only +reasonable to regard him as one who has done his work and whose life is +fully open to the judgment of his time. May I be allowed to say that I +think he has done some good even to that English Church to which his +secession struck so heavy a blow? Newman was really the mainspring of +that movement which proposed to rescue the Church from apathy, from dull +easy-going quiescence, from the perfunctory discharge of formal duties, +and to quicken her once again with the spirit of a priesthood, to arouse +her to the living work, physical and spiritual, of an ecclesiastical +sovereignty. The impulse indeed overshot itself in his case, and was +misdirected in the case of Dr. Pusey, plunging blindly into Romanism +with the one, degenerating into a somewhat barren symbolism with the +other. But throughout the English Church in general there has been +surely a higher spirit at work since that famous Oxford movement which +was inspired by John Henry Newman. I think its influence has been more +active, more beneficent, more human, and yet at the same time more +spiritual, since that sudden and startling impulse was given. For the +man himself little more needs to be said. Every one acknowledges his +gifts and his virtues. No one doubts that in his marvellous change he +sought only the pure truth. His theology, I presume, is not that of the +readers of "The Galaxy" in general, any more than it is mine; but I +trust there is none of us so narrowed to his own form of Christianity as +to refuse his respect and admiration to one so highly lifted above the +average of men in goodness and intellect, even though his career may +have been sacrificed at the shrine of a faith that is not ours. For me, +I am sometimes lost in wonder at the sacrifice, but I can only think +with respect and even veneration of the man. + +The younger brother needs no apology or vindication, in the United +States especially. He is, be it understood, a thoroughly religious man. +He has never sunk into materialism or frittered away his earnestness in +mere skepticism. He is not orthodox--he has gone his own way as regards +church dogma and discipline; but except in the vulgarest and narrowest +application of the word, he is no "infidel." The United States owe him +some good feeling, for he was one of the few eminent men in England who +never were faithless to the cause of the Union, and never doubted of its +ultimate triumph. I have now before me one of the most powerful +arguments addressed to an English audience for the Union and against +secession that reason, justice, and eloquence could frame. It is a +pamphlet published in 1863 by "F. W. Newman, late Professor at +University College, London," in the form of a "Letter to a Friend who +had joined the Southern Independence Association." How wonderful it +seems now that such arguments ever should have been needed; how few +there were then in England who regarded them; how completely time has +justified and sealed them as true, right, and prophetic. I read the +pages over, and all the old struggle comes back with its rancors and its +dangers, and I honor anew the brave man who was not afraid to stand as +one of a little group, isolated, denounced, and laughed at, confiding +always in justice and time. + +The story of these two brothers is on the whole as strange a chapter as +any I know in the biography of human intellect and creed. I think it may +at least teach us a lesson of toleration, if nothing better. The very +pride of intellect itself can hardly pretend to look down with mere +scorn upon beliefs or errors which have carried off in contrary +directions these two Newmans. The sternest bigot can scarcely refuse to +admit that truthfulness and goodness may abide without the limits of his +own creed, when he remembers the high and noble example of pure, true, +and disinterested lives which these intellectually-sundered brothers +alike have given to their fellow-men. + + + + +ARCHBISHOP MANNING. + + +St. James's Hall, London, is primarily a place for concerts and singers, +as Exeter Hall is. But, like its venerable predecessor, St. James's Hall +has come to be identified with political meetings of a certain class. +Exeter Hall, a huge, gaunt, unadorned, and dreary room in the Strand, is +resorted to for the most part as the arena and platform of +ultra-Protestantism. St. James's Hall, a beautiful and almost lavishly +ornate structure in Piccadilly, is commonly used by the leading Roman +Catholics of London when they desire to make a demonstration. There are +political classes which will use either place indifferently; but Exeter +Hall has usually a tinge of Protestant exclusiveness about its political +expression, while the ceiling of the other building has rung alike to +the thrilling music of John Bright's voice, to the strident vehemence of +Mr. Bradlaugh, the humdrum humming of Mr. Odger, and the clear, +delicate, tremulous intonations of Stuart Mill. But I never heard of a +Roman Catholic meeting of great importance being held anywhere in London +lately, except in St. James's Hall. + +Let us attend such a meeting there. The hall is a huge oblong, with +galleries around three of the sides, and a platform bearing a splendid +organ on the fourth. The room is brilliantly lighted, and the mode of +lighting is peculiar and picturesque. The platform, the galleries, the +body of the hall alike are crowded. This is a meeting held to make a +demonstration in favor of some Roman Catholic demand--say for separate +education. On the platform are the great Catholic peers, most of them +men of lineage stretching back to years when Catholicism was yet +unsuspicious of any possible rivalry in England. There are the Norfolks, +the Denbighs, the Dormers, the Petres, the Staffords; there are such +later accessions to Catholicism as the Marquis of Bute, whose change +created such a sensation, and Lord Robert Montagu, who "went over" only +last year. There are some recent accessions of the peerage also--Lord +Acton, for instance, head of a distinguished and ancient family, but +only lately called to the Upper House, and who, when Sir John Acton, won +honorable fame as a writer and scholar. Lord Acton not many years ago +started the "Home and Foreign Review," a quarterly periodical which +endeavored to reconcile Catholicism with liberalism and science. The +universal opinion of England and of Europe declared the "Home and +Foreign Review" to be unsurpassed for ability, scholarship, and +political information by any publication in the world. It leaped at one +bound to a level with the "Edinburgh," the "Quarterly," and the "Revue +des Deux Mondes." But the Pope thought the Review too liberal, and +intimated that it ought to be suppressed; and Lord Acton meekly bowed +his head and suppressed it in all the bloom of its growing fame. Some +Irish members of Parliament are on the platform--men of station and +wealth like Munsell, men of energy and brains like John Francis Maguire; +perhaps, too, the handsome, brilliant-minded O'Donoghue, with his +picturesque pedigree and his broken fortunes. But in general there is +not a very cordial _rapprochement_ between the English Catholic peers +and the Irish Catholic members. Of all slow, cold, stately Conservatives +in the world, the slowest, coldest, and stateliest is the English +Catholic peer. Only the common bond of religion brings these two sets of +men together now and then. They meet, but do not blend. In the body of +the hall are the middle-class Catholics of London, the shopkeepers and +clerks, mostly Irish or of Irish parentage. In the galleries are +swarming the genuine Irishmen of London, the Paddies who are always +threatening to interrupt Garibaldian gatherings in the parks, and who +throw up their hats at the prospect of any "row" on behalf of the Pope. +The chair is taken by some duke or earl, who is listened to +respectfully, but without any special fervor of admiration. The English +Catholics are undemonstrative in any case, and Irish Paddy does not care +much about a chilly English peer. But a speaker is presently introduced +who has only to make his appearance in front of the platform in order to +awaken one universal burst of applause. Paddy and the Duke of Norfolk +vie with each other; the steady English shopkeeper from Islington is as +demonstrative as any O'Donoghue or Maguire. The meeting is wide awake +and informed by one spirit and soul at last. + +The man who has aroused all this emotion shrinks back almost as if he +were afraid of it, although it is surely not new to him. He is a tall +thin personage, some sixty-two years of age. His face is bloodless--pale +as a ghost, one might say. He is so thin as to look almost cadaverous. +The outlines of the face are handsome and dignified. There is much of +courtly grace and refinement about the bearing and gestures of this +pale, weak, and wasted man. He wears a long robe of violet silk, with +some kind of dark cape or collar, and has a massive gold chain round his +neck, holding attached to it a great gold cross. There is a certain +nervous quivering about his eyes and lips, but otherwise he is perfectly +collected and master of the occasion. His voice is thin, but wonderfully +clear and penetrating. It is heard all through this great hall--a moment +ago so noisy, now so silent. The words fall with a slow, quiet force, +like drops of water. Whatever your opinion may be, you cannot choose but +listen; and, indeed, you want only to listen and see. For this is the +foremost man in the Catholic Church of England. This is the Cardinal +Grandison of Disraeli's "Lothair"--Dr. Henry Edward Manning, Roman +Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, successor in that office of the late +Cardinal Wiseman. + +It is no wonder that the Irishmen at the meeting are enthusiastic about +Archbishop Manning. An Englishman of Englishmen, with no drop of Irish +blood in his veins, he is more Hibernian than the Hibernians themselves +in his sympathies with Ireland. A man of social position, of old family, +of the highest education and the most refined instincts, he would leave +the Catholic noblemen at any time to go down to his Irish teetotallers +at the East End of London. He firmly believes that the salvation of +England is yet to be accomplished through the influence of that +religious devotion which is at the bottom of the Irish nature, and which +some of us call superstition. He loves his own country dearly, but +turns away from her present condition of industrial prosperity to the +days before the Reformation, when yet saints trod the English soil. "In +England there has been no saint since the Reformation," he said the +other day, in sad, sweet tones, to one of wholly different opinions, who +listened with a mingling of amazement and reverence. No views that I +have ever heard put into living words embodied to anything like the same +extent the full claims and pretensions of Ultramontanism. It is quite +wonderful to sit and listen. One cannot but be impressed by the +sweetness, the thoughtfulness, the dignity, I had almost said the +sanctity of the man who thus pours forth, with a manner full of the most +tranquil conviction, opinions which proclaim all modern progress a +failure, and glorify the Roman priest or the Irish peasant as the true +herald and repository of light, liberty, and regeneration to a sinking +and degraded world. + +Years ago, Henry Edward Manning was one of the brilliant lights of the +English Protestant Church. Just twenty years back he was appointed to +the high place of Archdeacon of Chichester, having also, according to +the manner in which the English State Church rewards its dignitaries, +more than one other ecclesiastical appointment at the same time. Dr. +Manning had distinguished himself highly during his career at the +University of Oxford. His father was a member of the House of Commons, +and Manning on starting into life had many friends and very bright +prospects. Nothing would have been easier, nothing seemingly would have +been more natural than for him to tread the way so plainly opened before +him, and to rise to higher and higher dignity, until at last perhaps the +princely renown of a bishopric and a seat in the House of Lords would +have been his reward. But Dr. Manning's career was cast in a time of +stress and trial for the English State Church. I have described briefly +in a former article the origin, growth, and effects of that remarkable +movement which, beginning within the Church itself and seeking to +establish loftier claims for her than she had long put forward, ended by +convulsing her in a manner more troublous than any religious crisis +which had occurred since the Reformation. Dr. Manning's is evidently a +nature which must have been specially allured by what I may be allowed +to call the supernatural claims put forward on behalf of the Church of +England. He was of course correspondingly disappointed by what he +considered the failure of those claims. As Coleridge says that every man +is born an Aristotelian or a Platonist, so it may perhaps be said that +every man is born with a predisposition to lean either on natural or +supernatural laws in the direct guidance of life. I am not now raising +any religious question whatever. What I say may be said of members of +the same sect or church--of any sect, of any church. One man, as +faithful and devout a believer as any, is yet content to go through his +daily duties and fulfil his career trusting to his religious principles, +his insight, and his reason, without requiring at every moment the light +of spiritual or supernatural guidance. Another must always have his +world in direct communion with the spiritual, or it is no world of faith +to him. Now it is impossible to look in Dr. Manning's face without +seeing that his is one of those sensitive, spiritual, I had almost said +morbid natures, which can find no endurable existence without a close +and constant communion with the supernatural. Keble, Newman, Time and +the Hour, called out for the assertion of the claim that the Church of +England was the true heir of the apostolic succession. Such a nature as +Manning's must have delightedly welcomed the claim. But the mere +investigation sent, as I have already explained, one Newman to +Catholicism and the other to Rationalism. Dr. Manning, too, felt +compelled to ask himself whether the Church could make good its claim, +and whether, if it could not, he had any longer a place within its +walls. The change does not appear to have come so rapidly to fulfilment +with him as with John Henry Newman. Dr. Manning seems to me to have a +less aggressive temperament than his distinguished predecessor in +secession. There is more about him of the quietist, of the ecstatic, so +far as religious thought is concerned, while it is possible that he may +be a more practical and influential guide in the mere policy of the +church to which he belongs. There is an amount of scorn in Newman's +nature which sometimes reminds one of Pascal, and which I have not +observed in Dr. Manning or in his writings. I cannot imagine Dr. +Manning, for example, pelting Charles Kingsley with sarcasms and +overwhelming him with contempt, as Dr. Newman evidently delighted to do +in the famous controversy which was provoked by the apostle of Muscular +Christianity. I suppose therefore that Dr. Manning clung for a long time +to the faith in which he was bred. But his whole nature is evidently +cast in the mould which makes Roman Catholic devotees. He is a man of +the type which perhaps found in Fénelon its most illustrious example. I +think it is not too much to say that to him that light of private +judgment which some of us regard as man's grandest and most peculiarly +divine attribute, must always have presented itself as something +abhorrent to his nature. I am judging, of course, as an outsider and as +one little acquainted with theological subjects; but my impression of +the two men would be that Dr. Newman joined the Roman Catholic Church in +obedience to some compulsion of reason, acting in what must seem to most +of us an inscrutable manner, and that Dr. Manning never would have been +a Protestant at all if he had not believed that the Protestant Church +was truly all which its rival claims to be. + +Dr. Manning in fact did not leave the Church. The Church left him. He +had misunderstood it. It became revealed at last as it really is, a +church founded on the right of private judgment, and Manning was +appalled and turned away from it. Something that may almost be called +accident brought home to his mind the true character of the Church to +which he belonged. Many readers of "The Galaxy" may have some +recollection of the once celebrated Gorham case in England--a case which +I shall not now describe any further than by saying that it raised the +question whether the Church of England can prescribe the religion of the +State. Had the Church the right to decide whether certain doctrine +taught by one of its clergy was heretical, and to condemn it if so +declared? In England, Church and State are so bound up together, that it +is practically the State and not the Church which decides whether this +or that teaching is heresy or true religion. A lord chancellor who may +be an infidel, and two or three "law lords" who may be anything or +nothing, settle the question in the end. We all remember the epigram +about Lord Chancellor Westbury, the least godly of men, having +"dismissed Hell with costs," and taken away from the English Protestant +"his last hope of damnation." The Gorham case, twenty years ago, showed +that the Church, as an ecclesiastical body, had no power to condemn +heresy. This, to men like Stuart Mill, appears on the whole a +satisfactory condition of things so long as there is a State Church, for +the plain reason which he gives--namely, that the State in England is +now far more liberal than the Church. But to Dr. Manning the idea of the +Church thus abdicating its function of interpreting and declaring +doctrine was equivalent to the renunciation of its right to existence. +He strove hard to bring about an organized and solemn declaration and +protest from the Church--a declaration of doctrine, a protest against +secular control. He became the leader of an effort in this direction. +The effort met with little support. The then Bishop of London did indeed +introduce a bill into the House of Lords for the purpose of enacting +that in matters of doctrine, as distinct from questions of mere law, the +final decision should rest with the prelates. Dr. Manning sat in the +gallery of the House of Lords on that memorable night. The Bishop of +London wholly failed. The House of Lords scouted the idea of liberal +England tolerating a sort of ecclesiastical inquisition. Every one +admitted the anomalous condition in which things then were placed; but +few indeed would think of enacting a dogma of infallibility in favor of +the bishops of the Church. Lord Brougham spoke against the bill with +what Dr. Manning himself admits to be plain English common sense. He +said the House of Lords through its law peers could decide questions of +mere ecclesiastical law, and the decisions would carry weight and +authority; but neither peers nor bishops could in England decide a +question of doctrine. Suppose, he asked, the bishops were divided +equally on such a question, where would the decision be then? Suppose +there was a very small majority, who would accept such a decision? Or +even suppose there was a large majority, but that the minority comprised +the few men of greatest knowledge, ability, and authority, what value +would attach to the judgment of such a majority? The bill was a hopeless +failure. Dr. Manning has himself described with equal candor and +clearness the effect which the debate had upon him. He mentally +supplemented Lord Brougham's questions by one other. Suppose that all +the bishops of the Church of England should decide unanimously on any +doctrine, would any one receive the decision as infallible? He was +compelled to answer, "No one." The Church of England had no pretension +to be the infallible spiritual guide of men. Were she to raise any such +pretension, it would be rejected with contempt by the common mind of the +nation. Hear then how this conviction affected the man who up to that +time had had no thought but for the interests and duties of the English +Church. "To those," he has himself told us, "who believed that God has +established upon the earth a divine and therefore an unerring guardian +and teacher of his faith, this event demonstrated that the Church of +England could not be that guardian and teacher." + +While Dr. Manning was still uncertain whither to turn, the celebrated +"Papal aggression" took place. Cardinal Wiseman was sent to England by +the Pope, with the title of Archbishop of Westminster. All England +raged. Earl Russell wrote his famous "Durham Letter." The Lord +Chancellor Campbell, at a public dinner in the city of London, called up +a storm of enthusiasm by quoting the line from Shakespeare, which +declares that + + + Under our feet we'll stamp the cardinal's hat. + + +Protestant zealots in Stockport belabored the Roman Catholics and sacked +their houses; Irish laborers in Birkenhead retorted upon the +Protestants. The Government brought in the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill--a +measure making it penal for any Catholic prelate to call himself +archbishop or bishop of any place in England. Let him be "Archbishop +Wiseman" or "Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop of Mesopotamia," as long as he +liked--but not Archbishop of Westminster or Tuam. The bill was +powerfully, splendidly opposed by Gladstone, Bright, and Cobden, on the +broad ground that it invaded the precincts of religious liberty; but it +was carried and made law. There it remained. There never was the +slightest attempt made to enforce it. The Catholic prelates held to the +titles the Pope had given them; and no English court, judge, magistrate, +or policeman ever offered to prevent or punish them. So ludicrous, so +barren a proceeding as the carrying of that measure has not been known +in the England of our time. + +Cardinal Wiseman was an able and a discreet man. He was calm, plausible, +powerful. He was very earnest in the cause of his Church, but he seemed +much more like a man of the world than Newman or Dr. Manning. There was +little of the loftily spiritual in his manner or appearance. His bulky +person and swollen face suggested at the first glance a sort of Abbot +Boniface; he was, I believe, in reality an ascetic. The corpulence which +seemed the result of good living was only the effect of ill health. He +had a persuasive and an imposing way. His ability was singularly +flexible. His eloquence was often too gorgeous and ornamental for a pure +taste, but when the occasion needed he could address an audience in +language of the simplest and most practical common sense. The same +adaptability, if I may use such a word, was evident in all he did. He +would talk with a cabinet minister on terms of calm equality, as if his +rank must be self-evident, and he delighted to set a band of poor school +children playing around him. He was a cosmopolitan--English and Irish by +extraction, Spanish by birth, Roman by education. When he spoke English +he was exactly like what a portly, dignified British bishop ought to +be--a John Bull in every respect. When he spoke Italian at Rome he fell +instinctively and at once into all the peculiarities of intonation and +gesture which distinguish the people of Italy from all other races. When +he conversed in Spanish he subsided into the grave, somewhat saturnine +dignity and repose of the true Castilian. All this, I presume, was but +the natural effect of that flexibility of temperament I have attempted +to describe. I had but slight personal acquaintance with Cardinal +Wiseman, and I paint him only as he impressed me, a casual observer. I +am satisfied that he was a profoundly earnest and single-minded man; the +testimony of many whom I know and who knew him well compels me to that +conviction. But such was not the impression he would have left on a mere +acquaintance. He seemed rather one who could, for a purpose which he +believed great, be all things to all men. He impressed me quite +differently from the manner in which I have been impressed by John Henry +Newman and by Archbishop Manning. He reminded one of some great, +capable, worldly-wise, astute Prince of the Church of other generations, +politician rather than priest, more ready to sustain and skilled to +defend the temporal power of the Papacy than to illustrate its highest +spiritual influence. + +The events which brought Cardinal Wiseman to England had naturally a +powerful effect upon the mind of Dr. Manning. It was the renewed claim +of the Roman Church to enfold England in its spiritual jurisdiction. For +Dr. Manning, who had just seen what he regarded as the voluntary +abdication of the English Church, the claim would in any case have +probably been decisive. It "stepped between him and his fighting soul." +But the personal influence of Cardinal Wiseman had likewise an immense +weight and force. Dr. Manning ever since that time entertained a feeling +of the profoundest devotion and reverence for Cardinal Wiseman. The +change was consummated in 1851, and one of the first practical comments +upon the value of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act was the announcement +that a scholar and divine of whom the Protestant Church had long been +especially proud had resigned his preferments, his dignities, and his +prospects, and passed over to the Church of Rome. I cannot better +illustrate the effect produced on the public mind than by saying that +even the secession of John Henry Newman hardly made a deeper impression. + +Dr. Manning, of course, rose to high rank in the church of his adoption. +He became Roman of the Romans--Ultramontane of the Ultramontanes. On the +death of his friend and leader, Cardinal Wiseman, whose funeral sermon +he preached, Henry Manning became Archbishop of Westminster. Except for +his frequent journeys to Rome, he has always since his appointment lived +in London. Although a good deal of an ascetic, as his emaciated face and +figure would testify, he is nothing of a hermit. He mingles to a certain +extent in society, he takes part in many public movements, and he has +doubtless given Mr. Disraeli ample opportunity of studying his manner +and bearing. I don't believe Mr. Disraeli capable of understanding the +profound devotion and single-minded sincerity of the man. A more +singular, striking, marvellous figure does not stand out, I think, in +our English society. Everything that an ordinary Englishman or American +would regard as admirable and auspicious in the progress of our +civilization, Dr. Manning calmly looks upon as lamentable and +evil-omened. What we call progress is to his mind decay. What we call +light is to him darkness. What we reverence as individual liberty he +deplores as spiritual slavery. The mere fact that a man gives reasons +for his faith seems shocking to this strangely-gifted apostle of +unconditional belief. Though you were to accept on bended knees +ninety-nine of the decrees of Rome, you would still be in his mind a +heretic if you paused to consider as to the acceptance of the hundredth +dogma. All the peculiarly modern changes in the legislation of England, +the admission of Jews to Parliament, the introduction of the principle +of divorce, the practical recognition of the English divine's right of +private judgment, are painful and odious to him. I have never heard from +any other source anything so clear, complete, and astonishing as his +cordial acceptance of the uttermost claims of Rome; the prostration of +all reason and judgment before the supposed supernatural attributes of +the Papal throne. In one of the finest passages of his own writings he +says: "My love for England begins with the England of St. Bede. Saxon +England, with all its tumults, seems to me saintly and beautiful. Norman +England I have always loved less, because, although majestic, it became +continually less Catholic, until the evil spirit of the world broke off +the light yoke of faith at the so-called Reformation. Still I loved the +Christian England which survived, and all the lingering outlines of +diocese and parishes, cathedrals and churches, with the names of saints +upon them. It is this vision of the past which still hovers over England +and makes it beautiful and full of the memories of the kingdom of God. +Nay, I loved the parish church of my childhood and the college chapel of +my youth, and the little church under a green hillside where the morning +and evening prayers and the music of the English Bible for seventeen +years became a part of my soul. Nothing is more beautiful in the natural +order, and if there were no eternal world I could have made it my home." +To Dr. Manning the time when saints walked the earth of England is more +of a reality than the day before yesterday to most of us. Where the +ordinary eye sees only a poor, ignorant Irish peasant, Dr. Manning +discerns a heaven-commissioned bearer of light and truth, destined by +the power of his unquestioning faith to redeem perhaps, in the end, even +English philosophers and statesmen. When it was said in the praise of +the murdered Archbishop of Paris that he was disposed to regret the +introduction of the dogma of infallibility, Archbishop Manning came +eagerly to the rescue of his friend's memory, and as one would vindicate +a person unjustly accused of crime, he vindicated the dead Archbishop +from the stigma of having for a moment dared to have an opinion of his +own on such a subject. Of course, if Dr. Manning were an ordinary +theological devotee or fanatic, there would be nothing remarkable in all +this. But he is a man of the widest culture, of high intellectual gifts, +of keen and penetrating judgment in all ordinary affairs, remarkable for +his close and logical argument, his persuasive reasoning, and for a +genial, quiet kind of humor which seems especially calculated to +dissolve sophistry by its action. He is an English gentleman, a man of +the world; he was educated at Oxford with Arthur Pendennis and young +Lord Magnus Charters; he lives at York Place in the London of to-day; he +drives down to the House of Commons and talks politics in the lobby with +Gladstone and Lowe; he meets Disraeli at dinner parties, and is on +friendly terms, I dare say, with Huxley and Herbert Spencer; he reads +the newspapers, and I make no doubt is now well acquainted with the +history of the agitation against Tammany and Boss Tweed. I think such a +man is a marvellous phenomenon in our age. It is as if one of the +mediæval saints from the stained windows of a church should suddenly +become infused with life and take a part in all the ways of our present +world. I can understand the long-abiding power of the Catholic Church +when I remember that I have heard and seen and talked with Henry Edward +Manning. + +Dr. Manning is not, I fancy, very much of a political reformer. His +inclinations would probably be rather conservative than otherwise. He is +drawn toward Gladstone and the Liberal party less by distinct political +affinity, of which there is but little, than by his hope and belief that +through Gladstone something will be done for that Ireland which to this +Oxford scholar is still the "island of the saints." The Catholic members +of Parliament, whether English or Irish, consult Archbishop Manning +constantly upon all questions connected with education or religion. His +parlor in York Place--not far from where Mme. Tussaud's wax-work +exhibition attracts the country visitor--is the frequent scene of +conferences which have their influence upon the action of the House of +Commons. He is a devoted upholder of the doctrine of total abstinence +from intoxicating drinks; and he is the only Englishman of real +influence and ability, except Francis Newman, who is in favor of +prohibitory legislation. He is the medium of communication between Rome +and England; the living link of connection between the English Catholic +peer and the Irish Catholic bricklayer. The position which he occupies +is at all events quite distinctive. There is nobody else in England who +could set up the faintest claim to any such place. It would be +superfluous to remark that I do not expect the readers of "The Galaxy" +to have any sympathy with the opinions, theological or political, of +such a man. But the man himself is worthy of profound interest, of +study, and even of admiration. He is the spirit, the soul, the ideal of +mediæval faith embodied in the form of a living English scholar and +gentleman. He represents and illustrates a movement the most remarkable, +possibly the most portentous, which has disturbed England and the +English Church since the time of Wyckliffe. No one can have any real +knowledge of the influences at work in English life to-day, no one can +understand the history of the past twenty years, or even pretend to +conjecture as to the possibilities of the future, who has not paid some +attention to the movement which has Dr. Manning for one of its most +distinguished leaders, and to the position and character of Manning +himself. + + + + +JOHN RUSKIN. + + +Any one who has visited the National Gallery in London must have seen, +and seeing must have studied, the contrasted paintings placed side by +side of Turner and of Claude. They will attract attention if only +because the two Turners are thus placed apart from the rooms used as a +Turner Gallery, and containing the great collection of the master's +works. The pictures of which I am now speaking are hung in a room +principally occupied by the paintings of Murillo. As you enter you are +at once attracted by four large pictures which hang on either side of +the door opposite. On the right are Turner's "Dido Building Carthage," +and Claude's "Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba." On the left are a +"Landscape with the Sun Rising" by Turner, and "The Marriage of Isaac +and Rebecca" by Claude. Nobody could fail to observe that the pictures +are thus arranged for some distinct purpose. They are in fact placed +side by side for the sake of comparison and contrast. They are all +eminently characteristic; they have the peculiar faults and the peculiar +merits of the artists. In the Claudes we have even one of those yellow +trunks which are the abomination of the critic I am about to speak of, +and one might almost suppose that the Queen of Sheba was embarking for +Saratoga. I do not propose to criticise the pictures; but in them you +have, to the full, Turner and Claude. + +Now in the contrast between these pictures may be found, symbolically at +least, the origin and motive of John Ruskin's career. He sprang into +literary life simply as a vindicator of the fame and genius of Turner. +But as he went on with his task he found, or at least he convinced +himself, that the vindication of the great painter was essentially a +vindication of all true art. Still further proceeding with his +self-imposed task, he persuaded himself that the cause of true art was +identical with the cause of truth, and that truth, from Ruskin's point +of view, enclosed in the same rules and principles all the morals, all +the politics, all the science, industry, and daily business of life. +Therefore from an art-critic he became a moralist, a political +economist, a philosopher, a statesman, a preacher--anything, everything +that human intelligence can impel a man to be. All that he has written +since his first appeal to the public has been inspired by this +conviction--that an appreciation of the truth in art reveals to him who +has it the truth in everything. This belief has been the source of Mr. +Ruskin's greatest successes and of his most complete and ludicrous +failures. It has made him the admiration of the world one week, and the +object of its placid pity or broad laughter the next. A being who could +be Joan of Arc to-day and Voltaire's Pucelle to-morrow would hardly +exhibit a stronger psychical paradox than the eccentric genius of Mr. +Ruskin commonly displays. But in order to understand him, or to do him +common justice--in order not to regard him as a mere erratic utterer of +eloquent contradictions, poured out on the impulse of each moment's new +freak of fancy--we must always bear in mind this fundamental faith of +the man. Extravagant as this or that doctrine may be, outrageous as +to-day's contradiction of yesterday's assertion may be, yet the whole +career is consistent with its essential principles and belief. + +Ruskin was singularly fitted by fortune to live for a purpose; to +consecrate his life to the cause of art and of what he considered truth. +As everybody knows, he was born to wealth so considerable as to allow +him to indulge all his tastes and whims, and to write without any regard +for money profit. I hardly know of any other author of eminence who in +our time has worked with so complete an independence of publisher, +public, or paymaster. I do not suppose Ruskin ever wrote one line for +money. Some of his works must have brought him in a good return of mere +pounds and shillings; but they would have been written just the same if +they had never paid for printing; and indeed the author is always +spending money on some benevolent crotchet. He was born in London, and +he himself attributes much of his early love for nature to the fact that +he was "accustomed for two or three years to no other prospect than that +of the brick walls over the way," and that he had "no brothers nor +sisters nor companions." I question whether anybody not acquainted with +London can understand how completely one can be shut in from the pure +face of free nature in that vast city. In New York one can hardly walk +far in any direction without catching glimpses of the water and the +shores of New Jersey or Long Island. But in some of the most respectable +middle-class regions of London, you might drudge away or dream away your +life and never have one sight of open nature unless you made a regular +expedition to find her. Ruskin speaks somewhere of the strange and +exquisite delight which the cockney feels when he treads on grass; and +every biographical sketch of him recalls that passage in his writings +which tells us of the first thing he could remember as an event in his +life--his being taken by his nurse to the brow of one of the crags +overlooking Derwentwater, and the "intense joy, mingled with awe, that I +had in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots over the crag into +the dark lake, and which has associated itself more or less with all +twining roots of trees ever since." Ruskin travelled much, and at a very +early age, through Europe. He became familiar with most of the beautiful +show-places of the European Continent when a boy, and I believe he never +extended the sphere of his travels. About his early life there is little +to be said. He completed his education at Oxford, and, more successful +than Arthur Pendennis, he went in for a prize poem and won the prize. He +visited the Continent, more especially Switzerland and Italy, again and +again. He married a Scottish lady, and the marriage was not a happy one. +I don't propose to go into any of the scandal and talk which the events +created; but I may say that the marriage was dissolved without any moral +blame resting on or even imputed to either of the parties, and that the +lady afterwards became the wife of Mr. Millais. Since then Mr. Ruskin +has led a secluded rather than a lonely life. His constitution is +feeble; he has as little robustness of _physique_ as can well be +conceived, and no kind of excitement is suitable for him. Only the other +day he sank into a condition of such exhaustion that for a while it was +believed impossible he could recover. At one time he used to appear in +public rather often; and was ready to deliver lectures on the ethics of +art wherever he thought his teaching could benefit the ignorant or the +poor. He was especially ready to address assemblages of workingmen, the +pupils of charitable institutions for the teaching of drawing. I cannot +remember his ever having taken part in any fashionable pageant or +demonstration of any kind. Of late he has ceased to show himself at any +manner of public meeting, and he addresses his favorite workingmen +through the medium of an irregular little publication, a sort of +periodical or tract which he calls "Fors Clavigera." Of this publication +"I send a copy," he announces, "to each of the principal journals and +periodicals, to be noticed or not at their pleasure; otherwise, I shall +use no advertisements." The author also informs us that "the tracts will +be sold for sevenpence each, without abatement on quantity." I doubt +whether many sales have taken place, or whether the reference to +purchase in quantity was at all necessary, or whether indeed the author +cared one way or the other. In one of these printed letters he says: +"The scientific men are busy as ants, examining the sun and the moon and +the seven stars; and can tell me all about them, I believe, by this +time, and how they move and what they are made of. And I do not care, +for my part, two copper spangles how they move nor what they are made +of. I can't move them any other way than they go, nor make them of +anything else better than they are made." This might sound wonderfully +sharp and practical, if, a few pages on, Mr. Ruskin did not broach his +proposition for the founding of a little model colony of labor in +England, where boys and girls alike are to be taught agriculture, vocal +music, Latin, and the history of five cities--Athens, Rome, Venice, +Florence, and London. This scheme was broached last August, and it is +rather soon yet even to ask whether any steps have been taken to put it +into execution; but Mr. Ruskin has already given five thousand dollars +to begin with, and will probably give a good deal more before he +acknowledges the inevitable failure. Ruskin lives in one of the most +beautiful of London suburbs, on Denmark Hill, at the south side of the +river, near Dulwich and the exquisite Sydenham slopes where the Crystal +Palace stands. Here he indulges his love of pictures and statues, and of +rest--when he is not in the mood for unrest--and nourishes philanthropic +schemes of eccentric kinds, and is altogether about the nearest approach +to an independent, self-sufficing philosopher our modern days have +known. Of his life as a private citizen this much is about all that it +concerns us to hear. + +Twenty-eight years have passed away since Mr. Ruskin leaped into the +critical arena, with a spring as bold and startling as that of Edward +Kean on the Kemble-haunted stage. The little volume, so modest in its +appearance, so self-sufficient in its tone, which the author defiantly +flung down like a gage of battle before the world, was entitled "Modern +Painters: their Superiority in the Art of Landscape Painting to all the +Ancient Masters. By a Graduate of Oxford." I was a boy of thirteen, +living in a small provincial town, when this book made its first +appearance, but it seems to me that the echo of the sensation it created +still rings in my ears. It was a challenge to all established beliefs +and prejudices; and the challenge was delivered in the tones of one who +felt confident that he could make good his words against any and all +opponents. If there was one thing that more than another seemed to have +been fixed and rooted in the English mind, it was that Claude and one or +two other of the old masters possessed the secret of landscape painting. +When, therefore, this bold young dogmatist involved in one common +denunciation "Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Ruysdael, Paul +Potter, Cavaletto, and the various Van-Somethings and Koek-Somethings, +more especially and malignantly those who have libelled the sea," it was +no wonder that affronted authority raised its indignant voice and +thundered at him. Affronted authority, however, gained little by its +thunder. The young Oxford graduate possessed, along with genius and +profound conviction, an imperturbable and magnificent self-conceit, +against which the surges of angry criticism dashed themselves in vain. +Mr. Ruskin, when putting on his armor, had boasted himself as one who +takes it off; but in his case there proved to be little rashness in the +premature fortification. For assuredly that book overrode and bore down +its critics. I need not follow it through its various editions, its +successive volumes, its amplifications, wherein at last the original +design, the vindication of Turner, swelled into an enunciation and +illustration of the true principles of landscape art. Nor do I mean to +say that the book carried all its points. Far from it. Claude still +lives, and Salvator Rosa has his admirers, among whom most of us are +very glad to enroll ourselves; and Ruskin himself has since that time +pointed out many serious defects in Turner, and has unsaid a great deal +of what he then proclaimed. But if the Oxford graduate had been wrong in +every illustration of his principal doctrine, I should still hold that +the doctrine itself was true and of inestimable value, and that the book +was a triumph. For, I think, it proclaimed and firmly established the +true point of view from which we must judge of the art of painting in +all its departments. In plain words, Ruskin taught the English public +that they must look at nature with their own eyes, and judge of art by +the help of nature. Up to the publication of that book England, at +least, had been falling into the way of regarding art as a sort of +polite school to which it was our duty to endeavor to make nature +conform. Conventionality and apathy had sunk apparently into the very +souls of men and women. Hardly one in ten thousand ever really saw a +landscape, a wave, a ray of the sun as it is. Nobody used his own eyes. +Every one was content to think that he saw what the painters told him he +saw. Ruskin himself tells us somewhere about a test question which used +to be put to young landscape painters by one who was supposed to be a +master of the craft: "Where do you put your brown tree?" The question +illustrates the whole theory and school of conventionality. +Conventionality had decreed first that there are brown trees, and next +that there cannot be a respectable landscape without a brown tree. Long +after the teaching of Ruskin had well-nigh revolutionized opinion in +England, I stood once with a lover of art of the old-fashioned school, +looking on one of the most beautiful and famous scenes in England. The +tender autumn season, the melancholy woods in the background, the little +lake, the half-ruined abbey, did not even need the halo of poetic and +romantic association which hung around them in order to render the scene +a very temptation, one might have thought, to the true artist. I +suggested something of the kind. My companion shook his head almost +contemptuously. "You could never make a picture of that," he said. I +pressed him to tell me why so picturesque a scene could not be +represented somehow in a picture. He did not care evidently to argue +with ignorance, and he even endeavored to concede something to my +untutored whim. "Perhaps," he began with hesitation, "if one were to put +a large dark tree in there to the left, one might make something of it. +But no" (he had done his best and could not humor me any further), "it +is out of the question; there couldn't be a picture made out of _that_." +How could I illustrate more clearly the kind of thing which Ruskin came +to put down and did put down in England? + +Of course Mr. Ruskin was never a man to do anything by halves, and +having once laid down the canon that nature and truth are to be the +guides of the artist, he soon began to write and to think as if nature +and truth alone were concerned. He seemed to have taken no account of +the fact that one great object of art is simply to give delight, and +that however natural and truthful an artist may be, yet he is to bear in +mind this one purpose of his work, or he might almost as well let it +alone. Nature and truth are to be his guides to the delighting of men; +to show him how he is to give a delight which shall be pure and genuine. +A single inaccuracy as to fact seems at one time to have spoiled all Mr. +Ruskin's enjoyment of a painting, and filled him with a feeling of scorn +and detestation for it. He denounces Raphael's "Charge to Peter," on the +ground that the apostles are not dressed as men of that time and place +would have been when going out fishing; and he makes no allowance for +the fact, pointed out by M. Taine, that Raphael's design first of all +was to represent a group of noble, serious men, majestic and +picturesque, and that mere realism entered little into his purpose. It +may seem the oddest thing to compare Ruskin with Macaulay, but it is +certain that the very kind of objection which the former urges against +the paintings of Raphael the latter brings forward against one of the +poems of Goldsmith. "What would be thought of a painter," asks Macaulay, +"who would mix January and August in one landscape, who would introduce +a frozen river into a harvest scene? Would it be a sufficient defence of +such a picture to say that every part was exquisitely colored; that the +green hedges, the apple trees loaded with fruit, the wagons reeling +under the yellow sheaves, and the sunburned reapers wiping their +foreheads, were very fine; and that the ice and the boys sliding were +also very fine? To such a picture the 'Deserted Village' bears a great +resemblance." Now it would indeed be an incomprehensible mistake if a +painter were to mix up August and January as Macaulay suggests, or to +depict the apostles like a group of Greek philosophers, as in Ruskin's +opinion Raphael did. But I venture to think that even the extraordinary +blunder mentioned in the first part of the sentence would not +necessarily condemn a picture to utter contempt. It was a great mistake +to make Dido and Iulus contemporaries; a great mistake to represent +angels employing gunpowder for the suppression of Lucifer's +insurrection; a great mistake to talk of the clock having struck in the +time of Julius Cæsar. Yet I suppose Virgil and Milton and Shakespeare +were great poets, and that the very passages in which those errors occur +are nevertheless genuine poetry. Now Ruskin criticises Raphael and +Claude on precisely the principle which would declare Virgil, Milton, +and Shakespeare worthless because of the errors I have mentioned. The +errors are errors no doubt, and ought to be pointed out, and there an +end. Virgil was not writing a history of the foundation of Carthage. +Shakespeare was not describing the social life of Rome under Julius +Cæsar. Milton was not a gazetteer of the revolt of Lucifer and his +angels. Mr. Ruskin might as well dispose of a sculptured group of +Centaurs by remarking that there never were Centaurs, or of the famous +hermaphrodite in the Louvre by explaining that hermaphrodites of that +perfect order are unknown to physiology. The beauty of color and +contour, the effect of graceful grouping, the reach of poetic +imagination, the dignity of embodied thought, outlive all such criticism +even when in its way it is just, for they bear in themselves the +vindication of their existence. But Ruskin's criticism is the legitimate +result of the cardinal error of his career--the belief that the morality +of art exactly corresponds with the morality of human life; that there +is a central law of right and wrong for everything, like Stephen Pearl +Andrews's universal science, of which when you have once got the key you +can open every lock--which is the solving word of every enigma, the +standard by which everything is finally to be judged. I need not show +how he followed out that creed and gave it a new application in "The +Seven Lamps of Architecture" and the "Stones of Venice." In these +masterpieces of eloquent declamation, the building of houses was brought +up to be tried according to Mr. Ruskin's self-constructed canons of +æsthetic and architectural morality. No one, I venture to think, cares +much about the doctrine; everybody is carried away by the eloquence, the +originality, and the feeling. Later still Mr. Ruskin applied the same +central, all-pervading principle to the condemnation of fluttering +ribbons in a woman's bonnet. The stucco of a house he set down as false +and immoral, like the painting of a meretricious cheek. His æsthetic +transcendentalism soon ceased to have any practical influence. It would +be idle to try to persuade English house-builders that the attributes of +a building are moral qualities, and that the component parts of a London +residence ought to symbolize and embody "action," "voice," and "beauty." +It may be doubted whether a single architect was ever practically +influenced by the dogmatic eloquence of Mr. Ruskin. In fact the +architects, above all other men, rebelled against the books and scorned +them. But the books made their way with the public, who, caring nothing +about the principles of morality which underlie the construction of +houses, were charmed by the dazzling rhetoric, the wealth of gorgeous +imagery, the interesting and animated digressions, the frequent flashes +of vigorous good sense, and the lofty thought whose only fault was that +which least affected the ordinary reader--its utter inapplicability to +the practical subject of the books. + +It was about the year 1849 that that great secession movement in art +broke out to which its leaders chose to give the title of +pre-Raphaelite. The principal founder of the movement has since been +almost forgotten as an artist, but has come into a sort of celebrity as +a poet--Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. With him were allied, it is almost +needless to say, the two now famous and successful painters, Holman Hunt +and Millais. Decidedly that was the most thriving controversy in the +world of art and letters during our time. It was the only battle of +schools which could tell us what the war for and against the +Sturm-und-Drang school in Germany, the Byron epoch in England, the +struggle of the Classicists and Romanticists in France, must have been +like. The pre-Raphaelite dispute has long ceased to be heard. Years ago +Mr. Ruskin himself, the prophet and apostle of the new sect, described +the defection of its greatest pupil as "not a fall, but a catastrophe." +Rossetti's sonnets are criticised, but not his paintings. "Are not you +still a pre-Raphaelite?" asked an inquisitive person lately of the +sonneteer. "I am not an 'ite' of any kind," was the answer; "I am an +artist." John Everett Millais is among the most fortunate and +fashionable painters of the day. Those who saw his wonderful +"Somnambulist" in last season's exhibition of the London Royal Academy +would have found in it little of the harsh and "crawling realism" which +distinguished the "Beauty in Bricks Brotherhood," as somebody called the +rebellious school of twenty years ago. A London comic paper lately +published a capital likeness of Mr. Millais, handsome, respectable, +tending to stoutness and baldness, and described the portrait as that of +the converted pre-Raphaelite. The progress of things was exactly similar +to that which goes on in the English political world so often. A fiery +young Radical member of Parliament begins by denouncing the Government +and the constitution. He wins first notoriety, and then, if he has any +real stuff in him, reputation; and then he is invited to office, and he +takes it and becomes respectable, wealthy, and fashionable; and his +rebellion is all over, and the world goes on just as before. Such was, +so far as individuals are concerned, the course of the pre-Raphaelite +rebellion; undoubtedly the movement did some good; most rebellions do. +It was a protest against the vague and feeble generalizations and the +vapid classicism which were growing too common in art. Ruskin himself +has happily described the generalized and conventional way of painting +trees and shrubs which was growing to be common and tolerated, and which +he says was no less absurd than if a painter were to depict some +anomalous animal, and defend it as a generalization of pig and pony. +Anything which teaches a careful and rigid study of nature must do good. +The pre-Raphaelite school was excellent discipline for its young +scholars. Probably even those of Millais's paintings which bear on the +face of them least evident traces of that early school, might have been +far inferior to what they are, were it not for the slow and severe study +which the original principles of the movement demanded. The present +interest which the secession has for me is less on its own account than +because of the vigorous, ingenious, and eloquent pages which Ruskin +poured forth in its vindication. He gave it meanings which it never had; +found out truth and beauty in its most prosaic details such as its +working scholars never meant to symbolize; he explained and expounded it +as Johnson did the meaning of the word "slow" in the opening line of the +"Traveller," and in fact well-nigh persuaded himself and the world that +a new priesthood had arisen to teach the divinity of art. But even he +could not write pre-Raphaelitism into popularity and vitality. The +common instinct of human nature, which looks to art as the +representative of beauty, pathos, humor, and passion, could not be +talked into an acceptance of ignoble and ugly realisms. It may be an +error to depict a Judean fisherman like a stately Greek philosopher; but +error for error, it is far less gross and grievous than to paint the +exquisite heroine of Keats's lovely poem as a lank and scraggy spinster, +with high cheek bones like one of Walter Scott's fishwives, undressing +herself in a green moonlight, and displaying a neck and shoulders worthy +of Miss Miggs, and stays and petticoat that bring to mind Tilly Slowboy. + +The pre-Raphaelite mania faded away, but Ruskin's vindication endures; +just as the letters of Pascal are still read by every one, although +nobody cares "two copper spangles" about the controversy which provoked +them. Mr. Ruskin's mental energy did not long lie fallow. Turning the +bull's-eye of his central theory upon other subjects, he dragged +political economy up for judgment. Who can forget the whimsical +sensation produced by the appearance in the "Cornhill Magazine" of the +letters entitled "Unto this Last"? I need not say much about them. They +were a series of fantastic sermons, sometimes eloquent and instructive, +sometimes turgid and absurd, on the moral duty of man. They had +literally nothing to do with the subject of political economy. The +political economists were talking of one thing, and Mr. Ruskin was +talking of another and a totally different thing. The value of an +article is what it will bring in the market, say the economists. "For +shame!" cries Mr. Ruskin; "is the value of her rudder to a ship at sea +in a tempest only what it would be bought for at home in Wapping?" So on +through the whole, the two disputants talking on quite different +subjects. Mr. Ruskin might just as reasonably have interrupted a medical +professor lecturing to his class on the effects and uses of castor oil, +by telling him in eloquent verbiage that castor oil will not make men +virtuous and nations great. Nobody ever said it would; but it is +important to explain the properties of castor oil for all that. It would +be a grand thing of course if, as Mr. Ruskin prayed, England would "cast +all thoughts of possessive wealth back to the barbaric nations among +whom they first arose," and leave "the sands of the Indus and the +adamant of Golconda" to "stiffen the housings of the charger, and flash +from the turban of the slave." This would be ever so much finer than +opening banks, making railways (which Mr. Ruskin specially detests), and +dealing in stocks. But it has nothing to do, good or bad, with the +practical exposition of the economic laws of banking and exchange. It is +about as effective a refutation of the political economist's doctrines +as a tract from the Peace Society denouncing all war would be to a +lecture from Von Moltke on the practical science of campaigning. But Mr. +Ruskin never saw this, and never was disconcerted. He turned to other +missions with the firm conviction that he had finished off political +economy, as a clever free-thinking London lady calmly announced a few +years back to her friends that she had abolished Christianity. Then Mr. +Ruskin condemned mines and factories, railways and engines. With all the +same strenuous and ornate eloquence he passed sentence on London +pantomimes and "cascades of girls," and the too liberal exposure of +"lower limbs" by the young ladies composing those cascades. Nothing is +too trivial for the omniscient philosopher, and nothing is too great. +The moral government of a nation is decreed by the same voice and on the +same principles as those which have prescribed the length of a lady's +waist-ribbon and the shape of a door-scraper. The first Napoleon never +claimed for himself the divine right of intermeddling with and arranging +everything more complacently than does the mild and fragile philosopher +of Denmark Hill. Be it observed that his absolute ignorance of a subject +never deters Mr. Ruskin from pronouncing prompt judgment upon it. It may +be some complicated question of foreign, say of American politics, on +which men of good ability, who have mastered all the facts and studied +the arguments on both sides, are slow to pronounce. Mr. Ruskin, boldly +acknowledging that until this morning he never heard of the subject, +settles it out of hand and delivers final judgment. Sometimes his +restless impulses and his extravagant way of plunging at conclusions and +conjecturing facts lead him into unpleasant predicaments. He delivered a +manifesto some years ago upon the brutality of the lower orders of +Englishmen, founded on certain extraordinary persecutions inflicted on +his friend Thomas Carlyle. Behold Carlyle himself coming out with a +letter in which he declares that all these stories of persecution were +not only untrue, but were "curiously the reverse of truth." Of course +every one knew that Ruskin believed them to be true; that he half heard +something, conjectured something else, jumped at a conclusion, and as +usual regarded himself as an inspired prophet, compelled by his mission +to come forward and deliver judgment on a sinful people. + +Mr. Ruskin's devotion to Carlyle has been unfortunate for him, as it has +for so many others. For that which is reality in Carlyle is only echo +and imitation in Ruskin, and the latter has power enough and a field +wide enough of his own to render inexcusable the attempt to follow +slavishly another man. Moreover, Carlyle's utterances, right or wrong, +have meaning and practical application; but when Ruskin repeats them +they become meaningless and inapplicable. Mr. Ruskin endeavoring to +apply Carlyle's dogmas to the business of art and social life and +politics often reminds one of the humorous Hindoo story of the Gooroo +Simple and his followers, who went through life making the most +outrageous blunders, because they would insist on the literal +application of their traditional maxims of wisdom to every common +incident of existence. When a self-conceited man ever consents to make +another man his idol, even his very self-conceit only tends to render +him more awkwardly and unconditionally devoted and servile. The amount +of nonsense that Ruskin has talked and written, under the evident +conviction that thus and not otherwise would Thomas Carlyle have dealt +with the subject, is something almost inconceivable. I never heard of +Ruskin taking up any political question without being on the wrong side +of it. I am not merely speaking of what I personally consider the wrong +side; I am alluding to questions which history and hard fact and the +common voice and feeling of humanity have since decided. Against every +movement to give political freedom to his countrymen, against every +movement to do common justice to the negro race, against every effort +to secure fair play for a democratic cause, Mr. Ruskin has peremptorily +arrayed himself. "I am a Kingsman and no Mobsman," he declares; and this +declaration seems in his mind to settle the question and to justify his +vindication of every despotism of caste or sovereignty. To this has his +doctrine of æsthetic moral law, to this has his worship of Carlyle, +conducted him. + +For myself, I doubt whether Mr. Ruskin has any great qualities but his +eloquence, and his true, honest love of Nature. As a man to stand up +before a society of which one part was fashionably languid and the other +part only too busy and greedy, and preach to it of Nature's immortal +beauty and of the true way to do her reverence, I think Ruskin had and +has a place almost worthy the dignity of a prophet. I think, too, that +he has the capacity to fill the place, to fulfil its every duty. Surely +this ought to be enough for the work and for the praise of any man. But +the womanish restlessness of Ruskin's temperament, combined with the +extraordinary self-sufficiency which contributed so much to his success +when he was master of a subject, sent him perpetually intruding into +fields where he was unfit to labor, and enterprises which he had no +capacity to conduct. No man has ever contradicted himself so often, so +recklessly, so complacently, as Mr. Ruskin has done. It is absurd to +call him a great critic even in art, for he seldom expresses any opinion +one day without flatly contradicting it the next. He is a great writer, +as Rousseau was--fresh, eloquent, audacious, writing out of the fulness +of the present mood, and heedless how far the impulse of to-day may +contravene that of yesterday; but as Rousseau was always faithful to his +idea of Truth, so Ruskin is ever faithful to Nature. When all his errors +and paradoxes and contradictions shall have been utterly forgotten, this +his great praise will remain: No man since Wordsworth's brightest days +ever did half so much to teach his countrymen, and those who speak his +language, how to appreciate and honor that silent Nature which "never +did betray the heart that loved her." + + + + +CHARLES READE. + + +A few days ago I came by chance upon an old number of an illustrated +publication which made a rather brilliant start in London four or five +years since, but died, I believe, not long after. It sprang up when +there was a sudden rage in England for satirical portraits of eminent +persons, and it really showed some skill and humor in this not very +healthful or dignified department of art. This number of which I speak +has a humorous cartoon called "Companions of the Bath," and representing +a miscellaneous crowd of the celebrated men and women of the day +enjoying a plunge in the waves at Havre, Dieppe, or some other French +bathing-place. There are Gladstone and Disraeli; burly Alexandre Dumas +and small, fragile Swinburne; Tennyson and Longfellow; Christine Nilsson +and Adelina Patti, the two latter looking very pretty in their tunics +and _caleçons_. Most of the likenesses are good, and the attitudes are +often characteristic and droll. Mr. Spurgeon flounders and puffs wildly +in the waves; Gladstone cleaves his way sternly and earnestly; Mario +floats with easy grace. One group at present attracts very special +attention. It represents a big, heavy, gray-headed man, ungainly of +appearance, whom a smaller personage, bald and neat, is pushing off a +plank into the water. The smaller man is Dion Boucicault; the larger is +Mr. Charles Reade. This was the time when Reade and Boucicault were +working together in "Foul Play." The insinuation of the artist evidently +was that Boucicault, always ready for any plunge into the waves of +sensationalism, had to give a push to his hesitating companion in order +to impel him to the decisive "header." + +The artist has been evidently unjust to Mr. Reade. Indeed, one can +hardly help suspecting that there must have been some little personal +grievance which the pencil was employed to pay off, after the fashion +threatened more than once by Hogarth. Mr. Reade is not an Adonis, but +this attempt at his likeness is cruelly grotesque and extravagant. +Charles Reade is a big, heavy, rugged, gray man; a sort of portlier Walt +Whitman, but with closer-cut hair and beard; a Walt Whitman, let us say, +put into training for the part of a stout British vestryman. He +impresses you at once as a man of character, energy, and originality, +although he is by no means the sort of person you would pick out as a +typical romancist. But the artist who has delineated him in this +cartoon, and who has dealt so fairly, albeit humorously, with Tennyson +and Swinburne and Longfellow, must surely have had some spite against +the author of "Peg Woffington" when he depicted him as a sort of huge +human gorilla. It is in fact for this reason only that I have thought it +worth while to introduce an allusion to such a caricature. The +caricature is in itself illustrative of my subject. It helps to +introduce an inevitable allusion to a weakness of Mr. Charles Reade's +which makes for him many enemies and satirists among minor authors, +critics, and artists in London. To a wonderful energy and virility of +genius and temperament Charles Reade adds a more than feminine +susceptibility and impatience when criticism attempts to touch him. With +a faith in his own capacity and an admiration for his own works such as +never were surpassed in literary history, he can yet be rendered almost +beside himself by a disparaging remark from the obscurest critic in the +corner of the poorest provincial newspaper. There is no pen so feeble +anywhere but it can sting Charles Reade into something like delirium. He +replies to every attack, and he discovers a personal enemy in every +critic. Therefore he is always in quarrels, always assailing this man +and being assailed by that, and to the very utmost of his power trying +to prevent the public from appreciating or even recognizing the wealth +of genuine manhood, truth, and feeling, which is bestowed everywhere in +the rugged ore of his strange and paradoxical character. I am not myself +one of Mr. Reade's friends, or even acquaintances; but from those who +are, and whom I know, I have always heard the one opinion of the +sterling integrity, kindness, and trueheartedness of the man who so +often runs counter to all principles of social amenity, and whose bursts +of impulsive ill-humor have offended many who would fain have admired. + +I said once before in the pages of "The Galaxy," when speaking of +another English novelist, that Charles Reade seems to me to rank more +highly in America than he does in England. It is only of quite recent +years that English criticism of the higher class has treated him with +anything like fair consideration. There was a long time of Reade's +growing popularity during which such criticism declined altogether to +regard him _au sérieux_. Even now he has not justice done to him. But if +I cannot help believing that Mr. Reade rates himself far too highly, and +announces his opinion far too frankly, neither can I help thinking that +English criticism in general fails to do him justice. For a long time he +had to struggle hard to obtain a mere recognition. He had during part of +his early career the good sense, or the spirit, or the misfortune, +according as people choose to view it, to write in one of the popular +weekly journals of London which correspond somewhat with the "New York +Ledger." I think Charles Dickens described Reade as the one only man +with a genuine literary reputation who at that time had ventured upon +such a performance. There are indeed men now of undoubted rank in +literature who began their career with work like this; but they did not +put their names to it, and the world was never the wiser. Reade worked +boldly and worked his best, and put his own name to it; and therefore +the London press for some time regarded or affected to regard him as an +author of that class whose genius supplies weekly instalments of +sensation and tremendously high life, to delight the servant girls of +Islington and the errand boys of the City. Long after the issue of some +of the finest novels Reade has written, the annual publication called +"Men of the Time" contained no notice of the author. The odd thing about +this is that Reade is an author of the very class which English +criticisms of the kind I allude to ought to have delighted to encourage. +In the reaction against literary Bohemianism, which of late years has +grown up in England, and which the "Saturday Review" may be said to +have inaugurated, it became the whim and fashion to believe that only +gentlemen with university degrees, only "blood and culture," as the cant +phrase was, could write anything which gentlemanly persons could find it +worth their while to read. The "Saturday Review" for a long time +affected to treat Dickens as a good-humored and vulgar buffoon, with a +gift of genius to delight the lower classes. It usually regarded +Thackeray as a person made for better things, who had forfeited his +position as a gentleman and a university man by descending to literature +and to lectures. Now Charles Reade is what in the phraseology of English +_caste_ would be called a gentleman. He is of good English family; he is +a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford. He is a man of culture and +scholarship. His reading, and especially his classical acquirements, I +presume to be far wider and deeper than those of Thackeray, who, it need +hardly be said, was as Porson or Parr when compared with Dickens. +Altogether Reade seems to have been the sort of man whom the "Saturday +Review," for example, ought to have taken promptly up and patted on the +back and loftily patronized. But nothing of the sort occurred. Reade was +treated merely as the clever, audacious concocter of sensational +stories. He was hardly dealt with as an artist at all. The reviews only +began to come round when they discovered that the public were positively +with the new and stirring romancist. What renders this more curious is +the fact that the earlier novels were incomparably more highly finished +works of art than their successors. "Peg Woffington" and "Christie +Johnstone"--the former published so long ago as 1852--seem almost +perfect in their symmetry and beauty. "The Cloister and the Hearth" +might well-nigh have persuaded a reader that a new Walter Scott was +about to arise on the horizon of our literature. All the more recent +works seem crude and rough by comparison. They ought to have been the +vigorous, uncouth, undisciplined efforts of the author's earlier years. +They ought to have led up to the "Cloister and the Hearth" and "Peg +Woffington," instead of succeeding them. Yet, if I am not greatly +mistaken, it was while he was publishing those earlier and finer +products of his fresh intellect that Charles Reade was especially +depreciated and even despised by what is called high-class English +criticism. He never indeed has had much for which to thank the English +critics, and he has never been slow to express his peculiar sense of +obligation; but assuredly they treated with greater respect the works +which will be soonest forgotten than those on which he may perhaps rest +a claim to a more enduring reputation. + +The general public, however, soon began to find him out. "Peg +Woffington" was a decided success. Its dramatic adaptation is still one +of the favorite pieces of the English stage. "It is Never Too Late to +Mend" set everybody talking. Reade began to devote himself to exposing +this or that social and legal grievance calling for reform, and people +came to understand that a new branch of the art of novel-writing was in +process of development, the special gift of which was to convert a +Parliamentary blue-book into a work of fiction. The treatment of +criminals in prisons and in far-off penal settlements, the manner in +which patients are dealt with in private lunatic asylums, became the +main subject and backbone of the new style of novel, instead of the +misunderstandings of lovers, the trials of honest poverty, or the +struggles for ascendancy in the fashionable circles of Belgravia. Mr. +Reade undoubtedly stands supreme and indeed alone in work of this kind. +No man but he can make a blue-book live and yet be a blue-book still. +When Dickens undertook some special and practical question, we all knew +that we had to look for lavish outpouring of humor, fancy, and +eccentricity, for generous pathos, and for a sentimental misapplication +or complete elimination of the actual facts. Miss Martineau made dry +little stories about political economy; and Disraeli's "Sibyl" is only a +fashionable novel and a string of tracts bound up together and called by +one name. But Reade takes the hard and naked facts as he finds them in +some newspaper or in the report of some Parliamentary commission, and he +so fuses them into the other material whereof his romance is to be made +up that it would require a chemical analysis to separate the fiction +from the reality. You are not conscious that you are going through the +boiled-down contents of a blue-book. You have no aggrieved sense of +being entrapped into the dry details of some harassing social question. +The reality reads like romance; the romance carries you along like +reality. No author ever indulged in a fairer piece of self-glorification +than that contained in the last sentence of "Put Yourself in his Place": +"I have taken a few undeniable truths out of many, and have labored to +make my readers realize those appalling facts of the day which most men +know, but not one in a thousand comprehends, and not one in a hundred +thousand realizes, until fiction--which, whatever you may have been told +to the contrary, is the highest, widest, noblest, and greatest of all +the arts--comes to his aid, studies, penetrates, digests the hard facts +of chronicles and blue-books, and makes their dry bones live." To this +object, to this kind of work, Reade seems to have deliberately purposed +to devote himself. It was evidently in accordance with his natural +tastes and sympathies. He is a man of exuberant and irrepressible +energy. He must be doing something definite always. He did actually +bestir himself in the case of a person whom he believed to be unjustly +confined in a lunatic asylum, as energetically as he makes Dr. Sampson +do in "Hard Cash," and with equal success. Most of the scenes he +describes, in England at least, have thus in some way fallen in to be +part of his own experience. Whatever he undertakes to do he does with a +tremendous earnestness. His method of workmanship is, I believe, +something like that of Mr. Wilkie Collins, but of course the object is +totally different. Wilkie Collins collects all the remarkable police +cases and other judicial narratives he can find, and makes what Jean +Paul Richter called "quarry" of them--a vast accumulation of materials +in which to go digging for subjects and illustrations at leisure. +Charles Reade does the same with blue-books and the reports of official +inquiries. The author of the "Dead Secret" is looking for perplexing +little mysteries of human crime; the author of "Hard Cash" for stories +of legal or social wrong to be redressed. I need hardly say, perhaps, +that I rank Charles Reade high above Wilkie Collins. The latter can +string his dry bones on wires with remarkable ingenuity; the former can, +as he fairly boasts, make the dry bones live. + +Meanwhile, let us follow out the progress of Mr. Charles Reade as a +literary influence. He grows to have a distinct place and power in +England quite independently of the reviewers, and at last the very storm +of controversy which his books awaken compels the reviewers themselves +to take him into account. "It is Never Too Late to Mend" raised a clamor +among prison disciplinarians. Years after its publication it is brought +out as a drama in London, and its first appearance creates a sort of +riot in the Princess's Theatre. Hostile critics rise in the stalls and +denounce it; supporters and admirers vehemently defend it; speeches are +made on either side. Mr. Reade plunges into the arena of controversy a +day or two after in the newspapers, assails one of the critics by name, +and charges him with having denounced the piece in the theatre, and +applauded his own denunciation in the journal for which he wrote. Some +friend of the critic replies by the assertion that one of Mr. Reade's +most enthusiastic literary supporters is Mr. Reade's own nephew. All +this sort of thing is dreadfully undignified, but it brings an author at +all events into public notice, and it did for Mr. Reade what I am +convinced he would have disdained to do consciously--it "puffed" his +books. An amusing story is told in connection with the production of +this drama. An East End manager thought of bringing it out. (The East +End, I need hardly say, is the lower and poorer quarter of London.) This +manager came and studied the piece as produced at the West End. One of +the strong scenes, the sensation scene, was a realistic exhibition of +prison discipline. The West End had been duly impressed and thrilled +with this scene. But the East End manager shook his head. "It would +never do for _me_," he said despondingly to a friend. "Not like the real +thing at all. _My_ gallery would never stand it. Bless you, my fellows +know the real thing too well to put up with _that_." + +In this, as in other cases, Mr. Reade's hot temper, immense +self-conceit, and eager love of controversy plunged him into discussions +from which another man would have shrunk with disgust. He went so far on +one occasion as to write to the editor of a London daily paper, +threatening that if his books were not more fairly dealt with he would +order his publisher to withdraw his advertisements from the offending +journal. One can fancy what terror the threat of a loss of a few +shillings a month would have had upon the proprietors of a flourishing +London paper, and the amount of ridicule to which the bare suggestion of +such a thing exposed the irritable novelist. But Reade was, and probably +is, incurable. He would keep pelting his peppery little notes at the +head of any and everybody against whom he fancied that he had a +grievance. I remember one peculiarly whimsical illustration of this +weakness, which found its way into print some years ago in London, but +which perhaps will be quite new in the United States, and I cannot +resist the temptation to reproduce it. Once upon a time, it would seem +from the correspondence, Mr. Reade wrote a play called "Gold," which was +produced at Drury Lane Theatre. Except from this correspondence I own +that I never heard of the play. Subsequently, Mr. Reade presented +himself one night at the stage-door of Drury Lane Theatre, and was +refused admittance. Mr. Charles Mathews was then performing at the +theatre, and Mr. Reade evidently supposed him to have been the manager +and responsible for all the arrangements. Therefore he addressed his +complaint to the incomparable light comedian, who is as renowned for +easy sparkling humor and wit off the stage as for brilliant acting on +it. Here is the correspondence; and we shall see how much Mr. Reade took +by his motion: + + + GARRICK CLUB, COVENT GARDEN, November 28. + + DEAR SIR: I was stopped the other night at the stage-door of Drury + Lane Theatre by people whom I remember to have seen at the Lyceum + under your reign. + + This is the first time such an affront was ever put upon me in any + theatre where I had produced a play, and is without precedent + unless when an affront was intended. As I never forgive an affront, + I am not hasty to suppose one intended. It is very possible that + this was done inadvertently; and the present stage-list may have + been made out without the older claims being examined. + + Will you be so kind as to let me know at once whether this is so, + and if the people who stopped me at the stage-door are yours, will + you protect the author of "Gold," etc., from any repetition of such + an annoyance? + + I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, + CHARLES READE. + + +To this imperious demand Mr. Reade received next day the following +genial answer: + + + T. R., DRURY LANE, November 29. + + DEAR SIR: If ignorance is bliss on general occasions, on the + present it certainly would be folly to be wise. I am therefore + happy to be able to inform you that I am ignorant of your having + produced a play at this theatre; ignorant that you are the author + of "Gold"; ignorant of the merits of that play; ignorant that your + name has been erased from the list at the stage-door; ignorant that + it had ever been on it; ignorant that you had presented yourself + for admittance; ignorant that it had been refused; ignorant that + such a refusal was without precedent; ignorant that in the man who + stopped you you recognized one of the persons lately with me at the + Lyceum; ignorant that the doorkeeper was ever in that theatre; + ignorant that you never forgive an affront; ignorant that any had + been offered; ignorant of when, how, or by whom the list was made + out, and equally so by whom it was altered. + + Allow me to add that I am quite incapable of offering any + discourtesy to a gentleman I have barely the pleasure of knowing, + and moreover have no power whatever to interfere with Mr. Smith's + arrangements or disarrangements; and, with this wholesale admission + of ignorance, incapacity, and impotence, believe me + + Faithfully yours, + C. T. MATHEWS. + + CHARLES READE, ESQ. + + +The correspondence got into print somehow, and created, I need hardly +say, infinite merriment in the literary clubs and circles of London. Not +all disputes with Charles Reade ended so humorously, for the British +novelist is as fond of actions at law as Fenimore Cooper used to be. +Thus more than one critic has had to dread the terrors of an action for +damages when he has ventured in a rash moment to disparage the literary +value of Mr. Reade's teaching. Lately, however, in the case of the +"Times," and its attack on "A Terrible Temptation," Mr. Reade adopted +the unexpected tone of mild and even flattering remonstrance. Whether he +thought it hopeless to alarm the "Times" by any threat of action, or +feared that if he wrote a savage letter the journal would not even give +him the comfort of seeing it in print, I do not know. But he certainly +took a meek tone and endeavored to propitiate, and got rather coarsely +rebuked for his pains. People in London were amused to find that he +could be thus mild and gentle. I do remember, however, that on one +occasion he wrote a letter of remonstrance, which was probably intended +to be a kind of rugged compliment to the "Saturday Review," a paper +which likewise cares nothing about actions for damages. Usually, +however, his tone of argument with his critics is perfervid, and his +estimate of himself is exquisitely candid. In one of his manifestoes he +assured the world that he never allowed a publisher to offer any +suggestions with regard to his story, but simply sold the manuscript in +bulk--"_c'est à prendre ou à laisser_." In another instance he spoke of +one of his novels as "floating" the serial publication in which it was +making its appearance, and which we were therefore given to understand +would have sunk to the bottom but for his coöperation. In short, it is +well known in London that Mr. Charles Readers character is disfigured by +a self-conceit which amounts to something like mania, and an impatience +of criticism which occasionally makes him all but a laughing-stock to +the public. Rarely, indeed, in literary history have high and genuine +talents been united with such a flatulence of self-conceit. + +Probably Reade had reached his highest position just after the +publication of "Hard Cash." This remarkable novel, crammed with +substance enough to make half a dozen novels, appeared in the first +instance in Dickens's "All the Year Round." Dickens himself, if I +remember rightly, felt bound to publish a note disclaiming any +concurrence in or personal responsibility for the attacks on the private +madhouse system, and the whole subject aroused a very lively +controversy, wherein, I think, Reade certainly was not worsted. The +"Griffith Gaunt" controversy we all remember. I confess that I have no +sympathy whatever with the kind of criticism which treats any of Mr. +Reade's works as immoral in tendency, and I think the charge was even +more absurd when urged against "Griffith Gaunt" than when pressed +against the "Terrible Temptation." To me the clear tendency of Reade's +novels seems always healthy, purifying, and bracing, like a fresh, +strong breeze. I cannot understand how any man or woman could be the +worse for reading one of them. They are always novels with a purpose, +and I, at least, never could discern any purpose in them which was not +honest and sound. I feel inclined to excuse all Reade's vehemence of +self-vindication and childish frankness of self-praise when I read some +of the attacks against what people try to paint as the immorality of his +books. But I need not go into that controversy. Enough to say for my own +part that I found "Griffith Gaunt" a grim and dreary book--a tiresome +book, in fact; but I saw nothing in it which could with any justice be +said to have the slightest tendency to demoralize any reader. I have +indeed heard people who are in general fair critics condemn "Adam Bede" +as immoral because Hetty is seduced; and I have even heard poor Maggie +Tulliver rated as unfit for decent society because she ever allowed even +a moment's thought of her cousin's engaged lover to enter her mind. On +this principle, doubtless, "Griffith Gaunt" is immoral. There are people +in the book who commit sin, and yet are not eaten by lions or bodily +carried down below like Don Juan. But if we are to have novels made up +only of good people who always do right and the one stock villain who +always does wrong, I think the novelist's art cannot too soon be +delegated to its only fitting province--the amusement of the nursery. +"Griffith Gaunt," however, I regard as a falling off, because it is a +sour, unpleasant, and therefore inartistic book. "Foul Play" was a +clever _tour de force_, a brilliant thing, made to sell, with hardly +more character in it than would suffice for a Bowery melodrama. "Put +Yourself in his Place" was a wholesome return to the former style, a +marrowy, living blue-book, instinct with power and passion. "A Terrible +Temptation" I do not admire. I do not think it immoral, but it hardly +calls for any deliberate criticism. Since "Hard Cash" Mr. Reade has, in +my opinion, written only one novel which the literary world will care to +preserve, and even that one, "Put Yourself in his Place," can hardly be +said to add one cubit to his stature. + +Mr. Reade has, I believe, rather a passion for dramatic enterprise, and +a characteristic faith in his power to turn out a good drama. A season +or two back he hired, I am told, a London theatre, in order to have the +complete superintendence of the production of one of his novels turned +into a drama. I have been assured that the dramatic version was +accomplished entirely by himself. If so, I am sure no enemy could have +more cruelly damaged the original work. All the character was completely +sponged out of it. The one really effective and original personage in +the novel did not appear in the play. A number of the most antique and +conventional melodramatic situations and surprises were crammed into the +piece. All the silly old stage business about mysterious conspiracies +carried on under the very ear of the identical personage who never ought +to have been allowed to hear them are called in to form an essential +feature of the drama. The play, of course, was not successful, although +the novel had in it naturally all the elements of a stirring and +powerful drama. If Charles Reade really with his own hand converted a +vigorous and thrilling story into that limp, languid, and vapid play, +it was surely the most awful warning against amateur dramatic enterprise +that ever self-conceit could receive undismayed. + +Of course we won't rank Mr. Reade as one of the most popular novelists +now in England. But his popularity is something very different indeed +from that of Dickens, or even from that of Thackeray. In Forster's "Life +of Dickens" there is a letter of the great novelist's in which he +complains of having been treated (by Bentley, I think) no better than +any author who had sold but fifteen hundred copies. I should think the +occasions were very rare when Mr. Reade's circulation in England went +much beyond fifteen hundred copies. The whole system of publishing is so +different in England from that which prevails in America, our fictitious +prices and the controlling monopoly of our great libraries so restrict +and limit the sale, that a New York reader would perhaps hardly believe +how small a number constitute a good circulation for an English +novelist. I assume that, speaking roughly, Reade, Wilkie Collins, and +Trollope may be said to have about the same kind of circulation--almost +immeasurably below Dickens, and below some such abnormal sale as that of +"Lothair" or "Lady Audley's Secret," but much above even the best of the +younger novelists. I venture to think that not one of these three +popular and successful authors may be counted on to reach a circulation +of two thousand copies. Probably about eighteen hundred copies would be +a decidedly good thing for one of Charles Reade's novels. Of the three, +I should say that Wilkie Collins has the most eager readers; that +Trollope's novels take the highest place in what is called "society"; +and that Reade's rank the best among men of brains. But there is so wide +a difference between the popularity of Dickens and that of Reade that it +seems almost absurd to employ the same word to describe two things so +utterly unlike. It is, indeed, a remarkable proof of Reade's power and +success that, setting out as he always does to tell a story which shall +convey information and a purpose of some practical kind, he can get any +sort of large circulation at all. For one great charm and excellence of +our library system is that it creates a huge class of regular, I might +almost say professional, novel-readers, who subscribe to Mudie's by the +year, want to get all the reading they can out of it, and instinctively +shudder at the thought of any novel that is weighted by solid +information and overtaxing thought. This is the class for whom and by +whom the circulating libraries exist, and Mr. Reade deserves the full +credit of having utterly disregarded them, or rather boldly encountered +them, and at least to some extent compelled them to read him. + +Mr. Reade's position as a novelist may be adjudged now as safely as ever +a novelist's place can be fixed by a contemporary generation. He is +nearly sixty years old, and he has written about a dozen novels. It is +not likely that he will ever write anything which could greatly enhance +the estimate the public have already formed of him; and no future +failures could affect his past success. I think his career is, +therefore, fairly and fully before us. We know how singularly limited +his _dramatis personæ_ are. He marches them on and off the stage boldly +ever so often, and by a change of dresses every now and then he for a +while almost succeeds in making us believe that he has a very full +company at his command. But we soon get to know every one by sight, and +can swear to him or her, no matter by what name or garb disguised. We +know the sweet, impulsive, incoherent heroine, who is always +contradicting herself and saying what she ought not to say and does not +mean to say; who now denounces the hero, and then falls upon his neck +and vows that she loves him more than life. This young woman is +sometimes Julia and sometimes Helen and sometimes Grace; she now is +exiled for a while on a lonely island, and even she is carried away by a +flood; but in every case she is just the same girl rescued by the same +hero. That hero is always a being of wonderful mechanical and scientific +knowledge of some kind or other, whether as Captain Dodd he makes love +to Lucy Fountain, or as Henry Little he captivates Grace Carden, or as +the gentleman in "Foul Play" he cures the heroine of consumption and +builds island huts better than Robinson Crusoe. Then we have the rough, +clever, eccentric personage, Dr. Sampson or Dr. Amboyne, whose business +principally is to act a part like that of Herr Mittler in Goethe's +novel, and help the characters of the book through every difficulty. +Then we have the white-livered sneak, the villain of the book when he is +bad enough for such a part; the Coventry of "Put Yourself in his Place"; +I forget what his name is in "Foul Play." These are the puppets which +principally make up the show. Very vigorously and cleverly do they +dance, and capitally do they imitate life; but there are so very few of +them that we grow a little tired of seeing them over and over again. +Indeed, Charles Reade's array of characters sometimes reminds us of the +simple system of Plautus, in which we have for every play the same types +of people--the rather stingy father, the embarrassed lover, the clever +comic slave, and so forth. It cannot be said that Reade has added a +single character to fiction. He understands human nature, or at least +such types of it as he habitually selects, very well, and he draws +vigorously his figures and groups; but he has discovered nothing fresh, +he has rescued no existence from the commonplace and evanescent +realistics of life, to be preserved immortal in a work of art. Not one +of his characters is cited in ordinary conversation or in the writings +of journalists. Nobody quotes from him unless in reference to some one +of the stirring social topics which he has illustrated, and even then +only as one would quote from a correspondent of the "Times." Every +educated man and woman in England is assumed, as a matter of course, to +be familiar with the works of George Eliot; but nobody is necessarily +assumed to have read Charles Reade. That educated people do read him and +do admire him is certain; but it is quite a matter of option with them +to read him or let him alone so far as society and public opinion are +concerned. There are certain tests and evidences of a novelist's having +attained a front-rank place in England which are unmistakable. They are +purely social, may be only superficial, and will neither one way nor the +other affect the views of foreign critics or of posterity; but they are +decisive as far as England is concerned. Among them I shall mention two +or three. One is the fact that writers in the press allude to some of +his characters without feeling bound to explain in whose novel and what +novel the characters appear. Another is the fact that artists +voluntarily select from his works subjects for paintings to be sent to +the Royal Academy's annual exhibition or elsewhere. A third is the fact +that articles about him, not formal reviews of a work just published, +appear pretty often in the magazines. Now, whatever may be the genius +and merits of an author, I think he cannot be said to have attained the +front rank in English public opinion unless he can show these evidences +of success; and, so far as I know, Mr. Reade cannot show any of them. +For myself, I do not believe that Mr. Reade ever could under any +circumstances have become a really great novelist. All the higher gifts +of imagination and all the richer veins of humor have been denied to +him. Not one gleam of poetic fancy ever seems to have floated across the +nervous Saxon of his style. He is a powerful story-teller, who has a +manly purpose in every tale he tells, and that is all. That surely is a +great deal. No one tells a story more thrillingly. Once you begin to +listen, you cannot release yourself from the spell of the _raconteur_ +until all be done. A strong, healthy air of honest and high purpose +breathes through nearly all the stories. An utter absence of cant, +affectation, and sham distinguishes them. A surprising variety of +descriptive power, at once bold, broad, and realistic, is one of their +great merits. Mr. Reade can describe a sea-fight, a storm, the forging +of a horseshoe, the ravages of an inundation, the trimming of a lady's +dress, the tuning of a piano, with equal accuracy and apparent zest. I +once heard an animated discussion in a literary club as to whether the +scrap of minute description was artistic and effective or absurd and +ludicrous which makes us acquainted with the fact that when Henry Little +dragged Grace Carden out of the raging flood, the force of the water +washed away the heroine's stockings and garters and left her barefoot. +Some irreverent critics would only laugh at the gravity with which the +author detailed this important circumstance. Others, however, insisted +that this little touch, so homely, and to the profane mind so +exceedingly ridiculous, was necessary and artistic; that it heightened +the effect of the great word-picture previously shown by the force of +its practical and circumstantial reality. However this momentous +controversy may settle itself in the estimation of readers, it cannot be +denied that some at least of Reade's success is due to the courage and +self-reliance which will brave the risk of being ridiculous for the sake +of being real and effective. Indeed, Mr. Reade wants no quality which is +necessary to make a powerful story-teller, while he is distinguished +from all mere story-tellers by the fact that he has some great social +object to serve in nearly everything he undertakes to detail. More than +this I do not believe he is, nor, despite the evidences of something yet +higher which were given in "Christie Johnstone" and "The Cloister and +the Hearth," do I think he ever could have been. He is a magnificent +specimen of the modern special correspondent, endowed with the +additional and unique gift of a faculty for throwing his report into the +form of a thrilling story. But it requires something more than this, +something higher than this, to make a great novelist whom the world will +always remember. Mr. Reade is unsurpassed in the second class of English +novelists, but he does not belong to the front rank. His success has +been great in its way, but it is for an age and not for time. + + + + +THE EXILE-WORLD OF LONDON. + + +Leicester Square and the region that lies around it are conventionally +regarded as the exile quarter of London. The name of Leicester square +suggests the idea of an exile, as surely and readily, even to the mind +of one who has never looked on the mournful and decaying enclosure, as +the name of Billingsgate does that of fish-woman, or the name of the +Temple that of a law-student. Yet, if a stranger visiting London thinks +he is likely to see any exile of celebrity, while pacing the streets +which branch off Leicester square, he will be almost as much mistaken as +if he were to range Eastcheap in the hope of meeting the wild Prince and +Poins. + +Many a conspiracy has had its followers and understrappers in the +Leicester square region; but the great conspirators do not live there +any more. The place is falling, falling; the foreign and distinctive +character of the population remains as marked as ever, but the +foreigners whom London people would care to see are not to be found +there any longer. The exiles who have made part of history, whose names +are on record, do not care for Leicester square. They are to be found in +Kensington, in Brompton, in Hampstead and Highgate; in the Regent's Park +district; a few in Bloomsbury, a few in Mayfair. A marble slab and an +inscription now mark the house in King street, St. James's, where Louis +Napoleon lodged; and there is a house in Belgrave square dear to all +true Legitimists, where the Count de Chambord ("Henri Cinq") received +Berryer and his brother pilgrims. Only poor exiles herd together now in +London. Only poverty, I suppose, ever causes nationalities to herd +together anywhere. The men who group around Leicester square are the +exiles without a fame; the subterranean workers in politics; the men who +come like shadows, and so depart; the men whose names are writ in water, +even though their life-paths may have been marked in blood. + +Living in London, I had of late years many opportunities of meeting with +the exiles of each class. I know few men more to be pitied than the +great majority of those who make up the latter or Leicester square +section. On the other hand, I should say that few men, indeed, are more +to be envied by any of their fellow-creatures who love to be courted and +"lionized," than the political exiles of great name who come to London +and do not stay too long there. + +Far away as the days of Thaddeus of Warsaw and the conventional and +romantic type of exile now seem, there is still a fervent yearning in +British society toward the representative of any Continental nationality +which happens to be oppressed. No man had ever before received such a +welcome in London as Kossuth did; but Kossuth stayed too long, became +domesticized and familiarized, and society in London likes its lions to +be always new and fresh. Moreover, the late Lord Palmerston, a warm +patron of exiles when the patronage went no further than an invitation +to a dinner or an evening party, set his face against Kossuth from the +first; and polite society soon took the hint. + +The man who most completely conquered all society, even the very +highest, in London, during my recollection, was the man who probably +cared least about it, and who certainly never sought to win the favor of +fashion--I mean, of course, Garibaldi. To this day I am perfectly unable +to understand the demeanor of the British peerage toward Garibaldi, when +he visited London for a few days some years ago. The thing was utterly +unprecedented and inexplicable. The Peerage literally rushed at him. He +was beset by dukes, mobbed by countesses. He could not by any human +possibility have so divided his day as to find time for breakfasting and +dining with one-fifth of the noble hosts who fought and scrambled for +him. It was a perpetual torture to his secretaries and private friends +to decide between the rival claims of a Prime Minister and a Prince of +the blood; an Archbishop and a Duchess; the Lord Chancellor and the +leader of the Opposition. The Tories positively outdid the Whigs in the +struggle for the society of the simple seaman, the gallant guerilla. The +oddest thing about the business was, that three out of every four of +these noble personages had always previously spoken of Garibaldi--when +they did speak of him at all--with contempt and dislike, as a buccaneer +and a filibuster. + +What did it mean? Was it a little comedy? Was it their fun? Was it a +political _coup de théâtre_, to dodge the Radicals and the workingmen +out of their favorite hero? Certainly some of Garibaldi's friends +suspected something of the kind, and were utterly bewildered and +confounded by the unexpected rush of aristocratic admirers, who beset +the hero from the moment he touched the shore of England. + +It was a strange sight, not easily to be forgotten, to see the manner in +which Garibaldi sat among the dukes and marchionesses--simple, sweet, +arrayed in the calm, serene dignity of a manly, noble heart. There was +something of Oriental stateliness in the unruffled, imperturbable, bland +composure, with which he bore himself amid the throng of demonstrative +and titled adulators. I do not think he believed in the sincerity of +half of it, any more than I did, but he showed no more sign of distrust +or impatience than he did of gratified vanity. + +The thing ended in a quarrel between the Aristocracy and the Democracy, +between Belgravia and Clerkenwell, for the custody of the hero, and +Garibaldi escaped somehow back to his island during the squabble. But I +think Lady Palmerston let the mask fall for a moment, when, growing +angry at the assurance of Garibaldi's humbler friends, and perhaps a +little tired of the whole business, she told some gentlemen of my +acquaintance, that quite too much work had been made about a person who, +after all, was only a respectable brigand. This was said (and it _was_ +said) at the very meridian of the day of noble homage to the Emancipator +of Sicily. + +Garibaldi has never since returned to England. Should he ever do so, he +will find himself unembarrassed by the attentions of the Windsor uniform +and Order of the Garter. The play, however it was got up, or whatever +its object, was played out long ago. But the West End is, as a rule, +very fond of distinguished exiles, when they come and go quickly; and +Lord Palmerston's drawing-room was seldom without a representative of +the class. No man ever did less for any great cause than Lord Palmerston +did; but he liked brilliant exiles, and, perhaps, more particularly the +soldierly than the scholarly class. Such a man as the martial, dashing, +adventurous General Türr, for example, was the kind of refugee that Lord +and Lady Palmerston especially favored. + +Many English peers have, indeed, quite a _spécialité_ in the way of +patronizing exiles; but, of course, in all such cases the exile must +have a name which brings some gratifying distinction to his host. He +must be somebody worth pointing out to the other guests. I know that +many Continental refugees have chafed at all this, and some have +steadily held aloof from it, and declined to be shown off for the +admiration of a novelty-hunting crowd. Many, too, have been deceived by +it; have mistaken such idle attention for profound and practical +sympathy, and have thought that two or three peers and half a dozen +aristocratic petticoats could direct the foreign policy of England. They +have swelled with hope and confidence; have built their plans and based +their organizations on the faith that Park Lane meant the British +government, and that the politeness of a Cabinet Minister was as good as +the assistance of a British fleet; and have found out what idiots they +were in such a belief, and have gone nigh to breaking their hearts +accordingly. Indeed, the readiness of all classes in England to rush at +any distinguished exile, and become effusive about himself and his cause +is very often--or, at least, used to be--a cruel kindness, sure to be +misunderstood and to betray--a love that killed. + +Nothing could, in its way, have been more unfortunate and calamitous +than the outburst of popular enthusiasm in England about the Polish +insurrection four years ago. Some of the Polish leaders living in London +were completely deceived by it, and finally believed that England was +about to take up arms in their cause. An agitation was got up, outside +the House of Commons, by an earnest, well-meaning gentleman, who really +believed what he said; and inside the House by a bustling, quickwitted, +political adventurer, who certainly ought not to have believed what he +said. This latter gentleman actually went out to Cracow, in Austrian +Poland, and was received there with wild demonstrations of welcome as a +representative of the national will of England and the precursor of +English intervention. The Polish insurrection went on; and England wrote +a diplomatic note, which Russia resented as a piece of impertinence; and +there England's sympathy ended. "I think," said a great English Liberal +to me, "that every Englishman who helped to encourage these poor Poles +and give them hope of English help, has Polish blood on his hands." I +think so, too. + +I have always thought that Felice Orsini was in some sort a victim to +the kind of delusion which English popularity so easily fosters. I met +Orsini when he came to England, not very long before the unfortunate and +criminal attempt of the Rue Lepelletier; and I was much taken, as most +people who met him were, by the simplicity, sweetness, and soldierly +frankness of his demeanor. He delivered some lectures in London, +Manchester, Liverpool, and other large towns, on his own personal +adventures--principally his escape from prison--and though he had but a +moderate success as a lecturer, he was surrounded everywhere by +well-meaning and sympathizing groups, the extent of whose influence and +the practical value of whose sympathy he probably did not at first quite +understand. He certainly had, at one time, some vague hopes of obtaining +for the cause of Italian independence a substantial assistance from +England. A short experience cured him of that dream; and I fancy it was +then that he formed the resolution which he afterward attempted so +desperately to carry out. I think, from something I heard him say once, +that Mazzini had endeavored to enlighten him as to the true state of +affairs in England, and the real value of the sort of sympathy which +London so readily offers to any interesting exile. But I do not believe +Mazzini's advice had much influence over Orsini. Indeed, the latter, at +the time I saw him, had but little respect for Mazzini. He spoke with +something like contempt of the great conspirator. It would have been +well for Orsini if he had, in one thing at least, followed the counsels +of Mazzini. People used to say, some years ago, that odious and +desperate as Orsini's attempt was, it at least had the merit of +frightening Louis Napoleon into active efforts on behalf of Italy. There +was so much about Orsini that was worthy and noble that one would be +glad to regard him as even in his crime the instrument of good to the +country he loved so well. But documentary and other evidence has made +it clear since Orsini's death that the negotiations which ended in +Solferino and Villafranca were begun before Orsini had ever planned his +murderous enterprise. The fact is, that, during the Crimean war, Cavour +first tried England on the subject, through easy-going and heedless Lord +Clarendon--who hardly took the trouble to listen to the audacious +projects of his friend--and then turned to France, where quicker and +shrewder ears listened to what he had to say. + +I have spoken of Orsini's contempt for Mazzini. Such a feeling toward +such a man seems quite inexplicable. Many men detest Mazzini; many men +distrust him; many look up to him as a prophet, and adore him as a +chief; but I am not able to understand how any one can think of him with +mere contempt. For myself, I find it impossible to contemplate without +sadness and without reverence that noble, futile career; that majestic, +melancholy dream. But it must be owned that an atmosphere of illusion +sheds itself around Mazzini wherever he goes. I believe the man himself +to be the very soul of truth and honor; and yet I protest I would not +take, on any political question, the unsupported testimony of any +devotee of Mazzini to any fact whatsoever. Mazzini's own faith is so +sublimely transcendental, so utterly independent of realities and of +experience, that I sincerely believe the visions of the opium-eater are +hardly less to be relied on than the oracles and opinions of the great +Italian. And yet the force of his character, the commanding nature of +his genius, are such that his followers become more Mazzinian than +Mazzini himself. There is something a good deal provoking about the +manner of the minor followers of Mazzini. I mean in England. I do not +speak of such men as my friend, Mr. Stansfeld, now a Lord of the +Treasury, or my friend, Mr. P. A. Taylor, M. P. These are men of ability +and men of the world, whose enthusiasm and faith, even at their highest, +are under the control of practical experience and the discipline of +public life. But I speak of the minor and less responsible admirers, the +men and women who accept oracle as fact, aspiration as experience, the +dream as the reality. The calm, self-satisfied way in which they deal +with contemporary history, with geography, with statistics, with +possibilities and impossibilities, in the hope of making you believe +what they firmly believe--that Italy could, if only she had proclaimed +herself Republican, have driven the Austrians into the sea in 1859, and +the French across the Alps in 1860, while at the same time quietly +kicking Pope, Bourbon, and Savoy out of throned existence. The confident +and imperturbable assurance with which they can do all this--and I have +never met with any genuine devotee of Mazzini who could not--is +something to make one bewildered rather than merely impatient. For it is +true in politics as in literature or in fashion, the admiring imitator +reproduces only the defects, the weaknesses, the mannerisms and mistakes +of the original. Mazzini himself is, I need hardly say, a singularly +modest and retiring man. While he lived in London, he shrank from all +public notice, and was seen only by his friends and followers. He sought +out nobody. "Sir," said Mr. Gladstone, addressing the Speaker of the +House of Commons, one night, when a fierce and factious attack was made +on Mr. Stansfeld as a follower of the great exile, "I never saw Signor +Mazzini." Yet Gladstone was by far the most prominent and influential of +all the English sympathizers with the cause of Italian liberty. One +would have thought it impossible for such a man as Mazzini to live for +years in the same city with Gladstone without the two ever chancing to +meet. But for the modest seclusion and shrinking way of Mazzini, such a +thing would, indeed, have been impossible. + +Louis Blanc is, perhaps, the only Revolutionary exile who, in my time, +has been everywhere and permanently popular in London society. The fate +of a political exile in a place like London usually is to be a lion +among one clique and a _bête noir_ in another. But Louis Blanc has been +accepted and welcomed everywhere, although he has never compromised or +concealed one iota of his political opinions. I think one explanation, +and, perhaps, _the_ explanation of this somewhat remarkable phenomenon, +is to be found in the fact that Louis Blanc never for an hour played the +part of a conspirator. He seems to have honorably construed his place in +English society to be that of one to whom a shelter had been given, and +who was bound not to make any use of that shelter which could embarrass +his host. In London he ceased to be an active politician. He refused to +exhibit himself _en victime_. He appealed to no public pity. He made no +parade of defeat and exile. He went to work steadily as a literary man, +and he had the courage to be poor. When he appeared in public it was +simply as a literary lecturer. He was not very successful in that +capacity. At least, he was not what the secretary of a lyceum would call +a success. He gave a series of lectures on certain phases of society in +Paris before the great Revolution, and they were attended by all the +best literary men in London, who were, I think, unanimous in their +admiration of the power, the eloquence, the brilliancy which these +pictures of a ghastly past displayed. But the general public cared +nothing about the _salons_ where wit, and levity, and wickedness +prepared the way for revolution; and I heard Louis Blanc pour out an +_apologia_ (I don't mean an apology) for Jean Jacques Rousseau in +language of noble eloquence, and with dramatic effect worthy of a great +orator, in a small lecture-room, of which three-fourths of the space was +empty. Since that time he has delivered lectures occasionally at the +request of mechanics' institutions and such societies; but he has not +essayed a course of lectures on his own account. Everyone knows him; +everyone likes him; everyone admires his manly, modest character and his +uncompromising Republicanism. Lately he has lived more in Brighton than +in London; but wherever in England he happens to be, he lives always as +a simple citizen; has never been raved about like Kossuth, or denounced +like Mazzini; and has occupied himself wholly with his historical labors +and his letters to a Paris newspaper. + +Another exile of distinction who lived for years in London apart from +politics and heedless of popular favor was Ferdinand Freiligrath, the +German poet. Freiligrath had to leave Prussia because of his political +poems and writings. He had undergone one prosecution and escaped +conviction, but Prussia was not then (twenty years ago) a country in +which to run such risks too often. So Freiligrath went to Amsterdam and +thence to London. He lived in London for many years, and acted as +manager of a Swiss banking-house. His life was one of entire seclusion +from political schemes or agitations. He did not even, like his +countryman and friend, Gottfried Kinkel, take any part in public +movements among the Germans in London--and he certainly never went about +society and the newspapers blowing his own trumpet, and keeping his name +always prominent, like the egotistical and inflated Karl Blind. Indeed, +so complete was Freiligrath's retirement that many Englishmen living in +London, who delighted in some of his poems--his exquisite, fanciful, +melodious "Sand Songs" his glowing Desert poems, his dreamy, delightful +songs of the sea, and his burning political ballads--were quite amazed +to find that the poet himself had been a resident of their own city for +nearly half a lifetime. Freiligrath has now at last returned to his own +country. His countrymen invited him home, and raised a national tribute +to enable him to give up his London engagement and withdraw altogether +from a life of mere business. In a letter I lately received from +Freiligrath's daughter (a young lady of great talent and +accomplishments, recently married in London), I find it mentioned that +Freiligrath expected soon to receive a visit from Longfellow in +Germany--the first meeting of these two old friends for a period of some +five-and-twenty years. + +Alexander Herzen, the famous Russian exile, the wittiest of men, endowed +with the sharpest tongue and the best nature, has left us. For many +years he lived in London and published his celebrated _Kolokol_--"The +Bell," which rang so ominously and jarringly in the ears of Russian +autocracy. He has now set up his staff in Geneva, a little London in its +attractiveness to exiles; and his arrowy, flashing wit gleams no longer +across the foreign world of the English metropolis. I do not know how +long Herzen had lived in London, but I fancy the difficulties of the +English language must have proved insurmountable to him--a strange +phenomenon in the case of a Russian. Certainly he never, so far as I am +aware, either spoke or wrote English. + +The latest exile of great mark whom we had among us in London was +General Prim. When his attempt at revolution in Spain failed some two +years ago, Prim went into Belgium. There some pressure was brought to +bear upon him by the Ministry, in consequence, no doubt, of certain +pressure brought to bear by France, and Prim left Brussels and came to +live in London. He lived very quietly, made no show of himself in any +way, and was no doubt hard at work all the time making preparation for +what has since come to pass. To all appearance he had an easy and +careless sort of life, living out among his private friends, going to +the races and going to the opera. But he was incessantly planning and +preparing; and he told many Englishmen candidly what he was preparing +for. There were many men in London who were looking out for the Spanish +Revolution months before it came, on the faith of Prim's earnest +assurances that it was coming. So much has of late been written about +Prim that his personal appearance and manner must be familiar to most +readers of newspapers and magazines. I need only say that there is in +private much less of the _militaire_ about him than one who had not +actually met him would be inclined to imagine. He is small, neat, and +even elegant in dress, very quiet and perhaps somewhat languid in +manner, looking wonderfully young for his years, and without the +slightest tinge of the Leicester square foreigner about him. He is +rather the foreigner of Regent street and the stalls of the opera +house--any one who knows London will at once understand the difference. +Prim impressed me with a much greater respect for his intellect, even +from a literary man's point of view, than I had had before meeting and +conversing with him. I think those who regard him as a mere _sabreur_, +the ordinary Spanish leader of a successful military revolution, are +mistaken. His animated and epigrammatic conversation seemed to me to be +inspired and guided by an intellectual depth and a power of observation +and reflection such as I at least was not prepared to find in the +dashing soldier of the Moorish campaign. + +There is one class of the obscure exiles, different from both the +favored and the poorest, whose existence has often puzzled me. A +political question of moment begins to disturb the European continent. +Immediately there turns up in London, and presents himself at your door +(supposing you are a journalist with acknowledged sympathies for this or +that side of the question) a mysterious and generally shabby-looking +personage, who professes to know all about it, and volunteers to supply +you with the most authentic information and the most trustworthy +"appreciation" of any events that may transpire. He wants no money; his +information is given for the sake of "the cause." You ask for +credentials, and he produces recommendations which quite satisfy you +that his objects are genuine, although, oddly enough, the persons who +recommend him do not seem to have anything whatever to do with the cause +he represents. He comes, for example, to talk about the affairs of +Roumania, and he brings letters and vouchers from literary friends in +Paris. He professes to be an emissary from the Cretans, and his +recommendations are from a Manchester cotton-firm. Anyhow, you are +satisfied; you ask no explanations; you assume that your Paris or +Manchester friends have enlarged the sphere of their sympathies since +you saw them last, and you repose confidence in your new acquaintance. +You are right. He brings you information, the most rapid, the most +surprising, the most accurate. Such a man I knew during the +Schleswig-Holstein agitation, which ended in the Danish war of four +years since. He was a Prussian--a waif of the Berlin rising of 1848. Was +he in the confidence of Von Beust, and Bismarck, and Palmerston, and all +the rest of them? I venture to doubt it; yet if he had been, he could +hardly have been more quick and accurate in all the information he +brought me. Evening after evening he brought a regular minute of the +proceedings of the day at the Conference of London, which was sitting +with closed doors, and pledged to profoundest secrecy. Perhaps this was +only guesswork! Here is one illustration. The Conference was held +because some of the European Great Powers, England and France +especially, desired to save Denmark from a struggle against the +immeasurably superior force of Prussia and Austria. A certain proposal +was to be made to the Conference by England and France on the part of +Denmark. So much we all knew. One evening my friend came to me, and bade +me announce to the world that the proposal had been made that day, and +indignantly rejected--by Denmark! The story seemed preposterous, but I +relied on my friend. Next day I was laughed at; my news was denounced +and repudiated. The day after it was proved to be true--and Denmark went +to war. + +The last time I saw my friend was in the spring of 1866. He came to tell +me that Prussia had resolved--at least that Bismarck had resolved--on +war with Austria. "Stick to that statement," he said, "whatever anybody +may say to the contrary--unless Bismarck resigns." I took his advice. At +this time I am convinced that the English government had not the least +idea that a war was really coming. The war came; but I never saw my +friend any more. + +Another of my mysterious acquaintances was an old, white-haired, grave, +placid man who turned up in London during the early part of the French +occupation of Mexico. He was a passionate Republican and +anti-Bonapartist. He was a friend and apparently a confidant of Juarez, +and was thoroughly identified with the interests of the Republicans in +Mexico, although himself a Frenchman. I doubt whether I have ever met +with a finer specimen of the courtly old gentleman, the class now +beginning to disappear even in France, than this mysterious friend of +the Mexican Republic. He might have been fresh from the Faubourg St. +Germain, such was the grave, dignified, and somewhat melancholy grace of +his courtly bearing. Yet he had evidently lived long in Mexico, and he +was an ardent Republican of the red tinge; there was something of the +old _militaire_ about him, too, which lent a certain strength to his +bland and placid demeanor. I never quite knew what he was doing in +London. He was not what is called an "unofficial representative" of +Juarez (at this time diplomatic relations between England and Mexico +were of course broken off) for he never seemed to go near any of our +ministers or diplomatists, and his only object appeared to be to supply +accurate information to one or two Liberal journals which he believed +to be honestly inclined toward the right side of every question. His +information was always accurate, his estimate of a critical situation +was always justified by further knowledge and the progress of events, +his predictions always came true. He looked like a poor man, indeed, +like a needy man; yet he never seemed to want for money, and he neither +sought nor would have any compensation for the constant and valuable +information he afforded. His knowledge of European and American politics +was profound; and though he spoke not one word of English he seemed to +understand all the daily details of our English political life. He was a +constant visitor to me (always at night and late) during the progress of +the Mexican struggle. When the Mexican Empire was nearly played out he +came and told me the end was very, very near, and that in the event of +Maximilian's being captured it would be impossible for Juarez to spare +his life. He did not tell me that he was at once returning to Mexico, +but I presume that he did immediately return, for that was the last I +saw or heard of him. + +During the quarrels between the Prussian Representative Chamber and +Count von Bismarck (before the triumph of Sadowa had condoned for the +offences of the great despotic Minister), I had a visit, one night, from +a mysterious, seedy, snuffy old German. He came, he said, to develop a +grand plan for the extinction of the Junker or Feudal party. Why he came +to develop it to me I do not know, as it will presently be seen that I +could hardly render it any practical assistance. It was, like all grand +schemes, remarkably simple in its nature. Indeed, it was literally and +strictly Captain Bobadil's immortal plan; although my German visitor +indignantly repudiated the supposition that he had borrowed it, and +declared, I believe, with perfect truth, that he had never heard of +Captain Bobadil before. The plan was simply that a society should be +formed of young and devoted Germans who should occupy themselves in +challenging and killing off, one by one, the whole Junker party. My +friend made his calculations very calmly, and he did not foolishly or +arrogantly assume that the swordsmanship of his party must needs be +always superior to that of their adversaries. No; he counted that there +would be a certain number of victims among his Liberal heroes, and made, +indeed, a large allowance, left a broad margin for such losses. But +this, in no wise affected the success of his plan. The Liberals, were +many, the Junkers few. It would simply be a matter of time and +calculation. Numbers must tell in the end. A day must come when the last +Junker would fall to earth--and then Astrea would return. Now the man +who talked in this way was no lunatic. He had nothing about him, except +his plan, which denoted mental aberration. His scheme apart, he was as +steady and prosy an old German as you could meet under the lindens of +Berlin or on the Lutherplatz of Königsberg. He was, moreover, as +earnest, argumentative, and profoundly wearisome over his project as if +he were expounding to an admiring class of students the relations of the +Ego and Non-Ego. I need hardly add that one single beam, even the +faintest, of a sense of the ridiculous, never shone in upon him during +his long and eloquent exposition of the patriotic virtue, the +completeness and the mathematical certainty of his ingenious project. + +Let me close my random reminiscences with one recollection of a sadder +nature. Some three or four years ago there came to London from Naples an +Italian of high education and character--a lawyer by profession; a +passionate devotee of Italian unity, and filled naturally with a hatred +of the expelled Bourbons. This gentleman had discovered in one of the +Neapolitan prisons a number of instruments of torture--rusty, hideous +old iron chairs, and racks, and screws, and "cages of silence," and such +other contrivances. He became the possessor of these, and he obtained +from the new government a certificate of the genuineness of his +treasure-trove--that is to say, a certificate that the things were +actually found in the place where the owner professed to have found +them. The Italian authorities, of course, could say nothing as to +whether they had or had not been used as instruments of torture in any +modern reign. They may have lain rusting there since hideous old days +when the Inquisition was a fashionable institution; they may have been +used--public opinion and Mr. Gladstone said things as horrible had been +done--in the blessed reign of good King Bomba. The Neapolitan lawyer +firmly believed that they had been so used; and he became inspired with +the idea that to take these instruments, first to London and then to the +United States, and exhibit them, and lecture on them, would arouse such +a tempest of righteous indignation among all peoples, free or enslaved, +as must sweep kingcraft and priestcraft off the earth. This idea became +a faith with him. He brought his treasure of rusty iron to London, and +proposed to take a great hall and begin the work of his mission. I +endeavored to dissuade him (he had brought some introductions to me). I +told him frankly that, just at that time, public opinion in London was +utterly indifferent to the Bourbons. The fervor of interest about the +Neapolitan Revolution had gone by; people were tired of Italy, and +wanted something new; the Polish insurrection was going on; the great +American Civil War was occupying public attention; London audiences +cared no more about the crimes of the Bourbons than about the crimes of +the Borgias. He was not to be dissuaded. He really believed at first +that he could induce some great English orator, Gladstone or Bright, to +deliver lectures on those instruments and the guilt of the system which +employed them. Then he became more moderate, and applied to this and +that professional lecturer--in vain. No one would have anything to do +with a project so obviously doomed to failure--he himself spoke no +English. At last he induced a lady who was somewhat ambitious of a +public career, to lecture for him; and he took a great hall for a series +of nights, and advertised largely, and went to great expense. I believe +he staked all he had in money or credit on the success of the +enterprise; and the making of money was not his object; he would have +cheerfully given all he had to create a flame of public indignation +against despotism. Need I say what a failure the enterprise was? The +London public never manifested the slightest interest in the exhibition. +The lecture-hall was empty. I believe the poor Neapolitan tried again +and again. The public would not come, or look, or listen. He spent his +money in vain; he got into debt in vain. His instruments of torture must +have inflicted on their owner agonies enough to have satisfied +Maniscalco or Carafa. At last he could bear it no longer. He wrote a few +short letters to some friends (I have still that which I received--a +melancholy memorial), simply thanking them for what efforts they had +made to assist him in his object, acknowledging that he had been over +sanguine, and intimating that he had now given up the enterprise. +Nothing more was said or hinted. A day or two after, he locked himself +up in his room. Somebody heard an explosion, but took no particular +notice. The lady who had endeavored to give voice to my poor friend's +scheme came, later in the day, to see him. The door was broken open--and +the poor Neapolitan lay dead, a pistol still in his hand, a pistol +bullet in his brain. + + + + +THE REVEREND CHARLES KINGSLEY. + + +I wonder how many of the rising generation in America or in England have +read "Alton Locke"? Many years have passed since I read or even saw it. +I do not care to read it any more, for I fear that it would not now +sustain the effect of the impression it once produced on me, and I do +not desire to destroy or even to weaken that impression. I know the book +is not a great work of art. I know that three-fourths of its value +consists in its blind and earnest feeling; that the story is heavily +constructed, that many of the details are extravagant exaggerations, and +that the author after all was not in the least a democrat or a believer +in human equality. I have not forgotten that even then, when he braved +respectable public opinion by taking a tailor for his hero, he took good +care that the tailor should have genteel relations. Still I retain the +impression which the book once produced, and I do not care to have it +disturbed. Therefore I do not read or criticise "Alton Locke" any more; +I remember it only as it struck me long ago--as a generous protest +against the brutal indifference, literary and political, which left the +London artisan so long to toil and suffer and sicken, to run into debt, +to drink and fight and pine and die, in the darkness. Is it +necessary--perhaps it is--to explain to some of my readers the story of +"Alton Locke"? It is the story of a young London tailor-boy who has +instincts and aspirations far above his class; who yearns to be a poet +and a patriot; who loves and struggles in vain; who is supposed to sum +up in his own weakly body all the best emotions, the vainest pinings, +the wildest wishes, the most righteous protests of his fellows; who +joins with the Chartist movement for lack of a better way to the great +end, and sees its failure, and himself utterly broken down goes out to +America to seek a new life there, and only beholds the shore of the +promised land to die. Here at least was a grand idea. Here was the +motive of a prose epic that ought to have been more thrilling to modern +ears than the song of Tasso. The effect of the work at the time was +strengthened by the fact that the author was a clergyman of the Church +of England, who was believed to be a man of aristocratic family and +connections. The book was undoubtedly a great success in its day. The +strong idea which was in the heart of it carried it along. The Rev. +Charles Kingsley became suddenly famous. + +"Alton Locke" was published more than twenty years ago. Then Charles +Kingsley was to most boys in Great Britain who read books at all a sort +of living embodiment of chivalry, liberty, and a revolt against the +established order of baseness and class-oppression in so many spheres of +our society. The author of "Alton Locke" about the same time delivered a +sermon in the country church where he officiated, so full of warm and +passionate protest against the wrongs done to the poor by existing +systems, that his spiritual chief, the rector or dean or some other +dignitary, arose in the church itself--morally and physically arose, as +Mrs. Gamp did--and denounced the preacher. Need it be said that the +report of so unusual and extraordinary a scene as this excited our +youthful enthusiasm into a perfect flame for the minister of the State +Church who had braved the public censure of his superior in the cause of +human right? For a long time Charles Kingsley was our chosen hero--I am +speaking now of young men with the youthful spirit of revolt in them, +with dreams of republics and ideas about the equality of man. If I were +to be asked to describe Charles Kingsley now, having regard to the +tendency of his writings and his public attitude, how should I speak of +him? First, as about the most perverse and wrong-headed supporter of +every political abuse, the most dogmatic champion of every wrong cause +in domestic and foreign politics, that even a State Church has for many +years produced. I hardly remember, in my practical observation of +politics, a great public question but Charles Kingsley was at the wrong +side of it. The vulgar glorification of mere strength and power, such a +disgraceful characteristic of modern public opinion, never had a +louder-tongued votary than he. The apostle of liberty and equality, as +he seemed to me in my early days, has of late only shown himself to my +mind as the champion of slave-systems of oppression and the iron reign +of mere force. Is this a paradox? Has the man undergone a wonderful +change of opinions? It is not a paradox, and I think Charles Kingsley +has not changed his views. Perhaps a short sketch of the man and his +work may reconcile these seeming antagonisms and make the reality +coherent and clear. + +I was present at a meeting not long since where Mr. Kingsley was one of +the principal speakers. The meeting was held in London, the audience was +a peculiarly Cockney audience, and Charles Kingsley is personally little +known to the public of the metropolis. Therefore when he began to speak +there was quite a little thrill of wonder and something like incredulity +through the listening benches. Could that, people near me asked, really +be Charles Kingsley, the novelist, the poet, the scholar, the +aristocrat, the gentleman, the pulpit-orator, the "soldier-priest," the +apostle of muscular Christianity? Yes, that was indeed he. Rather tall, +very angular, surprisingly awkward, with thin, staggering legs, a +hatchet face adorned with scraggy gray whiskers, a faculty for falling +into the most ungainly attitudes, and making the most hideous +contortions of visage and frame; with a rough provincial accent and an +uncouth way of speaking, which would be set down for absurd caricature +on the boards of a comic theatre; such was the appearance which the +author of "Glaucus" and "Hypatia" presented to his startled audience. +Since Brougham's time nothing so ungainly, odd, and ludicrous had been +displayed upon an English platform. Needless to say, Charles Kingsley +has not the eloquence of Brougham. But he has a robust and energetic +plain-speaking which soon struck home to the heart of the meeting. He +conquered his audience. Those who at first could hardly keep from +laughing; those who, not knowing the speaker, wondered whether he was +not mad or in liquor; those who heartily disliked his general principles +and his public attitude, were alike won over, long before he had +finished, by his bluff and blunt earnestness and his transparent +sincerity. The subject was one which concerned the social suffering of +the poor. Mr. Kingsley approached it broadly and boldly, talking with a +grand disregard for logic and political economy, sometimes startling the +more squeamish of his audience by the Biblical frankness of his +descriptions and his language, but, I think, convincing every one that +he was sound at heart, and explaining unconsciously to many how it +happened that one endowed with sympathies so humane and liberal should +so often have distinguished himself as the champion of the stupidest +systems and the harshest oppressions. Anybody could see that the strong +impelling force of the speaker's character was an emotional one; that +sympathy and not reason, feeling rather than logic, instinct rather than +observation, would govern his utterances. There are men in whom, no +matter how robust and masculine their personal character, a +disproportionate amount of the feminine element seems to have somehow +found a place. These men will usually see things not as they really are, +but as they are reflected through some personal prejudice or emotion. +They will generally spring to conclusions, obey sudden impulses and +instincts, ignore evidence and be very "thorough" and sweeping in all +their judgments. When they are right they are--like the young lady in +the song--very, very good; but like her, too, when they happen to be +wrong they are "horrid." Of these men the author of "Alton Locke" is a +remarkable illustration. It seems odd to describe the expounder of the +creed of Muscular Christianity as one endowed with too much of the +feminine element. But for all his vigor of speech and his rough voice, +Mr. Charles Kingsley is as surely feminine in his way of reasoning, his +likes and dislikes, his impulses and his prejudices, as Harriet +Martineau is masculine in her intellect and George Sand in her emotions. + +Mr. Charles Kingsley is a man of ancient English family, very proud of +his descent, and full of the conviction so ostentatiously paraded by +many Englishmen, that good blood carries with it a warrant for bravery, +justice, and truth. The Kingsleys are a Cheshire family; I believe they +date from before the Conquest--it does not much matter. I shall not +apply to them John Bright's epigram about families which came over with +William the Conqueror and never did anything else; for the Kingsleys +seem to have been always an active race. They took an energetic part in +the civil war during Charles the First's time, and stood by the +Parliament. I am told that the family have still in their possession a +commission to raise a troop of horse, given to a Kingsley and signed by +Oliver Cromwell. One of the family emigrated to the New World with the +Pilgrim Fathers, and I believe the Kingsley line still flourishes there +like a bay-tree. Irrepressible energy, so far as I know, seems to have +always been a characteristic of the household. Charles Kingsley was born +near Dartmouth, in Devonshire; every one who has read his books must +know how he revels in descriptions of the lovely scenery of Devon. He +was for a while a pupil of the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, son of the poet, +and he finally studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Mr. Kingsley was +originally intended for the legal profession, but he changed his mind +and went into the church. He was first curate and soon after rector of +the Hampshire parish of Eversley, the name of which has since been so +constantly kept in association with his own. I may mention that Mr. +Kingsley married one of a trio of sisters--the Misses Grenfell--a second +of whom was afterwards married to Mr. Froude, and is since dead, while +the third became the wife of one of the foremost English journalists. +Passing away from these merely personal facts, barely worth a brief +note, we shall find that Kingsley's real existence, if I may use such a +phrase, began and developed under the guidance of a remarkable man and +under the inspiration of a strange movement. The man to whose leadership +and teaching Mr. Kingsley owed so much was the Rev. Frederick Denison +Maurice, who died in the first week of last April. + +It would not be easy to explain to an American reader the meaning and +the extent of the influence which this eminent man exercised over a +large field of English society. The life of Mr. Maurice contains nothing +worthy of note as to facts and dates; but its spirit infused new soul +and sense into a whole generation. He was not a great speaker or a great +thinker; he was not a bold reformer; he had not a very subtle intellect; +I doubt whether his writings will be much read in coming time. He was +simply a great character, a grand influence. He sent a new life into the +languid and decaying frame of the State Church of England. He quickened +it with a fresh sense of duty. His hope and purpose were to bring that +church into affectionate and living brotherhood with modern thought, +work, and society. An early friend and companion of John Sterling (the +two friends married two sisters), Maurice had all the sweetness and +purity of Carlyle's hero, with a far greater intellectual strength. Mr. +Maurice set himself to make the English Church a practical influence in +modern thought and society. He did not believe in a religion sitting +apart on the cold Olympian heights of dogmatic theology, and looking +down with dignified disdain upon the common life and the vulgar toils of +humanity. He held that a church, if it is good for anything, ought to be +able to meet fair and square the challenge of the skeptic and the +infidel, and that it ought to concern itself about all that concerns men +and women. One of the fruits of his long and valuable labor is the +Workingmen's College in Red Lion Square, London, an institution of which +he became the principal and to which he devoted much of his time and +attention. Only a few weeks before his death he presided at one of the +public meetings of this his favorite institution. He was the parent of +the scheme of "Christian socialism," which sprang into existence more +than twenty years ago and is bearing fruit still--a scheme to set on +foot coöperative associations among working men on sound and progressive +principles; to help the working men by advances of capital, in order +that they might thus be enabled to help themselves. One of Mr. Maurice's +earliest and most ardent pupils was Charles Kingsley; another was Thomas +Hughes. In helping Mr. Maurice to carry out these schemes Kingsley was +brought into frequent intercourse with some of the London Chartists, and +especially with the working tailors, who have nearly all a strong +radical tendency. Kingsley's impulsive sympathies took fire, and flamed +out with the novel "Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet." + +That extraordinary Chartist movement, so long in preparation and so +suddenly extinguished, how completely a thing of the past it seems to +have become! Only twenty-four years have passed since its collapse. Men +under forty can recall, as if it were yesterday, all its incidents and +its principal figures. People in the United States know that my friend +Henry Vincent is still only in his prime; he was one of its earliest and +foremost leaders. But it seems as old and dead as a peasant-war of the +Middle Ages. It was a strange jumble of politics and social complaints. +It was partly the blind, passionate protest of working men who knew that +they had no right to starve and suffer in a prosperous country, but who +hardly knew where the real grievance lay. It was partly the protest of +untaught and eager intelligence against the brutal apathy of government +which would do nothing for national education. Its political demands +were very modest. Some of them have since been quietly carried into law; +some of them have been quietly dismissed into the realm of anachronisms. +Chartism was indeed rather a wild cry, a passionate yearning of lonely +men for combination, than any definite political enterprise. One looks +back now with a positive wonder upon the savage stupidity of the ruling +classes which so nearly converted it into a rebellion. Of course it was +in some instances seized hold of by selfish and scheming politicians, +who played with it for their own purposes. Of course it had its evil +counsellors, its false friends, its cowards, and its traitors. But on +the whole there was a noble spirit of manly honesty pervading the +movement, which to my mind fills it with a romantic interest and ought +to secure for it an honorable memory. It found leaders in many cases +outside its own classes. There was, for example, "Tom Duncombe," a sort +of Alcibiades of English Radicalism; a brilliant talker in Parliament, a +gay man of fashion, steeped deep in reckless debt and sparkling +dissipation; hand and glove with the fast young noblemen of the West End +gambling houses, and the ardent Chartist working men of Shoreditch and +Clerkenwell. There was Feargus O'Connor--huge, boistering, fearless--a +burlesque Mirabeau with red hair; a splendid mob-speaker, who could +fight his way by sheer strength of muscle and fist through a hostile +crowd; vain of his half-mythical descent from Irish kings, even when he +delighted in being hail fellow well met with tailors and hod-carriers; +revelling in the fiercest struggles of politics and the wildest freaks +of prolonged debauchery. O'Connor tried to crowd half a dozen lives into +one, and the natural result was that he prematurely broke down. For a +long time before his death he was a mere lunatic. A strange fact was +that as his manners were always eccentric and boisterous, he had become +an actual madman for months before those around him were fully aware of +the change. In the House of Commons the freaks of the poor lunatic were +for a long time supposed to be only more marked eccentricities, or, as +some thought, insolent affectations of eccentricity. He would rise while +Lord Palmerston was addressing the House, walk up to the great minister, +and give him a tremendous slap on the back. One night he actually +assaulted a member of the House, and the Speaker ordered his arrest. +Feargus sauntered coolly out into the lobbies. The sergeant-at-arms was +bidden to go forth and arrest the offender. Lord Charles Russell +(brother of Earl Russell), then and now sergeant-at-arms, is a thin, +little, feeble man. I have been told by some who witnessed it that the +scene in the lobbies became highly amusing. Lord Charles went with +reluctant steps about his awful task. By this time everybody was +beginning to suspect that O'Connor was really a madman. Anyhow, he was a +giant, and at his sanest moments perfectly reckless. Now it is not a +pleasant task for a weak and little man to be sent to arrest even a sane +giant; but only think of laying hands on a giant who appears to be out +of his senses! The dignity of his office, however, had to be upheld, and +Lord Charles trotted quietly after his huge quarry. He cast imploring +looks at member after member, but it was none of their business to +interfere, and they had no inclination to volunteer. Some of them indeed +were deeply engrossed in speculations as to what would happen if Feargus +were suddenly to turn round. Would the sergeant-at-arms put his dignity +in his pocket and actually run? Or, if he stood his ground, what would +be the result? Happily, however, just as Feargus and his unwilling +pursuer reached Westminster Hall, the eager eye of Lord Charles Russell +descried a little knot of policemen; he hailed them; they came up, and +the sergeant-at-arms did his duty and the capture was effected. I can +well remember seeing O'Connor, somewhere about this time, sauntering +through Covent Garden market, with rolling, restless gait; his hair, +that once was fiery red, all snowy white; his eye gleaming with the +peculiar, quick, shallow, ever-changing glitter of madness. The poor +fellow rambled from fruit-stall to fruit-stall, talking all the while to +himself, sometimes taking up a fruit as if he meant to buy it, and then +putting it down with a vacant laugh and walking on. It was a pitiable +spectacle. His light of reason soon flickered out altogether, and death +came to his relief. + +I must not omit to mention, when speaking of the Chartist leaders, the +brave, disinterested, and highly-gifted Ernest Jones, who sacrificed +such bright worldly prospects for the cause of the People's Charter. +Long after the Charter and its agitation were dead, Jones emerged into +public life again, still comparatively a young man, and he seemed about +to enter on a career both brilliant and valuable. An immature and +unexpected death interposed. + +However, I have wandered away from the subject of my paper. Charles +Kingsley came to know the principal working men among the Chartists, +and his impulsive nature was greatly influenced by their words and +their lives. Most of their leaders drawn from other classes, O'Connor +especially, he distrusted and disliked. But the rank and file of the +movement, the working men, the sufferers, the "prolétaires" as they +would be called nowadays, attracted his kindly heart. Chartism had +fallen. It collapsed suddenly in 1848; died amid Homeric laughter of the +public. It fell mainly because it had come to occupy a false position +altogether. Partly by ignorance, partly by the selfish folly of some of +its leaders, and partly by the severity of the government measures, the +movement had been driven into a dilemma which it never originally +contemplated. It must either go into open rebellion or surrender. It was +jammed up like MacMahon at Sedan. Chartism had no real wish to rebel, +although of course the flame of the recent revolution in Paris had +glared over it and made it wild; and it had no means of carrying on a +revolt for a single day. So it could only surrender; and the surrender +took place under conditions which made it seem utterly ridiculous. +Kingsley was seized with the idea of crystallizing all this into a +romance. He had as a further stimulant and guide the work which Henry +Mayhew was then publishing, "London Labor and the London Poor," a serial +which by its painful and startling revelations was working a profound +impression on England. Mayhew's narratives were often inaccurate, for he +could not conduct the whole enterprise himself, and had sometimes to +call in the aid of careless and untrustworthy associates, who +occasionally found it easier to throw off a bit of sentimental or +sensational romance than to pursue a patient inquiry. But the general +effect of the publication was healthful and practical, and it became the +parent of nearly all the efforts that followed to lay bare and +ameliorate the condition of the London poor. There can be no doubt that +it had a great influence on the impressionable mind of Charles Kingsley. +He wrote "Alton Locke," and the book became a great success. The Tailor +and Poet was the hero of the hour. "Blackwood" at once christened Alton +Locke "Young Remnants;" but Young Remnants survived the joke. The novel +is full of nonsense and extravagance; and with all its sympathy for +tailors, it has a great deal of Kingsley's characteristic affection for +rank and birth. But it had a really great idea at its heart, and struck +out one or two new characters--especially that of the old Scotch +bookseller--and it made its mark. The peculiarity, however, to which I +wish now especially to direct attention is its utter absence of +practical thinking-power. Nowhere can you find any proof that the author +is able to think about anything. An idea strikes him; he seizes it, and, +to use Hawthorne's expression, "wields it like a flail." Then he throws +it down and takes up something else, to employ it in the same wild and +incoherent fashion. This is Kingsley all out, and always. He is not +content with developing his one only gift of any literary value--the +capacity to paint big, striking pictures with a strong glare or glow on +them. He firmly believes himself a profound philosopher and social +reformer, and he will insist on obtruding before the world on all +occasions his absolute incapacity for any manner of reasoning on any +subject whatsoever. Wild with intellectual egotism, and blind to all +teaching from without, Kingsley rushes at great and difficult subjects +head downwards like a bull. Thus he tackled Chartism, and society, and +competition, and political economy, and what not, in his "Alton Locke"; +and thus he has gone on ever since and will to the end of his chapter, +always singling out for the display of his powers the very subjects +whereof he knows least, and is by the whole constitution of his +intellect and temperament least qualified to judge. + +I am writing now rather about Kingsley himself than about his books, +with which the readers of "The Galaxy" are of course well acquainted. I +therefore pass over the many books he produced between "Alton Locke" and +"Westward Ho!"--and I dwell upon the latter only because it illustrates +the next great idea which got hold of the author after the little fever +about Chartism had passed away. I suppose "Westward Ho!" may be regarded +as the first appearance of the school of Muscular Christianity. Mr. +Kingsley started for our benefit the huge British hero who could do +anything in the way of fighting and walking, and propagated the +doctrines of the English Church. To read the Bible and to kill the +Spaniards was the whole duty of the ideal Briton of Elizabeth's time, +according to this authority. The notion was a success. In a moment our +literature became flooded with pious athletes who knocked their enemies +down with texts from the Scriptures and left-handers from the shoulder. +All these heroes were of necessity "gentlemen." One of the principal +articles of the new gospel according to Kingsley was that truth, valor, +muscle, and theological fervor were only possessed in their fulness by +the scions of good old English county families. Other nations seldom had +such qualities at all; never had them to perfection; and even favored +Britain only saw them properly illustrated in country gentlemen of long +descent. Of course this sort of thing, which was for the moment a +sincere idea with Kingsley, became a mere affectation among his +followers and admirers. The fighting-parson pattern of hero was for a +while as great a bore as the rough and ugly hero after Jane Eyre's +"Rochester," or the colossal and corrupt guardsman whom "Guy +Livingstone" sent abroad on the world. Certainly Kingsley's hero was a +better style of man than Guy Livingstone's, for at the worst he was only +an egotistical savage, and not a profligate. But I think he did a good +deal of harm in his day. He helped to encourage and inflate that feeling +of national self-conceit which makes people such nuisances to their +neighbors, and he fostered that odious reverence for mere force and +power which Carlyle had already made fashionable. Kingsley himself +appears to have become "possessed" by his own idea as if by some +unmanageable spirit. It banished all his chartism and democracy and +liberalism, and the rest of it. Under its influence Kingsley +out-Carlyled Carlyle in the worship of strong despotisms and force of +any kind. He went out of his way to excuse slavery in the Southern +States. He became the fervent panegyrist of Governor Eyre of Jamaica. +When two sides were possible to any question of human politics, he was +sure to take the wrong one. Nothing for long years, I think, has been +more repulsive, and in its way more mischievous, than the cant about +"strength" which Kingsley did so much to diffuse and to glorify. + +Meanwhile his irrepressible energy was always driving him into new +fields of work. It never allowed him time to think. The moment any sort +of idea struck him, he rushed at it and crushed it into the shape of a +book or an essay. He wrote historical novels, philosophical novels, and +theological novels. He wrote poetry--yards of poetry--volumes of poetry. +There really is a great deal of the spirit of poetry in him, and he has +done better things with the hexameter verse than better poets have done. +There was for a long time a fervid school of followers who swore by him, +and would have it that he was to be the great English poet of the +century. He published essays, tracts, lectures, and sermons without +number. He seems to have made up his mind to publish in book form +somehow everything that he had spoken or written anywhere. He inundated +the leading newspapers with letters on this, that, and the other +subject. He was appointed professor of modern history at the University +of Cambridge on the death of Sir James Stephen, and he launched at once +into a series of lectures, which were almost immediately published in +book form. Why he published them it was hard for even vanity itself to +explain, because with characteristic bluntness he began his course with +the acknowledgment that he really knew nothing in particular about the +subjects whereon he had undertaken to instruct the University and the +world. He made up in courage, however, for anything he may have lacked +in knowledge. He went bravely in for an onslaught on the positive theory +of history--on Comte, Mill, Buckle, Darwin, and everybody else. He made +it perfectly clear very soon that he did not know even what these +authors profess to teach. He flatly denied that there is any such thing +as an inexorable law in nature. He proved that even the supposed law of +gravitation is not by any means the rigid and universal sort of thing +that Newton and such-like persons have supposed. How, it may be asked, +did he prove this? In the following words: "If I choose to catch a +stone, I can hold it in my hands; it has not fallen to the ground, and +will not till I let it. So much for the inevitable action of the laws of +gravity." This way of dealing with the question may seem to many readers +nothing better than downright buffoonery. But Kingsley was as grave as a +church and as earnest as an owl. He fully believed that he was refuting +the pedants who believe in the inevitable action of the law of +gravitation, when he talked of holding a stone in his hand. That an +impulsive, illogical man should on the spur of the moment talk this kind +of nonsense, even from a professor's chair, is not perhaps wonderful; +but it does seem a little surprising that he should see it in print, +revise it, and publish it, without ever becoming aware of its absurdity. + +In the same headlong spirit Mr. Kingsley rushed into his famous +controversy with Dr. John Henry Newman. I have already, when writing of +Dr. Newman, alluded to this controversy, which for a time excited the +greatest interest and indeed the greatest amusement in England. I only +refer to it now as an illustration of the surprising hotheadedness and +lack of thinking power which characterize the author of "Alton Locke." +Dr. Newman preached a sermon on "Wisdom and Innocence." Mr. Kingsley +went out of his way to discourse and comment on this sermon, and +publicly declared that its doctrine was an exhortation to disregard +truth. "Dr. Newman informs us that truth need not and on the whole ought +not to be a virtue for its own sake." Of course this was as grave a +charge as could possibly be made against a great religious teacher. It +was doubly odious and offensive to Dr. Newman because it was the revival +of an old and familiar charge against the church he had lately entered. +It was made by Kingsley in an oft-hand, careless sort of way, as if it +were something acknowledged and indisputable--as if some one were to +say, "Horace Greeley informs us that a protective tariff is often +useful," or "Henry Ward Beecher is in favor of early rising." Newman +wrote with a cold civility to ask in what passage of his writings any +such doctrine was to be found. Of course nothing of the kind was to be +found. If it were possible to conceive of any divine in our days holding +such a doctrine, we may be perfectly certain that he would never put it +into print. Newman was known to all the world as the purest and most +austere devotee of what he believed to be the truth. He had sacrificed +the most brilliant career in the Church of England for his convictions, +and, strange to say, had yet retained the admiration and the affection +of those whose religious fellowship he had renounced. Kingsley had but +one course in fairness and common sense open to him. He ought to have +frankly apologized. He ought to have owned that he had spoken without +thinking; that he had blurted out the words without observing the +gravity of the charge they contained; and that he was sorry for it. But +he did not do this. He published a letter, in which he said that Dr. +Newman having denied that his doctrine bore the meaning Mr. Kingsley had +put upon it, he (Kingsley) could only express his regret at having +mistaken him. This was nearly as bad as the first charge. It distinctly +conveyed the idea that but for Dr. Newman's subsequent explanation and +denial, certain words of his might fairly have been understood to bear +the odious meaning ascribed to them. Dr. Newman returned to the charge, +still with a chill urbanity which I cannot help thinking Kingsley +mistook for weakness or fear. He pointed out that he had never denied +anything; that there was nothing for him to deny; that Mr. Kingsley had +charged him with teaching a certain odious doctrine, and he therefore +asked Mr. Kingsley to point to the passage containing the doctrine, or +frankly own that there was no such passage in existence. Kingsley +thereupon took the worst, the most unfair, and as it proved the most +foolish course a man could possibly have pursued. He went to work to +fasten on Newman by a constructive argument, drawn from the general +tendency of his teaching, a belief in the doctrine of which he was +unable to find any specific statement. Then opened out that controversy, +which was quite an event in its time, and set everybody talking. +Newman's was an intellect which must be described as the peer of Stuart +Mill's or Herbert Spencer's. He was a perfect master of polemical +science. He could write, when he thought fit, with a vitriolic keenness +of sarcasm. When he had allowed Kingsley to entangle himself +sufficiently, Newman fairly opened fire, and the rest of the debate was +like a duel between some blundering, wrong-headed cudgel-player from a +village green, and some accomplished professor of the science of the +rapier from Paris or Vienna. Not the least amusing thing about the +controversy was the manner in which it put Kingsley into open antagonism +with his own teaching. He endeavored gratuitously and absurdly to +convict Dr. Newman of a disregard for the truth, because Newman believed +in the miracles of the saints. For, he argued, a man of Newman's +intellect could not believe in such things if he inquired into them. But +he did not inquire into them; he taught that they were not to be +questioned but accepted as orthodox. Thereby he showed that he preferred +orthodoxy to truth--"truth, the capital virtue, the virtue of virtues, +without which all others are rotten." Now, that sounds very well, and we +all agree in what Kingsley says of the truth. But Kingsley had not long +before been assailing Bishop Colenso for his infidelity. Kingsley +declared himself shocked at the publication of a work like Dr. +Colenso's, which claimed and exercised a license of inquiry that seemed +to him "anything but reverent." He distinctly laid it down that the +liberty of religious criticism must be "reverent," and "within the +limits of orthodoxy!" Now, I am not challenging Mr. Kingsley's doctrine +as to the limit of religious inquiry. That forms no part of my purpose. +But it is perfectly obvious that if to limit inquiry within the bounds +of orthodoxy shows a disregard for truth in John Henry Newman, the same +practice must be evidence of a similar disregard in Charles Kingsley. Of +course Kingsley never thought of this--never thought about the matter at +all. He disliked Colenso's teaching on the one hand and Newman's on the +other. He said the first thing that came into his mind against each in +turn, and never heeded the fact that the reproach he employed in the +former case was utterly inconsistent with that which he uttered in the +other. I do not believe, however, that the controversy did Kingsley any +harm. Nobody ever expected consistency or rational argument from him. +People were amused, and laughed, and perhaps wondered why Dr. Newman +should have taken any trouble in the matter at all. But Kingsley +remained in popular estimation just the same as before--blundering, +hot-headed, boisterous, but full of brilliant imagination, and +thoroughly sound at heart. + +Thus Charles Kingsley is always at work. Lately he has been describing +some of the scenery of the West Indies, and proclaiming the virtues of +Australian potted meats. He has thrown his whole soul into the +Australian meat question. The papers have run over with letters from him +intended to prove to the world how good and cheap it is to eat the +mutton and beef brought in tin cans from Australia. I believe Mr. +Kingsley acknowledges that all his energy and eloquence have been +unequal to the task of persuading his servants to eat the excellent food +which he is himself willing to have at his table. He has also been +lecturing on temperance, and delivering a philippic against Darwin. He +has also written a paper condemning and deprecating the modern critical +spirit. There is one rule, he insists, "by which we should judge all +human opinions, endeavors, characters." That is, "Are they trying to +lessen the sum of human misery, of human ignorance? Are they trying, +however clumsily, to cure physical suffering, weakness, deformity, +disease, and to make human bodies what God would have them?... If so, +let us judge them no further. Let them pass out of the pale of our +criticism. Let their creed seem to us defective, their opinions +fantastic, their means irrational. God must judge of that, not we. They +are trying to do good; then they are children of the light." This is +not, perhaps, the spirit in which Kingsley himself criticised Newman or +Colenso. But if we judge him according to the principle which he +recommends, he would assuredly take high rank; for I never heard any one +question his sincerity and his honest purpose to do good. Of course he +is often terribly provoking. His feminine and almost hysterical +impulsiveness, and his antiquated, feudal devotion to rank, are +difficult to bear always without strong language. His utter absence of +sympathy with political emancipation is a lamentable weakness. His +self-conceit and egotism often make him a ludicrous object. Still, he +has an honest heart, and he tries to do the work of a man; and he is one +of those who would, if they could, make the English State Church still a +living, an active, and an all-pervading influence. As a preacher and a +pastor he often reminds me of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Of course he +is far below Mr. Beecher in all oratorical gifts as well as in political +enlightenment; but he has the same perfervid and illogical nature, the +same vigorous, self-sufficient temperament, the same tendency to "slop +over," the same generous energy in any cause that seems to him good. + +It will be inferred that I do not rate Mr. Kingsley very highly as an +author. He can describe glowing scenery admirably, and he can vigorously +ring the changes on his one or two ideas--the muscular Englishman, the +glory of the Elizabethan discoverers, and so on. He is a scholar, and he +has written verses which sometimes one is on the point of mistaking for +poetry, so much of the poet's feelings have they about them. He can do a +great many things very cleverly. He belongs to a clever family. His +brother, Henry Kingsley, is a spirited and dashing novelist, whom the +critics sneer at a good deal, but whose books always command a large +circulation, and have made a distinctive mark. Perhaps if Charles +Kingsley had done less he might have done better. Human capacity is +limited. It is not given to mortal to be a great preacher, a great +philosopher, a great scholar, a great poet, a great historian, a great +novelist, an indefatigable country parson, and a successful man in +fashionable society. Mr. Kingsley seems never to have quite made up his +mind for which of these callings to go in especially, and being with all +his versatility not at all many-sided, but strictly one-sided, and +almost one-ideaed, the result of course has been that, touching success +at many points, he has absolutely mastered it at none. His place in +letters has been settled this long time. Since "Westward Ho!" at the +latest, he has never added half a cubit to his stature. The "Chartist +Parson" has, on the other hand, been growing more and more aristocratic, +illiberal, and even servile in politics. His discourse on the recovery +of the Prince of Wales was the very hyperbole of the most old-fashioned +loyalty--a discourse worthy of Filmer, and utterly out of place in the +present century. Muscular Christianity has shrunk and withered long +since. The professorship of modern history was a failure, and has been +given up. Darwin is flourishing, and I am not certain about the success +of Australian beef. All this acknowledged, however, it must still be +owned that, failing in this, that, and the other attempt, and never +probably achieving any real and enduring success, Charles Kingsley has +been an influence and a name of mark in the Victorian age. I cannot, +indeed, well imagine that age without him, although his presence is +sometimes only associated with it as that of Malvolio with the court of +the fair lady in "Twelfth Night." Men of far greater intellect have made +their presence less strongly felt, and imprinted their image much less +clearly on the minds of their contemporaries. He is an example of how +much may be done by energetic temper, fearless faith in self, an absence +of all sense of the ridiculous, a passionate sympathy, and a wealth of +half-poetic descriptive power. If ever we have a woman's parliament in +England, Charles Kingsley ought to be its chaplain; for I know of no +clever man whose mind and temper more aptly illustrate the illogical +impulsiveness, the rapid emotional changes, the generous, often +wrong-headed vehemence, the copious flow of fervid words, the vivid +freshness of description without analysis, and the various other +peculiarities which, justly or unjustly, the world has generally agreed +to regard as the special characteristics of woman. + + + + +MR. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. + + +Mr. Froude, I perceive, is about to visit the United States. _Reddas +incolumem!_ He is a man of mark--with whatever faults, a great +Englishman. It will not take the citizens of New York and Boston long to +become quite as familiar with his handsome, thoughtful face as the +people of London. Mr. Froude rarely makes his appearance at any public +meeting or demonstration of any kind. He delivers a series of lectures +now and then to one of the great solemn literary institutions. He is a +member of some of our literary and scientific societies. He used at one +time occasionally to attend the meetings of the Newspaper Press Fund +Committee, where his retiring ways and grave, meditative demeanor +reminded me, I cannot tell why, of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He has many +friends, and mingles freely in private society, but to the average +public he is only a name; to a large proportion of that average public +he is not even so much. I presume he might walk the Strand every day and +no head turn round to look after him. I presume it would not be +difficult to get together a large public meeting of respectable and +intelligent London rate-payers of whom not one could tell who Mr. Froude +was, or would be aroused to the slightest interest by the mention of his +name. Who, indeed, is generally known or cared about in London? I do not +say universally known, for nobody enjoys that proud distinction, not +even the Prince of Wales--nay, not even the Tichborne claimant. But who +is ever generally known? Gladstone and Disraeli are; and Bright is. +Dickens was, and, to a certain extent, Thackeray. Archbishop Manning and +Mr. Spurgeon are, perhaps; and I cannot remember anybody else just now. +Palmerston, in his day, was better known than any of these; and the Duke +of Wellington was by far the most widely known of all. The Duke of +Wellington was the only man who during my time was nearly as well known +in London as Mr. Greeley is in New York. "How can you, you know?" as Mr. +Pecksniff asks. We have four millions of people crowded into one city. +It takes a giant of popularity indeed to be seen and recognized above +that crowd. As for your Brownings and Spencers and Froudes and the rest, +your mere men of genius--well, they have their literary celebrity and +they will doubtless have their fame. But average London knows and cares +no more about them than it does about you or me. + +Therefore, let not any American reader, when I describe Mr. Froude as a +man of mark and a great Englishman, assume that he is a man of mark with +the crowd. Let no American visitor to London be astonished if, finding +himself in the neighborhood of Mr. Froude's residence, and stepping +into half a dozen shops in succession to ask for the exact address of +the historian, he should hear that nobody there knew anything about him. +Nobody but scholars and literary people knew anything about the late +George Grote, one of the few great philosophic historians of the modern +world. Compared with the influence of Mr. Grote upon average London, +that of Mr. Froude may almost be described as sensational; for Froude +has stirred up literary and religious controversy, and has been +denounced and has personally defended himself, and in that way must have +attracted some attention. At all events, when New York has seen and +heard Mr. Froude, she will have seen and heard one of the men of our +time in the true sense; one of the men who have toiled out a channel for +a fresh current of literature to run in, and whose name can hereafter be +omitted from no list of celebrities, however select, which pretends to +illustrate the characteristics of the Victorian age in England. + +Mr. Froude is a Devonshire man, son of a Protestant archdeacon. He was +educated in Westminster School, and afterward at the famous Oriel +College, Oxford. He is now some fifty-four or fifty-five years of age, +but seems, and I hope is, only in his prime. Froude is a waif of that +marvellous Oxford movement which began some forty years ago, and of +which the strange, diversely operating influence still radiates through +English thought and society. That movement was a peculiar theological +_renaissance_, which partly converted itself into a reaction and partly +into a revolt. It began with the saintly and earnest Keble; its master +spirits were John Henry Newman and Dr. Pusey. It proposed to vindicate +for the Protestant Church the true place of spiritual heir to the +apostles and universal teacher of the Christian world. Newman, Pusey, +and others worked in the production of the celebrated "Tracts for the +Times." The results were extraordinary. The impulse of inquiry thus set +going seemed to shake all foundations of agreement. It was an explosion +which blew people various ways, they could hardly tell why or how. It +made one man a ritualist, another an Ultramontane Roman Catholic, a +third a skeptic. Like the two women grinding at the mill in the +Scripture, two devoted companions, brothers perhaps, were seized by that +impulse and flung different ways. Before the wave had subsided it tossed +Mr. Froude, then a young man of five or six and twenty, clear out of his +intended career as a clergyman of the Church of England. He had taken +deacon's orders before the change came on him, which drove him forth as +the two Newmans had been driven; but his course was more like that of +Francis Newman than of John Henry. He seemed, indeed, at one time likely +to pass away altogether into the ranks of the skeptics. Skepticism is in +London attended with no small degree of social disadvantage. To be in +"society," you must believe as people of good position do. Dissent of +any kind is unfashionable. A shrewd friend of mine says a dissenter can +never enter London. Dissent never gets any further than Hackney or +Clapham, a northern and a southern suburb. Allowance being made for a +touch of satirical exaggeration, the saying is very expressive, and even +instructive. Probably, however, the odds are more heavily against mere +dissent than a bold, intellectual skepticism, which may have a piquant +and alluring flavor about it, and make a man a sort of curiosity and +lion, so that "society" would tolerate him as it does a poet. There was, +however, nothing in exclusion from fashionable society to frighten a man +like Froude, who, so far as I know, has never troubled himself about the +favor of the West End. His first work of any note (for I pass over "The +Shadows of the Clouds," a novel, I believe, which I have never read nor +seen) was "The Nemesis of Faith." This work was published in 1848, and +is chiefly to be valued now as an illustration of one stage of +development through which the intellect of the author and the tolerance +of his age were passing. "The Nemesis of Faith" was declared a skeptical +and even an infidel book. It was sternly censured and condemned by the +authorities of the university to which Mr. Froude had belonged. He had +won a fellowship in Exeter College, Oxford; the college authorities +punished him for his opinions by depriving him of it. "The Nemesis of +Faith" created a sensation, an excitement and alarm, which surely were +extravagant even then and would be impossible now. Its doubts and +complaints would seem wild enough to-day. Men of any freshness and +originality so commonly begin--or about that time did begin--their +career with a little outburst of skepticism, that the thing seems almost +as natural as it seemed to Major Pendennis for a young peer to start in +public life as a professed republican. Besides, we must remember that +"The Nemesis of Faith" was published in what the late Lord Derby once +called the pre-scientific age. It was the time when skepticism dealt +only in the metaphysical or the emotional, and had not congealed into +the far more enduring and corroding form of physical science. As well as +I can remember, "The Nemesis of Faith"--which I have not seen for +years--was full of life and genius, but not particularly dangerous to +settled beliefs. However, a storm raged around it, and around the +author; and finally Mr. Froude himself seems to have reconsidered his +opinions, for he subsequently withdrew the book from circulation. Its +literary success, however, must have shown him clearly what his career +was to be. He was at this time drifting about the world in search of +occupation; for he found himself cut off from the profession of the +Church, on which he had intended to enter, and yet he had, if I am not +mistaken, passed far enough within its threshold to disqualify him for +admission to one of the other professions. He began to write for the +"Westminster Review," which at that time was in the zenith of its +intellectual celebrity, and for "Fraser's Magazine." His studies led him +especially into the history of the Tudor reigns, and most of his early +contributions to "Fraser" were explorations in that field. Out of these +studies grew the "History of England," on which the fame of the author +is destined to rest. Mr. Froude himself tells us that he began his task +with a strong inclination toward what may be called the conventional and +orthodox opinions of the character of Henry VIII.; but he found as he +studied the actual records and state papers that a different sort of +character began to grow up under his eyes. I can easily imagine how his +emotional and artistic nature gradually bore him away further and +further in the direction thus suddenly opened up, until at last he had +created an entirely new Henry for himself. Of course the old traditional +notion of Henry, the simple idea which set him down as a monster of lust +and cruelty, would soon expose its irrationality to a mind like that of +Froude. But, like the writers who, in revolt against the picture of +Tiberius given by Tacitus, or that of the French Revolution woven by +Burke, have painted the Roman Emperor as an archangel, and the +Revolution as a stainless triumph of liberty, so Mr. Froude seems to +have been driven into a positive affection and veneration for the +subject of his study. In 1856 the first and second volumes appeared of +the "History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of +Elizabeth." There has hardly been in our time so fierce a literary +controversy as that which sprang up around these two volumes. Perhaps +the war of words over Buckle's first volume or Darwin's "Origin of +Species" could alone be compared with it. Mr. Froude became famous in a +moment. The "Edinburgh Review" came out with a fierce, almost a savage +attack, to which Mr. Froude replied in an article which he published in +"Fraser" and to which he affixed his own signature. Mr. Froude, indeed, +has during his career fought several battles in this open, personal +manner--a thing very uncommon in England. He has had many enemies. The +"Saturday Review" has been unswerving in its passionate hostility to +him, and has even gone so far as to arraign his personal integrity as a +chronicler. Rumor in London ascribes some of the bitterest of the +"Saturday Review" articles to the pen of Mr. Edward A. Freeman, author +of "The History of Federal Government," "The History of the Norman +Conquest of England," and many historical essays--a prolific writer in +reviews and journals. Then as the successive volumes of Froude's work +began to appear, and the historian brought out his famous portraiture of +Elizabeth and Mary, it was but natural that controversy should thicken +and deepen around him. The temper of parties in Great Britain is still +nearly as hot as ever it was on the characters of Mary and Elizabeth. +Not many years ago Thackeray was hissed in Edinburgh, because in one of +his lectures he said something which was supposed to be disparaging to +the moral character of Mary of Scotland. Then the whole question of +Saxon against Celt comes up again in Mr. Froude's account of English +rule in Ireland. Everybody knows what a storm of controversy broke +around the historian's head. He was accused not merely of setting up his +own personal prejudices as law and history, but even of misrepresenting +facts and actually misquoting documents in order to suit his purpose. I +do not mean to enter into the discussion, for I am not writing a +criticism of Mr. Froude's history, but only a chapter about Mr. Froude +himself. But I confess I can quite understand why so many readers, not +blind partisans of any cause, become impatient with some of the passages +of his works. He coolly and deliberately commends as virtue in one +person or one race the very qualities, the very deeds which he +stigmatizes as the blackest and basest guilt in others. "Show me the +man, and I will show you the law," used to be an old English proverb, +illustrating the depth which judicial partisanship and corruption had +reached. "Show me the person, and I will show you the moral law," might +well be the motto of Mr. Froude's history. But I believe Mr. Froude to +be utterly incapable of any misrepresentation or distortion of facts, +any conscious coloring of the truth. Indeed, I am rather impressed by +the extraordinary boldness with which he often gives the naked facts, +and still calmly upholds a theory which to ordinary minds would seem +absolutely incompatible with their existence. It appears to be enough if +he once makes up his mind to dislike a personage or a race. Let the +facts be as they may, Mr. Froude will still explain them to the +discredit of the object of his antipathy. His mode of dealing with the +characters and actions of those he detests, might remind one of the +manner in which the discontented subjects of the perplexed prince in +"Rabagas" explain every act of their good-natured ruler: "Je donne un +bal--luxe effréné! Pas de bal--quelle avarice! Je passe une +revue--intimidation militaire! Je n'en passe pas--je crains l'esprit des +troupes! Des pétards à ma fête--l'argent du peuple en fumée! Pas de +pétards--rien pour les plaisirs du peuple! Je me porte bien--l'oisivite! +Je me porte mal--la débauche! Je bâtis--gaspillage! Je ne bâtis pas--et +le prolétaire?" + +However that may be, it is certain that the "History" placed Mr. Froude +in the very front rank of English authors. He had made a path for +himself. He refused to accept the thought of what is commonly called a +science of history, although his own method of evolving his narrative is +very often in faithful conformity with the principles of that science. +He had written about political economy, in the very opening of his first +volume, in a manner which, if it did not imply an actual contempt for +the doctrines of that science, yet certainly showed an impatience of its +rule which aroused the anger of the economists. He claimed a reversal of +the universal decision of modern history as to the character of Henry +VIII. He assailed one of the English Protestant's articles of faith when +he denied the virtue of Anne Boleyn. He made mistakes and confessed +them, and went to work again. The opening of the Spanish archives in the +castle of Simancas flooded him with new lights and required a +reconstruction of much that he had done. The progress of his work became +one of the literary phenomena of the age. All eyes were on it. The rich +romantic splendor of the style, the singular power and impressiveness of +the historical portraits, fascinated everybody. Orthodox Protestants +looked on him as a sort of infidel or pagan, despite his admiration for +Queen Bess, because, with all his admiration, he exposed her meannesses +and her falsehoods with unsparing hand. Catholics insisted on regarding +him as a mere bigot of Protestantism, although he condemned Anne Boleyn. +Mr. Froude has always shown a remarkable freedom from prejudice and +bigotry. Some of his closest friends are Catholics and Irishmen. I +remember a little personal instance of liberality on his part which is +perhaps worth mentioning. There was an official in the Record or State +Paper Office of England who had become a Roman Catholic, and was, like +most English Catholics, especially if converts, rather bigoted and +zealous. This gentleman, Mr. Turnbull, happened to be employed some +years ago in arranging, copying, and calendaring the Elizabethan State +papers. The Evangelical Alliance Society got up a cry against him. They +insisted that to employ a Roman Catholic in such a task was only to +place in his hands the means of falsifying a most important period of +English history, and they argued that the temptation would be too strong +for any man like Mr. Turnbull to resist. There sprang up one of those +painful and ignoble disputations which are even still only too common in +England when religious bigotry gets a chance of raising an alarm. I am +sorry to say that so influential a journal as the "Athenæum" joined in +the clamor for the dismissal of Mr. Turnbull, who was not accused of +having done anything wrong, but only of being placed in a position which +might perhaps tempt some base creatures to do wrong. Mr. Turnbull was a +gentleman of the highest honor, and, unfortunately for himself, an +enthusiast in the very work which then occupied him. Mr. Froude was then +engaged in studying the period of history which employed Mr. Turnbull's +labors. The opinions of the two men were utterly at variance. Mr. +Turnbull must have thought Froude's work in the rehabilitation of Henry +VIII., and the glorification of Elizabeth positively detestable. But Mr. +Froude bore public testimony to the honor and integrity of Mr. Turnbull. +"Mr. Turnbull," Froude wrote, "could have felt no sympathy with the work +in which I was engaged; but he spared no pains to be of use to me, and +in admitting me to a share of his private room enabled me to witness the +ability and integrity with which he discharged his own duties." Bigotry +prevailed, however. Mr. Turnbull was removed from his place, and died +soon after, disappointed and embittered. But Froude the man is not +Froude the author. The man is free from dislikes and prejudices; the +author can hardly take a pen in his hand without being suffused by +prejudices and dislikes. Take for example his way of dealing with Irish +questions, not merely in his history, but in his miscellaneous writings. +Mr. Froude has some little property in the west of Ireland, and resides +there for a short time every year. He has occasionally detailed his +experiences, and commented on them, in the pages of "Fraser." I shall +not give my own view of his apparent sentiments toward Ireland, because +I am obviously not an impartial judge; but I shall take the opinion of +the London "Spectator," which is. The "Spectator" declares that "it may +be not unfairly said that Mr. Froude simply loathes the Irish people; +not consciously perhaps, for he professes the reverse. But a certain +bitter grudge breaks out despite his will now and then. It colors all +his tropes. It adds a sting to the casual allusions of his language. +When he wants a figure of speech to express the relation between the two +islands, he compares the Irish to a kennel of fox-hounds, and the +English to their master, and declares that what the Irish want is a +master who knows that he is a master and means to continue master." In +his occasional studies of contemporary Ireland from the window of his +shooting lodge in Kerry, Mr. Froude exhibits the same strange mixture of +candor as to fact and blind prejudice as to conclusion which so oddly +characterizes his history. He recounts deliberately the most detestable +projects--he himself calls them "detestable;" the word is his, not +mine--avowed to him by the agents of great Irish landlords, and yet his +sympathy is wholly with the agents and against the occupiers. He tells +in one instance, with perfect delight, of a mean and vulgar exhibition +of triumphant malice which he says an agent, a friend of his, paraded +for the humiliation of an evicted and contumacious tenant. The +"Spectator" asks in wonder whether it can be possible that "Mr. Froude, +an English gentleman by birth and education, an Oxford fellow, is not +ashamed to relate this act as an heroic feat?" Indeed, Mr. Froude seems +to associate in Ireland only with the "agent" class, and to take all his +views of things from them. His testimony is therefore about as valuable +as that of a foreigner who twelve or fifteen years ago should have taken +his opinions as to slavery in the South from the judgment and +conversation of the plantation overseers. The "Spectator" observed, with +calm severity, that Mr. Fronde's unlucky accounts of his Irish +experiences were "a comical example of the way in which an acute and +profound mind can become dull to the sense of what is manly, just, and +generous, by the mere atmosphere of association." Let me say that I am +convinced, however, that all this blind and unmanly prejudice is purely +literary; that it is taken up and laid aside with the pen. As I have +already said, some of Mr. Froude's closest friends are Irishmen--men who +are incapable of associating with any one, however eminent, who really +felt the coarse and bitter hatred to their country which Mr. Froude in +his wilder moments allows his too fluent pen to express. In fact Mr. +Froude is nothing of a philosopher. He settles every question easily and +off hand by reference to what Stuart Mill well calls the resource of the +lazy--the theory of race. Celts are all wrong and Anglo-Saxons are all +right, and there is an end of it. If he has any philosophy and science +of history, it is this. It explains everything and reconciles all +seeming contradictions. Nothing can be at once more comprehensive and +more simple. But there is still something to be added to this story of +Mr. Froude's Irish experiences; and I mention the whole thing only to +illustrate the peculiar character of Mr. Froude's emotional temperament, +which so often renders him untrustworthy as a historian. In the +particular instance on which the "Spectator" commented, it turned out +that Mr. Froude was entirely mistaken. He had misunderstood from +beginning to end what his friend the agent told him. The agent, the +landlord (a peer of the realm), and others hastened to contradict the +historian. There never had been any such eviction or any such offensive +display. Mr. Froude himself wrote to acknowledge publicly that he had +been entirely mistaken. He seemed indeed to have always had some doubt +of the story he was publishing; for he sent a proof of the page to the +agent "to be corrected in case I had misunderstood him." But the agent's +alterations, "unluckily, did not reach me in time;" and as Mr. Froude +could not wait for the truth, he published the error. Thus indeed is +history written! This was Mr. Froude's published version of a statement +made _viva voce_ to himself; and his version was wrong in every +particular--in fact, in substance, in detail, in purport, in everything! +I venture to think that this little incident is eminently +characteristic, and throws a strong light on some of the errors of the +"History of England." + +Mr. Froude has taken little or no active part in English politics. I do +not remember his having made any sign of personal sympathy one way or +the other with any of the great domestic movements which have stirred +England in my time. I presume that he is what would be generally called +a Liberal; at least it is simply impossible that he could be a Tory. But +I doubt if he could very distinctly "place himself," as the American +phrase is, with regard to most of the political contentions of the time. +I cannot call Mr. Froude a philosophical Radical; for the idea which +that suggests is of a school of thought and a system of training quite +different from his, even if his tendencies could possibly be called +Radical. It is rather a pity that so much of the best and clearest +literary intellect of England should be so entirely withdrawn from the +practical study of contemporary politics. No sensible person could ask a +man like Mr. Froude to neglect his special work, that for which he has a +vocation and genius, for the business of political life. But perhaps a +better attempt might be made by him and others of our leading authors to +fulfil the conditions of the German proverb which recommends that the +one thing shall be done and the other not left undone. Mr. Froude has +taken a more marked interest in the quasi-political question lately +raised touching the connection between England and her colonies. Of +recent years a party has been growing up in England who advocate +emphatically the doctrine that the business of this country is to +educate her colonies for emancipation. These men believe that as time +goes on it will become more and more difficult to retain even a nominal +connection between distant colonies and the parent country. The Dominion +of Canada and the Australian colonies, both separated by oceans from +England, are now practically independent. They have their own +parliaments, and make their own laws; but England sends out a governor, +and the governor has still a nominal control indeed, which in some rare +cases he still exercises. Now what is to be the tendency of the future? +Will this practical independence tend to bind the colonial system more +strongly up into that of the central empire, as the practical +independence of the American or the Swiss States keeps them together? Or +is the time inevitable when the slight bond must be severed altogether +and the great colonies at last declare their independence? Would it, for +example, be possible always to maintain the American Union if several +thousand miles of ocean divided California in one direction from +Washington, and several thousand miles of another ocean lay between +Washington and the South? This is the sort of question political parties +in England have lately been asking themselves. One party, mainly under +an impulse once given by a chance alliance between the Manchester school +and Goldwin Smith, affirm boldly that ultimate separation is inevitable, +and that we ought to begin to prepare ourselves and the colonies for +it. This party made great way for awhile. They said loudly, they +announced as a principle, that which had been growing vaguely up in many +minds, and which one or two statesmen had long before put into actual +form. More than twelve years ago Mr. Gladstone delivered a lecture on +our colonial system which plainly pointed to this ultimate severance and +bade us prepare for it. Mr. Lowe, the present Chancellor of the +Exchequer, himself an old colonist, had talked somewhat cynically in the +same way. Mr. Bright was well known to favor the idea; so was Mr. Mill. +With the sudden and direct impulse given by Mr. Goldwin Smith, the +thought seemed to be catching fire. England had voluntarily given up the +Ionian Islands to Greece; there was talk of her restoring Gibraltar to +Spain. Mr. Lowe had spoken in the House of Commons with utter contempt +of those who thought it would be possible to hold Canada in the event of +a war with the United States. Governors of colonies actually began to +warn their population that the preparation for independence had better +begin. Suddenly a reaction set in. A class of writers and speakers came +up to the front who argued that the colonies were part of England's very +life system; that they were her friends, and might be her strength; that +it was only her fault if she had neglected them; and that the natural +tendency was to cohesion rather than dissolution. This party roused at +once the sympathy of that large class of people who, knowing and caring +nothing about the political and philosophical aspects of the question, +thought it somehow a degradation to England, a token of decay, a +confession of decrepitude, that there should be any talk of the +severance of her colonies. Between the two, the tide of separatist +feeling has decidedly been rolled back for the present. The humor of the +present day is to devise means--schemes of federation or federative +representation for example--whereby the colonies may still be kept in +cohesion with England. Now, among the men of intellect who have +stimulated and fostered this reactionary movement, if it be so--at all +events, this movement toward the retention of the colonies--Mr. Froude +has been a leading influence. He has advocated such a policy himself, +and he has instilled it into the minds of others. He has formed silently +a little school who take their doctrines from him and expand them. The +colonial question has become popular and powerful. We have every now and +then colonial conferences held in London, at which everybody who has any +manner of suggestion to make, or crotchet to air, touching the +improvement or development of our colonial system, goes and delivers his +speech independently of everybody else. In the House of Commons the +party is not yet very strong; but if it had a leader there, it would +undoubtedly be powerful. There is even already a visible anxiety on the +part of cabinet ministers to drop all allusion to the fact that they +once talked of preparing the colonies for independence. We now find that +it is regarded as unpatriotic, un-English, ungrateful, and I know not +what, to say a word about a possible severance, at any time, between the +parent country and her colonies. In one of Mr. Disraeli's novels a +political party, hard up for a captivating and popular watchword, is +thrown into ecstasies when somebody invents the cry of "Our young Queen +and our old Constitution." I think the cry of "Our young colonies and +our old Constitution" would be almost as taking now. It is curious, +however, to note how both the movement and the reaction came from +scholars and literary men--not from politicians or journalists. Many +eminent men had talked of gradually preparing the colonies for +independence; but the talk never became an impulse and a political +movement until it came from Mr. Goldwin Smith. On the other hand, +countless vociferous persons had always been bawling out that England +must never part with a rock on which her flag had waved; but all this +sort of thing had no effect until Mr. Froude and his school inaugurated +the definite movement of reaction. Mr. Goldwin Smith sent the ball +flying so far in one direction, that it seemed almost certain to reach +the limit of the field. Mr. Froude suddenly caught it and sent it flying +back the way it had come, and beyond the hand which had originally +driven it forth. It is not often that the ideas of "literary" men have +so much of positive influence over practical controversy in England. + +For a long time Mr. Froude has been the editor of "Fraser's Magazine," a +periodical which I need not say holds a high position, and to which the +editor has contributed some of the finest of his shorter writings. He is +assisted in the work of editing by Mr. William Allingham, who is best +known as a young poet of great promise, and who is probably the closest +personal friend of Alfred Tennyson. "Fraser's" is always ready to open +its columns to merit of any kind, and is willing to put before the +public bold and original views of many political questions which other +periodicals would shrink from admitting. As a rule English magazines, +even when they acknowledge a dash of the philosophic in them, are very +reluctant to give a place to opinions, however honestly entertained, +which differ in any marked degree from those of society at large. The +"Fortnightly Review" may be almost regarded as unique in its principle +of admitting any expression of opinion which has genuineness and value +in it, without regard to its accordance with public sentiment, or even +to its inherent soundness. "Fraser," of course, makes no pretension to +such deliberate boldness. But "Fraser" will now and then venture to put +in an article, even from an uninfluential hand, which goes directly in +the teeth of accepted and orthodox political opinion. For example, it is +not many months since it published an article written by an English +working man ("The Journeyman Engineer," a sort of celebrity in his way) +to prove that republicanism is becoming the creed of the English +artisan. Now, in any English magazine which professes to be respectable, +it is almost as hazardous a thing to speak of republicanism in England +as to speak of something indecent or blasphemous. "Fraser" also made +itself conspicuous some years ago as a bold and persevering advocate of +army reform, and ventured to press certain schemes of change which then +seemed either revolutionary or impossible, but which since then have +been quietly realized. + +I think I have given a tolerably accurate estimate of Mr. Froude's +public work in England. I have never heard him make a speech or deliver +a lecture, and therefore cannot conjecture how far he is likely to +impress an audience with the manner of his discourse; but the matter can +hardly fail to be suggestive, original, and striking. I can foresee +sharp controversy and broad differences of opinion arising out of his +lectures in the United States. I cannot imagine their being received +with indifference, or failing to hold the attention of the public. Mr. +Froude is a great literary man, if not strictly a great historian. Of +course every one must rate Froude's intellect very highly. He has +imagination; he has that sympathetic and dramatic instinct which enables +a man to enter into the emotions and motives, the likings and dislikings +of the people of a past age. His style is penetrating and thrilling; his +language often rises to the dignity of a poetic eloquence. The figures +he conjures up are always the semblances of real men and women. They are +never wax-work, or lay figures, or skeletons clothed in words, or purple +rags of description stuffed out with straw into an awkward likeness to +the human form. The one distinct impression we carry away from Froude's +history is that of the living reality of his figures. In Marlowe's +"Faustus" the Doctor conjures up for the amusement of the Emperor a +procession of stately and beautiful shadows to represent the great ones +of the past. When the shadows of Alexander the Great and his favorite +pass by, the Emperor can hardly restrain himself from rushing to clasp +the hero in his arms, and has to be reminded by the wizard that "these +are but shadows not substantial." Even then the Emperor can scarcely get +over his impression of their reality, for he cries: + + + I have heard it said + That this fair lady, whilst she lived on earth, + Had on her neck a little wart or mole; + + +and lo! there is the mark on the neck of the beautiful form which floats +across his field of vision. Mr. Froude's shadows are like this: so +deceptive, so seemingly vital and real; with the beauty and the blot +alike conspicuous; with the pride and passion of the hero, and the +heroine's white neck and the wart on it. Mr. Froude's whole soul, in +fact, is in the human beings whom he meets as he unfolds his narrative. +He is not an historical romancist, as some of his critics have called +him. He is a romantic or heroic portrait painter. He has painted +pictures on his pages which may almost compare with those of Titian. +Their glances follow you and haunt you like the wonderful eyes of Cæsar +Borgia or the soul-piercing resignation of Beatrice Cenci. But is Mr. +Froude a great historian? Despite this splendid faculty, nay, perhaps +because of this, he wants the one great and essential quality of the +true historian, accuracy. He wants altogether the cold, patient, stern +quality which clings to facts--the scientific faculty. His narrative +never stands out in that "dry light" which Bacon so commends, the light +of undistorted and clear Truth. The temptations to the man with a gift +of heroic portrait-painting are too great for Mr. Froude's resistance. +His genius carries him away and becomes his master. When Titian was +painting his Cæsar Borgia, is it not conceivable that his imagination +may have been positively inflamed by the contrast between the physical +beauty and the moral guilt of the man, and have unconsciously heightened +the contrast by making the pride and passion lower more darkly, the +superb brilliancy of the eyes burn more radiantly than might have been +seen in real life? The world would take little account even if it were +to know that some of the portraits it admires were thus idealized by the +genius of the painter; but the historian who is thus led away is open to +a graver charge. It seems to me impossible to doubt that Mr. Froude has +more than once been thus ensnared by his own special gift. What is there +in literature more powerful, more picturesque, more complete and +dramatic than Froude's portrait of Mary Queen of Scots? It stands out +and glows and darkens with all the glare and gloom of a living form, +that now appears in sun and now in shadow. It is almost as perfect and +as impressive as any Titian. But can any reasonable person doubt that +the picture on the whole is a dramatic and not an historical study? +Without going into any controversy as to disputed facts--nay, admitting +for the sake of argument that Mary was as guilty as Mr. Froude would +make her--as guilty, I mean, in act and deed--yet it is impossible to +contend with any show of reason that the being he has painted for us is +the Mary of history and of life. To us his Mary now is a reality. We are +distinctly acquainted with her; we see her and can follow her movements. +But she is a fable and might be an impossibility for all that. The poets +have made many physical impossibilities real for us and familiar to us. +The form and being of a mermaid are not one whit less clear and distinct +to us than the form and being of a living woman. If any of us were to +see a painting of a mermaid with scales upon her neck, or with feet, he +would resent it or laugh at it as an inaccuracy, just as if he saw some +gross anatomical blunder in a picture of an ordinary man or woman. Mr. +Froude has created a Mary Queen of Scots as the poets and painters have +created a mermaid. He has made her one of the most imposing figures in +our modern literature, to which indeed she is an important addition. So +of his Queen Elizabeth; so, to a lesser extent, of his Henry VIII., +because, although there he may have gone even further away from history, +yet I think he was misled rather by his anxiety to prove a theory than +by the fascination of a picture growing under his own hands. Everything +becomes for the hour subordinate to this passion for the picturesque in +good or evil. Mr. Froude's personal integrity and candor are constantly +coming into contradiction with this artistic temptation; but the +portrait goes on all the same. He is too honest and candid to conceal or +pervert any fact that he knows. He tells everything frankly, but +continues his portrait. It may be that the very vices which constitute +the gloom and horror of this portrait suddenly prove their existence in +the character of the person who was chosen to illustrate the brightness +and glory of human nature. Mr. Froude is not abashed. He frankly states +the facts; shows how, in this or that instance, Truth did tell shocking +lies, Mercy ordered several massacres, and Virtue fell into the ways of +Messalina. But the portraits of Truth, Mercy, and Virtue remain as +radiant as ever. A lover of art, according to a story in the memoirs of +Canova, was so struck with admiration of that sculptor's Venus that he +begged to be allowed to see the model. The artist gratified him; but so +far from beholding a very goddess of beauty in the flesh, he only saw a +well-made, rather coarse-looking woman. The sculptor, seeing his +disappointment, explained to him that the hand and eye of the artist, as +they work, can gradually and almost imperceptibly change the model from +that which it is in the flesh to that which it ought to be in the +marble. This is the process which is always going on with Mr. Froude +whenever he is at work upon some model in which for love or hate he +takes unusual interest. Therefore the historian is constantly involving +himself in a welter of inconsistencies and errors which affect the +artist in nowise. Henry is a hero on one page, although he does the very +thing which somebody else on the next page is a villain for even +attempting. Elizabeth remains a prodigy of wisdom and honesty, Mary a +marvel of genius, lust, cruelty, and falsehood, although in every other +chapter the author frankly accumulates instances which show that now and +then the parts seem to have been exchanged; and it often becomes as hard +to know, by any tangible evidence, which is truth and which falsehood, +which patriotism and which selfishness, as it was to distinguish the +true Florimel from the magical counterfeit in Spenser's "Faery Queen." + +This is a grave and a great fault; and unhappily it is one with which +Mr. Froude seems to have been thoroughly inoculated. It goes far to +justify the dull and literal old historians of the school of Dryasdust, +who, if they never quickened an event into life, never on the other hand +deluded the mind with phantoms. The chroniclers of mere facts and dates, +the old almanac-makers, are weary creatures; but one finds it hard to +condemn them to mere contempt when he sees how the vivid genius of a man +like Froude can lead him astray. Mr. Froude's finest gift is his +greatest defect for the special work he undertakes to do. A scholar, a +thinker, a man of high imagination, a man likewise of patient labor, he +is above all things a romantic portrait painter; and the spell by which +his works allure us is therefore the spell of the magician, not the +power of the calm and sober teacher. + + + + +SCIENCE AND ORTHODOXY IN ENGLAND. + + + "The old God is dead above, and the old Devil is dead below!" + + +So sang Heinrich Heine in one of his peculiarly cheerful moods; and I do +not know that any words could paint a more complete picture of the utter +collapse and ruin of old theologies and time-honored faiths and +superstitions. Irreverent and even impious as the words will perhaps +appear to most minds, it is probable that not a few of those who would +be most likely to shudder at their audacity are beginning to think with +horror that the condition of things described by the cynical poet is +being rapidly brought about by the doings of modern science. Many an +English country clergyman, many an earnest and pious Dissenter, must +have felt that a new and awful era had arrived--that a modern war of +Titans against Heaven was going on, when such discourses as Professor +Huxley's famous Protoplasm lecture could be delivered by a man of the +highest reputation, and could be received by nearly all the world with, +at least, a respectful consideration. In fact, the delivery of such +discourses does indicate a quite new ordeal for old-fashioned orthodoxy, +and an ordeal which seems to me far severer than any through which it +has yet passed. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of +the struggle which is now openly carried on between Science and Orthodox +Theology. I need hardly say perhaps that I utterly repudiate the use of +any such absurd and unmeaning language as that which speaks of a +controversy between science and religion. One might as well talk of a +conflict between fact and truth; or between truth and virtue. But +orthodox theology in England, whether it be right or wrong, is certainly +a very different thing from religion. Were it wholly and eternally true +it could still only bear the same relation to religion that geography +bears to the earth, astronomy to the sidereal system, the words +describing to the thing described. I may therefore hope not to be at +once set down as an irreligious person, merely because I venture to +describe the war indirectly waged against orthodox theology, by a new +school of English scientific men, as the severest trial that system has +ever yet had to encounter, and one through which it can hardly by any +possibility pass wholly unscathed. + +In describing briefly and generally this new school of English science, +and some of its leading scholars, I should say that I do so merely from +the outside. I am not a scientific man professionally; and, even as an +amateur, can only pretend to very slight attainment. But I have been on +the scene of controversy, have looked over the field, and studied the +bearing of the leading combatants. When Cressida had seen the chiefs of +the Trojan army pass before her and had each pointed out to her and +described, she could probably have told a stranger something worth his +listening to, although she knew nothing of the great art of war. Only on +something of the same ground do I venture to ask for any attention from +American readers, when I say something about the class of scientific men +who have recently sprung up in England, and of whom one of the most +distinguished and one of the most aggressive has just been elected +President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. + +This school is peculiarly English. So far as I know, it owes nothing +directly and distinctly to the intellectual initiative of any other +country. Both in metaphysical and in practical science there has been a +sudden and powerful awakening, or perhaps I should say _renaissance_, +in England lately. Three or four years ago Stuart Mill wrote that the +sceptre of psychology had again passed over to England; and it seems to +me not too much to say that England now likewise holds the sceptre of +natural science. It is evident to every one that the leaders of this new +school stand in antagonism which is decided, if not direct, to the +teachings of orthodox theology. + +The recent election of Professor Huxley as President of the British +Association was accepted universally as a triumph over the orthodox +party. Professor Owen, who undoubtedly possesses one of the broadest and +keenest scientific intellects of the age, has lately been pushed aside +and has fallen into something like comparative obscurity because he +could not, or would not, see his way into the dangerous fields opened up +by his younger and bolder rivals. Professor Owen held on as long as ever +he could to orthodoxy. He made heavy intellectual sacrifices at its +altar. I do not quite know whether in the end it was he who first gave +the cold shoulder to orthodoxy, or orthodoxy which first repudiated him. +But it is certain that he no longer stands out conspicuous and ardent as +the great opponent of Darwin and Huxley. He has, in fact, receded so +much from his old ground that one finds it difficult now to know where +to place him; and perhaps it will be better to regard him as out of the +controversy altogether. If he had done less for orthodoxy, where his +labors were vain, he might have done much more for science, where his +toil would always have been fruitful. Undoubtedly, he is one of the +greatest naturalists since Cuvier; his contributions toward the facts +and data of science have been valuable beyond all estimation; his +practical labors in the British Museum would alone earn for him the +gratitude of all students. Owen is, or was, to my mind, the very +perfection of a scientific lecturer. The easy flow of simple, expressive +language, the luminous arrangement and style which made the profoundest +exposition intelligible, the captivating variety of illustration, the +clear, well-modulated voice, the self-possessed and graceful manner--all +these were attributes which made Owen a delightful lecturer, although he +put forward no pretensions to rhetorical skill or to eloquence of any +very high order. But while there can hardly have been any recent falling +off in Owen's intellectual powers, yet it is certain that he was more +thought of, that he occupied a higher place in the public esteem, some +half dozen years ago than he now does. I think there has been a general +impression of late years that in the controversy between theology and +science, Owen was not to be relied upon implicitly. People thought that +he was trying to sit on the two stools; to run with the theological +hare, and hold with the scientific hounds. Indeed, Owen is eminently a +respectable, a courtly _savant_. He does not love to run tilt against +the prevailing opinion of the influential classes, or to forfeit the +confidence and esteem of "society." He loves--so people say--the company +of the titled and the great, and prefers, perhaps, to walk with Sir Duke +than with humble Sir Scholar. All things considered, we may regard him +as out of the present controversy, and, perhaps, as left behind by it +and by the opinions which have created it. The orthodox do not seem much +beholden to him. Only two or three years ago an orthodox association for +which Owen had delivered a scientific lecture, refused on theological +grounds to print the discourse in their regular volume. On the other +hand, the younger and more ardent _savans_ and scholars sneer at him, +and refuse to give him credit for sincerity at the expense of his +intelligence. They believe that if he chose to speak out, if he had the +courage of his opinions, he would say as they do. He has ceased to be +their opponent, but he is not upon their side; he is no longer the +champion of pure orthodoxy, but he has never pronounced openly against +it. Flippant people allude to him as an old fogy; let us say more +decently that Richard Owen already belongs to the past. + +"Free-thinking" has never been in England a very formidable rival of +orthodox theology. Perhaps there is something in the practical nature of +the average English mind which makes it indifferent and apathetic to +mere speculation. The ordinary Englishmen understands being a Churchman +or a Dissenter, a Roman Catholic or a no-Popery man; but he hardly +understands how people can be got to concern themselves with mere +sceptical speculation. Writings like those of Rousseau, for example, +never could have produced in England anything like the effect they +wrought in France. Of late years the effects of "free-thinking" (I am +using the phrase merely in the vulgar sense) have been poor, feeble and +uninfluential--wholly indeed without influence over the educated classes +of society. A certain limited and transient influence was once +maintained over a small surface of society by the speeches and the +writings of George Jacob Holyoake. Holyoake avowed himself an Atheist, +conducted a paper called (I think) "The Reasoner," was prosecuted under +the terms of a foolish and discreditable act of Parliament, and had for +a time something of notoriety and popular power. But Holyoake, a man of +pure character and gentle manners, is devoid of anything like commanding +ability, has no gleam of oratorical power, and is intellectually +unreliable and vacillating. Under no conceivable circumstances could he +exercise any strong or permanent control over the mind or the heart of +an age: and he has of late somewhat modified his opinions, and has +greatly altered his sphere of action, preferring to be a political and +social reformer in a small and modest way to the barren task of +endeavoring to uproot religious belief by arguments evolved from the +depth of the moral consciousness. Holyoake, the Atheist, may therefore +be said to have faded away. + +His old place has lately been taken by a noisier, more egotistic and +robust sort of person, a young man named Bradlaugh, who at one time +dubbed himself "Iconoclast," and, bearing that ambitious title, used to +harangue knots of working men in the North of England with the most +audacious of free-thinking rhetoric. Bradlaugh has a certain kind of +brassy, stentorian eloquence and a degree of reckless self conceit which +almost amount to a conquering quality. But he has no intellectual +capacity sufficient to make a deep mark on the mind of any section of +society and he never attempts, so far as I know, any other than the old, +time-worn arguments against orthodoxy with which the world has been +wearily familiar since the days of Voltaire. Indeed, a man who gravely +undertakes to prove by argument that there is no God, places himself at +once in so anomalous, paradoxical and ridiculous a position that it is a +marvel the absurdity of the situation does not strike his own mind. A +man who starts with the reasonable assumption that belief is a matter of +evidence and then goes on to argue that a Being does not exist of whose +non-existence he can upon his own ground and pleading know absolutely +nothing, is not likely to be very formidable to any of his antagonists. +Orthodox theologians, therefore, are little concerned about men like +Bradlaugh--very often perhaps are ignorant of the existence of any such. + +I only mention Holyoake and Bradlaugh at all because they are the only +prominent agitators of this kind who have appeared in England during my +time. I do not mean to speak disparagingly of either man. Both have +considerable abilities; both are, I am sure, sincere and honest. I have +never heard anything to the disparagement of Bradlaugh's character. +Holyoake I know personally, and esteem highly. But their influence has +been insignificant, and cannot have any long duration. I only speak of +it here to show how feeble has been the head made against orthodoxy in +England by professed infidelity in our time. There was, indeed, a book +written some years ago by a man of higher culture than Holyoake or +Bradlaugh, and which made a bubble or two of sensation at the time. I +mean "The Creed of Christendom," by William Rathbone Greg, a well-known +political and philosophical essayist, who wrote largely for the +"Edinburgh Review" and the "Westminster Review" and more lately for the +"Pall Mall Gazette," and has now a comfortable place under government. +But the "Creed of Christendom," though a clever book in its way, made no +abiding mark. It was read and liked by those whose opinions it +expressed, but I question if it ever made one single convert or +suggested a doubt to a truly orthodox mind. I mention it because it was +the only work of what is called a directly infidel character, not +pretending to a scientific basis, which was contributed to the +literature of English philosophy by a man of high culture and literary +reputation during my memory. It will be understood that I am speaking +now of works modeled after the old fashion of sceptical controversy, in +which the authors make it their avowed and main purpose to assail the +logical coherence and reasonableness of the Christian faith by arguments +which, sound or unsound, can be brought to no practical test and settled +by no possible decision. Such works may be influential among nations +which are addicted to or tolerant of mere religious speculation; it is +only a calling aloud to solitude to address them to the English public. +Even books of a very high intellectual class, such for example as +Strauss's "Life of Jesus," are translated into English in vain. They are +read and admired by those already prepared to admire and eager to read +them--the general public takes no heed of them. + +I have ventured into this digression in order to show the more clearly +how important must be the influence of that new school of science which +has aroused such a commotion among the devotees of English orthodoxy. +There is not, so far as I know, among the leading scientific men of the +new school one single professed infidel in the old fashioned sense. The +fundamental difference between them and the orthodox is that they insist +upon regarding all subjects coming within the scope of human knowledge +as open to inquiry and to be settled only upon evidence. I suppose a day +will come when people will wonder that a scientific man, living in the +England of the nineteenth century, could have been denounced from +pulpits because he claimed the right and the duty to follow out his +scientific investigations whithersoever they should lead him. Yet I am +not aware that anything more desperately infidel than this has ever been +urged by our modern English _savans_. + +Michel Chevalier tells a story of a French iconoclast of our own time +who devoted himself to a perpetual war against what he considered the +two worst superstitions of the age--belief in God and dislike of +spiders. This aggressive sage always carried about with him a golden box +filled with the pretty and favorite insects I have mentioned; and +whenever he happened to be introduced to any new acquaintance he +invariably plunged at once into the questions--"Do you believe in a God, +and are you afraid of spiders?"--and without waiting for an answer, he +instantly demonstrated his own superiority to at least one conventional +weakness by opening his box, taking out a spider, and swallowing it. I +think a good deal of the old-fashioned warfare against orthodoxy had +something of this spider-bolting aggressiveness about it. It assailed +men's dearest beliefs in the coarsest manner, and it had commonly only +horror and disgust for its reward. There is nothing of this spirit among +the leaders of English scientific philosophy to-day. Not merely are the +practically scientific men free from it, but even the men who are +called in a sort of a contemptuous tone "philosophers" are not to be +accused of it. Mill and Herbert Spencer have as little of it as Huxley +and Grove. Indeed the scientific men are nothing more or less than +earnest, patient, devoted inquirers, seeking out the truth fearlessly, +and resolute to follow wherever she invites. Whenever they have come +into open conflict with orthodoxy, it may be safely assumed that +orthodoxy threw the first stone. For orthodoxy, with a keen and just +instinct, detests these scientific men. The Low Church party, the great +mass of the Dissenting body (excluding, of course, Unitarians) have been +their uncompromising opponents. The High Church party, which, with all +its mediæval weaknesses and its spiritual reaction, does assuredly boast +among its leaders some high and noble intellects, and among all its +classes earnest, courageous minds, has, on the contrary, given, for the +most part, its confidence and its attention to the teachings of the +_savans_. We have the testimony of Professor Huxley himself to the fact +that the leading minds of the Roman Catholic Church do at least take +care that the teachings of the _savans_ shall be understood, and that +they shall be combated, if at all, on scientific and not on theological +grounds. + +No man is more disliked and dreaded by the orthodox than Thomas Huxley. +Darwin, who is really the _fons et origo_ of the present agitation, is +hardly more than a name to the outer world. He has written a book, and +that is all the public know about him. He never descends into the arena +of open controversy; we never read of him in the newspapers. I know of +no instance of a book so famous with an author so little known. Even +curiosity does not seem to concern itself about the individuality of +Darwin, whose book opened up a new era of controversy, spreading all +over the world, and was the sensation in England of many successive +seasons. Herbert Spencer, indeed, has lived for a long time hardly +noticed or known by the average English public. But then none of +Spencer's books ever created the slightest sensation among that public, +and three out of every four Englishmen never heard of the man or the +books. Herbert Spencer is infinitely better known in the United States +than he is in England, although I am far from admitting that he is +better appreciated even here than by those of his countrymen who are at +all acquainted with his masterly, his unsurpassed, contributions to the +philosophy of the world. The singular fact about Darwin is that his book +was absolutely the rage in England; everybody was bound to read it or at +least to talk about it and pretend to have understood it. More +excitement was aroused by it than even by Buckle's "History of +Civilization;" it fluttered the petticoats in the drawing-room as much +as the surplices in the pulpit; it occupied alike the attention of the +scholar and the fribble, the divine and the schoolgirl. Yet the author +kept himself in complete seclusion, and, for some mysterious reason or +other, public curiosity never seemed disposed to persecute him. +Therefore the theologians seem to have regarded him as the poet does the +cuckoo, rather as a voice in the air than as a living creature; and they +have not poured out much of their anger upon him personally. But Huxley +comes down into the arena of public controversy and is a familiar and +formidable figure there. Wherever there is strife there is Huxley. Years +ago he came into the field almost unknown like the Disinherited Knight +in Scott's immortal romance; and, while the good-natured spectators were +urging him to turn the blunt end of the lance against the shield of the +least formidable opponent, he dashed with splendid recklessness, and +with spearpoint forward, against the buckler of Richard Owen himself, +the most renowned of the naturalists of England. Indeed Huxley has the +soul and spirit of a gallant controversialist. He has many times warned +the orthodox champions that if they play at bowls they must expect +rubbers; and once in the fight he never spares. He has a happy gift of +shrewd sense and sarcasm combined; and, indeed, I know no man who can +exhibit a sophism as a sophism and hold it up to contempt and laughter +more clearly and effectively in a single sentence of exhaustive satire. + +It would be wrong to regard Huxley merely as a scientific man. He is +likewise a literary man, a writer. What he writes would be worth reading +for its style and its expression alone, were it of no scientific +authority; whereas we all know perfectly well that scientific men +generally are read only for the sake of what they teach, and not at all +because of their manner of teaching it--rather indeed despite of their +manner of teaching it. Huxley is a fascinating writer, and has a happy +way of pressing continually into the service of strictly scientific +exposition illustrations caught from literature and art--even from +popular and light literature. He has a gift in this way which somewhat +resembles that possessed by a very different man belonging to a very +different class--I mean Robert Lowe, the present English Chancellor of +the Exchequer, who owes the greater part of his rhetorical success to +the prodigality of varied illustration with which he illumines his +speeches, and which catches, at this point or that, the attention of +every kind of listener. Huxley seems to understand clearly that you can +never make scientific doctrines really powerful while you are content +with the ear of strictly scientific men. He cultivates, therefore, +sedulously and successfully, the literary art of expression. A London +friend of mine, who has had long experience in the editing of high-class +periodicals, is in the habit of affirming humorously that the teachers +of the public are divided into two classes: those who know something and +cannot write, and those who know nothing and can write. Every literary +man, especially every editor, will cordially agree with me that at the +heart of this humorous extravagance is a solid kernel of truth. Now, +scientific men very often belong to the class of those who know +something, but cannot write. No one, however, could possibly confound +Thomas Huxley with the band of those to whom the gift of expression is +denied. He is a vivid, forcible, fascinating writer. His style as a +lecturer is one which, for me at least, has a special charm. It is, +indeed, devoid of any effort at rhetorical eloquence; but it has all the +eloquence which is born of the union of profound thought with simple +expression and luminous diction. There is not much of the poetic, +certainly, about him; only the occasional dramatic vividness of his +illustrations suggests the existence in him of any of the higher +imaginative qualities. I think there was something like a gleam of the +poetic in the half melancholy half humorous introduction of Balzac's +famous "Peau de Chagrin," into the Protoplasm lecture. But Huxley as a +rule treads only the firm earth, and deliberately, perhaps scornfully, +rejects any attempts and aspirings after the clouds. His mind is in this +way far more rigidly practical than that even of Richard Owen. He is +never eloquent in the sense in which Humboldt for example was so often +eloquent. Being a politician, I may be excused for borrowing an +illustration from the political arena, and saying that Huxley's +eloquence is like that of Cobden; it is eloquence only because it is so +simply and tersely truthful. The whole tone of his mind, the whole +tendency of his philosophy, may be observed to have this character of +quiet, fearless, and practical truthfulness. No seeker after truth could +be more earnest, more patient, more disinterested. "Dry light," as Bacon +calls it--light uncolored by prejudice, undimmed by illusion, +undistorted by interposing obstacle--is all that Huxley desires to have. +He puts no bound to the range of human inquiry. Wherever man may look, +there let him look earnestly and without fear. Truth is always naked +and not ashamed. The modest, self-denying profession of Lessing that he +wanted not the whole truth, and only asked to be allowed the pleasing +toil of investigation, must be almost unintelligible to a student like +Huxley; and indeed is only to be understood by any active inquirer, on +condition that he bears in mind the healthy and racy delight which the +mere labor of intellectual research gave to Lessing's vigorous and +elastic mind. No subject is sacred to Huxley; because with him truth is +more sacred than any sphere of inquiry. I suppose the true and pure +knight would have fearlessly penetrated any shrine in his quest of the +Holy Grail. + +Professor Huxley's nature seems to me to have been cast in a finer mould +than that of Professor Tyndall, for example. Decidedly, Tyndall is a man +of great ability and earnestness. He has done, perhaps, more practical +work in science than Huxley has; he has written more; he sometimes +writes more eloquently. But he wants, to my thinking, that pure and +colorless impartiality of inquiry and judgment which is Huxley's +distinguishing characteristic. There is a certain coarseness of +materialism about Tyndall; there is a vehement and almost an arrogant +aggressiveness in him which must interfere with the clearness of his +views. He assails the orthodox with the temper of a Hot Gospeller. +Perhaps his Irish nature is partly accountable for this warm and eager +combativeness: perhaps his having sat so devotedly at the feet of his +friend, the great apostle of force, Thomas Carlyle, may help to explain +the unsparing vigor of his controversial style. However that may be, +Tyndall is assuredly one of the most impatient of sages, one of the most +intolerant of philosophers. If I have compared Huxley to the pure +devoted knight riding patiently in search of the Holy Grail, I may, +perhaps, liken Tyndall to the ardent champion who ranges the world, +fiercely defying to mortal combat any and every one who will not +instantly admit that the warrior's lady-love is the most beautiful and +perfect of created beings. His temper does unquestionably tend to weaken +Tyndall's authority. You may trust him implicitly where it is only a +question of a glacial theory or an atmospheric condition; but you must +follow the Carlylean philosopher very cautiously indeed where he +undertakes to instruct you on the subject of races. The negro, for +example, conquers Tyndall altogether. The philosopher loses his temper +and forgets his science the moment he comes to examine poor black +Sambo's woolly skull, and remembers that there are sane and educated +white people who maintain that the owner of the skull is a man and a +brother. In debates which cannot be settled by dry science, Huxley's +sympathies almost invariably guide him right: Tyndall's almost +invariably set him wrong. During the American Civil war, Huxley, like +Sir Charles Lyell and some other eminent scientific men, sympathized +with the cause of the North: Tyndall, on the other hand, was an eager +partisan of the South. A still more decisive test severed the two men +more widely apart. The story of the Jamaica massacre divided all England +into two fierce and hostile camps. I am not going to weary my readers +with any repetition of this often-told and horrible story. Enough to say +that the whole question at issue in England in relation to the Jamaica +tragedies was whether the belief that a negro insurrection is impending +justifies white residents in flogging and hanging as many negro men and +women, unarmed and unresisting, as they can find time to flog and hang, +without any ceremony of trial, evidence, or even inquiry. I do not +exaggerate or misstate. The ground taken by the advocates of the Jamaica +military measures was that although no insurrection was going on yet +there was reasonable ground to believe an insurrection impending; and +that therefore the white residents were justified in anticipating and +crushing the movement by the putting to death of every person, man or +woman, who could be supposed likely to have any part in it. Of course I +need hardly tell the student of history that this is exactly the ground +which was taken up, and with far greater plausibility and better excuse, +by the promoters of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. They said: "We +have evidence, and are convinced, that these Huguenots are plotting +against us. If we do not put them down, they will put us down. Let us be +first at the work and crush them." The Jamaica question then raised a +bitter controversy in England. Naturally, John Bright and Stuart Mill +and Goldwin Smith took one side of it: Thomas Carlyle and Charles +Kingsley and John Ruskin the other. That was to be expected: any one +could have told it beforehand. But the occasion brought out men who had +never taken part in political controversy before: and then you saw at +once what kind of hearts and sympathies these new agitators had. Herbert +Spencer emerged for the first time in his life, so far as I know, from +the rigid seclusion of a silent student's career, and appeared in public +as an active, hard-working member of a political organization. The +American Civil War had drawn Mill for the first time into the public +arena of politics; the Jamaica massacre made a political agitator of +Herbert Spencer. The noble human sympathies of Spencer, his austere and +uncompromising love of justice, his instinctive detestation of brute, +blind, despotic force, compelled him to come out from his seclusion and +join those who protested against the lawless and senseless massacre of +the wretched blacks of Jamaica. So, too, with Huxley, who, if he did not +take part in a political organization, yet lent the weight of his +influence and the vigor of his pen to add to the force of the protest. +During the whole of that prolonged season of incessant and active +controversy, with the keenest intellects and the sharpest tongues in +England employing themselves eagerly on either side, I can recall to +mind nothing which, for justice, sound sense, high principle, and +exquisite briefness of pungent sarcasm, equaled one of Huxley's letters +on the subject to the "Pall Mall Gazette." The mind which was not +touched by the force of that incomparable mixture of satire and sense +would surely have remained untouched though one rose from the dead. The +delicious gravity with which Huxley accepted all the positions of his +opponents, assumed the propositions about the high character of the +Jamaica governor and the white residents, and the immorality of poor +Gordon and the negroes, and then reduced the case of the advocates of +the massacre to "the right of all virtuous persons, as such, to put to +death all vicious persons, as such," was almost worthy of Swift himself. + +On the other hand, Professor Tyndall plunged eagerly into the +controversy as a defender of the policy and the people by whose +authority the massacre was carried on. I do not suppose he made any +inquiry into the facts--nothing of his that I read or heard of led me to +suppose that he had; but he went off on his Carlylean theory about +governing minds, and superior races, and the right of strong men, and +all the rest of the nonsense which Carlyle once made fascinating, and +his imitators have lately made vulgar. I think I am not doing Tyndall an +injustice when I regard him as a less austere and trustworthy follower +of the pure truth than Huxley. In fact Tyndall is a born +controversialist. Some orthodox person once extracted from Huxley, or +from some of his writings, the admission that "the truth of the miracles +was all a question of evidence," and seemed to think he had got hold of +a great concession therein. Possibly the admission was made in the +spirit of sarcasm, but it none the less expressed a belief and +illustrated a temper profoundly characteristic of Thomas Huxley. With +him everything is a question of evidence; nothing is to be settled by +faith or by preliminary assumption. I am convinced that if you could +prove by sufficient evidence the truth of every miracle recorded in +Butler's "Lives of the Saints," Professor Huxley would bow resignedly, +and accept the truth--wanting only the truth, whatever it might be. But +I think Tyndall would rage and chafe a great deal, and I suspect that he +would use a good many hard words against his opponents before he +submitted to acknowledge aloud the defeat which his inner consciousness +already admitted. And yet I think it would be at least as difficult to +convince Huxley as it would be to convince Tyndall that Saint Denis +walked with his head under his arm, or that Saint Januarius (was it not +he?) crossed the sea on his cloak for a raft. + +I do not know whether it comes strictly within the scope of this essay +to say much about Herbert Spencer, who is rather what people call a +philosopher than a professionally scientific man. But assuredly no +living thinker has done more to undermine orthodoxy than the author of +"First Principles." I have already said that Spencer is much more widely +known in this country than in England. During the first few weeks of my +sojourn in the United States I heard more inquiries and more talk about +Spencer than about almost any other Englishman living. Spencer's whole +life, his pure, rigorous, anchorite-like devotion to knowledge, is +indeed a wonderful phenomenon in an age like the present. He has labored +for the love of labor and for the good it does to the world, almost +absolutely without reward. I presume that as paying speculations Herbert +Spencer's works would be hopeless failures; and yet they have influenced +the thought of the whole thinking world, and will probably grow and grow +in power as the years go on. It is, I suppose, no new or unseemly +revelation to say that Spencer has lived for the most part a life of +poverty as well as of seclusion. He is a sensitive, silent, self-reliant +man, endowed with a pure passion for knowledge, and the quickest, +keenest love of justice and right. There is something indeed quite +Quixotic, in the better sense, about the utterly disinterested and +self-forgetting eagerness with which Herbert Spencer will set himself to +see right done, even in the most trivial of cases. Little, commonplace, +trifling instances of unfairness or injustice, such as most of us may +observe every day, and which even the most benevolent of us will think +himself warranted in passing by, on his way to his own work, without +interference, will summon into activity--into positively unresting +eagerness--all the sympathies and energies of Herbert Spencer, nor will +the great student of life's ultimate principles return to his own high +pursuits until he has obtained for the poor sempstress restitution of +the over-fare exacted by the extortionate omnibus-conductor, or seen +that the policeman on duty is not too rough in his entreatment of the +little captured pickpocket. As one man has an unappeasable passion for +pictures, and another for horses, so Herbert Spencer has a passion for +justice. All this does not appear on first, or casual, acquaintance; but +I have heard many striking, and some very whimsical, illustrations of it +given by friends who know Spencer far better than I do. Indeed I should +say that there are few men of great intellect and character who reveal +themselves so little to the ordinary observer as Herbert Spencer does. +His face is, above all things, commonplace. There is nothing whatever +remarkable, nothing attractive, nothing repelling, nothing particularly +unattractive, about him. Honest, homespun, prosaic respectability seems +to be his principal characteristic. In casual and ordinary conversation +he does not impress one in the least. Almost all men of well-earned +distinction seem to have, above all things, a strongly-marked +individuality. You meet a man of this class casually; you have no idea +who he is; perhaps you do not even discover, have not an opportunity of +discovering, that he is a man of genius or intellect; but you do almost +invariably find yourself impressed with a strong individual +influence--the man seems to be somebody--he is not just like any other +man. To take illustrations familiar to most of us--observe what a +strongly-marked individuality Charles Dickens, John Bright, Disraeli, +Carlyle, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Salisbury have; what a strongly-marked +individuality Nathaniel Hawthorne had, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, +William Cullen Bryant, Horace Greeley have. Now, Herbert Spencer is the +very opposite of all this. All that Dr. Johnson said of Burke might be +conveniently reversed in the case of Spencer. The person sheltering +under the hedge, the ostler in the yard, might talk long enough with him +and never feel tempted to say when he had gone, "There has been a +remarkable man here." A London _litterateur_, who had long been a +devotee of Herbert Spencer, was induced some year or two back to go to a +large dinner-party by the assurance that Spencer was to be there and was +actually to have the chair next to his own at table. Our friend went, +was a little late, and found himself disappointed. Next to him on one +side was a man whom he knew and did not care about; on the other side, a +humdrum, elderly, respectable, commonplace personage. With this latter, +for want of a better, he talked. It was dull, commonplace, conventional +talk, good for nothing, meaning nothing. The dinner was nearly over when +our friend heard some one address his right-hand neighbor as "Spencer." +Amazed out of all decorum, he turned to the commonplace, dull-looking +individual, and broke out with the words "Why, you don't mean to say +that you are Herbert Spencer?" "Oh, yes," the other replied, as quietly +as ever, "I am Herbert Spencer." + +I have wandered a little from my path; let me return to it. My object is +to illustrate the remarkable and fundamental difference between the +nature of the antagonism which old-fashioned orthodoxy has to encounter +to-day, and that which used to be its principal assailant. The sceptic, +the metaphysician, the "infidel" have given way to the professional +_savant_. Nobody now-a-days would trouble himself to read Tom Paine; +hardly could even the scepticism of Hume or Gibbon attract much public +attention. Auguste Comte has been an influence because he endeavored to +construct as well as to destroy. I cannot speak of Comte without saying +that Professor Huxley seems to me grievously, and almost perversely, to +underrate the value of what Comte has done. Huxley has not, I fancy, +given much attention to historical study, and is therefore not so well +qualified to appreciate Comte as a much inferior man of a different +school might be. Moreover, Huxley appears to have a certain +professional, and I had almost said pedantic, contempt for anything +calling itself science which cannot be rated and registered in the +regular and practical way. To me Comte's one grand theory or discovery, +call it what you will, seems, whether true or untrue, as strictly a +question of science as anything coming under Huxley's own professional +cognizance. But I have already intimated that the character of Huxley's +intellect seems to me acute and penetrating, rather than broad and +comprehensive. Perhaps he is all the better fitted for the work he and +his compeers have undertaken to do. They have taken, in this regard, the +place of the Rousseaus and Diderots; of the much smaller Paines and +Carliles (please don't suppose I am alluding to Thomas Carlyle); of the +yet smaller Holyoakes and Bradlaughs. Those only attempted to destroy: +these seek to construct. Huxley and his brethren follow the advice which +is the moral and the sum of Goethe's "Faust"--they "grasp into the +present," and refuse to "send their thoughts wandering over eternities." +They honestly and fearlessly seek the pure truth, which surely must be +always saving. Let me say something more. This advance-guard of +scientific scholars alone express the common opinion of the educated and +free Englishmen of to-day. The English journals, I wish distinctly to +say, do not express it. They do not venture to express it. There is a +tacit understanding that although it would be too much to expect an +intelligent journalist to write up old-fashioned orthodoxy, yet at least +he is never to be allowed to write it down. It is not very long since +one of the most popular, successful and influential of London journals +sneered at the Parliamentary candidature of my friend, Professor +Fawcett, M. P., on the ground that he was a man who, as an advocate of +the Darwinian theory, admitted that his great-grandfather was a frog. +Yet I know that the journal which indulged in this vapid and vulgar +buffoonery is written for by scholars and men of ability. Now, this is +indeed an extreme and unusual instance of journalism, well cognizant of +better things, condescending to pander to the lowest and stupidest +prejudices. But the same kind of thing, although not the same thing, is +done by London journals every day. You cannot hope to get at the +religious views of cultivated and liberal-minded Englishmen through the +London papers. "The right sort of thing to say," is what the journalists +commit to print, whatever they may think, or know, or say as individuals +and in private. But the scientific men speak out. They, and I might +almost say they alone, have the courage of their opinions. What educated +people venture to believe, they venture to express. Nor do they keep +themselves to audiences of _savans_ and professors and the British +Association. Huxley delivers lectures to the working men of Southwark; +Carpenter undertook Sunday evening discourses in Bloomsbury; Tyndall, +with all the pugnacity of his country, is ready for a controversy +anywhere. Sometimes the duty and honor of maintaining the right of free +speech have been claimed by the journalists alone; sometimes, when even +the journals were silent, by the pulpit, by the bar, or by the stage. In +England to-day all men say aloud what they think on all great subjects +save one--and on that neither pulpit, press, bar nor stage cares to +speak the whole truth. The scientific men alone are bold enough to +declare it, as they are resolute to seek it. I think history will +hereafter contemplate this moral triumph as no less admirable, and no +less remarkable, than any of their mere material conquests. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Modern Leaders: Being a Series of +Biographical Sketches, by Justin McCarthy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN LEADERS *** + +***** This file should be named 39298-8.txt or 39298-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/2/9/39298/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Martin +Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned +images of public domain material from the Google Print +project.) + + +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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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/license + + +Title: Modern Leaders: Being a Series of Biographical Sketches + +Author: Justin McCarthy + +Release Date: March 30, 2012 [EBook #39298] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN LEADERS *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Martin +Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned +images of public domain material from the Google Print +project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<h1><span>MODERN LEADERS:<br /><br /><span class="smaller"><i>BEING A SERIES OF</i><br /><br />BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.</span></span><br /><span id="id1">By</span> <span>JUSTIN McCARTHY,</span></h1> + +<p class="center"><i>Author of "Lady Judith: A Tale of Two Continents," etc.</i></p> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p class="center">NEW YORK:<br />SHELDON & COMPANY,<br /> +677 BROADWAY and 214 and 216 MERCER STREET.<br />1872.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CONTENTS.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<table summary="CONTENTS"> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Queen Victoria and Her Subjects.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Real Louis Napoleon.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Eugenie, Empress of the French.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Prince of Wales.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The King of Prussia.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Victor Emanuel, King of Italy.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Louis Adolph Thiers.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Prince Napoleon.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Duke of Cambridge.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Brigham Young.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Liberal Triumvirate of England.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">English Positivists.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">English Toryism and its Leaders.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">"George Eliot" and George Lewes.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">George Sand.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_146">145</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Edward Bulwer and Lord Lytton.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Par Nobile Fratrum—The Two Newmans.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Archbishop Manning.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">John Ruskin.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Charles Reade.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Exile-World of London.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Reverend Charles Kingsley.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Mr. James Anthony Froude.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Science and Orthodoxy in England.</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>INTRODUCTION.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>The sketches which make up this volume are neither purely critical nor +merely biographical. They endeavor to give the American reader a clear +and just idea of each individual in his intellect, his character, his +place in politics, letters, and society. In some instances I have +written of friends whom I know personally and well; in others of men +with whom I have but slight acquaintance; in others still of persons +whom I have only seen. But in every instance those whom I describe are +persons whom I have been able to study on the spot, whose character and +doings I have heard commonly discussed by those who actually knew them. +In no case whatever are the opinions I have given drawn merely from +books and newspapers. This value, therefore, these essays may have to an +American, that they are not such descriptions as any of us might be +enabled to put into print by the mere help of study and reading; +descriptions for example such as one might make of Henry VIII. or +Voltaire. They are in every instance, even when intimate and direct +personal acquaintance least assist them, the result of close observation +and that appreciation of the originals which comes from habitual +intercourse with those who know them and submit them to constant +criticism.</p> + +<p>I have not made any alteration in the essays which were written some +years ago. Let them stand as portraits bearing that date. If 1872 has in +any instance changed the features and the fortunes of 1869 and 1870, it +cannot make untrue what then was true. What I wrote in 1869 of the +Prince of Wales, for example, will probably not wholly apply to the +Prince of Wales to-day. We all believe that he has lately changed for +the better. But what I wrote then I still believe was true then; and it +is a fair contribution to history, which does not consent to rub out +yesterday because of to-day. I wrote of a "Liberal Triumvirate" of +England when the phrase was an accurate expression. It would hardly be +accurate now. To-day Mr. Mill does not appear in political life and Mr. +Bright has been an exile, owing to his health, for nearly two years from +the scenes of parliamentary debate and triumph. But the portraits of the +men do not on that account need any change. Even where some reason has +been shown me for a modification of my own judgment I have still +preferred to leave the written letter as it is. A distinguished Italian +friend has impressed on me that King Victor Emanuel is personally a much +more ambitious man than I have painted him. My friend has had far better +opportunities of judging than I ever could have had; but I gave the best +opinion I could, and still holding to it prefer to let it stand, to be +taken for what it is worth.</p> + +<p>I think I may fairly claim to have anticipated in some of the political +sketches, that of Louis Napoleon, for instance, the judgment of events +and history, and the real strength of certain characters and +institutions.</p> + +<p>These sketches had a gratifying welcome from the American public as they +appeared in the "Galaxy." I hope they may be thought worth reading over +again and keeping in their collected form.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Justin McCarthy.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">48 Gower Street, Bedford Square, London</span>, July 31, 1872.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>QUEEN VICTORIA AND HER SUBJECTS.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>"And when you hear historians tell of thrones, and those who sat upon +them, let it be as men now gaze upon the mammoth's bones, and wonder +what old world such things could see."</p> + +<p>So sang Byron half a century ago, and great critics condemned his verse, +and called him a "surly Democrat" because he ventured to put such +sentiments and hopes into rhyme. The thrones of Europe have not +diminished in number since Byron's day, although they have changed and +rechanged their occupants; and the one only grand effort at the +establishment of a new Republic—that of France in 1848—went down into +dust and ashes. Naturally, therefore, the tendency in Europe is to +regard the monarchical principle as having received a new lease and +charter of life, and to talk of the republican principle as an exotic +forced for a moment into a premature and morbid blossom upon European +soil, but as completely unsuited to the climate and the people as the +banyan or the cocoa tree.</p> + +<p>I do not, for myself, quite agree in this view of the aspect of affairs. +Of course, if one were inclined to discuss the question fairly, he must +begin by asking what people mean when they talk of the republican +principle. What is the republican principle? When you talk of a +Republic, do you mean an aggressive, conquering, domineering State, +ruled by faction and living on war, like the Commonwealth of Rome? or a +Republic like that planned by Washington, which should repudiate all +concern in foreign politics or foreign conquest? Do you mean a Federal +Republic, like that of the United States, or one with a centralized +power, like the French Republic of 1848? Do you mean a Republic like +that of Florence, in which the people were omnipotent, or a Republic +like that of Venice, in which the people had no power at all? Do you +mean a Republic like that of Switzerland, in which the President is next +to nobody, or a Republic like that of Poland, which was ornamented by a +King? In truth, the phrase "republican principle" has no set meaning. It +means just what the man who uses it wishes to express. If, however, we +understand it to mean, in this instance, the principle of popular +self-government, then it is obvious that Europe has made immense +progress in that direction since Byron raged against the crimes of +Kings. If it means the opposite to the principle of Divine Right or +Legitimacy, or even personal loyalty—loyalty of the old-time, +chivalric, enthusiastic fashion—then it must be owned that it shows all +over Europe the mark of equal progress. The ancient, romantic, +sentimental loyalty; the loyalty which reverenced the Sovereign and was +proud to abase itself before him; the loyalty of the Cavaliers; the +loyalty which went wild over "Oh, Richard! Oh, mon Roi!" is dead and +gone—its relics a thing to be stared at, and wondered over, and +preserved for a landmark in the progress of the world—just like the +mammoth's bones.</p> + +<p>The model Monarchy of Europe is, beyond dispute, that of Great Britain. +In England there is an almost absolute self-government; the English +people can have anything whatever which they may want by insisting on it +and agitating a little for it. The Sovereign has long ceased to +interfere in the progress of national affairs. I can only recollect one +instance, during my observation, in which Queen Victoria put her veto on +a bill passed by Parliament, and that was on an occasion when it was +discovered, at the last moment, that the Lords and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> Commons had passed a +bill which had a dreadful technical blunder in it, and the only way out +of the difficulty was to beg of the Queen to refuse it her sanction, +which her Majesty did accordingly, and the blunder was set right in the +following session. If a Prime Minister were to announce to the House of +Commons, to-morrow, that the Queen had boxed his ears, it would not +create a whit more amazement than if he were to say, no matter in what +graceful and diplomatic periphrasis, that her Majesty was unwilling to +agree to some measure which her faithful Commons desired to see passed +into law.</p> + +<p>Nothing did Mr. Disraeli more harm, nothing brought greater contempt on +him than his silly attempts last session to induce the Commons to +believe, by vague insinuations and covert allusions, that the Queen had +a personal leaning toward his policy and himself. So long ago as the +time of the free trade struggle, the Tories, for all their hereditary +loyalty, complained of and protested against the silent presence of +Prince Albert in the Peers' gallery of the House of Commons, on the +ground that it was an attempt to influence the Parliament improperly, +and to interfere with the freedom of debate. No one has anything to say +against the Queen which carries any weight or is worth listening to. She +is undoubtedly a woman of virtue and good sense. So good a woman, I +venture to think, never before reigned over any people, and that she is +not a great woman, an Elizabeth, a Catherine of Russia, or even an +Isabella of Castile, is surely rather to the advantage than otherwise of +the monarchical institution in its present stage of existence. Here, +then, one might think, if anywhere and ever, the principle of personal +loyalty has a fair chance and a full justification. A man might +vindicate his loyalty to Queen Victoria in the name of liberty itself; +nay, he might justify it by an appeal to the very principle of +democracy. Yet one must be blind, who, living in England and willing to +observe, does not see that the old, devoted spirit of personal loyalty +is dead and buried. It is gone! it is a memory! You may sing a poetic +lament for it if you will, as Schiller did for the gods of Hellas; you +may break into passionate rhetoric, if you can, over its extinction, as +Burke did for the death of the age of Chivalry. It is gone, and I firmly +believe it can never be revived or restored.</p> + +<p>I do not mean to say that there are many persons in England who feel any +strong objection to the Monarchy, or warmly desire to see a Republic +substituted for it. I know in England several theoretical +republicans—they are to be met with in almost any company. I have never +met with any one Englishman living in England, who showed any anxious, +active interest in the abolition of the Monarchy. I do not know any one +who objects to drink the usual loyal toasts at a public dinner, or +betrays any conscientious reluctance to listen to the unmeaning eulogy +which it is the stereotyped fashion for the chairman of every such +banquet to heap on "Her Majesty and the rest of the Royal Family." But +this sort of thing, if it ever had any practical meaning, has now none. +It has reached that stage at which profession and practice are always +understood to be quite different things. Every one says at church that +he is a miserable sinner; no one is supposed really to believe anything +of the sort. Every one has some time or other likened women to angels, +but we are not therefore supposed seriously to ignore the fact that +women wear flannel petticoats, and have their faults, and are mortal. So +of loyal professions in England now. They are understood to be phrases, +like "Your obedient servant," at the bottom of a letter. They do not +suggest hypocrisy or pretence of any kind. There is apparently no more +inconsistency now in a man's loyally drinking the health of the Queen, +and proceeding immediately after (in private conversation) to abuse or +ridicule<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> her and her family, than there would be in the same man +beginning with "Dear Sir," a missive to one whom he notoriously +dislikes. Every one who has been lately in London must have heard an +immense amount of scandal, or at all events of flippant joking at the +expense of the Queen herself; and of more serious complaint and distrust +as regards the Prince of Wales. Yet the virtues of the Queen, and the +noble qualities of the Prince of Wales are panegyrized and toasted, and +hurrah'd at every public dinner where Englishmen gather together.</p> + +<p>The very virtues of Queen Victoria have contributed materially toward +the extinction of the old-fashioned sentiment of living, active loyalty. +The English people had from the time at least of Anne to our own day a +succession of bad princes. Only a race patient as Issachar could have +endured such a line of sovereigns as George II., George III., and George +IV. Then came William IV., who being a little less stupidly obstinate +than George III., and not so grossly corrupt as George IV., was hailed +for a while as the Patriot King by a people who were only too anxious +not to lose all their hereditary and traditional veneration. Do what +they would, however, the English nation could not get into any sincere +transports of admiration about the Patriot King; and they soon found +that any popular reform worth having was to be got rather in spite of +the Patriot King, than by virtue of any wisdom or patriotism in the +monarch. Great popular demonstrations and tumults, and threats of +marching on London; and O'Connell meetings at Charing Cross, with +significant allusion by the great demagogue to the King who lost his +head at Whitehall hard by; the hanging out of the black flag at +Manchester, and a general movement of brickbats everywhere—these seem +to have been justly regarded as the persuasive influences which +converted a Sovereign into the Patriot King and a Reformer. Loyalty did +not gain much by the reforms of that reign. Then followed the young +Victoria; and enthusiasm for a while wakened up fresh and genuine over +the ascension of the comely and simple-hearted girl, who was so frank +and winning; who ran down stairs in her night-dress, rather than keep +her venerable councillors waiting when they sought her out at midnight; +who openly acknowledged her true love for her cousin, and offered him +her hand; who was at once queenly and maidenly, innocent and fearless.</p> + +<p>But this sort of thing did not last very long. Prince Albert was never +popular. He was cold; people said he was stingy; his very virtues, and +they were genuine, were not such as anybody, except his wife and family, +warmly admires in a man; he was indeed misunderstood, or at all events +misprized in England, up to the close of his life. Then the gates of the +convent, so to speak, closed over the Queen, and royalty ceased to be an +animating presence in England.</p> + +<p>The young men and women of to-day—persons who have not passed the age +of twenty-one—can hardly remember to have ever seen the Sovereign. She +is to them what the Mikado is to his people. Seven years of absolute +seclusion on the part of a monarch must in any case be a sad trial to +personal loyalty, at least in the royal capital. A considerable and an +influential section of Queen Victoria's subjects in the metropolis have +long been very angry with their Sovereign. The tailors, the milliners, +the dressmakers, the jewellers, the perfumers, all the shopkeepers of +the West End who make profit out of court dinners and balls and +presentations, are furious at the royal seclusion which they believe has +injured their business. So, too, are the aristocratic residents of the +West End, who do not care much about a court which no longer contributes +to their season's gayety. So, too, are all the flunkey class generally. +Now, I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> sure there are no three sections of the population of London +more influential in the spreading of scandal and the nursing of this +discontent than the shopkeepers, the aristocrats, and the flunkeys of +the West End. These are actively and demonstratively dissatisfied with +the Queen. These it is who spread dirty scandals about her, and laugh +over vile lampoons and caricatures of which she is the object.</p> + +<p>Every one knows that there is a low, mean scandal afloat about the +Queen—and it is spread by the clubs, the drawing-rooms, the shops, and +the servants'-halls of the West End. I am convinced that not one of +those who spread the scandal really believes it; but they like to spread +it because they dislike the Queen. There can be no doubt, however, that +much dissatisfaction at the Queen's long seclusion is felt by persons +who are incapable of harboring any motives so mean or spreading any +calumnies so unworthy. Most of the London papers have always found fault +rather sharply and not over decently with the royal retirement. Mr. +Ayrton, representative of the Tower Hamlets—the largest constituency in +England—openly expressed this sentiment at a public meeting; and though +his remarks were at once replied to and condemned by Mr. Bright, they +met with a more or less cordial response from most of his audience.</p> + +<p>There is or was in the House of Commons (the general election has got +happily rid of him), a foolish person named Reardon, a Piccadilly +auctioneer, who became, by what we call in England "a fluke," a member +of the House of Commons. This person moved last session a resolution, or +something of the kind, calling on the Queen to abdicate. The thing was +laughed down—poor Mr. Reardon's previous career had been so absurd that +anything coming from him would have been hooted; and the House of +Commons is fiercely intolerant of "bores" and men with crotchets. But I +have reason to believe that Mr. Reardon's luckless project was concocted +by a delegation of London tradesmen, and had the sympathy of the whole +class; and I know that many members of the House which hooted and +laughed him down had in private over and over again grumbled at the +Queen's retirement, and declared that she ought to abdicate.</p> + +<p>"What on earth does it matter," I asked of a member of Parliament—one +of the most accomplished scholars and sharp logicians in the +House—"What on earth does it matter whether or not the Queen gives a +few balls to a few thousand West End people in the season? How can +rational people care, one way or the other?" "My dear fellow," was the +answer, "<i>I</i> don't care; but all that sort of thing is her business, and +she is paid to do it, and she ought to do it. If she were a washerwoman +with a family, she would have to do her work, no matter what her grief." +Now this gentleman—who is utterly above any sympathy with scandal or +with the lackey-like grumblings of the West End—did, undoubtedly, +express fairly enough a growing mood of the public dissatisfaction.</p> + +<p>Beyond all this, however, is the fact that people—the working-class +especially—are beginning to ask whether we really want a Sovereign at +all, seeing that we get on just as well during the eclipse of royalty as +in its brightest meridian splendor. This question is being very often +put; and it is probably more often thought over than put into words. Now +I think nothing worse could possibly happen to royalty in England than +that people should begin quietly to ask whether there really is any use +in it. If there is a bad King or Queen, people can get or look for, or +hope and pray for a good one; and the abuse of the throne will not be +accounted a sufficient argument against the use of it. But how will it +be when the subjects begin to find that during the reign of one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> the +best sovereigns possible to have, they can get on perfectly well +although the monarch is in absolute seclusion?</p> + +<p>George IV. was an argument against bad kings only—Queen Victoria may +come to be accepted as an illustration of the uselessness of the very +best kind of Sovereign. I think King Log was much better calculated to +do harm to the institution of royalty than King Stork, although the +frogs might have regretted the placid reign of the former when the +latter was gobbling up their best and fattest.</p> + +<p>Decidedly the people of England are learning of the Queen how to do +without royalty. A small section of her subjects are angry with her and +bitter of heart against her; a much larger number find they can do +perfectly well without her; a larger number still have forgotten her. On +a memorable occasion Prince Albert declared that constitutional +government was on its trial in England. The phrase, like many that came +from the same well-meaning lips, was unlucky. Constitutional government +was not upon its trial then; but Monarchy is upon its trial now.</p> + +<p>Do I mean to say that Great Britain is on the verge of a revolution; +that the dynasty is about to be overthrown; that a new Cromwell is to +make his appearance? By no means. It does not follow that even if the +English people were to be convinced to-morrow of the absolute +uselessness of a throne, and a sovereignty, they would therefore proceed +to establish a republic. No people under the sun are more strongly +governed by tradition and "the majesty of custom" than the English. +Cobden used to say that they had a Chinese objection to change of any +kind. The Lord Mayor's show, long threatened, and for a while partially +obscured, has come out again in full gingerbread. There is a functionary +who appears every night at the door of the House of Commons just at the +moment when the sitting is formally declared to be over, and bawls out +to the emptying benches the resonant question, "Who's for home?" I +believe the practice originated at a time when Westminster was +unpeopled, and midnight roads were dangerous, and members were glad to +make up parties to travel home together; and, so a functionary was +appointed to issue stentorian appeal to all who were thus willing to +combine their strength and journey safely in company. The need of such +an arrangement has, I need hardly say, passed away these many +generations; but the usage exists. It oppresses no one to have the +formal call thundered out; the thing has got to be a regular +performance; it is part of the whole business and system; nobody wants +it, but nobody heeds it or objects to it, and the functionary appears +every night of every session and shouts his invitation to companionship +as regularly as if the Mohocks were in possession of Charing Cross, and +Claude Duval were coming full trot along Piccadilly.</p> + +<p>Now, this may be taken as a sort of illustration of the manner in which +the English people are naturally inclined to deal with any institutions +which are merely useless, and have the recommendation of old age and +long descent. The ordinary Englishman to-day would find it hard to bring +up before his mind's eye a picture of an England without a Sovereign. If +it were made fully plain to him, and thoroughly impressed upon his mind +that he could do just as well without a Sovereign as with, and even that +Monarchy never could possibly be of use to him any more, I think he +would endure it and pay its cost, and drink its health loyally for all +time, providing Monarchy did nothing outrageously wrong; or +provided—which is more to my present purpose—that no other changes of +a remarkable nature occurred in the meantime to remove ancient +landmarks, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> disturb the basis of his old institutions and to prepare +him for a new order of things. This is indeed the point I wish to +discuss just now. I have explained what I believe to be the depth and +strength and meaning of the average Englishman's loyal feelings to his +Sovereign at the present moment. I should like to consider next how that +feeling will, in all probability, be affected by the changes in the +English political system, which seem inevitable, and by the accession, +or expected accession, of a new Sovereign to the throne.</p> + +<p>England has, just now, something very nearly approaching to manhood +suffrage; and to manhood suffrage it will probably come before long. The +ballot will, doubtless, be introduced. The Irish Church is as good as +dead. I cannot doubt that the English State Church will, ultimately, and +before very long, succumb to the same fate. Not that this logically or +politically follows as a matter of necessity; and nothing could be more +unwise in the interest of their own cause than the persistency with +which the Tories keep insisting that the doom of the one is involved in +the doom of the other. The Irish Church is the foreign church of a +miserably small minority; the English Establishment is the Church of the +majority, and is an institution belonging to the soil. The very +principle which maintains the English Church ought of right to condemn +the Irish Church. But it is the fact that an agitation more influential +than it seemed to the careless spectator, has long been going on in +England for the abolition of the State Church system altogether; and +there can be no doubt that the fate of the Irish Establishment will lend +immense courage and force to that agitation. Revolutionary movements are +always contagious in their nature, and the movement against the Irish +Church is in the strictest sense revolutionary. The Dutch or the Scotch +would have carried such a movement to triumph across rivers of blood if +it were needful; and no man of spirit could say that the end would not +be worth the cost. I assume, then, that the overthrow of the Irish +Church will inflame to iconoclastic fervor the movement of the English +Dissenters against all Church establishments. I do not stop just now to +inquire whether the movement is likely to be successful or how long it +may take to accomplish the object. To me, it seems beyond doubt that it +must succeed; but I do not care to assume even that for the purpose of +my present argument. I only ask my readers to consider the condition of +things which will exist in England when a movement resting on a suffrage +which is almost universal, a movement which will have already overthrown +one State Church within Great Britain, proceeds openly and exultingly to +attack the English Church itself, within its own dominions. I ask +whether it is likely that the institution which is supposed to be bound +up inseparably with that Church, the Monarchy which is based upon, and +exists by virtue of religious ascendency, is likely to escape all +question during such a struggle, and after it? The State Church and the +Aristocracy, if they cannot always be called bulwarks of the throne, are +yet so completely associated with it in the public mind that it is hard +even to think of the one without the others, and yet harder to think of +the one as existing serene and uninjured after the decay or demolition +of the others.</p> + +<p>Now, the Aristocracy have, as Mr. Bright put it so truly and so +effectively the other day, already capitulated. They have given up all +notion of any longer making the laws of the country in the interest of +their own class. One of the first things the Reformed Parliament will +do, when it has breathing-time to think about such matters, will be to +abolish the purchase system in the army, and throw open promotion to +merit, without reference to class. The diplomatic service, that other +great stronghold of the Aristocracy, will be thoroughly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>reorganized and +made a real, useful department, doing solid work, and open to talent of +whatever caste; or it will be abolished altogether. Something will have +to be done with the House of Lords. It, too, must be made a reality, or +dismissed into the land of shadows and the past. Efforts at reforming +it, while it stands on its present basis, are futile. Its existence is, +in its present form, the one great objection to it.</p> + +<p>The good-natured, officious Lord Shaftesbury went to work, a few months +ago, to prepare a scheme of reform for the House of Lords, in order to +anticipate and conciliate the popular movement which he expected. He +could think of nothing better than a recommendation that the House +should meet an hour earlier every evening, in order, by throwing more +time on their hands, to induce the younger Peers to get up debates and +take part in them. This, however, is not precisely the kind of reform +the country will ask for when it has leisure to turn its attention to +the subject. It will ask for some reorganization which shall either +abolish or reduce to a comparative nothing the hereditary legislating +principle on which the House of Lords now rests. A set of law-makers or +law-marrers intrusted with power only because they are born to titles, +is an absurd anomaly, which never could exist in company with popular +suffrage. "Hereditary law-makers!" exclaimed Franklin. "You might as +well talk of hereditary mathematicians!" Franklin expressed exactly what +the feeling of the common sense of England is likely to be when the +question comes to be raised. I expect then, not that the House of Lords +will be abolished, but that the rule of the hereditary principle will be +brought to an end—that the Aristocracy there, too, will have to +capitulate.</p> + +<p>Now, I doubt whether an American reader can have any accurate idea, +unless he has specially studied the matter and watched its practical +operation in England, of the manner in which the influence of the Peers +makes itself felt through the political life of Great Britain. Americans +often have some kind of notion that the Aristocracy govern the country +directly and despotically, with the high hand of imperious feudalism. +There is nothing of the kind in reality. The House of Lords is, as a +piece of political machinery, almost inoperative—as nearly as possible +harmless. No English Peer, Lord Derby alone excepted, has anything like +the political authority and direct influence of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. +Disraeli, or Mr. Bright. There are very few Peers, indeed, about whose +political utterances anybody in the country cares three straws. But, on +the other hand, the traditional <i>prestige</i> of the Peers, the tacit, +time-honored, generally-conceded doctrine that a Peer has first right to +everything—the mediæval superstition tolerated largely in our own time, +which allows a sort of divinity to hedge a Peer—all this has an +indirect, immense, pervading, almost universal influence in the +practical working of English politics. The Peers have, in fact, a +political <i>droit du seigneur</i> in England. They have first taste of every +privilege, first choice of every appointment. Political office is their +pasture, where they are privileged to feed at will. There does not now +exist a man in England likely to receive high office, who would be bold +enough to suggest the forming of a Cabinet without Peers in it, even +though there were no Peers to be had who possessed the slightest +qualification for any ministerial position. The Peers must have a +certain number of places, because they are Peers. The House of Commons +swarms with the sons and nephews of Peers. The household appointments, +the ministerial offices, the good places in the army and the church are +theirs when they choose—and they generally do choose—to have them. The +son of a Peer, if in the House of Commons, may be raised at one step<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +from his place in the back benches to a seat in the Cabinet, simply +because of his rank. When Earl Russell, two or three years ago, raised +Mr. Goschen, one of the representatives of the city of London and a +partner in a great London banking-house, to a place in the Cabinet, the +whole country wondered: a very few, who were not frightened out of their +propriety, admired; some thought the world must be coming to an end. But +when the Marquis of Hartington was suddenly picked out of West End +dissipation and made War Secretary, nobody expressed the least wonder, +for he was the heir of the House of Devonshire. Indeed, it was perfectly +notorious that the young Marquis was presented to office, in the first +instance, because it was hoped by his friends that official duties might +wean him from the follies and frivolities of a more than ordinarily +heedless youth. Sir Robert Peel the present, the <i>magni nominis umbra</i>, +is not, of course, in the strict sense, an aristocrat; but he is mixed +up with aristocrats, and is the son of a Peer-maker, and may be regarded +as claiming and having the privileges of the class. Sir Robert Peel was +presented with the First Secretaryship as something to play with, +because his aristocratic friends, the ladies especially, thought he +would be more likely to sow his wild oats if he were beguiled by the +semblance of official business. A commoner must, in fact, be supposed to +have some qualification for office before he is invited to fill a +ministerial place. No qualification is believed necessary for the near +relative or connection of a Peer. Even in the most favorable examples of +Peers who are regular occupants of office, no special fitness is assumed +or pretended. No one supposes or says that Lord Clarendon, or Lord +Granville, or Lord Malmesbury has any particular qualification which +entitles him, above all other men, to this or that ministerial place. +Yet it must be a man of bold imagination indeed, who could now conceive +the possibility of a British Cabinet without one of these noblemen +having a place in it.</p> + +<p>All this comes, as I have said, out of a lingering superstition—the +faith in the divine right of Peers. Now, a reform in the constitution of +the Upper House, which should purge it of the hereditary principle, +would be the first great blow to this superstition. Julius Cæsar, in one +of his voyages of conquest, was much perplexed by the priests, who +insisted that he had better go back because the sacred chickens would +not eat. At last he thought the time had come to prove his independence +of the sacred chickens, "If they will not eat," he said, "then let them +drink"—and he flung the consecrated fowls into the sea; and the +expedition went on triumphantly, and the Roman soldiers learned that +they could do without the sacred chickens. I think a somewhat similar +sensation will come over all classes of the English people when they +find that the hereditary right to make laws is taken from the English +Peerage. I do not doubt that the whole fabric of superstition will +presently collapse, and that the privilege of the Peer will cease to be +anything more than that degree of superior influence which wealth and +social rank can generally command, even in the most democratic +communities. The law which gives impulse and support to the custom of +primogeniture is certain to go, and with it another prop of the mediæval +superstition. The Peerage capitulates, in fact—no more expressive word +can be found to describe the situation.</p> + +<p>Now, in all this, I have been foreshadowing no scheme of wild, vague, +far-distant reform. I appeal to any one, Liberal or Tory, who is +practically acquainted with English politics, to say whether these are +not changes he confidently or timidly looks to see accomplished before +long in England. I have not spoken of any reform which is not part of +the actual accepted programme of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> Radical party. To the reform of +the House of Lords, of the military and diplomatic service; to abolition +of the law of primogeniture, the whole body of the Liberals stands +pledged; and Mr. Bright very recently renewed the pledges in a manner +and with an emphasis which showed that change of circumstances has made +no change in his opinions, brought no faltering in his resolution. The +abolition of the English Church is not, indeed, thus openly sought by so +powerful a party; but it is ostentatiously aimed at by that solid, +compact, pertinacious body of Dissenters who, after so long a struggle, +succeeded at last in getting rid of Church rates; and the movement will +go on with a rush after the fall of the Irish establishment. Here then +we have, in the not distant future, a prospect of an England without a +privileged Aristocracy, and with the State Church principle called into +final question. I return to my first consideration—the consideration +which is the subject of this paper—how will this affect the great +aristocratic, feudal and hierarchical institution of England, the Throne +of the Monarch?</p> + +<p>The Throne then will stand naked and alone, stripped of its old-time and +traditional surroundings and associations. It cannot be like that of +France, the throne of a Cæsar, a despotic institution claiming to +exercise its despotism over the people by virtue of the will and +delegated power of the people. The English Crown never can be an active +governing power. It will be the last idol in the invaded sanctuary. It +will stand alone, among the pedestals from which popular reform has +swept the embodied superstitions which were its long companions. It must +live, if at all, on the old affection or the toleration which springs +out of custom and habit. This affection, or at least this toleration, +may always be looked upon as a powerful influence in England. One can +hardly imagine, for instance, anything occurring in our day to dethrone +the Queen. However one class may grumble and another class may gibe, the +force of habit and old affection would, in this instance, prove +omnipotent. But, suppose the Prince of Wales should turn out an +unpopular and ill-conditioned ruler? Suppose he should prove to be a man +of low tastes, of vulgar and spendthrift habits, a maladroit and +intermeddling king? He is not very popular in England, even now, and he +is either one of the most unjustly entreated men living, or he has +defects which even the excuse of youth can scarcely gloss over.</p> + +<p>An illustrated weekly paper in London forced itself lately into a sudden +notoriety by publishing a finely-drawn cartoon, in which the Prince of +Wales, dressed as Hamlet, was represented as breaking away from the +restraining arms of John Bull as Horatio, and public opinion as +Marcellus, and rushing after a ghost which bore the form and features of +George IV., while underneath were inscribed the words, "Lead on; I'll +follow thee!" This was a bold and bitter lampoon; I am far from saying +that it was not unjust, but I believe it can hardly be doubted that the +Prince of Wales has, as yet, shown little inclination to imitate the +example or cultivate the tastes of his pure-minded and intellectual +father. Now suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Prince of Wales +should turn out a George IV., or suppose, and which would be far worse +from a national point of view, he or his son should turn out a George +III. And suppose further that, about the same time any great crisis +should arise in England—suppose the country entangled in a great +foreign war, or disturbed by some momentous domestic agitation—can any +one doubt that the Crown, in its then isolated condition, would be +really in danger?</p> + +<p>We must remember, when the strength of English institutions is boasted, +that they have not, since 1815, stood any strain which could fairly be +called <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>critical. England has never had her national strength, her +political position, or even her <i>prestige</i> seriously imperilled since +that time. Even the Indian war could not be called a great supreme +trial, such as other nations have lately had to bear. No one, even for a +moment, could have doubted how that struggle would end. It was bitter, +it was bloody; but the life of the nation was not staked upon it, even +had its issue been uncertain; and its issue never was uncertain. It +would be superfluous to say that England has passed through no ordeal +like that to which the United States were lately subjected. She has not +even had to confront anything like the crisis which Prussia voluntarily +invited, which Austria had to meet, in 1866. It will be time to consider +English feudal institutions, or what may remain of them, safe and +firmly-rooted, when they have stood the worst result of such a crisis as +that, and not been shaken down.</p> + +<p>What I contend is that there is nothing in the present condition of the +English public mind, and nothing in the prospect of the immediate future +to warrant the almost universal assumption that the throne of England is +founded on a rock. The stupidity of loyalty, the devotion as of the +spaniel to his master, of the idolator to his god, is gone. I doubt if +there exists one man in England who feels the sentiment of loyalty as +his grandfather would have felt it. The mass of the people have learned +satisfactorily that a sovereign is not a part of the necessary machinery +of the government. The great problem which the Duke of Wellington used +to present for solution—"How is the Queen's Government to be carried +on?" has been solved in one and an unexpected sense. It can be carried +on without a queen. Here then we have the institution proving itself +superfluous, and falling into public indifference at the very same +moment that some other institutions which seemed always involved with it +as its natural and necessary companions, are about to be broken to +pieces and thrown away. He must, indeed, be full of a verily +transcendental faith in the destinies and divinity of royalty who does +not admit that at least there is a time of ordeal awaiting it in +England, such as it has not encountered before during this century.</p> + +<p>To me it seems that the royal principle in England is threatened, not +with sudden and violent extinction, but with death by decay. I do not +expect any change of any kind to-morrow or the day after, or even the +week after next. I do not care to dogmatize, or predict, or make guesses +of any kind. I quite agree with my friend Professor Thorold Rogers, that +an uninspired prophet is a fool. But I contend that as the evident signs +of the times now show themselves, the monarchical principle in England +does seem to be decaying; that the national faith which bore it up is +sorely shaken and almost gone, and that some of the political props +which most nearly supported it are already being cut away. There may, +indeed, be some hidden virtue in the principle, which shall develop +itself unexpectedly in the hour of danger, and give to the institution +that seemed moribund a new and splendid vitality. Such a phenomenon has +been manifested in the case of more than one institution that seemed on +the verge of ruin—it may be the fortunate destiny of British royalty. +But unless in the sudden and timely development of some such occult and +unlooked-for virtue, I do not see what is to preserve the monarchical +principle in England through the trials of the future.</p> + +<p>Let it be remembered, too, that the one great plea hitherto always made +in England for monarchy, is that it alone will work on a large scale. +"We admit," it was said, "that your republican theory looks better and +admits of more logical argument in its favor. But we are practical men, +and we find that our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> system, with all its theoretical disadvantages, +will work and stand a strain; and your republican theory, with all its +apparent advantages in logic, is not suited for this rough world. Our +machinery will stand the hardest trial; yours never did and never will. +Don't tell us about Switzerland. Switzerland is a little country. Kept +out of the stress and danger of European commotions, and protected by a +guarantee of the great powers, any constitution ought to work under such +advantages. But a great independent republic never did last; never did +stand a sudden strain, and never will." So people thought and argued in +England—even very intelligent people, until at last it became one of +the British Philistine's articles of faith, that the republican +principle never will work on a large scale. When Sir John Ramsden +declared in the House of Commons at the beginning of the American civil +war, that the republican bubble had burst, and all Philistinism in +Britain applauded the declaration, the plaudits were given not so much +because of any settled dislike Philistinism had to the United States, as +because Philistinism beheld what it believed to be a providential +testimony to its own wisdom and foresight. Since then Philistinism has +found that after all republicanism is able to bear a strain as great as +monarchy has ever yet borne, and can come out of the trial unharmed and +victorious.</p> + +<p>The lesson has sunk deeply. The mind of something better than +Philistinism has learned that republics can be made to work on a large +scale. I believe Mr. Gladstone is one of the eminent Englishmen who now +openly admit that they have learned from the American war something +which they did not know before, of the cohesiveness and durability of +the republican system. Up to the time of that war in fact, most +Englishmen, when they talked of republican principles, thought only of +French republicanism, and honestly regarded such a system as a brilliant +empty bubble, doomed to soar a little, and float, and dazzle, and then +to burst.</p> + +<p>That idea, it is quite safe to say, no longer exists in the English +mind. The fundamental, radical objection to republicanism—the objection +which, partly out of mere reaction and partly for more substantial +reasons, followed the brief and romantic enthusiasm of the days of +Fox—is gone. The practical Englishman admits that a republic is +practicable. Only those who know England can know what a change in +public opinion this is. It is, in fact, something like a revolution. I +think the most devoted monarchist will hardly deny that if some +extraordinary combination of chances (after all, even the British Throne +is but a human institution) were to disturb the succession of the house +of Brunswick, Englishmen would be more likely to try the republican +system than to hunt about for a new royal family, or endeavor to invent +a new scheme of monarchy. Here, then, I leave the subject. Take all this +into account, in considering the probabilities of the future, and then +say whether, even in the case of England, it is quite certain that +Byron's prediction is only the dream of a cynical poet, destined never +to be fulfilled among human realities.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>THE REAL LOUIS NAPOLEON.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>"How will it be with him," said Richard Cobden to a friend, one night, +as they spoke of a great and successful adventurer whom the friend was +striving to defend—"how will it be with him when life becomes all +retrospect?" The adventurer they spoke of was not Louis Napoleon; but +the inquiry might well apply just now to the Emperor of the French. Life +has reached that point with him when little more than retrospect can be +left. In the natural course of events, there can be no great triumphs +for Louis Napoleon still to achieve. Great blunders are possible, though +hardly probable; but the greatest of blunders would scarcely efface the +memory of the substantial triumphs. "Not heaven itself," exclaimed an +ambitious and profane statesman, "can undo the fact that I have been +three times Prime Minister." Well, the Fates—let them do their +best—can hardly undo the fact that the despised outcast of Constance, +and Augsburg, and London, and New York, whom Lord Palmerston excused +himself to Guizot for tolerating, on the ground that really nobody +minded the dull, harmless poor fellow; the Fates cannot undo the fact +that this man has elected himself Emperor of the French, has defeated +the Russians and the Austrians, and made a friend and ally of England.</p> + +<p>So much of the past, then, is secure; but there are hardly any triumphs +to be won in the future. If one may venture to predict anything, he may +venture to predict that the Emperor of the French will not live to be a +very old man. He has already led many lives—fast, hard, exhausting +lives, "that murder the youth in a man ere ever his heart has its will." +Exile, conspiracy, imprisonment, hard thinking, hard working, wild and +reckless dissipation, prolonged to the very outer verge of middle life, +the brain, the nerves, the muscles, the whole physical and mental +constitution always strained to the utmost—these are not the ways that +secure a long life. Louis Napoleon is already an "<i>abgelebter mann</i>"—an +outworn, used-up, played-out man. The friends and familiars with whom he +started in life are nearly all gone. Long since laid in earth is the +stout form of the wild Marquis of Waterford, who was a wonder to our +fathers (his successor to the title ran away with somebody's wife the +other day; and I thought Time had turned back by thirty years when I +read of the <i>escapade</i>, with the name, once so famous, of the principal +performer), and who rode by Louis Napoleon's side at the celebrated, +forgotten Eglintoun Tournament, and was, like Louis Napoleon, one of the +Knights Challengers in that piece of splendid foolery. Dead, lang syne, +is Eglintoun himself, the chivalrous Earl of the generous instincts and +the florid, rotund eloquence, reminding one of Bulwer Lytton diluted. I +do not know whether the Queen of Beauty of that grand joust is yet +living and looking on the earth; but if she be, she must be an embodied +sermon on the perishableness of earthly charms. De Morny is dead, the +devoted half-brother, son of Louis Napoleon's mother, the chaste +Hortense, and the Count de Flahault—De Morny, the brilliant, genial, +witty, reckless gambler in politics and finance, the man than whom +nobody ever, perhaps, was more faithful to friendship and false to +morality, more good-natured and unprincipled. I have seen tears in men's +eyes when De Morny died—in the eyes of men who owned all the time, +smiling through their tears like Andromache, that the lost patron and +friend was the most consummate of <i>roués</i> and blacklegs. Walewski is +dead—Walewski of romantic origin, born of the sudden episode of love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +between the great Napoleon and the Polish lady—Walewski, who, like +Prince Napoleon-Jerome, carried his pedigree stamped upon his +face—Walewski, the lover of Rachel, and, to do him justice, the steady +friend of Poland. Old Mocquard is gone, the faithful scribe and +confidant: he is dead, and the dramas he would persist in writing are +dead with him, nay, died even before him. I do not know whether the +faithful, devoted woman who worked for Louis Napoleon, and believed in +him when nobody else did; the woman to whose inspirings, exertions, and +ready money he owes, in great measure, the fact that he is now Emperor +of the French—I do not know whether this woman is alive or dead. I +think she is dead. Anyhow, I suppose the dignity of history, as the +phrase is, can hardly take account of her. She helped to make an +Emperor, and the Emperor, in return, made her a Countess; but then he +had to marry—and so we take leave of the woman who made the Emperor, +and do our homage to the woman who married him. All those are gone; and +St. Arnaud, of the stormy youth, and Pelissier, the bland, +sweet-tempered chevalier, who, getting into a dispute (on his way to be +governor of Algeria) with the principal official of a Spanish port, +invited that dignitary to salute a portion of the Pelissier person which +assuredly the foes of France were never allowed to see—all these are +gone, and many more, and only a very few, fast fading, of the old +friends and followers remain. Life to Louis Napoleon must now, indeed, +be nearly all retrospect. His career, his Imperial reign may be judged +even now as fairly and securely as as if his body had just been laid +beside that of his uncle, under the dome of the Invalides.</p> + +<p>Recent events seem specially to invite and authorize that judgment. +Within the past twelve months, the genuine character of Louis Napoleon +has displayed itself, strikingly, nakedly, in his policy. He has tried, +in succession, mild liberalism, severe despotism, reactionary +conservatism, antique Cæsarism, and then, in an apologetic, contrite +sort of way, a liberalism of a rather pronounced character. Every time +that he tried any new policy he was secretly intriguing with some other, +and making ready for the possible necessity of having to abandon the +former and take up with the latter. He was like the lady in "Le Diable +Boiteux," who, while openly coquetting with the young lover, slily gives +her hand behind her back to the old admirer. So far as the public could +judge, Louis Napoleon has, for many months back, been absolutely without +any settled policy whatever. He has been waiting for a wind. Such a +course is probably the safest a man in his position can take; but one +who, at a great crisis, cannot originate and initiate a policy, will not +be remembered among the grand rulers of the world. I do not remember any +greater evidence given in our time of absolute incapacity to seize a +plan of action and decide upon it, than was shown by the Emperor of the +French during the crisis of June and July. So feeble, so vague, halting, +vacillating was the whole course of the government, that many who detest +Louis Napoleon, but make it an article of faith that he is a sort of +all-seeing, omnipotent spirit of darkness, were forced to adopt a theory +that the riots in Paris and the provinces were deliberately got up by +the police agents of the Empire, for the purpose of frightening the +<i>bourgeois</i> class out of any possible hankering after democracy. No +doubt this idea was widely spread and eagerly accepted in Paris; and +there were many circumstances which seemed to justify it. But I do not +believe in any such Imperial stage-play. I fancy the riots surprised the +Government, first, by their sudden outburst, and next, by their sudden +collapse. Probably the Imperial authorities were very glad when the +disturbances began. They gave an excuse for harsh conduct, and they +seemed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> for the time, to put the Government in the right. They restored +Louis Napoleon at that moment, in the eyes of timid people, to that +position, as a supreme maintainer of order, which for some years he had +not had an opportunity effectively to occupy. But the obvious want of +stamina in the disturbing force soon took away from the Imperial +authorities this opportune <i>prestige</i>, and very little political capital +was secured for Imperialism out of the abortive barricades, and +incoherent brickbats, and effusive chantings of the "Marseillaise." In +truth, no one had anything else to offer just then in place of the +Empire. The little crisis was no test whatever of the Emperor's hold +over his people, or of his power to deal with a popular revolution. To +me it seems doubtful whether the elections brought out for certain any +fact with which the world might not already have been well acquainted, +except the bare fact that Orleanism has hardly any more of vitality in +it than Legitimacy. Rochefort, and not Prevost Paradol, is the typical +figure of the situation.</p> + +<p>The popularity and the success of Rochefort and his paper are remarkable +phenomena, but only remarkable in the old-fashioned manner of the straws +which show how the wind blows. Rochefort's success is due to the fact +that he had the good-fortune to begin ridiculing the Empire just at the +time when a general notion was spreading over France that the Empire of +late had been making itself ridiculous. Louis Napoleon had reached the +turning-point of his career—had reached and passed it. The country saw +now all that he could do. The bag of tricks was played out. The +anticlimax was reached at last.</p> + +<p>The culmen, the crisis, the turning-point of Louis Napoleon's career +seems to me to have been attained when, just before the outbreak of the +Schleswig-Holstein war—so small a war in itself, so fateful and +gigantic in its results—he appealed to the Emperors and Kings of +Europe, and proposed that the nations should hold a Congress, to settle, +once and forever, all pending disputes. I think the attitude of Louis +Napoleon at that moment was dignified, commanding, imperial. His +peculiar style, forcible, weighty, measured—I have heard it well +described as a "monumental" style—came out with great effect in the +language of the appeal. There was dignity, and grace, there was what +Edmund Burke so appropriately terms "a proud humility," in Louis +Napoleon's allusion to his own personal experience in the school of +exile and adversity as an excuse for his presuming to offer advice to +the sovereigns of Europe. One was reminded of Henry of Navarre's +allusion to the wind of adversity which, blowing so long upon his face, +had prematurely blanched his hair. I do not wonder that the proposed +Congress never met. I do not wonder that the European governments put it +aside—some with courteous phrase and feigned willingness to accept the +scheme, like Russia and Austria; some with cold and brusque rejection, +like England. Nothing worth trying for could have come of the Congress. +Events were brooding of which France and England knew nothing, and which +could not have been exorcised away by any resolutions of a conclave of +diplomatists. But that was, I think, the last occasion when Louis +Napoleon held anything like a commanding, overruling position in +European affairs, and even then it was but a semblance. After that, came +only humiliations and reverses. In a diplomatic sense, nothing could be +more complete than the checkmate which the Emperor of the French drew +upon himself by the sheer blundering of his conduct with regard to +Prussia. He succeeded in placing himself before the world in the +distinct attitude of an enemy to Prussia; and no sooner had he, by +assuming this attitude, forced Prussia to take a defiant tone, than he +suddenly sank down into quietude. He had bullied to no purpose; he had +to undergo the humiliation of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>seeing Prussia rise in public estimation, +by means of the triumph which his unnecessary and uncalled-for hostility +had enabled her to win. In fact, he was outgeneralled by his pupil, +Bismarck, even more signally than he had previously been outgeneralled +by his former pupil, Cavour. More disastrous and ghastly, by far, was +the failure of his Mexican policy. That policy began in falsehood and +treachery, and ended as it deserved. Poetic and dramatic justice was +fearfully rendered. Never did Philip II., of Spain, never did his +father, never did Napoleon I., never did Mendez Pinto, or any other +celebrated liar, exceed the deliberate monstrosity of the falsehoods +which were told by Louis Napoleon or Louis Napoleon's Ministers at his +order, to conceal, during the earlier stages of the Mexican +intervention, the fact that the French Emperor had a <i>protégé</i> in the +background, who was to be seated on a Mexican throne. The world is not +much affected by perfidy in sovereigns. It laughs at the perjuries of +princes as Jove does at those of lovers. But it could not overlook the +appalling significance of Louis Napoleon's defeat in that disastrous +chapter of his history. Wisdom after the event is easy work; but many, +many voices had told Louis Napoleon beforehand what would come of his +Mexican policy. Not to speak of the hints and advice he received from +the United States, he was again and again assured by the late Marshal +O'Donnell, then Prime Minister of Spain; by General Prim, who commanded +the allied forces during the earlier part of the Mexican expedition; by +Prince Napoleon, by many others—that neither the character of the +Mexican people nor the proximity of the United States would allow a +French proconsulate to be established in Mexico under the name of an +Empire. It is a certain fact that Louis Napoleon frequently declared +that the foundation of that Empire would be the great event of his +reign. This extraordinary delusion maintained a hold over his mind long +after it had become apparent to all the world that the wretched bubble +was actually bursting. The catastrophe was very near when Louis +Napoleon, in conversation with an English political adventurer, who then +was a Member of Parliament, assured him that, however the situation +might then look dark, history would yet have to record that he, Louis +Napoleon, had established a Mexican Empire. The English member of +Parliament, although ordinarily a very shrewd and sceptical sort of +person, was actually so impressed with the earnestness of his Imperial +interlocutor that he returned to London and wrote a pamphlet, in which, +to the utter amazement of his acquaintances, he backed the Empire of +Mexico for a secure existence, and said to it <i>esto perpetua</i>. The +pamphlet was hardly in circulation when the collapse came. If Louis +Napoleon ever believed in anything, he believed in the Mexican Empire. +He believed, too, in the certain success of the Southern Confederation. +No Belgravian Dundreary, no <i>exaltée</i> Georgian girl, could have been +more completely taken by surprise when the collapse of that enterprise +came than was the Emperor Napoleon III., whose boundless foresight and +profound sagacity we had all for years been applauding to the echo. +"That which is called firmness in a King," said Erskine, "is called +obstinacy in a donkey." That which is called foresight and sagacity in +an Emperor, is often what we call blindness and blundering in a +newspaper correspondent. The question is whether we can point to any +great event, any political enterprise, subsequent to his successful +assumption of the Imperial crown, in regard to which Napoleon III., if +called upon to act or to judge, did not show the same aptitude for rash +judgments and unwise actions? Certainly no great thing with which he has +had to do came out in the result with anything like the shape he meant +it to have. The Italian Confederation, with the Pope at the head of it; +the Germany irrevocably divided by the line of the Main; the Mexican +Empire; the "rectification" of frontier on the Rhine; the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>acquisition +of Luxembourg; these are some of the great Napoleonic ideas, by the +success or failure of which we may fairly judge of the wisdom of their +author. At home he has simply had a new plan of government every year. +How many different ways of dealing with the press, how many different +schemes for adjusting the powers of the several branches of legislation, +have been magniloquently announced and floated during the last few +years, each in turn to fail rather more dismally than its predecessor? +Now, it seems, we are to have at last something like that ministerial +responsibility which the Imperial lips themselves have so often +described as utterly opposed to the genius of France. Assuredly it shows +great mental flexibility to be able thus quickly to change one's policy +in obedience to a warning from without. It is a far better quality than +the persistent treachery of a Charles I., or the stupid doggedness of a +George III. But unless it be a characteristic of great statesmanship to +be almost always out in one's calculations, wrong in one's predictions, +and mistaken in one's men, the Emperor has for years been in the habit +of doing things which are directly incompatible with the character of a +great statesman.</p> + +<p>Contrasting the Louis Napoleon of action and reality with the Louis +Napoleon of the journals, I am reminded of a declaration once made by a +brilliant, audacious, eccentric Italian journalist and politician, +Petruccelli della Gattina. Petruccelli was, and perhaps still is, a +member of the Italian Parliament, and he had occasion to find fault with +some office or dignity, or something of the kind, conferred by Count +Cavour on the Neapolitan, Baron Poerio, whose imprisonment and chains, +during the reign of the beloved Bomba, aroused the eloquent anger of Mr. +Gladstone, and through Gladstone's efforts and appeals became the wonder +and the horror of the world. Petruccelli insisted that Poerio's +undeserved sufferings were his only political claim. "You know perfectly +well," he said, in effect, to Cavour, "that there is no such man as the +Poerio of the journals. It suited us to invest the poor victim with the +attributes of greatness, and therefore, we, the journalists, created a +Poerio of our own. This imposed upon the world, but it did not impose +upon you, and you have no right to take our Poerio <i>au serieux</i>." I do +not know whether the journals created an imaginary Poerio, but I am +convinced that they have created an imaginary Louis Napoleon. The world +in general now so much prefers the imaginary to the real Louis, that it +would for the present be as difficult to dethrone the unreal and set up +the real, as it would be to induce the average reader to accept Lane's +genuine translation of the "Arabian Nights" instead of the familiar +translation from a sprightly, flippant, flashy French version, which +hardly bears the slightest resemblance to the original. English +journalism has certainly created a Disraeli of its own—a dark, subtle, +impenetrable, sphinx-like being, who never smiles, or betrays outward +emotion, or is taken by surprise, or makes a mistake. This Disraeli is +an immense success with the public, and is not in the least like the +real Disraeli, who is as good-natured and genial in manner as he is bold +and blundering in speech and policy. So, on a wider scale, of Louis +Napoleon. We are all more or less responsible for the fraud on the +public; and, indeed, are to be excused on the ground that, enamored of +our own creation, we have often got the length of believing in it. We +have thus created a mysterious being, a sphinx of far greater than even +Disraelian proportions, an embodiment of silence and sagacity, a dark +creature endowed with super-human self-control and patience and +foresight; one who can bend all things, and all men, and destiny itself +to his own calm, inexorable will.</p> + +<p>I do not believe there is anything of the sphinx about Louis Napoleon. I +do not believe in his profound sagacity, or his foresight, or his +stupendous self-control. I have grown so heretical that I do not even +believe him to be a particularly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>taciturn man. I am well satisfied that +Louis Napoleon is personally a good-natured, good-tempered, undignified, +awkward sort of man, ungainly of gesture, not impressive in speech, a +man quite as remarkable for occasional outbursts of unexpected and +misplaced confidence as for a silence that often is, if I may use such +an expression, purely mechanical and unmeaning. I calmly ask my +<i>confrères</i> of the press, is it not a fact that Louis Napoleon is +commonly made the dupe of shallow charlatans, that he has several times +received and admitted to confidential counsel and conference, and +treated as influential statesmen and unaccredited ambassadors, utterly +obscure American or English busybodies who could hardly get to speech of +the Mayor of a town at home; that he has entered into signed and sealed +engagements with impudent adventurers from divers countries, under the +impression that they could render him vast political service; that he +has paid down considerable sums of money to subsidize the most obscure +and contemptible foreign journals, and never seemed able for a moment to +comprehend that in England and the United States no journal that can be +bought for any price, however high, is worth buying at any price, +however low; that his personal inclinations are much more toward quacks +and pretenders than toward men of real genius and influence; that Cobden +was one of the very few great men Louis Napoleon ever appreciated, while +impostors, and knaves, and blockheads, of all kinds, could readily find +access to his confidence? Of course, a man might possibly be a great +sovereign although he had these weaknesses; but the Louis Napoleon of +journalism is not endowed with these, or indeed with any other +weaknesses.</p> + +<p>Those who know Paris well, know that there is yet another Louis Napoleon +there, equally I trust a fiction with him of the journals. I speak of +the Louis Napoleon of private gossip, the hero of unnumbered <i>amours</i> +such as De Grammont or Casanova might wonder at. I have heard stories +poured into my patient but sceptical ears which ascribed to Louis +Napoleon of to-day, adventures illustrating a happy and brilliant +combination of Haroun Al Raschid and Lauzun—the disguises of the Caliph +employed for the purposes of Don Juan. Now, Louis Napoleon certainly +had, and perhaps even still has, his frailties of this class, but I +reject the Lauzun or Don Juan theory quite as resolutely as the sphinx +theory.</p> + +<p>What we all do really know of Louis Napoleon is, that having the +advantage of a name of surpassing prestige, and at a moment of +unexampled chances not created by him, he succeeded in raising himself +to the throne made by his uncle; that when there, he held his place +firmly, and by maintaining severe order in a country already weary of +disturbance and barren revolution, he favored and stimulated the +development of the material resources of France; that he entered on +several enterprises in foreign politics, not one of which brought about +the end for which it was undertaken, and some of which were ludicrous, +disastrous failures; that he strove to compensate France for the loss of +her civil liberty, by audaciously attempting to make her the dictator of +Europe, and that he utterly failed in both objects; for here toward the +close of his rule, France seems far more eager for domestic freedom than +ever she was since the <i>coup d'état</i>, while her influence over the +nations of Europe is considerably less than it was at any period since +the fall of Sebastopol. Now, if this be success, I want to know what is +failure? If these results argue the existence of profound sagacity, I +want to know what would show a lack of sagacity? Was Louis Napoleon +sagacious when he entered Lombardy, to set Italy free from the Alps to +the sea, and sagacious also when, after a campaign of a few weeks, he +suddenly abandoned the enterprise never to resume it? Was he wise when +he told Cavour he would never permit the annexation of Naples, and wise +also when, immediately after,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> he permitted it? Was he a great statesman +when he entered on the Mexican expedition, and also a great statesman +when he abandoned it and his unfortunate pupil, puppet, and victim +together? Did it show a statesmanlike judgment to bully Prussia until he +had gone near to making her an irreconcilable enemy, and also a +statesmanlike judgment then to "cave in," and declare that he never +meant anything offensive? Was it judicious to demand a rectification of +frontier on the Rhine, and judicious also to abandon the demand in a +hurry, when it was received as anybody might have known that a proud, +brave nation, flushed with a splendid success, would surely have +received it? Did it display great foresight to count with certainty that +the Southern Confederation would succeed, and that Austria would win an +easy victory over Prussia? Was it judicious to instruct an official +spokesman to declare that France had taken steps to assure herself +against any spread of Prussian influence beyond the Main, and to have to +stand next day, amazed and confounded, before an amazed and amused +Europe, when Bismarck made practical answer by contemptuously unrolling +the treaties of alliance actually concluded between France and the +principal States of South Germany? Was it a proof of a great ruling mind +to declare that France could never endure a system of ministerial +responsibility, and also a proof of a great ruling mind to declare that +this is the one thing needful to her contentment? All this bundle of +paradoxes one will have to sustain, if he is content to accept as a +genuine being that monstrous paradox, the Louis Napoleon of the press. +Of course, I do not deny to Louis Napoleon certain qualities of +greatness. But I believe the public was not a whit more gravely mistaken +when it regarded the King street exile as a dreamy dunce, than it is +now, when it regards Napoleon III. as a ruler of consummate wisdom.</p> + +<p>There was much of sound sense as well as wit in the saying ascribed to +Thiers, that the second Empire had developed two great statesmen—Cavour +and Bismarck. I do not know of any one great idea, worthy of being +called a contribution to the science of government, which Louis Napoleon +has yet embodied, either in words or actions. The recent elections, and +the events succeeding them, only demonstrate the failure of Imperialism +or Cæsarism, after a trial and after opportunities such as it probably +will never have again in Europe. I certainly do not expect any complete +collapse during the present reign. Doubtless the machine will outlast +the third Emperor's time. He has sense and dexterity enough to trim his +sails to each breeze that passes, and he will, probably, hold the helm +till his right hand loses its cunning with its vital power. But I see no +evidence whatever which induces me to believe that he has founded a +dynasty or created an enduring system of any kind. Some day France will +shake off the whole thing like a nightmare. Meantime, however, I am +anxious to help in dethroning the Louis Napoleon of the journals rather +than him of the Tuileries. The latter has many good qualities which the +former is never allowed to exhibit. I believe the true Louis Napoleon +has a remarkably kind and generous heart; that he is very liberal and +charitable; that he has much affection in him, and is very faithful to +his old friends and old servants; that people who come near him love him +much; that he is free and kindly of speech; that his personal defects +are rather those of a warm and rash, than of a cold and stern nature. +But I think it is high time that we were done with the melodramatic, +dime-romance, darkly mysterious Louis Napoleon of the journals. He +belongs to the race of William Tell, of the Wandering Jew, the Flying +Dutchman, the Sphinx to whom he is so often compared, the mermaid, the +sea-serpent, Byron's Corsair, and Thaddeus of Warsaw.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>EUGENIE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>There are certain men and women in history who seem to have a +peculiarity, independent of their merits or demerits, greatness or +littleness, virtues or crimes—a peculiarity which distinguishes them +from others as great or as little, as virtuous or as criminal. They are, +first and above all things, interesting. It is not easy to describe what +the elements are which make up this attribute. Certainly genius or +goodness, wit or wisdom, splendid public services, great beauty, or even +great suffering, will not always be enough to create it. The greatest +English king since the First Edward was assuredly William the Third; the +greatest military commanders England has ever had were Marlborough and +Wellington; but these three will hardly be called by any one interesting +personages in the sense in which I now use the word. Why Nelson should +be interesting and Wellington not so, Byron interesting and Wordsworth +not so, is perhaps easy enough to explain; but it is not quite easy to +see why Rousseau should be so much more interesting than Voltaire, +Goethe than Schiller, Mozart than Handel, and so on through a number of +illustrations, the accuracy of which nearly all persons would probably +acknowledge. Where history and public opinion and sentiment have to deal +with the lives and characters of women, the peculiarity becomes still +more deeply emphasized. What gifts, what graces, what rank, what +misfortunes have ever surrounded any queens or princesses known to +history with the interest which attaches to Mary Stuart and Marie +Antoinette? Lady Jane Grey was an incomparably nobler woman than either, +and suffered to the full as deeply as either; yet what place has she in +men's feelings and interest compared with theirs? Who cares about Anna +Boleyn, though she too shared a throne and mounted a scaffold?</p> + +<p><i>Absit omen!</i> I am about to speak of an illustrious living lady, who has +in common with Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette two things at least: she +has a French sovereign for a husband, and she has the fame of beauty. +But she has likewise that other peculiarity of which I spoke: she is +interesting. It is only speaking by the card to say that by far the most +interesting of all the imperial and royal ladies now living is Eugénie, +Empress of the French. I think there are princesses in Europe more +beautiful and even more graceful than she is, or than she ever could +have been; I fancy there are some much more highly gifted with +intellect; but there is no woman living in any European palace in whom +the general world feels half so much interest. There is not the +slightest reason to believe that she is a woman of really penetrating or +commanding intellect, and should she be happy enough to live out her +life in the Tuileries and die peacefully in her bed, history will find +but little to say about her, good or bad. Yet so long as her memory +remains in men's minds, it will be as that of a princess who had above +all things the gift of being interesting—the power of attracting toward +herself the eyes, the admiration, the curiosity, the wonder of all the +civilized world.</p> + +<p>"We count time by heart-throbs, not by figures on a dial," says a poet +who once nearly secured immortality, Philip James Bailey. There +certainly are people whose age seems to defy counting by figures on a +dial. Ask anybody what two pictures are called up in his mind when he +hears the names of Queen Victoria and the Empress of the French, no +matter whether he has ever seen the two illustrious ladies or not. In +the case of the former I may safely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>venture to answer for him that he +sees the face and figure of a motherly, homely body; a woman who has got +quite beyond the age when people observe how she dresses; to whom +personal appearance is no longer of any importance or interest. In the +case of the latter he sees a dazzling court beauty; a woman who, though +not indeed in her youth, is still in a glorious prime; a woman to +captivate hearts, and inspire poets, and set scandal going, and adorn a +ball-room or a throne. The first instinctive idea would be, I think, +that the Empress of the French belonged positively to a later generation +than the good, unattractive, dowdyish Queen of England. Yet I believe +the difference in actual years is very slight. To be sure, you will find +in any almanac that Queen Victoria was born on the 24th of May, 1819, +and is consequently very near to fifty-one years of age; while the fair +Eugénie is set down as having been born on May 5th, 1826, and +consequently would now appear to be only in her forty-fourth year. But +then Queen Victoria was born in the purple, and cannot, poor thing, make +any attempt at reducing by one single year the full figure of her age. +History has taken an inexorable, ineffaceable note of the day and hour +of her birth; and even court flattery cannot affect to ignore the +record. Now Eugénie was born in happy obscurity; even the place of her +birth is not known by the public with that certainty which alone +satisfies sceptics; and I have heard that the date recorded as that of +her natal hour is only a graceful fiction, a pretty bit of polite +biography. Certainly I have heard it stoutly maintained that if any +historian or critic were now to be as ungallant in his researches as +John Wilson Croker was in the case of Lady Morgan (was it not Lady +Morgan?), he would find that the birth of the brilliant Empress of the +French would have to be dated back a few years, and that after all the +difference between her and the elderly Queen Victoria is less an affair +of time than of looks and of heart-throbs.</p> + +<p>About a dozen years, I suppose, have passed away since I saw the Empress +Eugénie and Queen Victoria sitting side by side. Assuredly the +difference even then might well have been called a contrast, although +the Queen was in her happiest time, and has worn out terribly fast since +that period. But the quality which above all others Queen Victoria +wanted was just that in which the Empress of the French is supreme—the +quality of imperial, womanly grace. I have never been a rapturous +admirer of the beauty of the Empress; a certain narrowness of contour in +the face, the eyes too closely set together, and an appearance of +artificiality in every movement of the features, seem to me to detract +very much from the charms of her countenance. But her queenly grace of +gesture, of attitude, of form, of motion, must be admitted to be beyond +cavil, and superb. She looks just the woman on whom any sort of garment +would hang with grace and attractiveness; a blanket would become like a +regal mantle if it fell round her shoulders; I verily believe she would +actually look graceful in Mary Walker's costume, which I consider +decidedly the most detestable, in an artistic sense, ever yet indued by +mortal woman. Poor Queen Victoria looked awkward and homely indeed by +the side of this graceful, noble form; this figure that expressed so +well the combination of suppleness and affluence, of imperial dignity +and charming womanhood. Time has not of late spared the face of the +Empress of the French. Lines and hollows are growing fast there; the +bright eyes are sinking deeper into their places; the complexion is +fading and clouding; malicious people now say that, like that of the +lady in the "School for Scandal," it comes in the morning and goes in +the night; and the hair is apparently fast growing thin. But the grace +of form and movement is still there, unimpaired and unsurpassed. The +whitest and finest shoulders still surmount a noble bust, which, but +that its amplitude somewhat exceeds the severe proportions of antique<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +Grecian beauty, might be reproduced in marble to illustrate the contour +of a Venus or a Juno. I have seldom looked at the Empress of the French +or at any picture or bust of her without thinking how Mary Wortley +Montagu would have gone into bold and eloquent raptures over the superb +womanhood of that splendid form.</p> + +<p>Well, the face always disappointed me at least. It seems to me cold, +artificial, narrow, insincere. It wants nobleness. It does not impress +me as being the face of a frivolous woman, a coquette, a court +butterfly; but rather that of one who is always playing a part which +sometimes wearies. If I were to form my own impressions of the Empress +of the French merely from her face, I should set her down as a keen, +politic woman, with brains enough to be crafty, not enough to be great. +I should set her down as a woman who needs and loves the stimulus of +incessant excitement, just as much as a certain class of actress does. +Indeed, I think I have seen in the face of more than one actress just +such an habitual expression, off the stage, as one may see in the +countenance of the French Empress. I fear that sweet and gracious smile, +which is said to be so captivating to those for whose immediate and +special homage it is put on, changes into sudden blankness or weariness +when its momentary business has been done. Sam Slick tells us of a lady +whose smile dropped from her face the moment the gazer's eyes were +withdrawn "like a petticoat when the strings break;" and if I might +apply this irreverent comparison to the smile of an Empress, I would say +that I think I have noted just such a change in the expression of the +brilliant Eugénie. Indeed, it must be a tiresome part, that which she +has had to play through all these resplendent years; a part thrilling +with danger, made thorny by many sharp vexations. Were the Empress of +the French the mere <i>belle</i> of a court, she might doubtless have +joyfully swallowed all the bitternesses for the sake of the brightness +and splendor of her lot; were she a woman of high, imperial genius, a +Maria Theresa, an Anne of Austria, she might have found in the mere +enjoyment of power, or in the nobler aspirings of patriotism, abundant +compensation for her individual vexations. But being neither a mere +coquette nor a woman of genius, being neither great enough to rise +wholly above her personal troubles, nor small enough to creep under them +untouched, she must have suffered enough to render her life very often a +weary trial; and the traces of that weariness can be seen on her face +when the court look is dropped for a moment.</p> + +<p>The Empress seems to have passed through three phases of character, or +at least to have made on the public opinion of France three successive +and different impressions. For a long time she was set down as a mere +coquette, a creature whose soul soared no higher than the aspiration +after a bonnet or a bracelet, whose utmost genius exhausted itself in +the invention of a crinoline. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any +invention known to modern Europe had so sudden and wonderful a success +or made the inventor so talked about as Eugénie's famous <i>jupon +d'acier</i>. A sour and cynical Republican of my acquaintance once declared +that anybody might have known the Empress to be a <i>parvenue</i> by the mere +fact that she could and did invent a petticoat; for he maintained that +no born emperor or empress ever was known to have done even so much in +the way of invention. Decidedly, the Empress did a great deal of harm in +those her earlier and more brilliant days. To her influence and example +may be ascribed the passion for mere extravagance and variety of dress +which has spread of late years among all the fashionable and would-be +fashionable women of Europe and America. It is not too much to say that +the Empress of the French demoralized, in this sense, the womanhood of +two generations. How literally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> debauching her influence was to the +women immediately under its control, the women of the fashionable world +of Paris, I need not stop to tell. Graceful, gracious, and elegant as +she is, she did undoubtedly succeed in branding with a stamp of +vulgarity the brilliant court of the Second Empire. It is not wonderful +if scandal said coarse and bitter things about the goddess of +prodigality who presided over the revels of the Tuileries. The most +absurd stories used to be told of the amusements which went on in the +private gardens of the palace and in its inner circles; and the levity +and occasional flightiness of a vivacious young woman thirsting for +fresh gayeties and new excitements were perverted and magnified into +reckless and wanton extravagances. Of course it was inevitable that +there should be scandal over the birth of the Prince Imperial. Were the +Empress Eugénie chaste as ice, pure as unsunned snow, she could not, +under the circumstances, escape that calumny.</p> + +<p>About the time of her sudden and mysterious escapade to London, the +Empress began to emerge a little from the character of a mere woman of +fashion, and to become known and felt as a politician. People say that +some at least of the influence and control which she began to obtain +over her husband was owing to her knowledge of his many infidelities and +his reluctance to provoke her into open quarrel. Unless Eugénie was +wholly free from the jealousy which is supposed to lie in the heart of +every other woman, she must have suffered cruelly in this way for many +years. In her own court circles, at her own side, were ladies whom +universal report designated as successive <i>maîtresses en titre</i> of the +Emperor Napoleon. Stories, too, of his indulgence in low and gross +amours were told everywhere, and, true or false (charity itself could +not well doubt that some of them were true), must have reached the +Empress's ears. She suffered severely, and she took to politics—perhaps +as a harassed man sometimes takes to drinking. Her political influence +was, in its day, simply disastrous. She was always on the wrong side, +and she was always impetuous, unreasoning, and pertinacious, as cynical +people say is the way of women. She became a devotee of the narrowest +kind; and just as Madame de Maintenon's religious bigotry did infinitely +more harm to France than the vilest profligacy of a Pompadour or a +Dubarry could have done, so the religious fervor of the Empress Eugénie +threatened at one time to prove a worse thing for the State and for +Europe than if she had really carried on during all her lifetime the +palace orgies which her enemies ascribed to her. Reaction, +Ultramontanism, illiberalism, superstition, found a patroness and leader +in her. She fought for the continued occupation of Rome; she battled +against the unity of Italy; she recommended and urged the Mexican +expedition. Louis Napoleon is personally a good-natured, easy-going sort +of man, averse to domestic disputes, fully conscious, no doubt, of his +frequent liability to domestic censure. What wonder if European politics +sometimes had to suffer heavily for the tolerated presence of this or +that too notorious lady in the inner circles of the French court? "Who +is the Countess de ——?" I once asked of a Parisian friend who was +attached to the Imperial household—I was speaking of a lady whose +beauty and whose audacities of dress were then much talked of in the +French capital. "The latest favorite," was the reply. "I shouldn't +wonder if her presence at court cost another ten years of the occupation +of Rome."</p> + +<p>With the Empress's introduction to politics and political intrigue, the +era of scandal seems to have closed for her. She dressed as brilliantly +and extravagantly as ever, and she would take as much pains about her +toilet for the benefit of Persigny and Baroche and Billault at a Council +of State as for a ball in the Tuileries. She received the same sort of +company, was surrounded by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> same ladies and the same cavaliers as +ever. But she ceased to be herself a subject of scandal—a fact which is +not a little remarkable when one remembers how many bitter enemies she +made for herself at this period of her career. She seems to have +seriously contemplated the assumption of a great political and religious +part—the part of the patroness and protectress of the Papacy. I believe +she studied hard to educate herself for this part, and indeed for the +work in politics generally which devolved upon her. The position of +Vicegerent, assigned to her by the Emperor during his absence in the +Lombardy campaign, stirred up political ambition within her, and she +seems to have shown a remarkable aptitude for political work. She +certainly sustained the opinion expressed by John Stuart Mill in his +"Subjection of Women," that the business of politics, from which laws in +general shut women out, is just the one intellectual occupation in +which, whenever they have had a chance, they have proved themselves the +equals of men. When Eugénie was raised to the Imperial throne, she +appears to have had no better education than any young Spanish woman of +her class, and that certainly is not much. A lady once assured me that +she was one of a group who were presented to the Empress at the +Tuileries, and that there being in the group two beautiful girls from +America, to whom Eugénie desired to be particularly gracious, her +Imperial Majesty began to ask them several questions about their native +land, and astonished them almost beyond the capacity to reply by kindly +inquiring whether they had come from New York "over the sea, or over the +land." But the Empress has read up a good deal, and mastered much other +knowledge besides that of geography, since those salad days. Meanwhile, +she became more and more the divinity of the Ultramontanes; and the +French court presented the interesting spectacle of having two rival and +extreme parties, one led by the Emperor's wife, and the other by his +cousin, Prince Napoleon, between whom the Emperor himself maintained an +attitude something like that of the central figure in a game of seesaw. +I presume there can be little doubt that the Empress regarded her +husband's portly cousin with a cordial detestation. She is not a woman +endowed with a keen sense of humor, nor in any case would she be quite +likely to enjoy anything which was humorous at her own expense; and +Prince Napoleon is credited broadly with having said things concerning +her which doubtless made his friends and followers and boon companions +laugh, but which, reported to her, as they assuredly would be, must have +made her cheek flame and her lips quiver. Moreover, the Red Prince was +notoriously in the habit of turning into jest some things more sacred in +the eyes of the Imperial devotee than even her own reputation. She +feared his tongue, his reckless wit, his smouldering ambition. She +feared him for her boy, whose rival and enemy he might come to be; and +Prince Napoleon had more sons than one. Therefore the rivalry was keen +and bitter. She was for the Pope; he was for Italy and the Revolution. +She sympathized with the South in the American civil war; Prince +Napoleon was true to his principles and stood by the North. She favored +the Mexican enterprise; he opposed it. She was for all manner of +repressive action as regarded political speaking and writing; he was for +a free platform and free press. Her triumph came when, during the +Emperor's visit to Algeria, Prince Napoleon delivered his famous Ajaccio +speech—a speech terribly true and shockingly indiscreet—and was +punished by an Imperial rebuke, which led him to resign all his +political offices and withdraw absolutely from public life for several +successive years.</p> + +<p>But just when the Empress seemed to have the field all to herself, her +political influence began somehow to wane. Perhaps she grew a little +weary of the work of statecraft; perhaps she had not been so successful +in some of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> favorite projects as she had expected to be. The Mexican +expedition turned out a dismal, ghastly failure, and that enterprise had +always been regarded as the joint work of the two influences which +cynical people say have usually been most disastrous in politics—the +priest and the petticoat. Then the idea of working out the scheme of +European politics from the central point of the Tuileries was suddenly +exploded by the unexpected intrusion of Prussia, and the dazzling +victory in which the Bonaparte as well as the Hapsburg was overthrown +and humbled. The old framework of things was disjointed by this +surprising event. A new political centre of gravity had to be sought for +Europe. France was rudely pushed aside. The fair Empress, who had been +training herself for quite a different condition of things, found +herself now confronted by new, strange, and bewildering combinations. +One thing is highly to her credit. I have been assured by people who +claim to know something of the matter, that her earnest influence was +used to induce the French Government to accept, without remonstrance, +the new situation. While Louis Napoleon was committing the inexcusable +blunder of feeling his way towards a war with Prussia, and thereby +subjecting himself to the ignominy of having to draw hastily back, the +voice of the Empress, I am assured, was always raised for peace. But I +think the new situation was too much for her. She had made up for a game +of politics between the Pope and Italy; when other players and other +stakes appeared, the Empress was disinclined to undertake a new course +of education. She thereupon passed into the third phase—that of +philanthropic devotee, Lady Bountiful, and mother of her people; and +since then, if she cannot be said to have grown universally popular, she +may fairly be described as having got rid of nearly all her former +unpopularity. Her good deeds began to be magnified everywhere, and even +ancient enemies were content to sing her praises, or, at least, to hear +them sung.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly she has a kindly, charitable heart, and can do heroic as +well as graceful things. Her famous visitation of the cholera hospitals +may doubtless have been done partly for effect, but even in this sense +it showed a lofty appreciation of the duties of an Empress, and could +not have been conceived or carried out by an ignoble nature. When the +cholera appeared in Madrid, the fat, licentious woman who then cumbered +and disgraced the throne of Spain, fled in dismay from her capital; and +this act of peculiarly unwomanlike cowardice told heavily against her +and hurried her deeply down into that public contempt which is so fatal +to sovereigns. The Empress Eugénie, on the other hand, dignified and +served herself and her husband by her fearless exposure of her own life +in the cause of humanity and charity. Kindly and generous deeds of hers +are constantly reported in Paris, and these things go far in keeping up +the superstition of loyalty. Every one knows how gracious and winning +the Empress can be in her personal relations with those who approach +her. Sometimes her demeanor and actions come into sharp contrast with +those of other sovereigns in matters less momentous than the visiting of +death-charged hospital wards. I have heard of an American lady who once +made some rich and complete collections of specimens of American +foliage, collected them at immense labor, arranged them with exquisite +taste in two large and beautiful volumes, and sent one as an offering to +Queen Victoria, the other to the Empress of the French. From the British +court came back the volume itself, with a formal reply from an official +intimating that Her Majesty the Queen made it a rule not to accept such +gifts. From Paris came a letter of genial, graceful acceptance, written +by the Empress Eugénie herself, full of good taste, good feeling, and +courteous, ladylike expression. These are small things, but womanly tact +and grace seldom have much opportunity of expressing themselves save in +just such small things.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p><p>The Empress then has of late years faded a little out of political +life. I think it may be taken for granted that although she is a quick, +clever woman, with talents far beyond the mere inventing of bonnets and +petticoats, she is not gifted with any political genius, not qualified +to see quickly into the heart of a difficult question, not endowed with +the capacity to surmount a great crisis. I have never heard anything +which induces me to think that Eugénie's intellect and power would count +for much in the chances of the dynasty should Louis Napoleon die while +his son is yet a boy. Like Louis Napoleon himself, she was twice +misjudged: first when people set her down as an empty-headed coquette, +and next when they cried her up as a woman with a genius for government. +So far as one may venture to predict, I think she would not prove strong +enough for the place, if evil fortune should throw upon her the task of +preserving the throne for her boy.</p> + +<p>Recent events seem to me to prove that the imperial system is less +strong and more shaky than most of us would have supposed six months +ago. I for one do fully believe that the recent disturbances are the +genuine indications of a profound and bitter popular discontent. I beg +the readers of <span class="smcap">The Galaxy</span> to be very cautious how they form an estimate +of the situation from the correspondence and editorial articles of the +London press. If the "Times" believes Bonapartism safe and strong in +Paris, I have only to remark that the "Times" believed the same, almost +up to the bitter end, of Bonapartism in Mexico. There are very few +London journals which can be trusted where the politics of France are +concerned. Not that the journals are bribed; everybody knowing anything +of the London press knows how absurd the idea of such bribery is; but +that all London Philistinism (and Philistinism does a good deal of the +writing for the London papers) considers it genteel and respectable, and +the right sort of thing generally, to go in for the Empire and sneer at +revolution. I have read with no little wonder many of the comments of +the London, and indeed some of the New York journals, on Henri Rochefort +and his colleagues. One would think that in order to prove a certain +revolutionary movement powerless and contemptible, you had only to show +that its leaders were themselves contemptible and disreputable persons. +Some of the journals here and in London write as if the Empire must be +safe because the satire of the "Lanterne" and the "Marseillaise" seems +to them coarse and witless, and because they have heard that Henri +Rochefort is an insincere man, of doubtful courage and tainted moral +character. One longs to ask whether the "Père Duchesne" and the "Vieux +Cordelier" were publications fit to be read in the drawing-rooms of +virtuous families; whether Mirabeau's private character was quite +blameless; whether Marat and Hébert had led reputable lives; whether +Camille Desmoulins was habitually received into the highest circles; +whether Théroigne de Méricourt was the sort of young woman one's wife +would like to invite to tea. The imbecility with which certain +journalists go on day after day trying to assure themselves and the +world that imperialism has nothing to fear at the hands of a movement +led by scurrilous and disreputable men, has something in it at once +amusing and provoking. The strength of a revolutionary movement is not +exactly to be estimated by the claims of its leaders to carry off the +<i>prix Monthyon</i> or the Holy Grail. Perhaps if it were to be so +estimated, it would be hard to say where the victory should go in the +present instance. For the worst of Rochefort's colleagues have never +been accused of any profligacies and basenesses so bad as those which +universal public opinion ascribes to the leading Bonapartes and some of +their most influential supporters. Undoubtedly there is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> great deal of +scurrility and even worse in the papers conducted by Rochefort. It is +not in good taste to go on asking who was the mother of De Morny, who +was the father of Walewski; how the present Walewski, Walewski <i>fils</i>, +comes to be called a count, and who was his mother, and so on; and the +direct and libellous attacks on the Empress are utterly indefensible. If +one were making up a memoir of Henri Rochefort, or engaged in a debating +society's controversy on his character, one would have to admit that he +is by no means a model demagogue, a pattern patriot. But one might at +the same time hint that, judging by historical precedent, he is probably +all the more formidable as a revolutionary leader for that very reason. +His literary attacks on the Government are by no means all vulgar, or +scurrilous, or contemptible. There was fresh and genuine humor as well +as telling satire in the "Lanterne's" early declaration of allegiance to +the Napoleons, the purport of which was that, feeling bound to express +his devotion to a Napoleon, Rochefort had selected as the object of his +loyal homage Napoleon the Second, the sovereign who never coerced the +press, or corrupted the Senate, or robbed the nation of its liberty, or +exiled its patriots, or carried on a Mexican expedition, or impoverished +the country to maintain a gigantic army. But there is one thing +certain—that whether Rochefort is witty or not, wise or not, he has +waked an echo throughout France and Europe in general which even very +wise and undeniably witty enemies of the Empire did not succeed in +creating. Nothing he has written will compare in artistic strength of +satire or invective with Victor Hugo's "Châtimens" or "Napoléon le +Petit." Eugène Pelletan's "Nouvelle Babylone" was a prolonged outpouring +of indignant eloquence by a gentleman, a scholar, and a thinker. +Rogeard's "Propos de Labienus" was a piece of really fine sarcasm. But +not the most celebrated of these attacks on the Empire created anything +like the sensation which Rochefort has succeeded in creating by the +constant "pegging away" of his bitter, envenomed, and unscrupulous pen. +Indeed, the reason is obvious—at least to those who, like me, believe +that the great mass of the Parisian population (the army, the officials, +and the priests not counted) are heartily sick of Bonapartism, and would +get rid of it if they could. Rochefort assails the Empire and the +Emperor in a style which they can understand. He is a master of a +certain kind of coarse, rasping ridicule, which delights the disaffected +<i>ouvrier</i>; and he has no scruple about assailing any weak place he can +find in his enemy, even though in doing so the heart of a woman has +likewise to be wounded. An angry and disaffected populace delights in +this kind of thing. The fact that Rochefort has created such a sensation +is the best proof in the world that the Parisian populace is angry and +disaffected. Rochefort has a happy gift of epithets, which goes a long +way with admirers and followers such as his. I doubt whether a whole +chapter could have described more accurately and vividly the person, +character, and career of Prince Pierre Bonaparte than Rochefort did when +he branded him as "a social bandit." Personally, Rochefort is not +qualified to be a demagogue in the sense that Danton was a demagogue, +and he can make no pretension to be a revolutionary leader of a high +class. But he can incite a populace, madden the hearts of disaffected +crowds, as the bitter tongue of a shrill woman might do, and as the +tongue of a great orator might perhaps fail to do. Doubtless Rochefort +and his literary sword-and-buckler men are not strong enough to create a +serious disturbance of themselves alone. But if a moment of general +uncertainty and unsettlement came, they might prove a dangerous +disturbing force. If, for example, there should come a crisis which of +itself rendered change of some kind necessary, when all the chances of +the future<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> might depend upon a single hour or perhaps a single decisive +command, and when it was not certain who had the right, who would assume +the responsibility to give the command, then indeed the bitter screams, +and jeers, and invectives of these reckless literary bravos might have +much to do with the ordering of the situation. If, for example, the +Emperor were to die just now, who shall venture to say how much the +chances of the Empress and her son might not be affected at that moment +of terrible crisis by the pens and the tongues of Rochefort and his +followers?</p> + +<p>Some time, in the natural course of things, the Empress may expect to +have to face such a crisis. It is highly probable that the time will +come while yet her boy is young and dependent upon her guardianship and +care. Has she won for herself the affection, confidence, and loyalty of +France, to such an extent that she could count upon national support? I +am convinced that she has not. She is much liked and even loved by those +who know her. They have countless anecdotes to tell of her affectionate +ways as a mother, of her generosity and kindness as a woman. But +although she has outlived many of the early prejudices against her, she +is still regarded with distrust and dislike by the older families of +France; and I am confident that a large proportion of the working +classes in Paris and the large towns delight to believe the worst things +that malice and slander can say to her detriment. The priests and the +shopkeepers are probably her best friends; but I am not aware that +priests and shopkeepers have ever proved themselves very powerful +bulwarks against sudden popular revolution. The generals and the army +might of course remain perfectly loyal to her; probably would if they +had no time to consider the situation, and there were no favorite rival +in the way (if Prince Napoleon, for example, were a brilliant soldier, +she would not have a ghost of a chance against him); but it must be +remembered that the loyalty of an army is something like the +epigrammatic description of the honor of a woman: when there is any +deliberation, it is likely to be lost; and the claims of the Empress are +certainly not such as absolutely to forbid deliberation and render it +impossible. Much of course would depend on the woman herself. There was +a moment when Catharine of Russia's unfortunate husband might have +carried all before him if he had only seized the chance; and he did not +seize it, and so lost all. There was a moment when Catharine might have +utterly failed if she had not risen to the height of the crisis, and +seized the opportunity with both hands; and she did rise to the height +of the crisis, did seize the opportunity, and so won all. Place Eugénie +in such a position, and is she a woman to win? Is she in fact a woman of +genius? I think not. Nothing that I have ever heard of her—and I have +known many who were her intimate friends—has led me to believe her +endowed with a quick, strong, commanding intellect. Mentally she seems +to be narrow and shallow; in temper she is quick, capricious, full of +warm personal affections and almost groundless personal dislikes. I have +a strong idea that no matter what the urgency of the crisis, she would +stay to make herself picturesque before taking any public action; and I +venture to think she would be guided by counsel only where she happened +to have a personal liking for the counsellor. She cannot, I fancy, be +trusted at a great crisis to make the fortune of her son. Enough if she +do not mar it at such a time.</p> + +<p>Political considerations apart, one can only wish her well. Her face is +one which ought to smile sweetly and gracefully through history. If fate +and France will endure the Bonapartes for another generation or so, +there will be some consolation to gallant and romantic souls in the +thought that thereby this gracious, queenly woman will be allowed to +make a happy end of her brilliant, not untroubled life. Thus far we may, +in summing up her career, describe her, first, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> a bright, vivacious +young coquette, with a dash of the adventuress about her, ranging the +world in search of a husband; then a woman suddenly and surprisingly +raised to the dazzling rank of an Empress, and a little bewildered by +the change; then a splendid leader of the world's fashion, magnificently +frivolous and heedless; then a political <i>intrigante</i>, the supreme +patroness of Ultramontanism; and now a quiet, queenly mother, verging +toward that kind of devoteeism in which some satirical person declares +that coquetry in France is sure to end. She is not a woman to make any +deep impression on history. She has neither gifts enough nor faults +enough. As a politician she has been a failure, and perhaps worse than a +failure; but she has been fortunate enough to escape from all public +responsibility for her mistakes, and may get quietly into history as +merely an intelligent, good-natured, and beautiful woman. Posterity will +probably see her and appreciate her sufficiently in her portrait by +Winterhalter: a name, a vague memory, and a smooth fair picture with +bright complexion, shining hair, and noble shoulders, alone carrying +down to other times the history of the Third Napoleon's wife. Only great +misfortunes could redeem her from this destiny of half oblivion; and +history has names enough that are burnt by misfortune into eternal +memory, and may well spare hers. One great claim she has to a liberal +construction of her character: her personal enemies are those who do not +know her well; her intimates seem to be always her friends. She has one +good quality, which her husband with all his faults likewise possesses: +she has never in her imperial splendor forgotten or neglected or been +ashamed of old acquaintances and friends. I have heard scores of +anecdotes from people who know her well—I have heard one such anecdote +since I began writing this article—which prove her to be entirely above +the mean and vulgar weakness of the <i>parvenu</i>, who shrinks in her +magnificence from any acquaintanceship or association likely to remind +her of less brilliant days. Taken on the whole, the Empress Eugénie is +better than her fortunes and her surroundings might have made her. She +is, I think, a woman much more deserving of respect than Josephine +Beauharnais, whose misfortunes, joined with the quiet pathetic dignity +of her retirement and her later years, have made the world forget the +levities, frivolities, and follies of her earlier life. She has shown a +quicker and better appreciation of the duties and difficulties of her +station, and the temper of the people among whom she had to live, than +was at any time shown by Marie Antoinette. Whether she could ever under +the most favorable conditions prove an Anne of Austria may well be +doubted; and we must all hope for her own sake that she may never be put +to the proof. She has at least made it clear that she is no mere Reine +Crinoline; she has shown that she possesses some heart, some courage, +and some brains; she has had sense enough to retrieve blunders, and +merit enough to live down calumny. The best thing one can hope for her +is that she may never again be placed in a position which would tempt +and allow her to make political influence the instrument of religious +bigotry. The greatest woman her native country ever produced, Isabella +of Castile, became with all her virtues and genius a curse to Spain, +because of her bigotry and her power; and there was a time when it +seemed as if the Empress Eugénie was likely to make for herself an +odious fame as the chief patroness of a conspiracy against the religious +and political liberties of the south of Europe. Let us hope that in her +future career she may be saved from any such temptation, and that she +may be kept as much as possible out of all political complications where +religion interferes; and if she be thus graced by fortune, it is all but +certain that whatever her future years may bring, she will deserve and +receive a genial record in the history of France.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>THE PRINCE OF WALES.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>"It is now sixteen or seventeen years," says Edmund Burke, in that +famous passage to which one is almost ashamed to allude any more, so +hackneyed has it been, "since first I saw the Queen of France, then the +Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which +she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision." That glowing, +impassioned apostrophe did more to make partisans and admirers for poor +Marie Antoinette among all English-speaking peoples, probably for all +time, than any charms, or virtues, or misfortunes of the Queen and the +woman could have done. I can never of late read or recall to mind the +burning words of Burke, without thinking of a certain day in March some +seven years ago, when I stood on a platform in Trafalgar Square, London, +and saw a bright, beautiful young face smiling and bending to a vast +enthusiastic crowd on either side, and I, like everybody else, was +literally stricken with admiration of the beauty, the sweetness, and the +grace of the Princess Alexandra of Denmark. In truth, I am not in +general an enthusiast about princes or princesses; I do not believe that +the king's face usually gives grace. In this instance the beauty of the +Princess Alexandra had been so noisily trumpeted by literary lacqueys +already, that one's natural instinct was to feel disappointed, and to +say so, when the Princess herself came in sight. But it was impossible +to feel disappointment, or anything but admiration, at the sight of that +bright, fair face, so transparent in the clearness of its complexion, so +delicate and refined in its outlines, so sweet and gracious in its +expression. I think something like the old-fashioned, chivalric, +chimerical feeling of personal loyalty must have flamed up for the +moment that day in the hearts of many men, who perhaps would have been +ashamed to confess that their first experience of such an emotion was +due to a passing glimpse of the face of a pretty, tremulous girl.</p> + +<p>If ours were days of augury, men might have shuddered at the omens which +accompanied the wedding ceremonies of the Prince and Princess of Wales. +When Goethe, then a youth, surveyed the preparations for the reception +of Marie Antoinette at Strasbourg, on her way to Paris, he observed +significantly on the inauspicious fact that in the grand chamber adorned +for her coming, the tapestry represented the wedding of Jason and Medea. +The civil authorities of London certainly did not greet the fair +stranger with any such grisly and ghastly emblazonings; but there were +other and even more inauspicious omens offered by chance and the hour. +The sky darkened, a dreary wind whistled; presently the rain came down +in drenching streams that would not abate. There was a mourning-garb at +the wedding—the black dress of the Queen, who would not lay aside her +widow's-weeds even for that hour; and the night of the wedding, when the +streets of London were illuminated, the crowd was so great that, as on a +memorable occasion in the early married life of Marie Antoinette, people +were crushed and trampled to death amid the universal jubilation.</p> + +<p>Well, we defy augury, with Hamlet. But I think some at least in the +crowd who welcomed Alexandra felt a kind of doubt and pity as to her +future, which needed no inspiration from omens and superstition. No +foreign princess has ever been so popular in England as Alexandra; and +assuredly some at least of the affection felt for her springs from a +pity which, whether called for or not, is genuine and universal. The +last time I saw the Princess of Wales was within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> a very few days of my +leaving England to visit the United States. It was in Drury Lane +Theatre, then fitted up as an opera house in consequence of the recent +burning of Her Majesty's Theatre. The Prince of Wales, his wife, and one +of his sisters were in their box. I had not seen the Princess for some +time, and I was painfully impressed with the change which had come over +her. Remembering, as it was easy to do, the brightness of her beauty +during the early days of her marriage, there was something almost +shocking in the altered appearance of her face. It looked wasted and +haggard; the complexion, which used to be so dazzlingly fair, had grown +dull, and, if I may say so, discolored; and I must be ungracious enough +to declare bluntly that, to my eyes at least, there seemed little trace +indeed of the beauty of a few years before left in that dimmed and worn +countenance. "Only the eyes remained—they would not go." Of course, it +must be remembered that the Princess was then only just recovering from +a long, painful, and exhausting illness; and she may have—I truly hope +she has—since then regained all her brightness and beauty. In any case, +it would be unjust indeed to assume that the wasted look of the Princess +was to be attributed to domestic unhappiness. But even a very +matter-of-fact and unsentimental person, looking at her then, and +remembering what she so lately was, might be excused if he fancied that +some of the unpropitious omens which surrounded the Princess's marriage +had already begun to justify themselves in practical fulfilment.</p> + +<p>For even at the time of the marriage of the Prince and Princess there +were not wanting prophets of evil who predicted that this royal union +would not prove much happier than state-made marriages commonly are. +Even then there were stories and reports afloat which ascribed to the +Prince habits and tendencies not likely to promote the domestic +happiness of a delicate and refined young wife, hardly more than a mere +child in years. Indeed, there was already considerable doubt in the +public mind as to the personal character of the Prince of Wales. He +certainly did not look a very intellectual or refined sort of person +even then, and some at least were inclined to think him, as Steerforth +says of little Em'ly's lover, "rather a chuckle-headed kind of fellow," +to get such a girl. There was, certainly, a breath of serious distrust +abroad. On the Prince's coming of age, and again, I think, on the +announcement of his approaching marriage, the London daily papers had +set themselves to preaching sermons at him; and a very foolish chorus of +sermons that was which broke out from all those tongues together. The +only marked effect of this outburst of lay-preaching was, I fancy, to +impress the public mind with the idea that the Prince was really a very +much more dreadful young man than there was any good reason to believe +him. People naturally imagined that the writers who poured forth such +eloquent, wise, and suggestive admonitions must know a great deal more +than they felt disposed to hint at; whereas, I venture to think that, in +truth, the majority of the writers were disposed to hint at a great deal +more than they knew. For, indeed, almost all that is generally and +substantially known of the Prince of Wales has been learned and observed +since his marriage.</p> + +<p>Still, even before, and long before the marriage, there were ominous +rumors. Those that I mention I give simply as rumors—not, indeed, the +mere babble of the streets, but as the kind of thing which people told +you who professed to know—the talk of the House of Commons, and the +clubs, and the fashionable drawing-rooms and smoking-rooms. People told +you that the Prince and his father had had many quarrels arising out of +the extravagance, dissipation, and wrong-headedness of the former; and +there was even a painful and cruel report thus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> whispered about that the +death of Prince Albert was the result of a cold he had taken from +walking incautiously in a heavy rain during excitement caused by a +quarrel with his son. Stories were told of this and that <i>amour</i> and +<i>liaison</i> in Ireland when the Prince of Wales was with the camp on the +Curragh of Kildare; of his excesses when he was a student at the +University; of his escapades at many other times and places. Certain +actresses of a low class, and other women of a still lower class, were +pointed out in London as special favorites of the Prince of Wales. Of +course every man of sense knew, first, that stories of this kind must be +taken with a large amount of allowance for exaggeration; and, next, that +the public must not expect all the virtues of a saint to belong to the +early years of a prince of the family of Guelph. In England public +opinion, although it has grown much more exacting of late years on the +score of decorum than it used to be, is still disposed to look over +without censure a good deal of extravagance and dissipation in young and +unmarried men, especially if they be men of rank. Therefore, if the +rumors which attended the early career of the Prince of Wales had not +followed him into his married years, the world would soon have forgotten +all about his youthful indiscretions. But it became a serious question +for the whole nation when it began to be whispered everywhere that the +Prince was growing worse instead of better during his married life, and +when to the suspicion that he was wasting his own youth and his own +credit came to be added the belief that he was neglecting and injuring +the young and beautiful woman whom state reasons had assigned to him as +a wife. In good truth, it is really a question of public and historical +interest whether the Queen of England is likely to be succeeded by an +Albert the Good or another George the Fourth; and I am not therefore +inviting the readers of <span class="smcap">The Galaxy</span> to descend to the useless discussion +of a mere piece of idle court scandal when I ask them to consider with +me the probabilities of the future from such survey as we can take of +the aspects of the present.</p> + +<p>Those who saw the Prince of Wales when he visited this country, would +surely fail to recognize the slender, fair-haired, rather graceful youth +of that day in the heavy, fat, stolid, prematurely bald, +elderly-young-man of this. It would not be easy to see in any assembly a +more stupid-looking man than the Prince of Wales is now. On horseback he +shows to best advantage. He rides well, and the pleasure he takes in +riding lends something of animation to his usually inexpressive face. +But when his eyes and features lapse into their habitual condition of +indolent, good-natured, stolid repose, all light of intellect seems to +have been banished. The outline of the head and face, and the general +expression, seemed to me of late to be growing every day more and more +like the head and face of George the Third. Anybody who may happen to +have a shilling or half-crown of George the Third's time, can see on the +coin a very fair presentment of the countenance of the present +heir-apparent of the English throne. Whether the Prince of Wales +resembles George the Fourth in character and tastes or not, he certainly +does not resemble him in face. Even a court sycophant could not pretend +to see beauty or grace in our present Prince.</p> + +<p>I think that to the eye of the cynic or the satirist the Prince of Wales +shows to greatest advantage when he sits in his box at an advanced hour +of some rather heavy classic opera, or has to endure a long succession +of speeches at a formal public dinner. The heavy head droops, the heavy +jaws hang, the languid eyes close, the heir-apparent sinks into a doze. +Loyalty itself can see nothing dignified or kingly in him then. I have +watched him thus as he sat in his box during some high-class, and to +him, doubtless, very heavy performance at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> Italian opera, and have +thought that at times he might remind irreverent and disloyal observers +of Pickwick's immortal fat boy. I have sometimes observed that his +little dozes appeared to afford innocent amusement to his sisters, if +any of them happened to be in the box; and occasionally one of the +Princesses would playfully poke her slumbering brother in the princely +ribs, and the Heir of all the Ages would open his eyes and smile +languidly, and try to look at the stage and listen to the music; and +then, after a while, the heavy head would sink once more on the vast +expanse of shirt-front in which the Prince seems to delight, and the fat +boy would go to sleep again. But this would only happen at certain +performances. There were times when the Prince had eyes and ears open +and attentive, even in the opera house. His tastes in general, however, +are not for high art in music or the drama. He is very fond of the +little theatres where the vivacious blondes display their unconcealed +attractions. There are, as everybody knows, several minor theatres in +London where the audience, or, I should say more properly, the +spectators, will be found to consist chiefly of men, while, on the other +hand, the performers are chiefly women. These are the temples of the leg +drama. "<i>Pièce aux jambes? Pièce aux cuisses!</i>" indignantly exclaims +Eugene Pelletan, denouncing such performances in his "Nouvelle +Babylone"; and he goes on to add some cumulative illustrations which I +omit. Well, the Prince of Wales loves the <i>pièce aux jambes</i>, and the +theatres where it flourishes. He constantly visits theatres at which his +wife and sisters are never seen, and in which it would be idle to deny +that there are actresses who have made themselves conspicuous objects of +popular scandal.</p> + +<p>Now, I am far from saying that this necessarily implies anything worse +than a low taste on the part of the Prince of Wales. But there are +stations in life which render private bad taste a public sin. In London, +of late, there has been a just outcry against a certain kind of +theatrical performance. It is held to be demoralizing and degrading that +the stage should be made simply a show-place for the exhibition of +half-naked women, for the audacious display of legs and bosoms. Now, I +beg to say for myself that I have entire faith in the dramatic as in +every other art; that I believe it always when truthfully pursued +vindicates itself, and that I think any costume which the true and +legitimate needs of the drama require is fitting, proper, and modest. I +regard the ballet, in its place, as a graceful and delightful +entertainment; and I do not believe that any healthy and pure mind ought +to be offended by the kind of costume which the dance requires. But +artists and moralists in London alike objected, and justly objected, to +performances the whole purpose, and business, and attraction of which +was the exhibition of a crowd of girls as nearly naked as they could +venture to show themselves in public.</p> + +<p>Now this was undoubtedly the kind of exhibition which the Prince of +Wales especially favored and patronized. Night after night, even during +the long and lamentable illness of his young wife, he visited such +theatres, and gazed upon "those prodigies of myriad nakednesses." +Likewise did he much delight in the performances of Schneider—that high +priestess of the obscene, rich with the spoils of princes. I say +emphatically that there were actions, gestures, <i>bouffonneries</i> +performed amid peals of laughter and thunders of applause by this fat +Faustina in the St. James's Theatre, London, which were only fit to have +gladdened the revels of Sodom and Gomorrah. And this woman was, +artistically at least, the prime favorite of the Prince of Wales; and +when his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, reached England for the first +time after his escape from the Fenian bullet in Sydney, the <i>par nobile +fratrum</i> celebrated the auspicious event by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> hastening to the theatre +where Schneider kicked and wriggled and helped out the point of +lascivious songs by a running accompaniment of obscene gestures.</p> + +<p>So much at least has to be said against the Prince of Wales, and cannot +be gainsaid. All that he could do by countenance and patronage to +encourage a debauching and degrading style of theatric entertainment, he +has done. He is said to be fond of the singing of the vulgar and low +buffoons of the music-halls, and to have had such persons brought +specially to his residence, Marlborough House, to sing for him. I have +been assured of this often by persons who professed to know; but I do +not know anything of it myself, nor is it indeed a matter of any +importance. The other facts are known to everybody who reads the London +papers. The manager or manageress of a theatre takes good care to +announce in the journals when a visit from the Prince of Wales has taken +place, and we all thus come to know how many times a week the little +theatric temples of nakedness have been honored by his presence.</p> + +<p>Am I attaching too much importance to such matters as this? I think not. +The social influence and moral example of a royal personage in England +are now almost the only agencies by which the royal personage can affect +us for good or evil. I hold that no man thoughtful or prudent enough, no +matter what his morals, to be fit to occupy the position assigned to the +Prince of Wales, would be guilty of lending his public and constant +patronage to such exhibitions and amusements as those which he +especially patronizes. Moreover, the Prince has often shown a disregard, +either cynical or stupid—probably the latter—for public opinion, a +heedlessness of public scandal, in other matters as well. He has made +companionship for himself among young noblemen conspicuous for their +debauchery. At a time, not very long ago, when the Divorce Court was +occupied with the hearing of a scandalous cause, in which a certain +young duke figured most prominently and disgracefully, this young duke +was daily and nightly to be seen the close companion of the Prince of +Wales.</p> + +<p>Let me touch upon another subject, of a somewhat delicate nature. I have +said that there were times when our Prince was always wide awake at the +opera house. There is a certain brilliant and capricious little singer +whom all England and Germany much admire, and who in certain operatic +parts has, I think, no rival. Now, public scandal said that the Prince +of Wales greatly admired this lady, and paid her the most marked +attentions. Public scandal, indeed, said a great deal more. I hasten to +record my conviction that, so far as the fair artiste was concerned, the +scandal was wholly unfounded, and that she is a woman of pure character +and honor. But the Prince was credited with a special admiration for +her; and I am sure the Prince's father under such circumstances would +have taken good care to lend no foundation, afford no excuse, for +scandal to rest upon. Now, I speak of what I have myself observed when I +say that the Prince of Wales, whenever he had an opportunity, always +demeaned himself as if he really desired to give the public good reason +for believing the scandal, or as if he was too far gone in infatuation +to be able to govern his actions. For he was always at the opera when +this lady sang; and he always conducted himself as if he wished to +blazon to the world his ostentatious and demonstrative admiration. When +the prima donna went off the stage, the Prince disappeared from his box; +when she came on the stage again, he returned to his seat; he lingered +behind all his party at the end, that he might give the last note of +applause to the disappearing singer; he made a more pertinacious show of +his enthusiasm than even the military admirer of Miss Snevellicci was +accustomed to do. Now, all this may have been only stolidity or +silliness, and may not have denoted any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>thing like cynicism or coarse +disdain of public opinion; but whatever it indicated, it certainly did +not, I think, testify to the existence of qualities likely to be found +admirable or desirable in the heir to a throne.</p> + +<p>Of the truth or falsehood of the private scandals in general circulation +concerning the Prince of Wales I know nothing whatever. But everybody in +England is aware that such stories are told, and can name and point out +this or that titled lady as the heroine of each particular story. It +need hardly be said that when a man acquires the sort of reputation +which attaches to the Prince of Wales, nothing could be more unjust or +unreasonable than to accept, without some very strong ground of belief, +any story which couples his name with that of any woman belonging to the +society in which he moves. Obviously, it would be enough, in the eyes of +an English crowd, that the Prince should now pay any friendly attention +to any handsome duchess or countess in order to convert her into an +object of scandal. I am myself morally convinced that some of the titled +ladies who are broadly and persistently set down by British gossip as +mistresses of the Prince of Wales are as innocent of such a charge as if +they had never been within a thousand miles of a court. But the Prince +is a little unlucky wherever he goes, for scandal appears to pursue him +as Horace's black care follows the horseman. When the Prince of Wales +happens to be in Paris, he seems to be surrounded at once by the same +atmosphere of suspicion and evil report. Some two years ago I chanced to +be in Paris at the time the Prince was there, and I can answer for it +that observers who had never heard or read of the common gossip of +London formed the same impression of his general character that the +public of London had already adopted. The Prince was then paying special +attention to a brilliant and beautiful lady moving in the court circles +of the French capital, a lady who had but very recently distinguished +herself by appearing at one of the fancy balls of the Tuileries in the +character of the Archangel Michael or Raphael—it does not much matter +which—and attired in a costume which left the company no possibility of +doubting the symmetry of her limbs and the general shapeliness of her +person. Malicious satirists circulated thereupon an announcement that +the lady was to appear at the next fancy ball as "La Source," the +beautiful naked nymph so exquisitely painted by Ingres. This lady +received the special attentions of the Prince of Wales. He followed her, +people said, like her shadow; and a smart pun was soon in circulation, +which I refrain from giving because it contrives ingeniously to blend +with his name the name of the lady in question, and I am not writing a +scandalous chronicle. This was the time when the Prince made his royal +mother so very angry by attending the Chantilly races on a Sunday. When +he came back to London he had to take part in some public ceremonial—I +forget now what it was—at which the Queen had consented to be present. +Her Majesty was present, and I have been assured by a friend who stood +quite near that a sort of little scene was enacted which much +embarrassed those who had to take part in the official pageantry of the +occasion. Up came the Prince, who had travelled in hot haste from Paris, +and with a somewhat abashed and sheepish air approached his royal +mother. She looked at him angrily, and turned away. The Duke of +Cambridge, her cousin, made an awkward effort to mend matters by +bringing up the Prince again, and with the action of a friendly and +deprecating intercessor presenting the delinquent. This time, I am +assured, the Queen, with determined and angry gestures, and some words +spoken in a low tone, repelled intercessor and offender at once; and the +Prince of Wales retired before the threatened storm. The Duke of +Edinburgh, who had been lingering a little in the background—he, too, +had just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> come from Paris, and he had been to Chantilly—anxious to see +what kind of reception would be accorded to his brother, thought, +apparently, that he had seen enough to warrant him in keeping himself at +a modest distance on that occasion, and not encountering the terrors of +what Thackeray, in "The Rose and the Ring," describes as "the royal +eye."</p> + +<p>I have little doubt that Queen Victoria is a somewhat rigorous and +exacting mother, and I should be far from accepting her frown as +decisive with regard to the delinquencies of one of her sons. +Cigar-smoking alone would probably be accounted by the Queen a sin +hardly allowing of pardon. Her husband, Prince Albert, was a man so pure +of life, so free from nearly all the positive errors of manhood, so +remarkably endowed with at least all the negative virtues, that his +companionship might easily have spoiled her for the toleration of +natures less calm and orderly. I suspect that the Queen is one of that +class of thoroughly good women who, from mere lack of wide sympathies +and genial toleration, are not qualified to deal to the best advantage +with children who show a little inclination for irregularity and +self-indulgence. Nor do I believe that the Prince of Wales is the wicked +and brutal profligate that common libel makes him out. The shocking +story which one sees so often alluded to in the London correspondence of +certain American papers, and which attributes the long illness of the +Princess of Wales to the misconduct of her husband, I believe to be +utterly unfounded and unjustifiable. One of the London medical journals, +the "Lancet" I think it was, had the courage to refer directly to this +monstrous statement, and to give it an emphatic and authoritative +refutation. If the worst things said of the Prince of Wales with any +appearance of foundation were true, it is certain that he would still +not be any worse than many other European princes and sovereigns. I have +never heard anything said of the Prince of Wales half so bad as the +stories which are believed everywhere in Paris of the enormous +profligacies of Prince Napoleon; and it would be hardly possible for +charity itself to doubt that up to a very recent period the private life +of the Emperor of the French himself was stained with frequent and +reckless dissipation. Those who were in Vienna anywhere about the autumn +of 1866, will remember the stories which were told about the fatal +results of the exalted military command given by the imperial will to +certain favored generals, and the kind of influence by which those +generals had acquired imperial favor. Common report certainly describes +the Empress of Austria as being no happier in her domestic relations +than the Princess of Wales. Everybody knows what Victor Emanuel's +private character is, and what sort of hopeful youth is his eldest son, +Umberto. Therefore, the Prince of Wales could doubtless plead that he is +no worse than his neighbors; and even in his own family he might point +to other members no better than himself. The Duke of Cambridge, for +instance, has often been accused of profligacy and profligate +favoritism. I wish I could venture to repeat here, for the sake of the +genuine wit and keen satire of it, a certain epigram in Latin, composed +by an English military officer, to describe the influence which brought +about the sudden and remarkable promotion of another officer who was not +believed to be personally quite deserving of the rank conferred on him +by the Duke of Cambridge, commander-in-chief of the British army. But +the position of the Prince of Wales is very different from that of the +Duke of Cambridge, and he has to face a public opinion quite unlike that +which surrounds Prince Napoleon or the Emperor of the French. People in +France are not inclined to make any very serious complaint about the +amours of a prince, or even of an emperor. I do not venture to say that +there is much more of actual immorality<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> in Paris than in London; but, +assuredly, a man may, without harm to his public and political +influence, acknowledge an amount of immorality in Paris which would be +utterly fatal to his credit and reputation in London. Moreover, some of +the illustrious profligates I have mentioned are distinguished by other +qualities as well as profligacy; but I cannot say that I have ever heard +any positively good quality, either of heart or intellect, ascribed to +the Prince of Wales.</p> + +<p>Unless his face, his head, his manners in public, and the tastes he so +conspicuously manifests wholly belie him, the heir to the British throne +is a remarkably dull young man. He cannot even deliver with any decent +imitation of intelligence the little speeches which Arthur Helps or +somebody else usually gets up for him when the exigencies of the +situation compel the Prince to make a speech in public. He is reputed to +be parsimonious even in his pleasures, and has managed to get himself +deeply into debt without being supposed to have wasted any of his +substance in obedience to a generous impulse. The Prince inherited a +splendid property. His prudent father had looked well after the revenues +of the duchy of Cornwall, which is the appanage of the Prince of Wales +(even in some very dingy parts of London you may if you hire a house +find that you have the Prince of Wales for a landlord), and the property +of the heir must have been raised to its very highest value. Yet it is +notorious that a very few years after he had attained his majority, +Albert Edward had contrived to get deeply immersed in debt. There was +for some time a scheme in contemplation to apply to Parliament for an +addition to the huge allowance made to the Prince of Wales; and the +"Times" and other newspapers were always urging the fact that the Queen +left the Prince to perform nearly all her social duties for her, as a +reason why the nation ought to award him an augmented income. It puzzles +people in London, who read the papers and who study, as most Britons do, +the occupations and pastimes of royalty, to know where the lavish and +regal hospitalities take place which the Prince of Wales is supposed to +dispense on behalf of his mother. However, the project for appealing to +the generosity of Parliament seems to have been put aside or to have +fallen through—I have read somewhere that the Queen herself has agreed +to increase her son's allowance out of her own ample and well-hoarded +purse—and the English public are not likely to be treated to any +Parliamentary debate on the subject just yet. But this much is certain, +that the same almost universal rumor which attributes coarse and +dissipated habits to the Prince of Wales attributes to him likewise a +mean and stingy parsimony where aught save his own pleasure is +concerned; and even there, if by any possibility the pleasure can be +obtained without superfluous cost.</p> + +<p>This then is the character which the son of the Queen of England bears, +in the estimation of the vast majority of his mother's subjects. Almost +any and every one you meet in London will tell you, as something beyond +doubt, that the Prince of Wales is dull, stingy, coarse, and profligate. +As for the anecdotes which are told of his habits and tastes by the +artists and officials of the theatres which he frequents, I might fairly +leave them out of the question, because most of them that I have heard +seem to me obvious improbabilities and exaggerations. They have +nevertheless a certain value in helping us to a sort of historical +estimate of the Prince's character. Half the stories told of the humors +and debaucheries of Sheridan and Fox are doubtless inventions or +exaggerations; but we are quite safe in assuming that the persons of +whom such stories abound were not frugal, temperate, and orderly men. If +the Prince of Wales is not a young man of dissipated habits, then a +phenomenon is exhibited in his case which is, I fancy, without any +parallel in history—the phenomenon of a whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> watchful nation, +studying the character and habits of one whose position compels him to +live as in a house of glass, and coming, after years of observation, to +a conclusion at once unanimous and erroneous. But were it proved beyond +the remotest possibility of doubt that the Prince is personally chaste +as a Joseph, temperate as Father Mathew, tender to his wife as the elder +Hamlet, attached to his mother as Hamlet the younger, it would still +remain a fact indisputable to all of us in London, who have eyes to see +and ears to hear, that the Prince is addicted to vulgar amusements; that +he patronizes indecent exhibitions; that he is given to the +companionship of profligate men, and lends his helping hand to the +success and the popularity of immoral and lascivious women.</p> + +<p>What is to be the effect upon England of the reign of the Prince of +Wales? Will England and her statesmen endure the rule of a profligate +sovereign? No country can have undergone in equal time a greater +revolution in public taste and sentiment at least, if not in morals, +than England has since the time of George the Fourth. No genius, no +eloquence, no political wisdom or merits could now induce the English +people to put up with the open and undisguised excesses of a Fox; nor +could any English statesman of the rank of Fox be found now who would +condescend to pander to the vices of a George the Fourth. Thirty years +of decorum in the Court, the Parliament, and the press have created a +public feeling in England which will not long bear to be too openly +offended by any one. But, although I may seem at first to be enunciating +a paradox, I must say that all this is rather in favor of the chances of +the Prince of Wales than against them. It will take so small a sacrifice +on his part to satisfy everybody, that only the very extravagance of +folly could lead him long astray on any unsatisfactory course, when once +he has become directly responsible to the nation. We are not exacting in +England as regards the private conduct of our great people. We only ask +them to be publicly decorous. Everywhere in English society there is a +quite unconscious, naive sort of Pharisaism, the unavowed but actual +principle of which is that it matters very little if a man does the +wrong thing, provided he publicly acts and says the right thing. I am +perfectly satisfied that the great bulk of respectable and Philistine +society in England would regard Robert Dale Owen, with his pure life and +his views on the question of divorce, as a far more objectionable person +than the veriest profligate who did evil stealthily, and professed to +maintain the theory of a rigid marriage bond. The Prince of Wales will +therefore need very little actual improvement in his way of life, in +order to be all that his future subjects will expect, or care to ask. No +one wants the Prince to be a man of ability; no one wishes him to be a +good speaker. If Albert Edward were to rise in the House of Lords some +night, and deliver a powerful and eloquent speech, as Prince Napoleon +has often done in the French Senate, the English public would be not +only surprised but shocked. Such a feat performed by a Prince would seem +almost as much out of place, as if he were to follow the example of +Caligula or Nero and exhibit himself in the arena as a gladiator. Of +course the idea of the Prince of Wales fulminating against the policy of +the Crown and the Government, after the fashion of Prince Napoleon, +would be simply intolerable to the British mind of to-day—a thing so +outrageous as indeed to be practically inconceivable. The Prince of +Wales's part during the coming years, whether as first subject or as +ruler, is as easy as could well be assigned to man. It is the very +reverse of Bottom's; it is to avoid all roaring. He must be decorous, +and we will put up with any degree of dulness; he must be decent, and we +will all agree to know nothing of any private compensations wherewith he +may repay himself for public<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> propriety. All the influences of English +statesmanship, rank, religion, journalism, patriotism, Philistinism, and +flunkeyism, will instinctively combine to screen the throne against +scandal, if only the throne will consent to allow of the possibility of +such a protection. I have hardly ever known an Englishman whose +hostility to monarchical institutions went so far that he would not be +ready to say, "We have got a monarchy; let us try to make the best we +can of it." Therefore the Prince of Wales must be the very Marplot or +L'Etourdi of princes, if he cannot contrive to make himself endurable to +a people who will bear so much rather than be at the trouble of a +change. Of course it is possible that his faults may become grosser and +more unmanageable with years (indeed, he is quite old enough already to +have sown his wild oats long since); and it would be a hard trial upon +decorous English statesmen and the English public to endure an openly +profligate King. Yet even that nuisance I think would be endured for one +lifetime at all events, rather than encounter the danger and trouble of +any organic change.</p> + +<p>So long as the Prince of Wales keeps out of politics, he may hold his +place well enough; the England of to-day could far better endure even a +George the Fourth than a George the Third. I have little doubt that the +Prince of Wales, when he comes to be King, will be discreet in this +matter at least. He has never indeed shown any particular interest in +political affairs, so far as I have heard. He seems to care little or +nothing about the contests of parties. Some three or four years ago, at +the time of the celebrated Adullamite secession from the Liberal party, +there was some grumbling among Radicals because it was reported that the +Prince of Wales had expressed a wish to make the acquaintance of Robert +Lowe, the brilliant, eccentric chief of the secession, and had had Lowe +brought to him and spent a long time talking with him; and it was urged +that this was done by the Prince to mark his approval of the Adullamites +and his dislike of radicalism. But just about the very same time the +Prince took some trouble to make the acquaintance of John Bright, and +paid what might have been considered very flattering attentions to the +great popular tribune. The Prince has more than once visited the Pope, +and he has likewise more than once visited Garibaldi. Indeed, he seems +to have a harmless liking for knowing personally all people who are +talked about; and I fancy he hunted up the Pope, and Garibaldi, and John +Bright, and Robert Lowe, just as he sends for Mr. Toole the comic actor, +or Blondin, or Chang the giant. Nothing can be safer and better for the +Prince in the future than to keep to this wholesome indifference to +politics. In England we could stand any length of the reign of King Log. +I shall not venture to conjecture what might happen if the Prince of +Wales were to develop a perverse inclination to "meddle and muddle" in +politics, because I think such a thing highly improbable. My impression +is, on the whole, that things will go on under the reign of the next +sovereign in England very much as they have been going on under the +present; that the Prince of Wales will be induced to pay a little more +attention to decorum and public propriety than he has hitherto done; and +that the people of England will laugh at him and cheer for him, talk +scandal about him and sing God save him, and finally endure him, on +somewhat the same principle as that which induces the New York public to +endure overcrowded street-cars and miserable postal arrangements—just +because it is less trouble to each individual to put up with his share +of a defective institution, than to go out of his way for the purpose of +endeavoring to organize any combination to get rid of it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>THE KING OF PRUSSIA.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>Ronsard, in one of his songs addressed to his mistress, tells her that +in her declining years she will be able to boast that "When I was young +a poet sang of me." In a less romantic spirit the writer of this article +may boast in old age, should he attain to such blest condition, that +"When I was young a king spoke to me." That was the only king or +sovereign of any kind with whom I ever exchanged a word, and therefore I +may perhaps be allowed to be proud of the occasion and reluctant to let +it sleep in oblivion. The king was William, King of Prussia, and the +occasion of my being spoken to by a sovereign was when I, with some +other journalists, was formally presented to King William after his +coronation, and listened to a word or two of commonplace, good-humored +courtesy.</p> + +<p>The coronation of King William took place, as many readers of <span class="smcap">The Galaxy</span> +are probably aware, in the old historic town of Königsberg, on the +extreme northeastern frontier of Prussia, a town standing on one of the +inlets of the Baltic Sea, where once the Teutonic Knights, mentioned by +Chaucer, were powerful. Carlyle's "Frederick the Great" had brought +Königsberg prominently before the eyes and minds of English-speaking +readers, just previously to the ceremony in which King William was the +most conspicuous performer. It is the city where Immanuel Kant passed +his long and fruitful life, and which he never quitted. It is a +picturesque city in its way, although not to be compared with its +neighbor Dantzic. It is a city of canals and streams, and many bridges, +and quaint, narrow, crooked streets, wherein are frequent long-bearded +and gabardined Jews, and where Hebrew inscriptions are seen over many +shop-windows and on various door-plates. In its centre the city is +domineered over by a Schloss, or castle-palace, and it was in the chapel +of this palace that the ceremony of coronation took place, which +provoked at the time so many sharp criticisms and so much of popular +ridicule.</p> + +<p>The first time I saw the King was when he rode in procession through the +ancient city, some two or three days before the performance of the +coronation. He seemed a fine, dignified, handsome, somewhat bluff old +man—he was then sixty-four or sixty-five years of age—with gray hair +and gray moustache, and an expression which, if it did not denote +intellectual power, had much of cheerful strength and the charm of a +certain kind of frank manhood about it. He rode well—riding is one of +the accomplishments in which kings almost always excel—and his military +costume became him. Certainly no one was just then disposed to be very +enthusiastic about him, but every one was inclined to make the best of +the sovereign and the situation; to forget the past and look hopefully +into the future. The manner in which the coronation ceremony was +conducted, and the speech which the King delivered soon after it, +produced a terrible shock of disappointment; for in each the King +manifested that he understood the crown to be a gift not from his +people, but from heaven. To me the ceremonies in the chapel, splendid +and picturesque as was the <i>mise en scène</i>, appeared absurd and even +ridiculous. The King, bedizened in a regal costume which suggested Drury +Lane or Niblo's Garden, lifting a crown from off the altar (was it, by +the way, an altar?) and, without intervention of human aid other than +his own hands, placing it upon his head, to signify that he had his +crown from heaven, not from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> man; then putting another crown upon the +head of his wife, to show that <i>she</i> derived her dignities from him; and +then turning round and brandishing a gigantic sword, as symbolical of +his readiness to defend his State and people—all this seemed to me too +suggestive of the <i>opéra comique</i> to suit the simple dignity of the +handsome old soldier. Far better and nobler did he look in his military +uniform and with his spiked helmet, as he sat on his horse in the +streets, than when, arrayed in crimson velvet cloak and other such stage +paraphernalia of conventional royalty, he stood in the castle chapel, +the central figure in a ceremonial of mediæval splendor and worse than +mediæval tediousness.</p> + +<p>But the King's face, bearing, and manner, as I saw him in Königsberg, +and immediately afterwards in Berlin, agreeably disappointed me. It was +one of the best faces to be seen among all the throng at banquet and +ball and pageant during those days of gorgeous and heavy ceremonial. At +the coronation performances there were two other personages who may be +said to have divided public curiosity and interest with the King. One +was the illustrious Meyerbeer, who composed and conducted the coronation +ode, which thus became almost his swan-song, his latest notes before +death. The other was a man whose name has lately again divided attention +with that of the King of Prussia—Marshal MacMahon, Duke of Magenta. +MacMahon was sent to represent the Emperor of the French at the +coronation, and he was then almost fresh from the glory of his Lombardy +battles. There was great curiosity among the Königsberg public to get a +glimpse of this military hero; and although even Prussians could hardly +be supposed to take delight in a fame acquired at the expense of other +Germans, I remember being much struck by the quiet, candid good-humor +with which people acknowledged that he had beaten their countrymen. +There was, indeed, a little vexation and anger felt when some of the +representatives of Posen, the Prussian Poland, cheered somewhat too +significantly for MacMahon as he drove in his carriage from the palace. +The Prussians generally felt annoyed that the Poles should have thus +publicly and ostentatiously demonstrated their sympathy with France and +their admiration of the French general who had defeated a German army. +But except for this little ebullition of feeling, natural enough on both +sides, MacMahon was a popular figure at the King's coronation; and +before the ceremonies were over, the King himself had become anything +but popular. The foreigners liked him for the most part because his +manners were plain, frank, hearty, and agreeable, and to the foreigners +it was a matter of little consequence what he said or did in the +accepting of his crown. But the Germans winced under his blunt +repudiation of the principle of popular sovereignty, and in the minds of +some alarmists painful and odious memories began to revive and to +transform themselves into terrible omens for the future.</p> + +<p>For this pleasant, genial, gray-haired man, whose smile had so much of +honest frankness and even a certain simple sweetness about it, had a +grim and bloodstained history behind him. Not Napoleon the Third himself +bore a more ominous record when he ascended the throne. The blood of the +Berliners was purple on those hands which now gave so kindly and cheery +a welcome to all comers. The revolutionists of Baden held in bitter hate +the stern prince who was so unscrupulous in his mode of crushing out +popular agitation. From Cologne to Königsberg, from Hamburg to Trieste, +all Germans had for years had reason only too strong to regard William +Prince of Prussia as the most resolute and relentless enemy of popular +liberty. When the Pope was inspiring the hearts of freemen and patriots +everywhere in Europe with sudden and splendid hopes doomed to speedy +disappointment, the Prince of Prussia was execrated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> with the Hapsburgs, +the Bourbons, and the Romanoffs. The one only thing commonly said in his +favor was that he was honest and would keep his word. The late Earl of +Clarendon, one of the most incautious and blundering of diplomatists +(whom after his death the English newspapers have been eulogizing as a +very sage and prince of statesmen), embodied this opinion sharply in a +few words which he spoke to a friend of mine in Königsberg. Clarendon +represented Queen Victoria at the coronation ceremonies, and my friend +happened in conversation with him to be expressing a highly disparaging +opinion of the King of Prussia. "There is just this to be said of him," +the British Envoy remarked aloud in the centre of a somewhat +miscellaneous group of listeners—"he is an honest man and a man of his +word; he is not a Corsican conspirator."</p> + +<p>Yes, this was and is the character of the King of Prussia. In good and +evil he kept his word. You might trust him to do as he had said. During +the greater part of his life the things he promised to do and did were +not such as free men could approve. He set out in life with a genuine +detestation of liberal principles and of anything that suggested popular +revolution. William of Prussia is certainly not a man of intellect or +broad intelligence or flexibility of mind. He would be in private life a +respectable, steady, rather dull sort of man, honest as the sun, just as +likely to go wrong as right in his opinions, perhaps indeed a shade more +likely to go wrong than right, and sure to be doggedly obstinate in any +opinion which he conceived to be founded on a principle. Horror of +revolution was naturally his earliest public sentiment. He was one of +the princes who entered Paris in 1815 with the allied sovereigns when +they came to stamp out Bonapartism; and he seemed to have gone on to +late manhood with the conviction that the mission of honest kings was to +prevent popular agitation from threatening the divine right of the +throne. Naturally enough, a man of such a character, whose chief merits +were steadfastness and honesty, was much disgusted by the vacillation, +the weakness, the half-unconscious deceitfulness of his brother, the +late Frederick William. Poor Frederick William! well-meaning, ill-doing +dreamer, "wind-changing" as Warwick, a sort of René of Anjou placed in a +responsible position and cast into a stormy age. What blighted hopes and +bloody streets were justly laid to his charge—to the charge of him who +asked nothing better than to be able to oblige everybody and make all +his people happy! Frederick William loved poetry and poets in a feeble, +<i>dilettante</i> sort of way. He liked, one might say, to be thought to like +the Muses and the Graces. He used to insist upon Tieck the poet reading +aloud his new compositions to the royal circle of evenings; and when the +bard began to read the King would immediately fall asleep, and nod until +he nodded himself into wakefulness again; and then he would start up and +say, "Bravo, Tieck! Delightful, Tieck! Go on reading, Tieck!" and then +to sleep again. He liked in this sort of fashion the poetic and +sentimental aspects of revolution, and he dandled popular movements on +his royal knee until they became too demonstrative and frightened him, +and then he shook them off and shrieked for the aid of his strong-nerved +brother. One day Frederick William would be all for popular government +and representative monarchy, and what not; the next day he became +alarmed and receded, and was eager to crush the hopes he had himself +awakened. He was always breaking his word to his people and his country, +and yet he was not personally an untruthful man like English Charles the +First. In private life he would have been amiable, respectable, gently +æsthetical and sentimental; placed in a position of responsibility amid +the seething passions and conflicting political currents of 1848, he +proved himself a very dastard and caitiff. Germany could hardly have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +had upon the throne of Prussia a worse man for such a crisis. He was +unlucky in every way; for his vacillation drew on him the repute of +hypocrisy, and his whimsical excitable manners procured for him the +reproach of intemperance. A sincerely pious man in his way, he was +almost universally set down as a hypocrite; a sober man who only drank +wine medicinally on the order of his physicians, he was favored +throughout Europe with the nickname of "King Clicquot." His utter +imbecility before and after the massacre of those whom he called his +"beloved Berliners," made him more detestable to Berlin than was his +blunt and stern brother, the present King, who gave with his own lips +the orders which opened fire on the population. A more unkingly figure +than that of poor, weak, well-intentioned, sentimental, lachrymose +Frederick William, never in our days at least has been seen under a +royal canopy.</p> + +<p>It was but natural that such a character or no-character as this should +disgust his brother and successor, the present King. Frederick William, +as everybody knows, had no son to succeed him. The stout-hearted William +would have liked his brother and sovereign to be one thing or the other; +a despot of course he would have preferred, but he desired consistency +and steadfastness on whatever side. William, it must be owned, was for +many years a downright stupid, despotic old feudalist. At one of his +brother's councils he flung his sword upon the table and vowed that he +would rather appeal to that weapon than consent to rule over a people +who dared to claim the right of voting their own taxes. He appears to +have had the sincere stupid faith that Heaven directly tells or teaches +kings how to rule, and that a king fails in his religious duty who takes +counsel of aught save his own convictions. Perhaps a good many people in +lowlier life are like William of Prussia in this respect. He certainly +was not the only person in our time who habitually accepted his own +likings and dislikings as the appointed ordinances of Heaven. In my own +circle of acquaintance I think I have known such individuals.</p> + +<p>Thus William of Prussia strode through life sword in hand menacing and, +where he could, suppressing popular movement. Yet he was saved from +utter detestation by the admitted integrity of his character—a virtue +so dear to Germans, that for its sake they will pardon harshness and +sometimes even stupidity. People disliked or dreaded him, but they +despised his brother. There was a certain simplicity, too, always seen +in William's mode of living which pleased the country. There was no +affectation about him; he was almost as much of a plain, unpretending +soldier as General Grant himself. Since he became King, anybody passing +along the famous Unter den Linden might see the white-haired, simple old +man writing or reading at the window of his palace. He was in this +respect a sort of military Louis Philippe; a Louis Philippe with a +strong purpose and without any craft. Therefore, when the death of his +brother in 1861 called him to the throne, he found a people anxious to +give him credit for every good quality and good purpose, willing to +forget the past and look hopefully into the coming time. They only +smiled at his renewal of the coronation ceremonies at Königsberg, +believing that the old soldier thought there was something of a +religious principle somehow mixed up in them, and that it was the +imaginary piety, not the substantial pomp, which commended to his mind +so gorgeous and costly an anachronism. After the coronation ceremonies, +however, came back the old unpopularity. The King, people said, has +learned nothing and forgotten nothing since he was Prince of Prussia. +Every act he did after his accession to the crown seemed only more and +more to confirm this impression. It was, I think, about this time that +the celebrated "Diary" of Varnhagen von Ense was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> published by the niece +of the deceased diplomatist; a diary full in itself of the most piquant +interest, but made yet more piquant and interesting by the bitter and +foolish persecution with which the King's officials endeavored to +suppress the work and punish its publishers. I have not read or even +seen the book for years, but the impression it made on me is almost as +distinct just now as it was when I laid down the last of its many and +vivacious volumes.</p> + +<p>Varnhagen von Ense was a bitter creature, and the pen with which he +wrote his diary seems to have been dipped in gall of special acridity. +The diary goes over many years of Berlin court life, and the present +King of Prussia is one of its central figures. The author does not seem +to have had much respect for anybody; and King William was evidently an +object of his particular detestation. All the doings of the days of 1848 +are recorded or commented on, and the pages are interspersed with +notices of the sharp ungenial things said by one royal personage of +another. If the late Frederick William chose to say an ill-natured thing +of Queen Victoria of England, down goes the remark in Varnhagen's pages, +and it is chronicled for the perusal of all the world. We learn from the +book that the present King of Prussia does not live on the most genial +terms with his wife Augusta; that Augusta has rather a marked +inclination towards Liberalism, and would find nothing more pleasant +than a little coquetry with Revolution. Varnhagen intimates that the +illustrious lady loved lions and novelties of any kind, and that at the +time he writes she would have been particularly glad to make the +acquaintance of Louis Blanc; and he more than hints at a decided +inclination on her part to <i>porter le pantalon</i>—an inclination which +her husband was not at all likely to gratify, consciously at least. Of +the progressive wife Varnhagen speaks with no whit more respect than of +the reactionary husband; and indeed he seems to look with irreverent and +cynical eyes on everything royal that comes under his observation. +Throughout the whole of the diary, the figure of the present King comes +out consistently and distinctly. William is always the blunt, dull, +wrong-headed, I might almost say pig-headed soldier-fanatic, who will do +and suffer and make others do and suffer anything, in a cause which he +believes to be right. With all Varnhagen von Ense's bitterness and +scorn, he gives us no worse idea of King William than just this. But +judging from the expression of the King's face, from his manner, and +from what I have heard of him in Berlin and elsewhere, I should say +there was a good deal of individual kindness and bonhomie in him for +which the critic did not give him credit. I think he is, on the whole, +better than Varnhagen von Ense chose to paint him or see him.</p> + +<p>From Alexander Humboldt, as well as from Varnhagen von Ense, we learn a +good deal of the inner life of kings and queens and princes in Berlin. +There is something almost painful in reflecting on the kind of life +which Humboldt must have led among these people, whom he so cordially +despised, and whom in his private chroniclings he so held up to scorn. +The great philosopher assuredly had a huge treasure of hatred locked up +in his heart. He detested and scorned these royal personages, who so +blandly patronized him, or were sometimes so rough in their +condescending familiarity. Nothing takes the gilt off the life of courts +so much as a perusal of what Humboldt has written about it. One hardly +cares to think of so great, and on the whole so noble a man, living a +life of what seems so like perpetual dissimulation; of his enduring +these royal dullards and pert princesses, and doubtless seeming +profoundly reverential, and then going home of nights to put down on +paper his record of their vulgarity, and selfishness, and impertinence. +Sometimes Humboldt was not able to contain himself within the limits of +court politeness. The late King of Hanover (father of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> now dethroned +King George) was a rough brutal trooper, who had made himself odious in +England as the Duke of Cumberland, and was accused by popular rumors of +the darkest crimes—unjustly accused certainly, in the case where he was +charged with the murder of his valet. The Duke did not make a very bad +sort of King, as kings then went; but he retained all his roughness and +coarseness of manner. He once accosted Humboldt in the palace of the +late King of Prussia, and in his pleasant graceful way asked why it was +that the Prussian court was always full of philosophers and loose +women—describing the latter class of visitors by a very direct and +expressive word. "Perhaps," replied Humboldt blandly, "the King invites +the philosophers to meet me, and the other persons to please your +Majesty!" Humboldt seems to have had little liking for any of the +illustrious personages he met under the roof of the King of Prussia. A +brief record he made of a conversation with the late Prince Albert (for +whom he expressed a great contempt) went far when it was published to +render the husband of Queen Victoria more unpopular and even detested in +Ireland than another George the Fourth would have been. The Irish people +will probably never forget that, according to the statement of Humboldt, +the Prince spoke contemptuously of Irish national aspirations, declared +he had no sympathy with the Irish, and that they were as restless, idle, +and unmanageable as the Poles—a pretty speech, the philosopher remarks, +to be made by the husband of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. +Some attempt was made when this record of Humboldt's came to light to +dispute the truth of it; but Humboldt was certainly not a liar—and +anyhow the Irish people believed the story and it did no little +mischief; and Humboldt in his grave might have had the consolation of +knowing that he had injured one prince at least.</p> + +<p>What we learn of the King of Prussia through Humboldt is to the same +effect as the teaching of Varnhagen's cynical spirit; and I think, if +these keen irreverent critics did not do him wrong, his Majesty must +have softened and improved with the responsibilities of royalty. In many +respects one might be inclined to compare him with the English George +the Third. Both were indeed dull, decent, and fanatical. But there are +some wide differences. George the Third was obstinate in the worst +sense; his was the obstinacy of a stupid, self-conceited man who +believes himself wise and right in everything. Now, I fancy the King of +Prussia is only obstinate in what he conceives, rightly or wrongly, to +be questions of duty and of principle; and that there are many subjects, +political and otherwise, of which he does not believe himself to be the +most competent judge, and which therefore he is quite willing to leave +to the consideration and decision of others. For instance, it was made +evident that in the beginning of the transactions which were followed by +(although they cannot be said to have caused) the present war, the King +more than once expressed himself willing to do certain things, of which, +however, Count von Bismarck subsequently disapproved; and the King +quietly gave way. "You know better than I do; act as you think best," +is, I believe, a quite common sentence on the lips of King William, when +he is talking with this or that trusted minister. Then again it has been +placed beyond all doubt that George the Third could be, when he thought +fit, the most unabashed and unscrupulous of liars; and not even hatred +itself will charge King William with any act or word of falsehood or +duplicity.</p> + +<p>Steadily did the King grow more and more unpopular after his coronation. +All the old work of prosecuting newspapers and snubbing, or if possible +punishing, free-spoken politicians, came into play again. The King +quarrelled fiercely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> with his Parliament about the scheme of army +reorganization. I think he was right as to the scheme, although terribly +wrong-headed and high-handed in his way of forcing it down the throats +of the people, and, aided by his House of Peers, he waged a sort of war +upon the nation's representatives. Then first came to the front that +extraordinary political figure, which before very long had cast into the +shade every other in Europe, even including that of the Emperor +Napoleon; that marvellous compound of audacity and craft, candor and +cunning, the profound sagacity of a Richelieu, the levity of a +Palmerston; imperturbably good-humored, illimitably unscrupulous; a +patriot without lofty emotion of any kind, a statesman who could +sometimes condescend to be a juggler; part bully, part buffoon, but +always a man of supreme courage, inexhaustible resources of brain and +tongue—always in short a man of genius. I need hardly add that I am +speaking of the Count von Bismarck.</p> + +<p>At the time of the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, there was probably no +public man in Europe so generally unpopular as the King of Prussia, +except perhaps his Minister, the Count von Bismarck. In England it was +something like an article of faith to believe that the King was a +bloodthirsty old tyrant, his Prime Minister a combination of Strafford +and Sejanus, and his subjects generally a set of beer-bemuddled and +servile blockheads. The dislike felt toward the King was extended to the +members of his family, and the popular conviction in England was that +the Princess Victoria, wife of the King's son, had a dull coarse +drunkard for a husband. It is perfectly wonderful how soon an absurdly +erroneous idea, if there is anything about it which jumps with the +popular humor, takes hold of the public mind of England. The English +people regarded the Prussians with utter detestation and contempt. Not +only that, but they regarded it as quite a possible and even likely +thing that poor brave little Denmark, with a population hardly larger +than that of the city of New York, could hold her own, alone, against +the combined forces of Austria and Prussia. One might have thought that +there never was a Frederick the Great or an Archduke Charles; that the +only part ever played in history by Germans was that of impotent +braggarts and stupid cowards. When there seemed some prospect of +England's drawing the sword for Denmark, "Punch" published a cartoon +which was very popular and successful. It represented an English sailor +and soldier of the conventional dramatic style, looking with utter +contempt at two awkward shambling boobies with long hair and huge +meerschaums—one booby supposed to represent Prussia, the other Austria; +and Jack Tar says to his friend the redcoat: "They can't expect us to +<i>fight</i> fellows like those, but we'll kick them, of course, with +pleasure." This so fairly represented the average public opinion of +England that there was positively some surprise felt in London when it +was found that the Prussians really could fight at all. Towards the +Austrians there was nothing like the same ill-feeling; and when +Bismarck's war against Austria (I cannot better describe it) broke out +shortly after, the sympathy of England went almost unanimously with the +enemy of Prussia. Ninety-nine men out of every hundred firmly believed +that Austria would clutch Italy with one hand and Prussia with the +other, and easily choke the life out of both. About the merits of the +quarrel nobody in England outside the range of a very few politicians +and journalists troubled himself at all. It was settled that Austria had +somehow come to represent the cause of human freedom and progress; that +the King of Prussia was a stupid and brutal old trooper, hurried to his +ruin by the evil counsels of a drunken Mephistopheles; and that the +Austrian forces would simply walk over the Prussians into Berlin. There +was but one newspaper in London<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> (and it has since died) which ventured +to suggest, first, that perhaps the Prussians had the right side of the +quarrel, and next, that perhaps they would have the better in the fight.</p> + +<p>With the success of Prussia at Sadowa ended King William's personal +unpopularity in Europe. Those who were prepared to take anything like a +rational view of the situation began to see that there must be some +manner of great cause behind such risks, sacrifices, and success. Those +who disliked Prussia more than ever, as many in France did, were +disposed to put the King out of their consideration altogether, and to +turn their detestation wholly on the King's Minister. In fact, Bismarck +so entirely eclipsed or occulted the King, that the latter may be said +to have disappeared from the horizon of European politics. His good +qualities or bad qualities no longer counted for aught in the estimation +of foreigners. Bismarck was everything, the King was nothing. Now I wish +the readers of <span class="smcap">The Galaxy</span> not to take this view of the matter. In +everything which has been done by Prussia since his accession to the +throne, King William has counted for something. His stern uncompromising +truthfulness, seen as clearly in the despatches he sent from recent +battle-fields as in any other deeds of his life, has always counted for +much. So too has his narrow-minded dread of anything which he believes +to savor of the revolution. So has his thorough and devoted Germanism. I +am convinced that it would have been far more easy of late to induce +Bismarck to make compromises with seemingly powerful enemies at the +expense of German soil, than it would have been to persuade Bismarck's +master to consent to such proposals. The King's is far more of a typical +German character (except for its lack of intellect) than that of +Bismarck, in whom there is so much of French audacity as well as of +French humor. On the other hand, I would ask my readers not to rush into +wild admiration of the King of Prussia, or to suppose that liberty owes +him personally any direct thanks. King William's subjects know too well +that they have little to thank him for on that score. Strange as the +comparison may seem at first, it is not less true that the enthusiasm +now felt by Germans for the King is derived from just the same source as +the early enthusiasm of Frenchmen for the first Napoleon. In each man +his people see the champion who has repelled the aggression of the +insolent foreigner, and has been strong enough to pursue the foreigner +into his own home and there chastise him for his aggression. The blind +stupidity of Austria and the crimes of Bonapartism have made King +William a patriot King. When Thiers wittily and bitterly said that the +Second Empire had made two great statesmen, Cavour and Bismarck, he +might have said with still closer accuracy that it had made one great +sovereign, William of Prussia. Never man attained such a position as +that lately won by King William with less of original "outfit" to +qualify him for the place. Five or six years ago the King of Prussia was +as much disliked and distrusted by his own subjects as ever the Emperor +of the French was by the followers of the Left. Look back to the famous +days when "Bockum-Dolff's hat" seemed likely to become a symbol of civil +revolution in Germany. Look back to the time when the King's own son and +heir apparent, the warrior Crown Prince who since has flamed across so +many a field of blood, felt called upon to make formal protest in a +public speech against the illiberal, repressive, and despotic policy of +his father! Think of these things, and say whether any change could be +more surprising than that which has converted King William into the +typical champion and patriot of Germany; and when you seek the +explanation of the change, you will simply find that the worst enemies +of Prussia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> have been unwittingly the kindest friends and the best +patrons of Prussia's honest and despotic old sovereign.</p> + +<p>I think the King of Prussia's subjects were not wrong when they disliked +and dreaded him, and I also think they are now not wrong when they trust +and applaud him. It has been his great good fortune to reign during a +period when the foreign policy of the State was of infinitely greater +importance than its domestic management. It became the business of the +King of Prussia to help his country to assert and to maintain a national +existence. Nothing better was needed in the sovereign for this purpose +than the qualities of a military dictator, and the King, in this case, +was saved all trouble of thinking and planning. He had but to accept and +agree to a certain line of policy—a certain set of national +principles—and to put his foot down on these and see that they were +carried through. For this object the really manly and sturdy nature of +the King proved admirably adapted. He upheld manfully and firmly the +standard of the nation. His defective qualities were rendered inactive, +and had indeed no occasion or chance to display themselves, while all +that was good of him came into full activity and bold relief. But I do +not believe that the character of the King in any wise changed. He was a +dull, honest, fanatical martinet when he turned his cannon against +German liberals in 1848; he was a dull, honest, fanatical martinet when +he unfurled the flag of Prussia against the Austrians in 1866 and +against the French in 1870. The brave old man is only happy when doing +what he thinks right; but he wants alike the intellect and the +susceptibilities which enable people to distinguish right from wrong, +despotism from justice, necessary firmness from stolid obstinacy. But +for the wars and the great national issues which rose to claim instant +decision, King William would have gone on dissolving Parliaments and +punishing newspapers, levying taxes without the consent of +representatives, and making the police-officer the master of Berlin. The +vigor which was so popular when employed in resisting the French, would +assuredly otherwise have found occupation in repressing the Prussians. I +see nothing to admire in King William but his courage and his honesty. +People who know him personally speak delightedly of his sweet and genial +manners in private life; and I have observed that, like many another old +<i>moustache</i>, he has the art of making himself highly popular with the +ladies. There is a celebrated little <i>prima donna</i> as well known in +London as in Berlin, who can only speak of the bluff monarch as <i>der +süsse König</i>—"the sweet King." Indeed, there are not wanting people who +hint that Queen Augusta is not always quite pleased at the manner in +which the venerable soldier makes himself agreeable to dames and +demoiselles. Certainly the ladies seem to be generally very enthusiastic +about his Majesty when they come into acquaintanceship with him, and to +the <i>prima donna</i> I have mentioned his kindness and courtesy have been +only such as are well worthy of a gentleman and of a king. Still we all +know that it does not take a great effort on the part of a sovereign to +make people, especially women, think him very delightful. I do not, +therefore, make much account of King William's courtesy and <i>bonhomie</i> +in estimating his character. For all the service he has done to Germany +let him have full thanks; but I cannot bring myself to any warmth of +personal admiration for him. It is indeed hard to look at him without +feeling for the moment some sentiment of genuine respect. The fine head +and face, with its noble outlines and its frank pleasant smile, the +stately, dignified form, which some seventy-five years have neither +bowed nor enfeebled, make the King look like some splendid old paladin +of the court of Charlemagne. He is, indeed, despite his years, the +finest physical specimen of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>sovereign Europe just now can show. +Compare him with the Emperor Napoleon, so many years his junior—compare +his soldierly presence, his manly bearing, his clear frank eyes, his +simple and sincere expression, with the prematurely wasted and crippled +frame, the face blotched and haggard, the lack-lustre eyes which seem +always striving to avoid direct encounter with any other glance, the +shambling gait, the sinister look of the nephew of the great Bonaparte, +and you will say that the Prussians have at least had from the beginning +of their antagonism an immense advantage over their rivals in the +figurehead which their State was enabled to exhibit. But I cannot make a +hero out of stout King William, although he has bravery enough of the +common, military kind, to suit any of the heroes of the "Nibelungen +Lied." He never would, if he could, render any service to liberty; he +cannot understand the elements and first principles of popular freedom; +to him the people is always, as a child, to be kept in leading strings +and guided, and, if at all boisterous or naughty, smartly birched and +put in a dark corner. There is nothing cruel about King William; that is +to say, he would not willingly hurt any human creature, and is, indeed, +rather kind-hearted and humane than otherwise. He is as utterly +incapable of the mean spites and shabby cruelties of the great +Frederick, whose statue stands so near his palace, as he is incapable of +the savage brutalities and indecencies of Frederick's father. He is, in +fact, simply a dull old disciplinarian, saturated through and through +with the traditions of the feudal party of Germany, his highest merit +being the fact that he keeps his word—that he is "a still strong man" +who "cannot lie;" his noblest fortune being the happy chance which +called on him to lead his country's battles, instead of leaving him free +to contend against, and perhaps for the time to crush, his country's +aspirations after domestic freedom. Kind Heaven has allowed him to +become the champion and the representative of German unity—that unity +which is Germany's immediate and supreme need, calling for the +postponement of every other claim and desire; and this part he has +played like a man, a soldier, and a king. But one can hardly be expected +to forget all the past, to forget what Humboldt and Varnhagen von Ense +wrote, what Jacobi and Waldeck spoke, what King William did in 1848, and +what he said in 1861; and unless we forget all this and a great deal +more to the same effect, we can hardly help acknowledging that but for +the fortunate conditions which allowed him to prove himself the best +friend of German unity, he would probably have proved himself the worst +enemy of German liberty.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>VICTOR EMANUEL, KING OF ITALY.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>I have before me just now a little silver coin picked up in Savoy very +soon after Italy had become a kingdom, and Savoy had ceased to be part +of it. That was in truth the only thing that made the coin in any way +specially interesting—the fact that it happened to be in chance +circulation through Savoy when Savoy had no longer any claim to it. So, +for that little scrap of melancholy interest I have since kept the coin +in my purse, and it has made many journeys with me in Europe and +America; and I suppose I can never be utterly destitute while it remains +in my possession. Now, the head which is displayed upon that coin is not +of kingly mould. The mint has flattered its royal master much less than +is usual with such portrait painters. An English silver or gold coin of +this year's mintage will still represent Her Majesty Queen Victoria as a +beautiful young woman of twenty, with features worthy of a Greek statue +and a bust shapely enough for Dryden's Iphigenia. But the coin of King +Victor Emanuel has little flattery in it. There is the coarse, bulldog +cast of face; there are the heavy eye-brows, the unshapely nose, the +hideous moustache, the receding forehead, and all the other beauties and +graces of the "bloat King's" countenance. Certainly the face on the coin +is not bloated enough, and there is too little animalism displayed in +the back of the head, to do justice to the first King of Italy. +Moreover, the coin gives somehow the idea of a small man, and the King +of Italy finds it not easy to get a horse strong enough to bear the load +of Antony. But for a coin it is a wonderfully honest and truthful piece +of work, quite a model to other mints, and it gave when it was issued as +fair an idea as a little piece of silver could well give of the head and +face of Europe's most ill-favored sovereign.</p> + +<p>What a chance Victor Emanuel had of being a hero of romance! No king +perhaps ever had such a chance before, and missed it so persistently. +Europe seemed at one time determined, whether he would or no, to make a +hero, a knight, a <i>preux chevalier</i>, out of the son of Charles Albert. +Not Charles Edward, the brilliant, unfortunate Stuart himself, not +Gustavus Adolphus even seemed to have been surrounded by such a romantic +rainbow of romance and of hope. When, after the crowning disaster of +Novara, Victor Emanuel's weak, vacillating, unlucky, and not very +trustworthy father abdicated the crown of Sardinia in favor of his son, +the latter seemed in the eyes of liberal Europe to represent not merely +the hopes of all true Italians, but the best hopes of liberty and +progress all over the world. There was even then a vague idea afloat +through Europe—although Europe did not know how Cavour had already +accepted the idea as a principle of action—that with her tremendous +defeats Piedmont had won the right to hoist the standard of one Italy. +This then was the cause which the young King was taken to represent. He +had been baptized in blood to that cause. He represented Italy united +and free—free from Austrian and Pope, from political and religious +despotism. He was at all events no carpet knight. He had fought bravely +on more than one fearful field of battle; he had looked on death closely +and undismayed; he had been wounded in fighting for Italy against the +Austrian. It was said of the young sovereign—who was only Duke of Savoy +then—that on the night of Novara, when all was over save retreat and +humiliation, he shook his dripping sword at the ranks of the conquering +Austrians and exclaimed, "Italy shall make herself for all that!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +Probably the story is substantially true, although Victor Emanuel may +perhaps have used stronger expressions if he spoke at all; for no one +ever doubted his courage and coolness in the hour of danger. But true or +not, the anecdote exactly illustrated the light in which the world was +prepared to regard the young sovereign of Sardinia—as the hope of Italy +and of freedom, the representative of a defeat which he was determined +and destined to convert into a victory.</p> + +<p>Not many years after this, and while the lustre of his misfortunes and +the brilliancy of his hopes still surrounded him, King Victor Emanuel +visited England. He was welcomed everywhere with a cordiality of +personal interest and admiration not often accorded by any people to a +foreign king. Decidedly it was a hard thing to look at him and yet +retain the thought of a hero of romance. He was not then nearly so +bloated and burly as he is now; and he was at least some dozen or +fourteen years younger. But even then how marvellously ill-favored he +was; how rough and coarse-looking; how unattractive in manner; how +brusque and uncouth in gesture and bearing; how liable to fits of an +apparently stolid silence; how utterly devoid of grace and dignity! His +huge straw-colored moustache, projecting about half a foot on each side +of his face, was as unsightly a piece of manly decoration as ever royal +countenance displayed. Yet the public tried to forget all those external +defects and still regard him as a hero of romance somehow, anyhow. So +fully was he believed to be a representative of civil and religious +freedom in Italy, that one English religious society of some kind—I +forget which it was—actually went the length of presenting an address +to him, in which they flourished about the errors of Popery as freely as +if they were appealing to an Oliver Cromwell or Frederick the Great. +Cavour gave them very neatly and tersely the snub that their ignorance +and presumption so well deserved; and their address did not obtain an +honored place among Victor Emanuel's memorials of his visit to England.</p> + +<p>He was very hospitably entertained by Queen Victoria, who is said to +have suffered agonies of martyrdom from her guest's everlasting +cigar—the good soul detests tobacco as much as King James himself +did—and even more from his occasional outbursts of roystering +compliment and canteen love-making toward the ladies of her staid and +modest court. One of the household edicts, I think, of Queen Elizabeth's +court was that no gallant must "toy with the maids, under pain of +fourpence." Poor Victor Emanuel's slender purse would have had to bear a +good many deductions of fourpence, people used to hint, if this penal +decree had prevailed in his time at Windsor or Osborne. But Queen +Victoria was very patient and friendly. Cavour has left some pleasant +descriptions of her easy, unaffected friendliness toward himself. +Guizot, it will be remembered, has described her as the stiffest of the +stiff, freezing into petrifaction a whole silent circle by her +invincible coldness and formality. I cannot pretend to reconcile the +conflicting accounts of these two eminent visitors, but certainly Cavour +has drawn some animated and very attractive pictures of Queen Victoria's +almost girlish good-humor and winning familiarity. However that may be, +the whole heart of free England warmed to Victor Emanuel, and was ready +to dub him in advance the chosen knight of liberty, the St. George of +Italy, before whose resistless sword every dragon of despotism and +superstition was to grovel in the dust.</p> + +<p>So the King went his way, and the next thing the world heard of him was +that he was in league with Louis Napoleon against the Austrian, and that +the child his daughter was to be married to the obese and elderly Prince +Napoleon, whose eccentric genius, varied accomplishments, and thrilling +eloquence were then unrecognized and unknown. Then came the triumphs of +Magenta and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>Solferino, and it was made plain once more to the world +that Victor Emanuel had the courage of a true soldier. He actually took +a personal share of the fighting when the Italians were in action. He +did not sit on his horse, far away from the bullets, like his imperial +ally, and direct the movements of the army by muttering "<i>C'est bien</i>," +when an aide-de-camp galloped up to announce to him as a piece of solemn +farce that this or that general had already accomplished this or that +operation. No; Victor Emanuel took his share of the fighting like a +king. In the affair of San Martino he led an attack himself, and +encouraged his soldiers by bellowing in stentorian voice quite a clever +joke for a king, just as he was about to charge. A crack regiment of +French Zouaves (the French Zouaves were soldiers in those days) was so +delighted with the Sardinian King that it elected him a corporal of the +regiment on the field of battle—a quite wonderful piece of compliment +from a Zouave regiment to a foreign sovereign. Not so long before had +Lamoricière declared that "Italians don't fight," and here was a crack +Zouave regiment enthusiastic about the fighting capacity of an Italian +King. The irony of fate, it will be remembered, decreed soon after that +Lamoricière should himself lay down his arms before an Italian general +and Italian soldiers.</p> + +<p>Out of that war, then, Victor Emanuel emerged still a hero. But the +world soon began to think that he was only a hero in the field. The sale +of Savoy and Nice much shocked the public sentiment of Europe. The house +of Savoy, as an English orator observed, had sprung from the womb of the +mountains which the unworthy heir of Savoy sold to a stranger. As the +world had given to Victor Emanuel the credit of virtues which he never +possessed, it was now ready to lay on him all the burden of deeds which +were not his. Whether the cession of Savoy was right or wrong, Victor +Emanuel was not to blame, under the hard circumstances, for withdrawing, +according to the first Napoleon's phrase, "<i>sous les draps d'un roi +constitutionnel</i>," and allowing his ministers to do the best they could. +In fact, the thing was a necessity of the situation. Napoleon the Third +had to make the demand to satisfy his own people, who never quite +"seemed to see" the war for Italy. The Sardinian ministers had to yield +to the demand to satisfy Napoleon the Third. Had Prussia been a raw, +weak power in September, 1866, she must have ceded some territory to +France. Sardinia or Italy was raw and weak in 1860, and had no choice +but to submit. There were two things to be said for the bargain. First, +Italy got good value for it. Next, the Savoyards and Nizzards never were +good Italians. They rather piqued themselves on not being Italians. The +Savoy delegates would not speak Italian in the old Turin Parliament. The +ministers had to answer their French "interpellations" in French.</p> + +<p>Still all this business did an immense harm to the reputation of King +Victor Emanuel. He had acted like a quiet, sensible man—not in any way +like a hero of romance, and Europe desired to see in him a hero of +romance. Then he did not show himself, people said, very grateful to +Garibaldi when the latter opened the way for the expulsion of the +Bourbons from Naples, and did so much to crown Victor Emanuel King of +Italy. Now I am a warm admirer of Garibaldi. I think his very weaknesses +are noble and heroic. There is carefully preserved among the best +household treasures of my family a vine leaf which Garibaldi once +plucked and gave me as a <i>souvenir</i> for my wife. But I confess I should +not like to be king of a new monarchy partly made by Garibaldi and with +Garibaldi for a subject. The whole policy of Garibaldi proceeded on the +gallant and generous assumption that Italy alone ought to be able to +conquer all her enemies. We have since seen how little Italy availed +against a mere fragment of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> the military power of Austria—that power +which Prussia crushed like a nutshell. Events, I think, have vindicated +the slower and less assuming policy of Victor Emanuel, or, I should say, +the policy which Victor Emanuel consented to adopt at the bidding of +Cavour.</p> + +<p>But all the same the <i>prestige</i> of Victor Emanuel was gone. Then Europe +began to look at the man coolly, and estimate him without glamour and +without romance. Then it began to listen to the very many stories +against him which his enemies could tell. Alas! these stories were not +all untrue. Of course there were grotesque and hideous exaggerations. +There are in Europe some three or four personages of the highest rank +whom scandal delights to assail, and of whom it tells stories which +common sense and common feeling alike compel us to reject. It would be +wholly impossible even to hint at some of the charges which scandal in +Europe persistently heaped on Victor Emanuel, the Emperor Napoleon III., +Prince Napoleon, and the reigning King of the Netherlands. If one-half +the stories told of these four men were true, then Europe would hold at +present four personages of the highest rank who might have tutored +Caligula in the arts of recondite debauchery, and have looked down on +Alexander the Sixth as a prudish milksop. But I think no reasonable +person will have much difficulty in sifting the probable truth out of +the monstrous exaggerations. No one can doubt that Victor Emanuel is a +man of gross habits and tastes, and is, or was, addicted to coarse and +ignoble immoralities. "The manners of a mosstrooper and the morality of +a he goat," was the description which my friend John Francis Maguire, +the distinguished Roman Catholic member of the House of Commons, gave, +in one of his Parliamentary speeches, of King Victor Emanuel. This was +strong language, and it was the language of a prejudiced though honest +political and religious partisan; but it was not, all things considered, +a very bad description. Moreover, it was mildness, it was +compliment—nay, it was base flattery—when compared with the hideous +accusations publicly and distinctly made against Victor Emanuel by one +of Garibaldi's sons, not to speak of other accusers, and privately +whispered by slanderous gossip all over Europe. One peculiarity about +Victor Emanuel worthy of notice is that he has no luxury in his tastes. +He is, I believe, abstemious in eating and drinking, caring only for the +homeliest fare. He has sat many times at the head of a grand state +banquet, where the rarest viands, the most superb wines were abundant, +and never removed the napkin from his plate, never tasted a morsel or +emptied a glass. He had had his plain fare at an earlier hour, and cared +nothing for the triumphs of cookery or the choicest products of the +vine. He has thus sat, in good-humored silence, his hand leaning on the +hilt of his sword, through a long, long banquet of seemingly endless +courses, which to him was a pageant, a ceremonial duty, and nothing +more. He delights in chamois-hunting—in hunting of almost any kind—in +horses, in dogs, and in women of a certain coarse and gross description. +There is nothing of the Richelieu or Lauzun, or even the Francis the +First, about the dull, I had almost said harmless, immoralities of the +King of Italy. Men in private and public station have done far greater +harm, caused far more misery than ever he did, and yet escaped almost +unwhipt of justice. The man has (or had, for people say he is reformed +now) the coarse, easily-gratified tastes of a sailor turned ashore after +a long cruise—and such tastes are not kingly; and that is about all +that one feels fairly warranted in saying either to condemn or to +palliate the vices of Victor Emanuel. He absolutely wants all element of +greatness. He is not even a great soldier. He has boisterous animal +courage, and finds the same excitement in leading a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> charge as in +hunting the chamois. But he has nothing even of the very moderate degree +of military capacity possessed by a dashing <i>sabreur</i> like Murat. It +seems beyond doubt that it was the infatuation he displayed in +attempting the personal direction of affairs which led to the breakdown +at Custozza. The man is, in fact, like one of the rough jagers described +in Schiller's "Wallenstein's Camp"—just this, and nothing more. When +Garibaldi was in the zenith of his fortunes and fame in 1860, Victor +Emanuel declared privately to a friend that the height of his ambition +would be to follow the gallant guerilla leader as a mere soldier in the +field. Certainly, when the two men entered Naples together, every one +must have felt that their places ought to have been reversed. How like a +king, an ideal king—a king of poetry and painting and romance—looked +Garibaldi in the superb serenity of his untaught grace and sweetness and +majesty. How rude, uncouth, clownish, even vulgar, looked the big, +brawny, ungainly trooper whom people had to salute as King. When +Garibaldi went to visit the hospitals where the wounded of the short +struggle were lying, how womanlike he was in his sympathetic tenderness; +how light and noiseless was his step; how gentle his every gesture; what +a sweet word of genial compassion or encouragement he had for every +sufferer. The burly King strode and clattered along like a dragoon +swaggering through the crowd at a country fair. Not that Victor Emanuel +wanted good nature, but that his rude <i>physique</i> had so little in it of +the sympathetic or the tender.</p> + +<p>Was there ever known such a whimsical, harmless, odd saturnalia as +Naples presented during those extraordinary days? I am thinking now +chiefly of the men who, mostly uncalled-for, "rallied round" the +Revolution, and came from all manner of holes and corners to offer their +services to Garibaldi, and to exhibit themselves in the capacity of +freedom's friends, soldiers, and scholars. Hardly a hero, or crackbrain, +or rantipole in Europe, one would think, but must have been then on +exhibition somewhere in Naples. Father Gavazzi harangued from one +position; Alexandre Dumas, accompanied by his faithful "Admiral Emile," +directed affairs from another. Edwin James, then a British criminal +lawyer and popular member of Parliament, was to be seen tearing round in +a sort of semi-military costume, with pistols stuck in his belt. The +worn, thoughtful, melancholy face of Mazzini was, for a short time at +least, to be seen in juxtaposition with the cockney visage of an +ambitious and restless common councilman from the city of London, who +has lived all his life since on the glorious memories and honors of that +good time. The House of Lords, the House of Commons, and the Guildhall +of London were lavishly represented there. Men like Türr, the dashing +Hungarian and Mieroslawski, the "Red" leader of Polish revolution—men +to whom battle and danger were as the breath of their nostrils—were +buttonholed and advised by heavy British vestrymen and pert Parisian +journalists. Hardly any man or woman entered Naples from a foreign +country at that astonishing time who did not believe that he or she had +some special counsel to give, which Victor Emanuel or Garibaldi or some +one of their immediate staff was bound to listen to and accept. Woman's +Rights were pretty well represented in that pellmell. There was a +Countess something or other—French, they said—who wore short +petticoats and trousers, had silver-mounted pistols in her belt and +silver spurs on her heels, and was generally believed to have done +wonders in "the field"—what field no one would stop to ask. There was +Jessie Mario White, modest, pleasant, fair-haired woman, wife of a +gallant gentleman and soldier—Jessie White, who made no exhibition of +herself, but did then and since faithful and valuable work for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> Italian +wounded, such as Italy ought not soon to forget. There was Mrs. +Chambers—Mrs. Colonel Chambers—the Mrs. "Putney Giles" of Disraeli's +"Lothair"—very prominent everywhere, sounding the special eulogies of +Garibaldi with tireless tongue, and utterly overshadowing her quiet +husband, who (the husband I mean) afterwards stood by Garibaldi's side +at Aspromonte. Exeter Hall had sent out powerful delegations, in the +firm faith apparently that Garibaldi would at their request order Naples +forthwith to break up its shrines and images of saints and become +Protestant; and that Naples would at once obey. Never was such a time of +dreams and madness and fussiness, of splendid aspirations and silly +self-seeking vanity, of chivalry and daring, and true wisdom and +nonsense. It was a time naturally of many disappointments; and one +disappointment to almost everybody was His Majesty King Victor Emanuel. +His Majesty seemed at least not much to care about the whole affair from +the beginning. He went through it as if he didn't quite understand what +it was all about, and didn't think it worth the trouble of trying. +People who saw him at that splendid moment when, the forces of Garibaldi +joining with the regular Sardinian troops after all had been won, +Garibaldi and the King met for the first time in that crisis, and the +soldier hailed the sovereign as "King of Italy!"—people who saw and +studied that picturesque historic meeting have told me that there was no +more emotion of any kind on Victor Emanuel's face than if he were +receiving a formal address from the mayor of a country town. "I thank +you," were his only words of reply; and I am assured that it was not "I +thank <i>you</i>," with emphasis on the last word to indicate that the King +acknowledged how much he owed to his great soldier; but simply "I thank +you," as he might have thanked a groom who opened a stable door for him. +Perhaps the very depth and grandeur of the King's emotions rendered him +incapable of finding any expression for them. Let us hope so. But I have +had the positive assurances of some who saw the scene, that if any such +emotions were felt the royal countenance concealed them as completely as +though they never had been.</p> + +<p>In truth, I presume that the whole thing really was a terrible bore to +the royal Rawdon Crawley, who found himself compelled by cursed spite to +play the part of a patriot king. The Pope, the ultramontane bishops, and +the ultramontane press have always been ringing fierce changes on the +inordinate and wicked ambition of Victor Emanuel. I am convinced the +poor man has no more ambition than his horse. If he could have chalked +out his own career for himself, he would probably have asked nothing +better than to be allowed to devote his life to chamois-hunting, with a +hunter's homely fare, and the companionship of a few friends (some fat +ladies among the number) with whom he could talk and make jokes in the +<i>patois</i> of Piedmont. This, and perhaps a battle-field and a dashing +charge every now and then, would probably have realized his dreams of +the <i>summum bonum</i>. But some implacable destiny, embodied in the form of +a Cavour or a Garibaldi, was always driving on the stout King and +bidding him get up and attempt great things—be a patriot and a hero. +Fancy Rawdon Crawley impelled, or rather compelled by the inexorable +command of Becky his wife, to go forth in quest of the Holy Grail, and +one may perhaps be able to guess what Victor Emanuel's perplexity and +reluctance were when he was bidden to set out for the accomplishment of +the regeneration of Italy. "Honor to those to whom honor is due; honor +to old Mother Baubo," says some one in "Faust." Honor on that principle, +then, to King Victor Emanuel. He did get up and go forth and undertake +to bear his part in the adventure. And here seriously let me speak of +the one high merit of Victor Emanuel's career. He is not a hero; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> is +not a statesman or even a politician; he is not a patriot in any grand, +exalted sense. He would like to be idle, and perhaps to be despotic. But +he has proved that he understands the true responsibilities and duties +of a constitutional King better than many sovereigns of higher intellect +and better character. He always did go, or at least endeavor to go, +where the promptings of his ministers, the commands of his one imperious +minister, or the voice of the country directed. There must be a great +struggle in the mind of Victor Emanuel between his duty as a king and +his duty as a Roman Catholic, when he enters into antagonism with the +Pope. Beyond doubt Victor Emanuel is a superstitious Catholic. Of late +years his constitution has once or twice threatened to give way, and he +is probably all the more anxious to be reconciled with the Church. +Perhaps he would be glad enough to lay down the load of royalty +altogether and become again an accepted and devoted Catholic, and hunt +his chamois with a quieted conscience. But still, impelled by what must +be some sort of patriotism and sense of duty, he accepts his uncongenial +part of constitutional King, and strives to do all that the voice of his +people demands. It is probable that at no time was the King personally +much attached to his illustrious minister Cavour. The genius and soul of +Cavour were too oppressively imperial, high-reaching, and energetic for +the homely, plodding King. With all his external levity Count Cavour was +terribly in earnest, and he must often have seemed a dreadful bore to +his sovereign. Cavour knew himself the master, and did not always take +pains to conceal his knowledge. He would sometimes adopt the most direct +and vigorous language in remonstrating with the King if the latter did +not act on valuable advice at the right moment. Sometimes, when things +went decidedly against Cavour's wishes, the minister would take the +monarch to task more roundly than even the most good-natured monarchs +are likely to approve. When Napoleon the Third disappointed Cavour and +all Italy by the sudden peace of Villafranca, I have heard that Cavour +literally denounced Victor Emanuel for consenting to the arrangement. +Count Arrivabene, an able writer, has given a very vivid and interesting +description of Cavour's demeanor when he reached the Sardinian +headquarters on his way to an interview with the King and learned what +had been done. He was literally in a "tearing rage." He tore off his hat +and dashed it down, he clenched his hands, he stamped wildly, +gesticulated furiously, became red and purple, foamed at the mouth, and +grew inarticulate for very passion. He believed that he and Italy were +sold—as indeed they were; and it was while this temper was yet on him +that he went to see the King, and denounced him, as I have said. Now +this sort of thing certainly could not have been agreeable to Victor +Emanuel; and yet he patiently accepted Cavour as a kind of glorious +necessity. He never sought, as many another king in such <i>duresse</i> would +have done, to weaken his minister's influence and authority by showing +open sullenness and dissatisfaction. Ratazzi, with his pliable ways and +his entire freedom from any wearisome earnestness or devotion to any +particular cause, was naturally a far more companionable and agreeable +minister for the King than the untiring and imperious Cavour. +Accordingly, it was well known that Ratazzi was more of a personal +favorite; but the King never seems to have acted otherwise than loyally +and honestly toward Cavour. Ricasoli was all but intolerable to the +King. Ricasoli was proud and stern; and he was, moreover, a somewhat +rigid moralist, which Cavour hardly professed to be. The King writhed +under the government of Ricasoli, and yet, despite all that was at the +time whispered, he cannot, I think, be fairly accused of having done +anything personally to rid himself of an obnoxious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> minister. Indeed, +the single merit of Victor Emanuel's character, if we put aside the +element of personal courage, is its rough integrity. He is a +<i>galantuomo</i>, an honest man—in that sense, a man of his word. He gave +his word to constitutional government and to Italy, and he appears to +have kept the word in each case according to his lights.</p> + +<p>But his popularity among his subjects, the interest felt in him by the +world, have long been steadily on the wane. Years and years ago he +ceased to retain the faintest gleam of the halo of romance that once +was, despite of himself, thrown around him. His people care little or +nothing for him. Why, indeed, should they care anything? The military +<i>prestige</i> which he had won, such as it was, vanished at Custozza, and +it was his evil destiny, hardly his fault, to be almost always placed in +a position of antagonism to the one only Italian who since Cavour's +death had an enthusiastic following in Italy. Aspromonte was a calamity +for Victor Emanuel. One can hardly blame him; one can hardly see how he +could have done otherwise. The greatest citizen or soldier in America or +England, if he attempted to levy an army of his own, and make war from +American or English territory upon a neighboring State, would surely +have seen his bands dispersed and found himself arrested by order of his +government; and it would never have occurred to any one to think that +the government was doing a harsh, ungrateful, or improper thing. It +would be the necessary, rightful execution of a disagreeable duty, and +that is all. But the conditions of Garibaldi's case, like the one +splendid service he had rendered, were so entirely abnormal and without +precedent, the whole thing was from first to last so much more a matter +of national sentiment than of political law, that national sentiment +insisted on judging Garibaldi and the King in this case too, and at +least a powerful, passionate minority declared Victor Emanuel an ingrate +and a traitor. Mentana was almost as bad for the King as Custozza. The +voice of the country, so far as one could understand its import, seemed +to declare that when the King had once ordered the Italian troops to +cross the frontier, he should have ordered them to go on; that if they +had actually occupied Rome, France would have recognized accomplished +facts; that as it was, Italy offended France and the Pope by stepping +over the barrier of the convention of September, only to humiliate +herself by stepping back again without having accomplished anything. +Certainly the policy of the Italian Government at such a crisis was +weak, miserable, even contemptible. Then indeed Italy might well have +exclaimed, "Oh for one hour of Cavour!" One hour of the man of genius +and courage, who, if he had moved forward, would not have darted back +again! Perhaps it was unfair to hold the King responsible for the +mistakes of his ministers. But when a once popular King has to be +pleaded for on that sole ground, it is pretty clear that there is an end +to his popularity. So with Victor Emanuel. The world began to forget +him; his subjects began to despise him. Even the thrilling events that +have lately taken place in Italy, the sudden crowning of the national +edifice—the realization of that hope which so long appeared but a +dream—which Cavour himself declared would be the most slow and +difficult to realize of all Italy's hopes—even the possession of Rome +hardly seems to have brought back one ray of the old popularity on the +heavy head of King Victor Emanuel. Again the wonderful combination of +good luck and bad—the good fortune which brought to the very door of +the house of Savoy the sudden realization of its highest dreams—the +misfortune which allowed that house no share in the true credit of +having accomplished its destiny. What had Victor Emanuel to do with the +sudden juncture of events which enabled Italy to take possession of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +capital? Nothing whatever. His people have no more reason to thank him +for Rome than they have to thank him for the rain or the sunshine, the +olive and the vine. The King seems to have felt all this. His short +visit to Rome, and the formal act of taking possession, may perhaps have +been made so short because Victor Emanuel knew that he had little right +to claim any honors or expect any popular enthusiasm. He entered Rome +one day and went away the next. I confess, however, that I should not +wonder if the visit was made so short merely because the whole thing was +a bore to the honest King, and he could only make up his mind to endure +a very few hours of it.</p> + +<p>Victor Emanuel, King of United Italy, and welcomed by popular +acclamation in Rome—his second son almost at the same moment proclaimed +King of the Spaniards—his second daughter Queen of Portugal. How +fortune seems to have delighted in honoring this house of Savoy. I only +say "seems to have." I do not venture yet to regard the accession of +King Amadeus to the crown of Spain as necessarily an honorable or a +fortunate thing. Every one must wish the poor young prince well in such +a situation; perhaps we should rather wish him well out of it. Never +king assumed a crown with such ghastly omens to welcome him. Here is the +King putting on his diadem; and yonder, lying dead by the hand of an +assassin, is the man who gave him the diadem and made him King! But for +Juan Prim there would be no Amadeus, King of the Spaniards; and for that +reason Juan Prim lies dead. The young King must have needed all his +hereditary courage to enable him to face calmly and bravely, as he seems +to have done, so terrible a situation. Macaulay justly says that no +danger is so trying to the nerves of a brave man as the danger of +assassination. Men utterly reckless in battle—like "bonny Dundee" for +example—have owned that the knowledge of the assassin's purpose and +haunting presence was more than they could endure. The young Italian +prince seems to have shown no sign of flinching. So far as anything +indeed is known of him, he is favorably known to the world. He bore +himself like a brave soldier at Custozza, and obtained the special +commendation of the Austrian victor, the gallant old Archduke Albrecht. +He married for love a lady of station decidedly inferior to that of a +royal prince; the lady had the honor of being sneered at even in her +honeymoon for the modest, inexpensive simplicity of her toilet, as she +appeared with her young husband at one of the watering-places; he had +not made himself before marriage the subject of as much scandal as used +to follow and float around the bachelor reputation of his elder brother +Humbert. He is believed to be honestly and manfully liberal in his +views. He ought to make a good King as kings go—if the murderers of +General Prim only give him the chance.</p> + +<p>As I have mentioned the name of the man whose varied, brilliant, daring, +and turbulent career has been so suddenly cut short, I may perhaps be +excused for wandering a little out of the path of my subject to say that +I think many of the American newspapers have hardly done justice to +Prim. Some of them have written of him, even in announcing his death, as +if it were not possible for a man to be honest and yet not to be a +republican. In more than one instance the murder of Prim was treated as +a sort of thing which, however painful to read of, was yet quite natural +and even excusable in the case of a man who endeavored to give his +country a King. There was a good deal too much of the "Sic semper +tyrannis" tone and temper about some of the journals. Now, I do not +believe that Prim was a patriot of that unselfish and lofty group to +which William the Silent, and George Washington, and Daniel Manin +belong. His was a very mixed character, and ambition had a large place +in it. But I be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>lieve that he sincerely loved and tried to serve Spain; +and I believe that in giving her a King he honestly thought he was doing +for her the thing most suited to her tendencies and her interests. If +Prim could have made Spain a republic, he could have made himself her +President, even perhaps for life; while he could not venture, she being +a kingdom, to constitute himself her King. Many times did Prim himself +say to me, before the outbreak of his successful revolt, that he +believed the republican to be the ultimate form of government +everywhere, and that he would gladly see it in Spain; but that he did +not believe Spain was yet suited for it, or numbered republicans enough. +"To have a republic you must first have republicans," was a common +saying of his. New England is a very different sort of place from Old +Castile. At all events, Prim is not to be condemned as a traitor to his +country and to liberty, even if it were true that he could have created +a Spanish republic. We have to show first that he knew the thing was +possible and refused to do it, for selfish or ignoble motives. This I am +satisfied is not true. I think Prim believed a republic impossible in +the Spain of to-day, and simply acted in accordance with his +convictions. He came very near to being a great man; he wanted not much +of being a great patriot. He was, I think, better than his fame. As +Spain has decreed, he "deserved well of his country." It seems hardly +reasonable or just to decry him or condemn him because he did not +deserve better. Such as he was, he proved himself original. "He walked," +as Carlyle says, "his own wild road, whither that led him." In an age +very prolific of great political men, he made a distinct name and place +for himself. "Name thou the best of German singers," exclaims Heine with +pardonable pride, "and my name must be spoken among them." Name the +half-dozen really great, originating characters in European politics +during our time, and the name of Prim must come in among them.</p> + +<p>But I was speaking of Victor Emanuel and his children. All I have heard +then of the Duke of Aosta leads me to believe that he is qualified to +make a respectable and loyal constitutional sovereign. High intellectual +capacity no one expects from the house of Savoy, but there will probably +be good sense, manly feeling, and no small share of political +discretion. In the Duke of Aosta, too, Spain will have a King who can +have no possible sympathy with slave systems and their products of +whatever kind, and who can hardly have much inclination for the coercing +and dragooning of reluctant populations. If Spain in his day and through +his influence can get decently and honorably rid of Cuba, she will have +entered upon a new chapter of her national existence, as important for +her as that grand new volume which opens upon France when defeat has +purged her of her thrice-accursed "militaryism." The dependencies have +been a miserable misfortune to Spain. They have entangled her in all +manner of complications; they have filled her with false principles; +they have created whole corrupt classes among her soldiers and +politicians. General Prim himself once assured me that the real revenues +of Spain were in no wise the richer for her colonial possessions. +Proconsuls made fortunes and spread corruption round them, and that was +all. If her new King could only contrive to relieve Spain of this source +of corruption and danger, he would be worth all the cost and labor of +the revolution which gives him now a Spanish throne.</p> + +<p>Why did fate decree that the very best of all the children of Victor +Emanuel should have apparently the worst fortune? The Princess Clotilde +is an exile from the country and the palace of her husband; and if the +sweetness and virtue of one woman might have saved a court, the court of +the Tuileries might have been saved by Victor Emanuel's eldest daughter. +I have heard the Princess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> Clotilde talked of by Ultramontanes, +Legitimists, Orleanists, Republicans, Red Republicans (by some among the +latter who firmly believed that the poor Empress Eugénie was wickeder +than Messalina), and I never heard a word spoken of her that was not in +her praise. Every one admitted that she was a pure and noble woman, a +patient wife, a devoted mother; full of that unpretending simplicity +which, let us own it frankly, is one of the graces which very high birth +and old blood do sometimes bring. The Princess must in her secret soul +have looked down on some of the odd <i>coteries</i> who were brought around +her at the court of the Tuileries. She comes of a house in whose +genealogy, to quote Disraeli's humorous words, "Chaos was a novel," and +she found herself forced into companionship with ladies and gentlemen +whose fathers and mothers, good lack! sometimes seemed to have omitted +any baptismal registration whatever. I presume she was not ignorant of +the parentage of De Morny, or Walewski, or Walewski's son, or the Jerome +David class of people. I presume she heard what every one said of the +Countess this and the Marchioness that, and so on. Of course the +Princess Clotilde did not like these people—how could any decent woman +like them?—but she accepted the necessities of her position with a +self-possession and dignity which, offending no one, marked the line +distinctly and honorably between her and them. Her joy was in her +children. She loved to show them to friends, and to visitors even whom +she felt that she could treat as friends. Perhaps she is not less happy +now that the ill-omened, fateful splendors of the Palais Royal no longer +help to make a gilded cage for the darlings of her nursery. Of the whole +family, hers may be called the only career which has been doomed to what +the world describes and pities as failure. It may well be that she is +now happiest of all the children of the house of Savoy.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Victor Emanuel has been welcomed at the Quirinal, and is +indeed, at last, King of Italy. We may well say to him, as Banquo says +of Macbeth, "Thou hast it all!" Lombardy, Tuscany, Parma, Modena, the +Two Sicilies, Venetia, and Rome—what gathering within less than a fifth +of an ordinary lifetime! And on the Quirinal Victor Emanuel may be said +to have stood alone. Of all the men who mainly wrought to bring about +that grand consummation, not one stood by his side. Daniel Manin, the +pure, patient, fearless, patriot hero; Cavour, the consummate statesman; +Massimo d'Azeglio, the Bayard or Lafayette of Italy's later days, the +soldier, scholar, and lover of his country—these are dead, and rest +with Dante. Mazzini is still a sort of exile—homeless, unshaken, seeing +his prophecies fulfil themselves and his ideas come to light, while he +abides in the gloom and shadow, and the world calls him a dreamer. +Garibaldi is lending the aid of his restless sword to a cause which he +cannot serve, and a people who never understood him; and he is getting +sadly mixed up somehow in ordinary minds with General Cluseret and +George Francis Train. Louis Napoleon, who, whatever his crimes, did +something for the unity of Italy, is a broken man in captivity. Only +Victor Emanuel, least gifted of all, utterly unworthy almost to be named +in the same breath with any of them (save Louis Napoleon alone)—only he +comes forward to receive the glories and stand up as the representative +of one Italy! Let us do him the justice to acknowledge that he never +sought the position or the glory. He accepted both as a necessity of his +birth and his place, a formal duty and a bore. His was not the character +which goes in quest of greatness. As Falstaff says of rebellion and the +revolted English lord, greatness "lay in his way, and he found it."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>Guizot quietly at work in the preparation of a history of France for the +instruction of children—Thiers taking his place in a balloon to fly +from one seat of government in France to another! Such were the +occupations, at a given time in last November, of the two distinguished +men whose rivalries and contentions disturbed the politics of France for +so many years.</p> + +<p>An ill-natured person might feel inclined to say that the adventures in +the balloon were a proper crowning of the edifice of M. Thiers's fitful +career. Was not his whole political life (<i>non meus hic sermo</i>, please +to understand—it is the ill-natured person who says this) an enterprise +in a balloon, high out of all the regions where common sense, +consistency, and statesmanship are ruling elements? Did he not overleap +with aëronautic flight when it so suited him, from liberalism to +conservatism, from advocating freedom of thought to enforcing the +harshest repression? Was not his literary reputation floated into high +air by that most inflated and gaseous of all balloons, the "History of +the Consulate and the Empire"? Thiers in a balloon is just where he +ought to be, and where he ever has been. Condense into one meagre little +person all the egotism, all the self-conceit, all the vainglory, all the +incapacity for looking at anything whatever from the right point of +view, which belong to the typical Frenchman of fiction and satire, and +you have a pretty portrait of M. Thiers.</p> + +<p>Doubtless, the ill-natured person who should say all this would be able +to urge a good many plausible reasons in justification of his +assertions. Still, one may be allowed to admire—one cannot help +admiring—the astonishing energy and buoyancy which made M. Thiers, +despite his seventy-three years, the most active emissary of the French +Republic during the past autumn, the aëronautic rival of the vigorous +young Corsican Gambetta, who was probably hardly grown enough for a +merry-go-round in the Champs Elysées when Thiers was beginning to be +regarded as an old fogy by the ardent revolutionists of 1848. About the +middle of last September, a few days after the sudden creation of the +French Republic, M. Thiers precipitated himself on London. An account in +the newspapers described him as "accompanied by five ladies." Thus +gracefully escorted, he marched on the English capital. He had +interviews with Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville, the French Ambassador, +and divers other great personages. He was always rushing from diplomatic +office to office. He "interviewed" everybody in London who could by any +possibility be supposed capable of influencing in the slightest degree +the fortunes of France. He never for a moment stopped talking. Great men +excel each other in various qualities; but there never was a great man +who could talk against M. Thiers. He could have shut up the late Lord +Macaulay in no time; and I doubt whether Mr. Seward could have contrived +to edge in a word while Thiers was in the same room. M. Thiers stayed in +London little more than two days. He arrived, I think, on a Wednesday +night, and left on the following Saturday. During that time he managed +to do all the interviewing, and was likewise able to take his family to +see the paintings in the National Gallery, where he was to be observed +keenly eyeing the pictures, and eloquently laying down critical law and +gospel on their merits, as if he had come over on a little autumnal +holiday from a settled and peaceful country, which no longer needed +looking after. Then he started from London in a steam-yacht, cruised +about the North Sea and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> Baltic, dropped in upon the King of +Denmark, sounded the views of Sweden, collected the general opinion of +Finland, visited the Emperor of Russia and talked him into +semi-bewilderment, and then travelled down by land to Vienna, where he +used all his powers of persuasion on the Emperor Francis Joseph, and to +Florence, where by the sheer force of argument and fluency he drove +Victor Emanuel nearly out of his senses. Since that time, he all but +concluded an armistice with Bismarck, and when last I heard of him +(previous to this writing) he was, as I have said, going on a mission +somewhere in a balloon.</p> + +<p>During his recent diplomatic flights, M. Thiers constantly offered to +encounter much greater fatigues and responsibilities if needful. He was +ready to go anywhere and talk to anybody. He would have hunted up the +Emperor of China or the Mikado of Japan, if either sovereign seemed in +the remotest degree likely to intervene on the side of France. I believe +I can say with confidence, that at the outset of his expedition he had +no official authority or mission whatever from the Provisional +Government. He told Jules Favre and the rest that he was about to start +on a tour of inspection round the European cabinets, and that they had +better let him try what he could do; and they did not refuse to let him +try, and it would not have mattered in the least whether they refused or +not. He came, in the first instance, altogether "on his own hook." +Perhaps, at first, the Republican Government was not very anxious to +accept the services of M. Thiers as a messenger of peace. No living +Frenchman had done half so much to bring about the state of national +feeling which enabled Louis Napoleon to precipitate the nation into a +war against Prussia. Perhaps they thought the man whose bitterest +complaint against the Emperor was that he failed to take advantage of +the chance of crushing Prussia in 1866, was not the most likely emissary +to conciliate victorious Prussia in 1870. But Thiers was determined to +make himself useful, and the Republican Government had to give in at +last, and concede some sort of official authority to him. Like the young +lady who said she married the importunate suitor to get rid of him, +Jules Favre and his colleagues probably accepted M. Thiers for their +spokesman as the only way of escaping from his eloquence. His mission +was heroic and patriotic, or egotistical and fussy, just as you are +pleased to regard it. In certain lights Cardinal Richelieu looks +wonderfully like Bottom the weaver. But it is impossible not to admire +the energy and courage of the irrepressible, inexhaustible, +fragile-looking, shabby old Orleanist. Thiers does not seem a personage +capable of enduring fatigue. He appears a sapless, withered, wasted old +creature. But the restless, fiery, exuberant, egotistical energy which +carried him along so far and so fast in life, has apparently gained +rather than lost in strength and resource during the forty years which +have elapsed since the subject of this sketch, then editor of the +"National," drew up in Paris the famous protest against the five +infamous <i>ordonnances</i> of Charles the Tenth, and thus sounded the +prelude to the Revolution of July.</p> + +<p>It must have been no common stock of self-possession and +self-complacency which enabled M. Thiers to present himself before the +great Prussian Chancellor as a messenger of peace. Bismarck, who has a +happy knack of apt Shakespearian quotation, might have accosted him in +the words of Beatrice and said, "This is a man's office, but not yours." +For M. Thiers, throughout his whole career, devoted his brilliant gifts +to the promotion of that spirit of narrow national vainglory which of +late years has made France dreaded and detested in Germany. M. Thiers is +like Æsop's trumpeter—guilty not of making war himself, but of blowing +the blasts which set other men fighting. The very speech in which he +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>protested last summer against the war initiated by the Imperial +Government, was inspired by a principle more immoral, and more +calculated to inflame Germany with resentment, than the very declaration +of war itself. For Thiers only condemned the war on the ground that +France was not properly prepared to crush Germany; that she had lost her +opportunity by not falling on Prussia while the latter was in the +death-grapple with Austria in 1866; and that as France had not done the +thing at the right time, she had better not run the risk of doing it +incompletely, by making the effort at an inopportune moment.</p> + +<p>These considerations, however, did not trouble M. Thiers. He advanced to +meet Count von Bismarck with the easy confidence of one who feels that +he has a right to be treated as the best of friends and most appropriate +of envoys. If, immediately after the conclusion of the American war, +John Bright had been sent to Washington by England to endeavor to settle +the Alabama dispute, he probably would not have approached the President +with anything like the confident assurance of a genial welcome which +inspired M. Thiers when he offered himself as a messenger to the +Prussian statesman. This very sublimity of egotism is, and always was, +one of the sources of the success of M. Thiers. No man could with more +perfect composure and self-satisfaction dare to be inconsistent. His was +the very audacity and Quixotism of inconsistency. In office to-day, he +could advocate and enforce the very measures of repression which +yesterday, out of office, he was the foremost to denounce—nay, which he +obtained office by opposing and denouncing. He whose energetic action in +protesting against the celebrated five <i>ordonnances</i> of Charles the +Tenth did so much to bring about the Revolution of July, was himself the +chief official author of the equally celebrated "laws of September," +introduced in Louis Philippe's reign, which might have suited the +administration of a Peter the Great, or any other uncompromising despot. +In practical politics, of course, almost every minister is occasionally +compelled by the force of circumstances to do things which bear a +considerable resemblance to acts warmly condemned by him while he sat in +opposition. But M. Thiers invariably, when in power, exhibited himself +as the author and champion of principles and policy which he had +denounced with all the force of his eloquent tongue when he was the +opponent of the Government. He seemed in fact to be two men rather than +one, so entirely did Thiers in office contrast with Thiers in +opposition. But Thiers himself never appeared conscious of +inconsistency. Indeed, he was always consistent with his one grand +essential principle and creed—faith in the inspiration and the destiny +of M. Thiers.</p> + +<p>To one other principle too let it be said in justice that this brilliant +politician has always been faithful—the principle which maintains the +right of France to throw her sword into the scale where every or any +foreign question is to be weighed. When, after a long absence from the +parliamentary arena, he entered the Imperial Corps Législatif as one of +the deputies for Paris, he soon proved himself to be "old Cassius +still." Age, study, experience, retirement, reflection, had in no wise +dimmed the fire of his ardent nationalism. Eagerly as ever he contended +for the sacred right of France to dragoon all Europe into obedience, to +chop up the Continent into such symmetrical sections as might seem +suitable to the taste and the convenience of French statesmen. +Undoubtedly he was a sharp, tormenting thorn in the side of the Imperial +Government when he returned to active political life. Louis Napoleon had +no minister who could pretend to compare with Thiers in debate. He was +an aggravating and exasperating enemy, against whom fluent and shallow +men like Billault and Baroche, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> even speakers of heavier calibre like +Rouher, had no chance whatever. But there were times when to any +impartial mind the invectives of Thiers made the Imperial policy look +noble and enlightened in comparison with the canons of detestable +egotism which he propounded as the true principles of government. I +remember thinking more than once that if Louis Napoleon's Ministers +could only have risen to the real height of the situation and appealed +to whatever there was of lofty unselfish feeling in France, they might +have overwhelmed their remorseless and envenomed critic. In 1866 and +1867, for example, Thiers made it a cardinal point of complaint and +invective against the French Government that it had not prevented by +force of arms the progress of Germany's unity. Nothing could be more +pungent, brilliant, bitter, than the eloquence with which he proclaimed +and advocated his doctrines of ignoble and unscrupulous selfishness. Why +did not the Imperial spokesmen assume a virtue if they had it not, and +boldly declare that the Government of France scorned the shallow and +envious policy which sees calamity and danger in the union and growing +strength of a neighboring people? Such a chord bravely struck would have +awakened an echo in every true and generous heart. But the Imperial +Ministers feebly tried to fight M. Thiers upon his own ground, to accept +his principles as the conditions of contest. They endeavored in a +paltering and limping way to show that the French Government had been +selfish and only selfish, and had taken every care to keep Germany +properly weak and divided. It was during one of these debates, thus +provoked by M. Thiers, that occasion was given to Count von Bismarck for +one of his most striking <i>coups de théâtre</i>. The French Minister (if I +remember rightly, it was M. Rouher), tortured and baited by M. Thiers, +stood at bay at last, and boldly declared that the Government of France +had taken measures to render impossible any political cohesion of North +and South Germany. A day or two after, Count von Bismarck effectively +and contemptuously replied to this declaration by unfolding in the +Prussian Chamber the treaties of alliance already concluded between his +Government and the South German States.</p> + +<p>It has always been a matter of surprise to me that Thiers did not prove +a success at the bar, to which at first he applied his abilities. He +seems to have the very gifts which would naturally have made a great +pleader. All through his political career he displayed a wonderful +capacity for making the worse appear the better cause. The adroitness +which contends skilfully that black is white to-day, having argued with +equal force and fluency that white was green yesterday, would have been +highly appropriate and respectable in a legal advocate. But M. Thiers +did not somehow get on at the bar, and having no influential friends (he +was, I think, the son of a locksmith), but plenty of ambition, courage, +and confidence, he strove to enter political life by the avenue of +journalism. Much of Thiers's subsequent success as a debater was +probably due to that skill which a practised journalist naturally +acquires—the dexterity of arraying facts and arguments so as not to +bear too long on any one part of the subject, and not to offer to the +mind of the reader more than his patience and interest are willing to +accept. Most of the events of his political career, up to his +reappearance in public life in 1863, belong wholly to history and the +past. His long rivalry with Guizot, his intrigues out of office, and his +conduct as a Minister of Louis Philippe, have hardly a more direct and +vital connection with the affairs of to-day than the statecraft of +Mazarin or the political vicissitudes of Bolingbroke. One indeed of the +projects of M. Thiers has now come rather unexpectedly into active +operation. The fortifications of Paris were the offspring of the +apprehension M. Thiers entertained, thirty years ago, that the Eastern +question of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> day might provoke another great European war. Since +that time many critics sneered and laughed a good deal at M. Thiers's +system of fortifications; but the whirligig of time has brought the +statesman his revenge. No one could mistake the meaning of the smile of +self-satisfaction which used last autumn to light up the unattractive +features of the veteran Orleanist, as he made tour after tour of +inspection around the defences of Paris. This chain of fortifications +alone, one might almost say, connects the Thiers of the present +generation with the Thiers of the past. There were malignant persons who +did not scruple to say that the author of the scheme of defences was not +altogether sorry for the national calamity which had brought them into +use, and apparently justified their construction. It is very hard to be +altogether sorry for even a domestic misfortune which gives one who is +especially proud of his foresight and sagacity an opportunity of +pointing out that the precautions which he recommended, and other +members of the family scorned, are now eagerly adopted by unanimous +concurrence. There certainly was something of the pardonable pride of +the author of a long misprized invention visible in the face of M. +Thiers as he used to gaze upon his beloved system of fortifications any +time in last September. Little did even he himself think when, after +Sadowa, he accused the Emperor's Government of having left itself no +blunder more to commit, that it had yet to perpetrate one crowning and +gigantic mistake, and that one effect at least of this stupendous error +would be to compel Paris to treat <i>au sérieux</i>, and as a supreme +necessity, that system of defences so long regarded as good for little +else than to remind the present generation that Louis Adolphe Thiers was +once Prime Minister of France.</p> + +<p>Thiers was not far short of seventy years old when, in 1863, he entered +upon a new chapter of his public life as one of the deputies for Paris +in the Imperial Corps Législatif. A new generation had meantime arisen. +Men were growing into fame as orators and politicians who were boys when +Thiers was last heard as a parliamentary debater. He returned to +political life at an eventful time and accompanied by some notable +compeers. The elections which sent Thiers to represent the department of +the Seine made the venerable and illustrious Berryer one of the +delegates from Marseilles. I doubt whether the political life of any +country has ever produced a purer, grander figure than that of Berryer; +I am sure that an obsolete and hopeless cause never had a nobler +advocate. The genius and the virtues of Berryer are indeed the loftiest +claims modern French legitimacy can offer to the respect of posterity. I +look back with a feeling of something like veneration to that grand and +kingly form, to the sweet, serene, unaffected dignity of that august +nature. Berryer belonged to a totally different political order from +that of Thiers. As John Bright is to Disraeli, as John Henry Newman is +to Monsignore Capel, as Montalembert was to Louis Veuillot, as Charles +Sumner is to Seward, so was Berryer to Thiers. Of the oratorical merits +of the two men I shall speak hereafter; now I refer to the relative +value of their political characters. With Thiers and Berryer there came +back to political life some men of mark and worth. Garnier-Pagès was +one, the impulsive, true-hearted, not very strong-headed Republican; a +man who might be a great leader if fine phrases and good intentions +could rule the world. Carnot was another, not much perhaps in himself, +but great as the son of the illustrious organizer of victory (oh, if +France had lately had one hour of Carnot!), and personally very popular +just then because of his scornful rejection of Louis Napoleon's offer to +bring back the ashes of his father from Magdeburg in Prussia to France. +Eugène Pelletan, who had been suffering savage persecution because of +his fierce attack on the Empire in his book, "The New Babylon"; Jules +Simon, a superior sort of French Tom Hughes—Tom Hughes with republican<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +convictions and strong backbone—and several other men of name and +fibre, were now companions in the Corps Législatif. All these, differing +widely in personal opinions, and indeed representing every kind of +political view, from the chivalrous and romantic legitimacy of Berryer +to the republican religion or fetichism of Garnier-Pagès, combined to +make up an opposition to the Imperial Government. Up to that time the +opposition had consisted simply of five men. For years those five had +fought a persevering and apparently hopeless fight against the strength +of Imperial arms, Imperial gold, and the lungs of Imperial hirelings. Of +the five the leader was Jules Favre. The second in command was Emile +Ollivier, whose treason to liberty, truth, and peace has since been so +sternly avenged by destiny. The other three were Picard, a member of the +Republican Government of September, and MM. Darimon and Henon. +Numerically the opposition, now strengthened by the new accessions, +became quite respectable; morally and politically it wholly changed the +situation. It was no longer a Leonidas or Horatius Cocles desperately +holding a pass; it was an army encountering an army. The Imperialists of +course still far outnumbered their opponents; but there were no men +among the devotees of Imperialism who could even pretend to compare as +orators with Berryer, Thiers, or Favre. Of these three men, it seems to +me that Berryer was by far the greatest orator, but Thiers left him +nowhere as a partisan leader. Thiers undoubtedly pushed Jules Favre +aside and made him quite a secondary figure. Thiers delighted in +worrying a ministry. He never needed, as Berryer did, the impulse of a +great principle and a great purpose. He felt all the joy of the strife +which distinguishes the born gladiator. He soon proved that his years +had in no degree impaired his oratorical capacity. It became one of the +grand events of Paris when Thiers was to speak. Owing to the peculiar +regulations of the French Chamber, which required that those who meant +to take part in a debate should inscribe their names beforehand in the +book, and speak according to their turn—an odious usage, fatal to all +genuine debate—it was always known in advance through Paris that +to-morrow or the day after Thiers was to speak. Then came a struggle for +places in what an Englishman would call the strangers' gallery. The +Palais Bourbon, where the Corps Législatif held its sittings, opposite +the Place de la Concorde, has the noble distinction of providing the +least and worst accommodation for the public of any House of Assembly in +the civilized world. The English House of Commons is miserably defective +and niggardly in this respect, but it is liberal and lavish when +compared with the French Corps Législatif. Therefore, when M. Thiers was +about to speak, there was as much intriguing, clamoring, beseeching, +wrangling, storming for seats in the public <i>tribunes</i> as would have +sufficed to carry an English county election. The trouble had its +reward. Nobody could be disappointed in M. Thiers who merely desired an +intellectual exercise and treat. Thiers never was heavy or dull. He is, +I think, the most interesting of all the great European debaters. I do +not know whether I convey exactly the meaning I wish to express when I +used the word "interesting." What I mean is that there is in M. Thiers +an inexhaustible vivacity, freshness, and variety which never allows the +attention to wander or flag. He never dwells too long on any one part of +his subject; or if he has to dwell long anywhere, he enlivens the theme +by a lavish copiousness of novel argument, application, and +illustration, which is irresistibly piquant and fascinating. Reëntering +public life in his old age, M. Thiers had physically something like the +advantage which I have known to be possessed by certain mature +actresses, who, never having had any claim to personal beauty in their +youth, were visited with hardly any penalty of time when they began to +descend into age. Thiers always had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> an insignificant presence, a +dreadfully bad voice, and an unpleasant delivery. Time added nothing, +and probably could add nothing, to these disadvantages. Already John +Bright has lost, already Gladstone is losing, those magnificent +qualities of voice and intonation which till lately distinguished both +from all other living English orators. One of the only fine passages in +Disraeli's "Life of Lord George Bentinck" is that in which he describes +the melancholy sensation created in the House of Commons when Daniel +O'Connell, feeble and broken down, tried vainly to raise above a +mumbling murmur those accents which once could thrill and vibrate to the +furthest corner of the most capacious hall. But the voice and delivery +of Thiers at seventy were no whit worse than those of Thiers at forty; +and in energy, vivacity, and variety, I think the opposition leader of +1866 had rather gained upon the Minister of 1836. In everything that +makes a great orator he was far beneath Berryer. The latter had as +commanding a presence as he had a superb voice, and a manner at once +graceful and dignified. Berryer, too, had the sustaining strength of a +profound conviction, pure and lofty as a faith. If Berryer was a +political Don Quixote, Thiers was a political Gil Blas. Thiers was all +sparkle, antithesis, audacity, sophistry. His <i>tours de force</i> were +perfect masterpieces of fearless adroitness. He darted from point to +point, from paradox to paradox, with the bewildering agility of a +squirrel. He flashed through the heavy atmosphere of a dull debate with +the scintillating radiancy of a firefly. He propounded sentiments of +freedom which would positively have captivated you if you had not known +a little of the antecedents of the orator. He threw off concise and +luminous maxims of government which would have been precious guides if +human politics could only be ruled by epigram. His long experience as a +partisan leader, in and out of office, had made him master of a vast +array of facts and dates, which he was expert to marshal in such a +manner as often to bewilder his opponents. His knowledge of the +mechanism and regulations of diplomatic and parliamentary practice was +consummate. He was singularly clear and attractive in statement; his +mode of putting a case had something in it that was positively +fascinating. He was sharp and severe in retort, and there was a cold, +self-complacent <i>hauteur</i> in his way of putting down an adversary, which +occasionally reminded one of a peculiarity of Earl Russell's style when +the latter was still a good parliamentary debater. M. Thiers had the +great merit of never talking over the heads, above the understandings of +his audience. His style of language was of the same character perhaps as +that of Mr. Wendell Phillips. Of course no two men could possibly be +more unlike in the manner of speaking, but the rhetorical vernacular of +both has a considerable resemblance. The diction in each case is clear, +incisive, penetrating—never, or hardly ever, rising to anything of +exalted oratorical grandeur, never involved in mist or haze of any kind, +and with the same habitual acidity and sharpness in it. I presume M. +Thiers wrote the greater part of his speeches beforehand, but he +evidently had the happy faculty, rare even among accomplished orators, +which enables a speaker to blend the elaborately prepared portions of +his discourse with the extemporaneous passages originated by the +impulses and the incidents of the debate. Some of the cleverest +arguments, and especially some of the cleverest sarcastic hits in M. +Thiers's recent speeches, were provoked by questions and interruptions +which must have been quite unexpected. But a strange peculiarity about +the whole body of the speeches, the written parts as well as the +extemporaneous, was that they bore no resemblance whatever to the +glittering and gorgeous style which is so common and so objectionable in +the pages of the author's history of the French Revolution, and of the +Consulate and the Empire. I must say that I think M. Thiers's historical +works<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> are decidedly heavy reading. I think his speeches are more +interesting and attractive to read than those of any political speaker +of our day. As an orator I set him below Berryer, below Gladstone and +Bright, below Wendell Phillips, and not above Disraeli. But as an +interesting speaker—I can think of no better qualification for him—I +place M. Thiers above any of those masters of the art of eloquence.</p> + +<p>I have not compared M. Thiers with Jules Favre. Any juxtaposition of the +two ought rather perhaps to be in the way of contrast than of +comparison. Jules Favre is probably the most exquisite and perfect +rhetorician practising in the public debates of our time. No one else +can lend so brilliant an effect, so delightful an emphasis to words and +phrases by the mere modulations of his tone. I once heard a French +workingman say that Jules Favre <i>parlait comme un ange</i>—talked like an +angel; and there was a simple appropriateness in the expression. An +angel, if he had to address so unsympathetic and uncongenial an audience +as the Imperial Corps Législatif, could hardly lend more musical effect +to the meaning of his words than was given by Jules Favre's consummate +rhetorical skill. But I must acknowledge that to me at least there never +seemed to be much in what Jules Favre said. It seemed to me too often to +want marrow and backbone. It was an eloquence of fine phrases and +splendid vague generalities. "Flow on, thou shining river," one felt +sometimes inclined to say as the bright, broad, shallow stream glided +away. If Thiers spoke for half a day, and the discourse covered a dozen +columns of the closely-printed "Moniteur," yet the listener or reader +came away with the impression that the orator had crammed quite a +surprising quantity of matter into his speech, and could have found ever +so much more to say on the same subject. The impression produced on me +at least by the speeches of Jules Favre was always of the very opposite +character. They seemed to be all rhetoric and modulation; they were +without depth and without fibre. The essentially declamatory character +of Jules Favre's eloquence received its most complete illustration in +that remarkable document—so painful and pathetic because of its obvious +earnestness, so ludicrous and almost contemptible because of its turgid +and extravagant outbursts—the report of his recent interviews with +Count von Bismarck at the Prussian headquarters near Versailles. One +must keep constantly in mind the awful seriousness of the situation, and +the genuine suffering which it must have imposed upon Jules Favre, not +to laugh outright or feel disgusted at the inflated, hyperbolical, and +melodramatic style in which the Republican Minister describes his +interview with the Prussian Chancellor. Now, whatever faults of style M. +Thiers might commit, he never could thus make himself ridiculous. He +never allows himself to be out of tune with the occasion and the +audience. You may differ utterly from him, you may distrust and dislike +him; but Thiers, the parliamentary orator, will not permit you to laugh +at him.</p> + +<p>Thiers was always very happy in his replies and retorts, and he never +allowed if he could an interruption to one of his speeches in the Corps +Législatif to pass without seizing its meaning and at once dissecting +and demolishing it. He rejoiced in the light sword-play of such +exercises. He would never have been contented with the superb quietness +of contempt by which Berryer in one of his latest speeches crushed +Granier de Cassagnac, the abject serf and hireling of Imperialism. While +Berryer was speaking, Granier de Cassagnac suddenly expressed his coarse +dissent from one of the orator's statements by crying out, "That is not +true." Berryer was not certain as to the source of this insolent +interruption. He gazed all round the assembly, and demanded in accents +of subdued and noble indignation who had dared thus to challenge the +truth of his statement. There was a dead pause. Even enemies looked up +with reverence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> to the grand old orator, and were ashamed of the rude +insult flung at him. De Cassagnac quailed, but every eye was on him, and +he was compelled to declare himself. "It was I who spoke," said the +Imperial servant. Berryer looked at him for a moment, and then said, +"Oh, it was <i>you</i>!—then it is of no consequence," and calmly resumed +the thread of his discourse. Nothing could have been finer, nothing more +demolishing than the cold, grand contempt which branded De Cassagnac as +a creature incapable of meriting, even by insult, the notice of a man of +honor. But Thiers would never have been satisfied with such a mode of +crushing an adversary; and indeed it needed all the majesty of Berryer's +presence and the moral grandeur of his character to give it full force +and emphasis. Thiers would have showered upon the head of the Imperial +lacquey a whole fiery cornucopia of sarcasm and sharp invective, and De +Cassagnac would have gone home rather proud of having drawn down upon +his head the angry eloquence of the great Orleanist orator.</p> + +<p>Thiers threw his whole soul into his speeches—not merely as to their +preparation, but as to their revision and publication. According to the +Imperial system, no independent reports of speeches in the Chambers were +allowed to appear in print. The official stenographers noted down in +full each day's debate, and the whole was published next day in the +"Moniteur Universel." These reports professed to give every word and +syllable of the speeches—every whisper of interruption. Sometimes, +therefore, the "Moniteur" came out with twenty of its columns filled up +with the dull maunderings of some provincial blockhead, for whom +servility and money had secured an official candidature. Besides these +stupendous reports, the Government furnished a somewhat condensed +version, in which the twenty-column speech was reduced say to a dozen +columns. Either of these reports the public journals might take, but +none other; and no journal must alter or condense by the omission of a +line or the substitution of a word the text thus officially furnished. +When Thiers had spent the whole day in delivering a speech, he was +accustomed to spend the whole night in reading over and correcting the +proof-sheets of the official report. The venerable orator would hurry +home when the sitting was over, change his clothes, get into his +arm-chair before his desk, and set to work at the proof-sheets according +as they came. Over these he would toil with the minute and patient +inspection of a watchmaker or a lapidary, reading this or that passage +many times, until he had satisfied himself that no error remained and +that no turn of expression could well be improved. Before this task was +done, the night had probably long faded and the early sun was already +lighting Paris; but when the Corps Législatif came to assemble at noon, +the inexhaustible septuagenarian was at his post again. That evening he +would be found, the central figure of a group, in some salon, scattering +his brilliant sayings and acrid sarcasms around him, and in all +probability exercising his humor at the expense of the Imperial +Ministers, the Empire, and even the Emperor himself. After 1866 he was +exuberant in his <i>bons mots</i> about the humiliation of the Imperial +Cabinet by Prussia. "Bismarck," he once declared, "is the best supporter +of the French Government. He keeps it always in its place by first +boxing it on one ear and then maintaining the equilibrium by boxing it +on the other."</p> + +<p>If one could have been present at the recent interviews between Count +Bismarck and M. Thiers, he would doubtless have enjoyed a curious and +edifying intellectual treat. Bismarck is a man of imperturbable good +humor; Thiers a man of imperturbable self-conceit. Thiers has a tongue +which never lacks a word, and that the most expressive word. Bismarck +has a rare gift of shrewd satirical humor, and of phrases that stick to +public memory. Each man would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> have regarded the other as a worthy +antagonist in a duel of words. Neither would care to waste much time in +lofty sentiment and grandiose appeals. Each would thoroughly understand +that his best motto would be, "<i>A corsaire, corsaire et demi</i>." Bismarck +would find in Thiers no feather-headed Benedetti; assuredly, Thiers +would favor Bismarck with none of Jules Favre's sighs and tears, and +bravado and choking emotions. Thiers would have the greater part of the +talk, that is certain; but Bismarck would probably contrive to compress +a good deal of meaning and significance into his curt interjected +sentences. Thiers assuredly must have long since worn out any freshness +of surprise or thrilling emotion of any kind at the political +convulsions of France. To him even the spectacle of the standard of +Prussia hoisted on the pinnacles of Versailles could hardly have been an +overpowering wonder. He had seen the soldiers of Prussia picketed in +Paris; he could remember when a fickle Parisian populace, weary of war, +had thronged into the streets to applaud the entrance of the conquering +Czar of Russia. He had seen the Bourbon restored, and had helped to +overthrow him. He had been twice the chief Minister of that Louis +Philippe of Orleans, who in his youth had had to save the Princess his +sister by carrying her off in her night-gown, without time to throw a +shawl around her, and whose long years of exile had led him, in +fulfilment of the prophecy of Danton, to the throne of France at last. +He had helped towards the downfall of that same King his master, and had +striven vainly at the end to stand between him and his fate. He had seen +a second Republic rise and sink; he had now become the envoy of a third +Republic. He had refused to serve an Imperial Napoleon, although his own +teaching and preaching had been among the most effective agencies in +debauching the mind and heart of the nation, and thus rendering a second +Empire possible. People say M. Thiers has no feelings, and I shall not +venture to contradict them—I have often heard the statement from those +who know better than I can pretend to do. It would have been personally +unfortunate for him in his interview with Count von Bismarck if he had +been burthened with feelings. For he must surely in such a case have +felt bitterly the consciousness that the misfortunes which had fallen on +his country were in great measure the fruit of his own doctrines and his +own labors. If the public conscience of France had not been seared and +hardened against all sentiment of obligation to international principle, +where French glory and French aggrandizement were concerned; if France +had not learned to believe that no foreign nation had any rights which +she was bound to respect; if she had not been saturated with the +conviction that every benefit to a neighbor was an injury to herself; if +she had not accepted these views as articles of national faith, and +followed them out wherever she could to their uttermost consequences, +then M. Thiers might be said to have written and spoken and lived in +vain.</p> + +<p>It is probable that a new career presents itself as a possibility to the +indomitable energy, and, as many would say, the insatiable ambition of +M. Thiers. Certainly, there seems not the faintest indication that the +veteran believes himself to lag superfluous on the stage. It is likely +that he rushed into the recent peace negotiations with the hope of +playing over again the part so skilfully played by Talleyrand at the +time of the Congress of Vienna, by virtue of which France obtained so +much advantage which might hardly have been expected, and Germany got so +little of what she might naturally have looked for. I certainly shall +not venture to say whether M. Thiers may not even yet have an important +official career before him. His recent enterprises and expeditions give +evidence enough that he has nerve and physique for any undertaking +likely to attract him, and I see no reason to doubt that his intellect +is as fresh and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> active as it was thirty years ago. Thiers deserves +nothing but honor for the unconquerable energy and courage which refuse +to yield to years, and will not acknowledge the triumph of time. He +would deserve far greater honor still if we could regard him as a +disinterested patriot; highest honor of all if his principles were as +wise and just as his ambition was unselfish. But charity itself could +hardly hope to reconcile the facts of M. Thiers's long and varied career +with any theory ascribing to the man himself a pure and disinterested +purpose. That a statesman has changed his opinions is often his highest +glory, if, as in the case of Mr. Gladstone, he has thereby grown into +the light and the right. Nor is a change of views necessarily a reproach +to a politician, even though he may have retrograded or gone wrong. But +the man who is invariably a passionate liberal when out of office, and a +severe conservative when in power; who makes it a regular practice to +have one set of opinions while he leads the opposition, and another when +he has succeeded in mounting to the lead of a ministry; such a man +cannot possibly hope to obtain for such systematic alternations the +credit of even a capricious and fantastic sincerity. No one who knows +anything of M. Thiers would consent thus to exalt his heart at the +expense of his head. When the late Lord Cardigan was, rightly or +wrongly, accused of having returned rather too quickly from the famous +charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, his lordship, among other +things, alleged that his horse had run away with him. A bitter critic +thereupon declared that Lord Cardigan could not be allowed thus unfairly +to depreciate his consummate horsemanship, I am afraid we cannot allow +M. Thiers's intelligence and shrewdness to be unjustly depreciated by +the assumption that his political tergiversations were the result of +meaningless caprice.</p> + +<p>M. Thiers is one of the most gifted men of his day. But he is not, in my +judgment, a great man. He wants altogether the grand and stable +qualities of principle and judgment which are needed to constitute +political greatness. His statesmanship is a sort of policy belonging +apparently to the school of the Lower Empire; a Byzantine blending of +intrigue and impudence. He has never had the faculty of reading the +signs of the times, or of understanding that to-day is not necessarily +like yesterday. But for the wonderful gifts of the man, there would seem +to be something positively childish in the egotism which could believe +that it lay in the power of France to maintain, despite of destiny, the +petty princes of Germany and Italy, to arrange the political conditions +of England, and prescribe to the United States how far their principle +of internal cohesion should reach. Victor Hugo is undoubtedly an +egotistic Frenchman. Some of his recent utterances have been foolish and +ridiculous. But the folly has been that of a great soul; the folly has +consisted in appealing, out of all time and place, to sublime and +impracticable sentiments of human brotherhood and love which ought to +influence all human souls, but do not and probably never will. Far +different is the egotism of Thiers. It is the egotism of selfishness, +arrogance, and craft. In a sublime world, Victor Hugo's appeals would +cease to be ridiculous; but the nobler the world, the more ignoble would +seem the doctrines and the policy of Thiers. My own admiration of Thiers +extends only to his skill as a debater and his marvellous intellectual +vitality. The man who, despite the most disheartening disadvantages of +presence, voice, and manner, is yet the most fascinating political +debater of his time, the man who at seventy-three years of age can go up +in a balloon in quest of a new career, must surely command some interest +and admiration, let critical wisdom preach to us never so wisely. But +the best days will have arisen for France when such a political +character and such a literary career as those of M. Thiers shall have +become an anachronism and an impossibility.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>PRINCE NAPOLEON.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>Some few years ago, seven or eight perhaps, a certain sensation was +created among artists, and journalists, and literary men, and +connoisseurs, and critics, by one of Flandrin's best portraits. +Undoubtedly, the portrait was an admirable likeness; no one who had ever +seen the original could deny or question that; but yet there was an air, +a character, a certain depth of idealized expression about it which +seemed to present the subject in a new light, and threw one into a kind +of doubt as to whether he had ever truly understood the original before. +Either the painter had unduly glorified his sitter, or the sitter had +impressed upon the artist a true idea of his character and intellect +which had never before been revealed to the public at large. The +portrait was that of a man of middle age, with a smooth, broad, +thoughtful brow, a character of command about the finely-formed, +somewhat sensuous lips; chin and nose beautifully moulded, in fact what +ladies who write novels would call "chiselled;" a face degenerating a +little into mere flesh, but still dignified and imposing. Everywhere +over the face there was a tone of dissatisfaction, of disappointment, of +sullenness mingling strangely with the sensuous characteristics, and +conveying somehow the idea of great power and daring ambition unduly +repressed by outward conditions, or rendered barren by inward defects, +or actually frustrated by failure and fate. "A Cæsar out of employment!" +exclaimed a celebrated French author and critic. So much there was of +the Cæsar in the face that no school-boy, no Miss in her teens could +have even glanced at it without saying, "That is the face of a +Bonaparte!" Were not the features a little too massive, it might have +passed for an admirable likeness of the victor of Austerlitz; or, at all +events, of the Napoleon of Leipzig or the Hundred Days. Probably any +ordinary observer would at once have set it down as a portrait of the +great Napoleon, and never thought there could be any doubt about the +matter. It was, in fact, the likeness of Napoleon-Jerome, son of the +rattle-pate King of Westphalia—Prince Napoleon, as he is ordinarily +called, the Plon-plon whom soldiers jeer at, the "Red Prince" whom +priests and Legitimists denounce, the cousin of the Emperor of the +French, the son-in-law of the King of Italy.</p> + +<p>It was only somewhere about, or a little before the time of the Flandrin +portrait, that Prince Napoleon had the honor of becoming a mystery in +the eyes of the public. Up to 1860, his character was quite settled in +public estimation, just as that of Louis Napoleon had been up to the +time of the <i>coup d'etat</i>. Public opinion generally settles the +characters of conspicuous men at first by the intuitive process—the +most delightful and easy method possible, dispensing, as it does, with +any necessity for studying the subject, or even knowing anything at all +about it. When the intuitive process has once adjusted a man's +character, it is not easy to get people to believe in any other +adjustment. Still, there are some remarkable instances of a change in +popular opinion. The case of Louis Napoleon, the Emperor, is one +illustration; that of Prince Napoleon, his cousin, is another, not so +remarkable, certainly, but still quite worthy of some attention.</p> + +<p>Prince Napoleon had been before the world more or less since he appeared +as representative of Corsica, in the Constituent Assembly of 1848. He +was made conspicuous, in a negative sort of way, by having had no hand +in the <i>coup d'etat</i>, or having even opposed it, although he did not +scruple to profit by its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> success and enjoy its golden advantages. He +had a command in the Crimean war; he was sent into Tuscany during the +Italian campaign. All that time public opinion in Europe was unanimous +about him. He was a sensualist, a coward, an imbecile, and a blockhead. +He was a fat, stupid, muddle-headed Heliogabalus. Dulness, cowardice, +and profligacy were his principal, perhaps his only characteristics. +When the young Clotilde, of Savoy, was given to him for a wife, a +positive cry of wonder and disgust went up from every country of Europe. +In good truth, it was a scandalous thing to marry a young and innocent +girl to a man nearly as old as her father; and who, undoubtedly, had +been a <i>mauvais sujet</i>, and had led a life of dissipation so far. But +Europe cried aloud as if three out of every four princely alliances were +not made on the same principle and endowed with the same character. Had +the Princess Clotilde been affianced to a hog or a gorilla, there could +hardly have been greater wonder and horror expressed, so clear was the +public mind about the stupidity and brutality of Prince Napoleon.</p> + +<p>Certainly, if one looked a little deeper than mere public opinion, he +would have found, even then, that here and there some men, not quite +incapable of judging, did not accept the popular estimate of the +Emperor's cousin. All through the memorable progress of the Congress of +Paris—out of which sprang Italy—we find, by the documents subsequently +made public, that Cavour was in close and frequent consultation with +Prince Napoleon. Once we find Cavour saying that Prince Napoleon +complains of his slowness, his too great moderation, and thinks he could +serve the cause better by a little more boldness. "Perhaps he is right," +says Cavour, in words to that effect; "but I fear I lack his force of +character, his daringness of purpose." Richard Cobden makes the +acquaintance of Prince Napoleon, and is surprised and delighted with his +advanced opinions on the subject of free trade; and deliberately +describes him (I heard Cobden use the words) as "one of the best +informed, if not the very best informed, of all the public men of +Europe." Kinglake observes the Prince during the Crimean campaign—where +Napoleon-Jerome got his reputation for cowardice and his nick-name of +Plon-plon—and finds in him a genius very like that of his uncle, the +great Napoleon, especially a wonderful power of distinguishing at a +glance between the essentials and the accidentals of any question or +situation—and any one who has ever studied politics and public men will +know how rare a faculty that is—and finally declares that he sees no +reason to believe him inferior in courage to the conqueror of Marengo! +Edmond About, not a very dull personage, and not quite given up to +panegyric, bursts into a strain of almost lyrical enthusiasm about the +wit, the brilliancy, the culture, the daring ambition of Prince +Napoleon, and declares that the Prince is kept as much out of the way as +possible, because a man endowed with a soul of such unresting energy, +and the face of the great Emperor, is too formidable a personage to be +seen hanging about the steps of a throne. To close this string of +illustrations, Prince Napoleon is in somewhat frequent and confidential +intercourse with Michel Chevalier, a man not likely to cultivate the +society of heavy blockheads and dullards, even though these might happen +to wear princely coronets. Clearly, public opinion here was even more +directly at odds than it often is with the opinion of some whom we may +call experts; and the difference was so great that there seemed no +possible way of reconciling the two. A man may be a profligate and yet a +man of genius, and even a patriot; but one cannot be a profligate +blockhead and a man of genius, a Cloten and an Alcibiades, a Cæsar and a +Pyrgopolinices at once.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p><p>It was in the early part of 1861 that Prince Napoleon contributed +something of his own spontaneous motion to help in the solution of the +enigma. That was the year when the Emperor removed the restriction which +prevented both Chambers of the Legislature from freely debating the +address, and the press from fully reporting the discussions. There was a +remarkable debate in the Senate, ranging over a great variety of +domestic and foreign questions, and one most memorable event of the +debate was the brilliant, powerful and exhaustive oration delivered, +with splendid energy and rhetorical effect, by Prince Napoleon. <i>Mon âne +parle et même il parle bien</i>, declares the astonished Joan, in +Voltaire's scandalous poem, "La Pucelle." Perhaps there was something of +a similar wonder mingled with the burst of genuine admiration which went +up first from Paris, then from France, and finally from Europe and +America, when that magnificent democratic manifesto came to be read. +Certainly, I remember no single speech which, during my time, created +anything like the same sensation in Europe. For it took the outer world +wholly by surprise. It was not a case like that of the sensation lately +created by the florid and fervid eloquence of the young Spanish orator, +Castellar. In this latter case the public were surprised and delighted +to find that there was a master of thrilling rhetoric alive, and arrayed +on the side of democratic freedom, of whose very existence most persons +had been previously ignorant. But, in the case of Prince Napoleon, the +surprise was, that a man whom the public had long known, and always set +down as a stupid sensualist, should suddenly, and without any previous +warning, turn out a great orator, whose eloquence had in it something so +fresh, and genuine, and forcible that it recalled the memory of the most +glorious days of the French Tribune. I write of this celebrated oration +now only from recollection; and, of course, I did not hear it spoken. I +say "of course," because the rules of the French Senate, unlike those of +the Corps Legislatif, forbid the presence of any strangers during the +debates. But those who heard it spoke enthusiastically of the force and +freedom with which it was delivered; the sudden, impulsive fervor of +occasional outbursts; and the wonderful readiness with which the +speaker, when interrupted, as he was very frequently, passed from one +topic to another in order to dispose of the interruption, and replied to +sudden challenge with even prompter repartee. No one could read the +speech without admiring the extent and variety of the political +knowledge it displayed; the prodigality of illustration it flung over +every argument; the thrilling power of some of its rhetorical "phrases;" +the tone of sustained and passionate eloquence which made itself heard +all throughout; and, perhaps above all, that flexible, spontaneous +readiness of language and resource to which every interruption, every +interjected question only acted like a spur to a generous horse, calling +forth new and greater, and wholly unexpected efforts. In the French +Senate I need, perhaps, hardly tell my readers, it is the habit to allow +the utmost license of interruption, and Prince Napoleon's audacious +onslaught on the reactionists and the <i>parti prêtre</i> called out even an +unusual amount of impatient utterance. Those who interrupted took little +by their motion. The energetic Prince tossed off his assailants as a +bull flings the dogs away on the points of his horns. "Our principles +are not yours," scornfully exclaims a Legitimist nobleman—the late +Marquis de la Rochejaquelein, if I remember rightly. "Your principles +are not ours!" vehemently replies the orator. "No, nor are your +antecedents ours. Our pride is that our fathers fell on the battle-field +resisting the foreign invaders whom your fathers brought in for the +subjugation of France!" The speech is studded with sudden replies +equally fervid and telling. Indeed, the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> material of the oration +is rich, strong, and genuine. There seems to be in the eloquence of the +French Chambers, of late, a certain want of freshness and natural power. +I do not speak of Berryer—he had no such want. But Thiers—by far the +ablest living debater who speaks only from preparation—with all his +wonderful science and skill as an artist in debate, appears to be always +somewhat artificial and elaborate. Jules Favre, with his exquisitely +modulated tones, and his unrivalled choice of words, hardly ever appears +to me to rise to that height where the orator, lost in his subject, +compels his hearers to lose themselves also in it. Now, I cannot help +thinking that the two or three really great speeches made by Prince +Napoleon had in them more of the native fibre, force and passion of +oratory than those of almost any Frenchman since the days of Mirabeau.</p> + +<p>However that may be, the effect wrought on the public mind was +unmistakable. Plon-plon had startled Europe. He entered the palace of +the Luxembourg on that memorable day without any repute but that of a +dullard and a sensualist; he came out of it a recognized orator. I have +been told that he lay back in his open carriage and smoked his cigar, as +he drove home from the Senate, to all appearance the same indolent, +sullen, heavy apathetic personage whom all Paris had previously known +and despised.</p> + +<p>One notable effect of this famous speech was the reply which a certain +passage in it drew from Louis Philippe's son, the Duc d'Aumale. Prince +Napoleon had indulged in a bitter sneer or two against former dynasties, +and the Duc d'Aumale, a man of great culture and ability, took up the +quarrel fiercely. The Duke assailed Prince Napoleon in one of the +keenest, most biting pamphlets which the political controversy of our +day has produced. Among other things, the Duke replied to a supposed +imputation on the weakness of Louis Philippe by admitting, frankly, that +the <i>bourgeois</i> King had not dealt with enemies, when in his power, as a +Bonaparte would have done. "<i>Et tenez</i>, Prince," wrote the Duke, "the +only time when the word of a Bonaparte may be believed is when he avows +that he will never spare a defenceless enemy." The pamphlet bristled +with points equally sharp and envenomed. But the Duc d'Aumale was not +content with written rejoinder. He sent a challenge to the Prince, and +in serious earnest. The Prince, it need hardly be said, did not accept +the challenge.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>Yes, like enough, high-battled Cæsar will</div> +<div>Unstate his greatness, and be staged to the show</div> +<div>Against a sworder!</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Our Cæsar, though not "high-battled," was by no means likely to consent +to be "staged against a sworder." The Emperor hastened to prevent any +disastrous consequences, by insisting that the Prince must not accept +the challenge—and there was no duel. People winked and sneered a good +deal. It is said that the martial King Victor Emmanuel grumbled and +chafed at his son-in-law; but there was no fight. Let me say, for my own +part, that I think Prince Napoleon was quite right in not accepting the +challenge, and that I do not believe him to be wanting in personal +courage.</p> + +<p>From that moment, Prince Napoleon became a conspicuous figure in +European politics, and when any great question arose, men turned +anxiously toward him, curious to know what he would do or say. In three +or four successive sessions he spoke in the Senate, and even with the +impression of the first surprise still strong on the public mind, the +speeches preserved abundantly the reputation which the earliest of them +had so suddenly created. He might be the <i>enfant terrible</i> of the +Bonaparte family; he might be utterly wanting in statesmanship;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> he +might be insincere; he might be physically a coward; but all the world +now admitted him to be an orator, and, in his way, a man of genius.</p> + +<p>Then it became known to the public, all at once, that the Prince, +whatever his failings, had some rare gifts besides that of eloquence. He +was undoubtedly a man of exquisite taste in all things artistic; he had +an intelligent and liberal knowledge of practical science; he had a +great faculty of organization; he was a keen humorist and wit. He loved +the society of artists, and journalists, and literary men; he associated +with them <i>en bon camarade</i>, and he could talk with each upon his own +subject; his <i>bon mots</i> soon began to circulate far and wide. He was a +patron of Revolution. In the innermost privacy of the Palais Royal men +like Mieroslawski, the Polish Red Revolutionist, men like General Türr, +unfolded and discussed their plans. Prince Gortschakoff, in his +despatches at the time of the Polish Rebellion, distinctly pointed to +the palace of Prince Napoleon as the headquarters of the insurrection. +The "Red Prince" grew to be one of the mysterious figures in European +policy. Was he in league with his cousin, the Emperor—or was he his +cousin's enemy? Did he hope, on the strength of that Bonaparte face, and +his secret league with Democracy, to mount one day from the steps of the +throne to the throne itself? Between him and the succession to that +throne intervened only the life of one frail boy. Was Prince Napoleon +preparing for the day when he might play the part of a Gloster (without +the smothering), and, pushing the boy aside, succeed to the crown of the +great Emperor whom in face he so strikingly resembled?</p> + +<p>At last came the celebrated Ajaccio speech. The Emperor had gone to +visit Algeria; the Prince went to deliver an oration at the inauguration +of a monument to Napoleon I., at Ajaccio. The speech was, in brief, a +powerful, passionate denunciation of Austria, and the principles which +Austria represented before Sadowa taught her a lesson of tardy wisdom. +Viewed as the exposition of a professor of history, one might fairly +acknowledge the Prince's speech to have illustrated eloquently some +solid and stern truths, which Europe would have done well even then to +consider deeply. Subsequent events have justified and illuminated many +of what then seemed the most startling utterances of the orator. +Austria, for example, practically admits, by her present policy, the +justice of much that Prince Napoleon pleaded against her. But as the +speech of the Emperor's cousin; of one who stood in near order of +succession to the throne; of one who had only just been raised to an +office in the State so high that in the absence of the sovereign it made +him seem the sovereign's proper representative, it was undoubtedly a +piece of marvellous indiscretion. Europe stood amazed at its outspoken +audacity. The Emperor could not overlook it; and he publicly repudiated +it. Prince Napoleon resigned his public offices—including that of +President of the Commissioners of the International Exhibition, which +undertaking suffered sadly from lack of his organizing capacity and his +admirable taste and judgment—and the Imperial orator of Democracy +disappeared from the public stage as suddenly, and amid as much tumult, +as he had entered upon it.</p> + +<p>Prince Napoleon has, indeed, been taken into favor since by his Imperial +cousin, and has been sent on one or two missions, more or less important +or mysterious; but he has never, from the date of the Ajaccio speech up +to the present moment, played any important part as a public man. He is +not, however, "played out." His energy, his ambition, his ability, will +assuredly bring him prominently before the public again. Let us, +meanwhile, endeavor to set before the readers of <span class="smcap">The Galaxy</span> a fair and +true picture of the man, free alike from the exaggerated proportions +which wondering <i>quid nuncs</i> or parasites attribute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> to him, and from +the distortions of unfriendly painters. Exaggeration of both kinds +apart, Prince Napoleon is really one of the most remarkable figures on +the present stage of French history. He is, at least, a man of great +possibilities. Let us try to ascertain fairly what he is, and what are +his chances for the future.</p> + +<p>Born of a hair-brained, eccentric, adventure-seeking, negligent, selfish +father, Prince Napoleon had little of the advantages of a home +education. His boyhood, his youth, were passed in a vagrant kind of way, +ranging from country to country, from court to court. He started in life +with great natural talents, a strong tendency to something not very +unlike rowdyism, an immense ambition, an almost equally vast indolence, +a deep and genuine love of arts, letters, and luxury, an eccentric, +fitful temper, and a predominant pride in that relationship to the great +Emperor which is so plainly stamped upon his face. Without entering into +any questions of current scandal, everybody must know that Napoleon III. +has nothing of the Bonaparte in his face, a fact on which Prince +Napoleon, in his earlier and wilder days, was not always very slow to +comment. Indolence, love of luxury, and a capricious temper have, +perhaps, been the chief enemies which have hitherto prevented the latter +from fulfilling any high ambition. It would be affectation to ignore the +fact that Prince Napoleon flung many years away in mere dissipation. +Stories are told in Paris which would represent him almost as a +Vitellius or an Egalité in profligacy—stories some of which simply +transcend belief by their very monstrosity. Even to this day, to this +hour, it is the firm conviction of the general public that the Emperor's +cousin is steeped to the lips in sensuality. Now, rejecting, of course, +a huge mass of this scandal, it is certain that Prince Napoleon was, for +a long time, a downright <i>mauvais sujet</i>; it is by no means certain that +he has, even at his present mature age, discarded all his evil habits. +His temper is much against him. People habitually contrast the unvarying +courtesy and self-control of the Emperor with the occasional +brusqueness, and even rudeness, of the Prince. True that Prince Napoleon +can be frankly and warmly familiar with his intimates, and even that, +like Prince Hal, he sometimes encourages a degree of familiarity which +hardly tends to mutual respect. But the outer world cannot always rely +on him. He can be undiplomatically rough and hot, and he has a gift of +biting jest which is perhaps one of the most dangerous qualities a +statesman can cultivate. Then there is a personal restlessness about him +which even princes cannot afford safely to indulge. He has hardly ever +had any official position assigned to him which he did not sometime or +other scornfully abandon on the spur of some sudden impulse. The Madrid +embassy in former days, the Algerian administration, the Crimean +command—these and other offices he only accepted to resign. He has +wandered more widely over the face of the earth than any other living +prince—probably than any other prince that ever lived. It used to be +humorously said of him that he was qualifying to become a teacher of +geography, in the event of fortune once more driving the race of +Bonaparte into exile and obscurity. What port is there that has not +sheltered his wandering yacht? He has pleasant dwellings enough to +induce a man to stay at home. His Palais Royal is one of the most +elegant and tasteful abodes belonging to a European prince. The stranger +in Paris who is fortunate enough to obtain admission to it—and, indeed, +admission is easy to procure—must be sadly wanting in taste if he does +not admire the treasures of art and <i>vertu</i> which are laid up there, and +the easy, graceful manner of their arrangement. Nothing of the air of +the show-place is breathed there; no rules, no conditions, no watchful, +dogging lacqueys or sentinels make the visitor uncomfortable. Once +admitted, the stranger goes where he will, and admires and examines what +he pleases. He finds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> there curiosities and relics, medals and statues, +bronzes and stones from every land in which history or romance takes any +interest; he gazes on the latest artistic successes—Doré's magnificent +lights and shadows, Gérome's audacious nudities; he observes autograph +collections of value inestimable; he notices that on the tables, here +and there, lie the newest triumphs or sensations of literature—the poem +that every one is just talking of, the play that fills the theatres, +George Sand's last novel, Rénan's new volume, Taine's freshest +criticism: he is impressed everywhere with the conviction that he is in +the house of a man of high culture and active intellect, who keeps up +with the progress of the world in arts, and letters, and politics. Then +there was, until lately, the famous Pompeiian Palace, in one of the +avenues of the Champs Elysées, which ranked among the curiosities of +Paris, but which Prince Napoleon has at last chosen, or been compelled, +to sell. On the Swiss shore of the lake of Geneva, one of the most +remarkable objects that attract the eye of the tourist who steams from +Geneva to Lausanne, is La Bergerie, the palace of Prince Napoleon. But +the owner of these palaces spends little of his time in them. His wife, +the Princess Clotilde, stays at home and delights in her children, and +shows them with pride to her visitors, while her restless husband is +steaming in and out of the ports of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, or +the Baltic. Prince Napoleon has not found his place yet, say Edmond +About and other admirers—when he does he will settle firmly to it. He +is a restless, unmanageable idler and scamp, say his enemies—unstable +as water, he shall not excel. Meanwhile years go by, and Prince Napoleon +has long left even the latest verge of youth behind him; and he is only +a possibility as yet, and is popular with no political party in France.</p> + +<p>Strange that this avowed and ostentatious Democrat, this eloquent, +powerful spokesman of French Radicalism, is not popular even with +Democrats and Red Republicans. They do not trust him. They cannot +understand how he can honestly extend one hand to Democracy, while in +the other he receives the magnificent revenues assigned to him by +Despotism. One might have thought that nothing would be more easy than +for this man, with his daring, his ambition, his brilliant talents, his +commanding eloquence, his democratic principles, and his Napoleon face, +to make himself the idol of French Democracy. Yet he has utterly failed +to do so. As a politician, he has almost invariably upheld the rightful +cause, and accurately foretold the course of events. He believed in the +possibility of Italy's resurrection long before there was any idea of +his becoming son-in-law to a King of Italy; he has been one of the most +earnest friends of the cause of Poland; he saw long ago what every one +sees now, that the fall of the Austrian system was an absolute necessity +to the progress of Europe; he was a steady supporter of the American +Union, and when it was the fashion in France, as in England, to regard +the independence of the Southern Confederacy as all but an accomplished +fact, he remained firm in the conviction that the North was destined to +triumph. With all his characteristic recklessness and impetuosity, he +has many times shown a cool and penetrating judgment, hardly surpassed +by that of any other European statesman. Yet the undeniable fact +remains, that his opinion carries with it comparatively little weight, +and that no party recognizes him as a leader.</p> + +<p>Is he insincere? Most people say he is. They say that, with all his +professions of democratic faith, he delights in his princely rank and +his princely revenues; that he is selfish, grasping, luxurious, arrogant +and deceitful. The army despises him; the populace do not trust him. +Now, for myself, I do not accept this view of the character of Prince +Napoleon. I think he is a sincere <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>Democrat, a genuine lover of liberty +and progress. But I think, at the same time, that he is cursed with some +of the vices of Alcibiades, and some of the vices of Mirabeau; that he +has the habitual indolence almost of a Vendôme, with Vendôme's +occasional outbursts of sudden energy; that a love of luxury, and a +restlessness of character, and fretfulness of temper stand in his way, +and are his enemies. I doubt whether he will ever play a great +historical part, whether he ever will do much more than he has done. His +character wants that backbone of earnest, strong simplicity and faith, +without which even the most brilliant talents can hardly achieve +political greatness. He will probably rank in history among the +Might-Have-Beens. Assuredly, he has in him the capacity to play a great +part. In knowledge and culture, he is far, indeed, superior to his +uncle, Napoleon I.; in justice of political conviction, he is a long way +in advance of his cousin, Napoleon III. Taken for all in all, he is the +most lavishly gifted of the race of the Bonapartes—and what a part in +the cause of civilization and liberty might not be played by a Bonaparte +endowed with genius and culture, and faithful to high and true +convictions! But the time seems going by, if not gone by, when even +admirers could expect to see Prince Napoleon play such a part. Probably +the disturbing, distracting vein of unconquerable levity so conspicuous +in the character of his father, is the marplot of the son's career, too. +After all, Prince Napoleon is perhaps more of an Antony than a +Cæsar—was not Antony, too, an orator, a wit, a lover of art and +letters, a lover of luxury and free companionship, and woman? Doubtless +Prince Napoleon will emerge again, some time and somehow, from his +present condition of comparative obscurity. Any day, any crisis, any +sudden impulse may bring him up to the front again. But I doubt whether +the dynasty of the Bonapartes, the cause of democratic freedom, the +destinies of France, will be influenced much for good or evil, by this +man of rare and varied gifts—of almost measureless possibilities—the +restless, reckless, eloquent, brilliant Imperial Democrat of the Palais +Royal, and Red Republican of the Empire—the long misunderstood and yet +scarcely comprehended Prince Napoleon.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>There used to be a story current in London, which I dare say is not +true, to the effect that her gracious Majesty Queen Victoria once +demurred to the Prince and Princess of Wales showing themselves too +freely in society, and asked them angrily whether they meant to make +themselves "as common as the Cambridges."</p> + +<p>Certainly the Duke of Cambridge and his sister the Princess Mary, now +Princess of Teck, were for a long time, if not exactly "common," if not +precisely popular, the most social, the most easily approached, and the +most often seen in public pageantry of all members of the royal family. +The Princess Mary might perhaps fairly be called popular. The people +liked her fine, winsome face, her plump and buxom form. If she has not a +kindly, warm, and generous heart, then surely physiognomy is no index of +character. But the Duke of Cambridge, although very commonly seen in +public, and ready to give his presence and his support to almost any +philanthropic meeting and institution which can claim to be fashionable, +never seems to have attained any degree of popularity. Like his father, +who enjoyed the repute of being the worst after-dinner speaker who ever +opened his mouth, the Duke of Cambridge is to be found acting as +chairman of some public banquet once a week on an average during the +London season. He is president or patron of no end of public charities +and other institutions. Yet the people do not seem to care anything +about him, or even to like him. His appearance is not in his favor. He +is handsome in a certain sense, but he is heavy, stolid, +sensual-looking, and even gross in form and face. He has indeed nearly +all the peculiarities of physiognomy which specially belong to the most +typical members of the Guelph family, and there is, moreover, despite +the obesity which usually suggests careless good-humor, something +sinister or secret in his expression not pleasant to look upon. He seems +to be a man of respectable average abilities. He is not a remarkably bad +speaker. I think when he addresses the House of Lords, which he does +rarely, or a public meeting or dinner-party, which he does often, he +acquits himself rather better than the ordinary county member of +Parliament. Judging by his apparent mental capacity and his style as a +speaker, he ought to be rather popular than otherwise in England, for +the English people like respectable mediocrity and not talent in their +princes. "He is so respectable and such an ass," says Thackeray speaking +of somebody, "that I positively wonder he didn't get on in England." The +Duke of Cambridge is so respectable (in intellectual capacity) and so +dull that I positively wonder he has not been popular in England. But +popular he never has been. No such clamorous detestation follows him as +used to pursue the late Duke of Cumberland, subsequently King of +Hanover. No such accusations have been made against him as were +familiarly pressed against the Duke of York. Even against the living +Prince of Wales there are charges made by common scandal more serious +than any that are usually talked of in regard to the Duke of Cambridge. +But the English public likes the Duke as little as it could like any +royal personage. England has lately been growing very jealous of the +manner in which valuable appointments are heaped on members of the +Queen's family. The Duke of Cambridge has long enjoyed some sinecure +places of liberal revenue, and he holds one office of inestimable +influence, for which he has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> never proved himself qualified, and for +which common report declares him to be utterly disqualified. He is +Commander-in-Chief of the British army; and that I believe to be his +grand offence in the eyes of the British public. Many offences incident +to his position are indeed charged upon him. It is said that he makes an +unfair use, for purposes of favoritism, of the immense patronage which +his office places at his disposal. Some years ago scandal used to charge +him with advancing men out of the same motive which induced the Marquis +of Steyne to obtain an appointment for Colonel Rawdon Crawley. The +private life of the Duke is said to have been immoral, and unluckily for +him it so happened that some of his closest friends and favorites became +now and then involved in scandals of which the law courts had to take +cognizance. But had none of these things been so, or been said, I think +the Duke of Cambridge would have lacked popularity just as much as he +does. The English people are silently angry with him, mainly because he +is an anachronism—a man raised to the most influential public +appointment the sovereign can bestow, for no other reason than because +he is a member of the royal family. The Duke of Cambridge in the office +of Commander-in-Chief is an anachronism at the head of an anomaly. The +system is unfit for the army or the country; the man is incompetent to +manage any military system, good or bad. As the question of army +reorganization, now under debate in England, has a grand political +importance, transcending by far its utmost possible military import, and +as the position of the Duke of Cambridge is one of the peculiar and +typical anomalies about to be abolished, it may surely interest American +readers if I occupy a few pages in describing the man and the system. +Altering slightly the words of Bugeaud to Louis Philippe in 1848, this +reorganization of the army in England is not a reform, but a revolution. +It strikes out the keystone from the arch of the fabric of English +aristocracy.</p> + +<p>The Duke of Cambridge is, as everybody knows, the first cousin of the +Queen of England. He is about the same age as the Queen. When both were +young it used to be said that he cherished hopes of becoming her +husband. He is now himself one of the victims of the odious royal +marriage act, which in England acknowledges as valid no marriage with a +subject contracted by a member of the royal family without the consent +of the sovereign. The Duke of Cambridge, it is well known, is privately +married to a lady of respectable position and of character which has +never been reproached, but whom, nevertheless, he cannot present to the +world as his wife because the royal consent has not ratified the +marriage. Many readers of <span class="smcap">The Galaxy</span> may perhaps remember that only four +or five years ago there was some little commotion created in England by +the report, never contradicted, that a princess of the royal house had +set her heart upon marrying a young English nobleman who loved her, and +that the Queen utterly refused to give her consent. Much sympathy was +felt for the princess, because, as she was not a daughter of the Queen +and was not young enough to be reasonably expected to acknowledge the +control of any relative, this rigorous exercise of a merely technical +power seemed particularly unjust and odious. It will be seen, therefore, +that the objections raised against the Duke and his position in England +are not founded on the belief that he is himself as an individual +inordinately favored by the sovereign; but on the obvious fact that +place and power are given to him because he is a member of the reigning +family. The Duke of Cambridge has never shown the slightest military +talent, the faintest capacity for the business of war. In his only +campaign he proved worse than useless, and more than once made a +humiliating exhibition, not of cowardice, but of utter incapacity and +flaccid nervelessness. His warmest admirer never ventured to pretend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +that the Duke was personally the best man to take the place of +Commander-in-Chief. While he was constantly accused by rumor and +sometimes by public insinuation of blundering, of obstinacy, of +ignorance, of gross favoritism, no defence ever made for him, no eulogy +ever pronounced upon him, went the length of describing him as a +well-qualified head of the military organization. His upholders and +panegyrists were content with pleading virtually that he was by no means +a bad sort of Commander-in-Chief; that he was not fairly responsible for +this or that blunder or malversation; that on the whole there might have +been men worse fitted than he for the place. The social vindication of +the appointment was that which proved very naturally its worst offence +in the eyes of the public—the fact that the sovereign and her family +desired that the place should be given to the Duke of Cambridge, and +that the ministers then in power either had not the courage or did not +think it worth their while to resist the royal inclination.</p> + +<p>The Duke, if he never proved himself much of a soldier, had at least +opportunity enough to learn all the ordinary business of his profession. +He actually is, and always has been, a professional soldier—not +nominally an officer, as the late Prince Albert was, or as the Prince of +Wales is, or as the Princess Victoria (Crown Princess of Prussia) may be +said for that matter to be, the lady holding, I believe, an appointment +as colonel of some regiment, and being doubtless just as well acquainted +with her regimental duties as her fat and heavy brother. The Duke of +Cambridge was made a colonel at the age of eighteen, and he did the +ordinary barrack and garrison duties of his place. He used when young to +be rather popular in garrison towns. In Dublin, for example, I think +Prince George of Cambridge, as he was then called, was followed with +glances of admiration by many hundred pairs of bright eyes. On the death +of his father (whose after-dinner eloquence used to afford "Punch" a +constant subject for mirth) Prince George became in 1850 Duke of +Cambridge. He holds some appointments which I presume are sinecures to +him; among the rest he is keeper of some of the royal parks (I don't +know the precise title of his office), and the name of "George" may be +seen appended to edicts inscribed on various placards on the trees and +gates near Buckingham Palace. Nothing in particular was known about him +as a soldier until the Crimean war. Indeed, up to that time there had +been for many years as little chance for an English officer to prove his +capacity as there was for a West Point man to show what he was worth in +the period between the Mexican war and the attack on Fort Sumter. When +the Crimean war broke out the Duke was appointed to the command of the +first division of the army sent against the Russians. I believe it is +beyond all doubt that he proved himself unfit for the business of war. +He "lost his head," people say; he could not stand the sights and sounds +of the battle-field. It required on one occasion—at Inkerman, I +believe—the prompt and sharp interference of the late Lord Clyde, then +Sir Colin Campbell, to prevent his Royal Highness from making a sad mess +of his command. It is not likely that he wanted personal courage—few +princes do; but his nerves gave way, and as he could be of no further +use to anybody he was induced to return home. France and England each +sent a fat prince, cousin of the reigning sovereign, to the Crimean war, +and each prince rather suddenly came home again with the invidious +whispers of the malign unpleasantly criticising his retreat from the +field. After the Duke's return the corporation of Liverpool gave him +(why, no man could well say) a grand triumphal entry, and I remember +that an irreverent and cynical member of one of the local boards +suggested that among the devices exhibited in honor of the illustrious +visitor, a white feather would be an appropriate emblem. There the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +Duke's active military career began and ended. He had not distinguished +himself. Perhaps he had not disgraced himself; perhaps it was really +only ill-health which prevented him from proving himself as genuine a +warrior as his relative, the Crown Prince of Prussia. But the English +people only saw that the Duke went out to the war and very quickly came +back again. Julius Cæsar or the First Napoleon or General Sherman might +have had to do the same thing under the same circumstances; but then +these more lucky soldiers did not have to do it, and therefore were able +to prove their military capacity. One thing very certain is, that +without such good fortune and such proof of capacity neither Cæsar, +Napoleon, nor Sherman would ever have been made commander-in-chief, and +therein again they were unlike the Duke of Cambridge. For it was not +long after the Duke's return home that on the death or resignation (I +don't now quite remember which) of Viscount Hardinge, our heavy "George" +was made Commander-in-Chief of the British army. I venture to think +that, taking all the conditions of the time and the appointment into +consideration, no more unreasonable, no more unjustifiable instance of +military promotion was ever seen in England.</p> + +<p>For observe, that the worst thing about the appointment of the Duke of +Cambridge is not that an incompetent person obtains by virtue of his +rank the highest military position in the State. If this were all, there +might be just the same thing said of almost every other European +country—indeed, of almost every other country. The King of Prussia was +Commander-in-Chief of the armies of North Germany, but no one supposed +that he was really competent to discharge all the duties of such a +position. Abraham Lincoln was Commander-in-Chief of the Federal army, by +virtue of his office of President; but no one supposed that his military +knowledge and capacity would ever have recommended him to such a post. +The appointment in each case was only nominal, and as a matter of +political convenience and propriety. It did not seem wise or even safe +that the supreme military authority should be formally intrusted to any +one but the ruler or the President. It was thoroughly understood that +the duties of the office were discharged by some professional expert, +for whose work the King or the President was responsible to the nation. +But the office of Commander-in-Chief of the English army is something +quite different from this. It is understood to be a genuine office, the +occupant actually doing the work and having the authority. In the +lifetime of the Duke of Wellington the country had the services of the +very best Commander-in-Chief England could have selected. The sound and +wise principle which dictated that appointment is really the principle +on which the office is based in England. The Commander-in-Chief is not +regarded, as on the Continent, in the light of an ornamental president +of a great bureau whose duties are done by others, but as the most +efficient military officer, the man best qualified to do the work. +Marlborough was Commander-in-Chief, and so was Schomberg, and so was +General Seymour Conway. When in 1828 the Duke of Wellington became Prime +Minister, and therefore resigned the command of the army, Lord Hill was +placed at the head of military affairs. The Duke of Wellington resumed +the command in 1842 and held it to his death, when it was given to +Viscount Hardinge, a capable man. The title of the office was not, I +believe, actually "Commander-in-Chief," but "General +Commanding-in-Chief." It was, if I remember rightly, owing to the +disasters arising out of military mismanagement in the Crimea, that the +changes were made which created a distinct Secretary of War and gave to +the office of Commander-in-Chief its present title. Therefore it will be +seen that the intrusting the command of the army to the Duke of +Cambridge is not even justifiable on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> ground that it follows an old +established custom. It is, on the contrary, an innovation, and one which +illustrates the worst possible principle. There is nothing to be said +for it. No necessity justified or even excused it. When Viscount +Hardinge died, if the principle adopted in his case—that of appointing +the best man to the place—had been still in favor, there were many +military generals in England, any one of whom would have filled the +office with efficiency and credit. But the superstition of rank +prevailed. The Duke of Wellington is believed to have once recommended +that on his death Prince Albert, the Queen's husband, should be created +Commander-in-Chief. Ridiculous as the suggestion may seem, it would +probably have been a far better arrangement than that which was more +recently adopted. Prince Albert could hardly have been called a +professional soldier at all; and this would have been greatly in his +favor. For he would have filled the place merely as the King of Prussia +does; he would have intrusted the actual duties to some qualified man, +and being endowed with remarkable judgment, temper, and discretion, he +would doubtless have found the right man for the work. But the Duke of +Cambridge, as a professional soldier, although a very indifferent one, +is expected to perform and does perform the duties of his office, after +his own fashion. He is too high in rank to be openly rebuked, +contradicted, or called to account; he is not high enough to be accepted +as a mere official ornament or figurehead. He is too much of a +professional general to become willingly the pupil and instrument of a +more skilled subordinate; too little of a professional general to render +his authority of any real value, or to be properly qualified for any +high military position. So the Duke of Cambridge did actually direct the +affairs of the army, interfered in everything, was supreme in +everything, and I think it is not too much to say mismanaged everything. +He stood in the way of all useful reforms; he sheltered old abuses; he +was as dictatorial as though he had the military genius of a Wellington +or a Von Moltke; he was as independent of public opinion as the Mikado +of Japan. The kind of mistakes which were made and abuses which were +committed under his administration were not such as to attract much of +the attention or interest of the newspapers. In England the press, +moreover, is not supposed to be at liberty to criticise princes. Of late +some little efforts at daring innovation are made in this direction; but +as a rule, unless a prince does something very wrong indeed, he is +secure from any censure or even criticism on the part of the newspapers. +There was, besides, one great practical difficulty in the way of any one +inclined to criticise the military administration of the Duke of +Cambridge. The War Department in England had grown to be a kind of +anomalous two-headed institution. There is a Secretary of War, who sits +in the House of Lords or the House of Commons, as the case may be, and +whom every one can challenge, criticise, and censure as he pleases. +There is the Commander-in-Chief. Which of these two functionaries is the +superior? The theory of course is that the Secretary of War is supreme; +that he is responsible to Parliament, and that every official in the +department is responsible to him. But everybody in England knows that +this is not the actual case. There stands in Pall Mall, not far from the +residence of the Prince of Wales, a plain business-like structure, with +a statue of the late Lord Herbert of Lea (the Sidney Herbert of Crimean +days) in front of it; and this is the War Office, where the Secretary of +War is in power. But there is in Whitehall another building far better +known to Londoners and strangers alike; an old-fashioned, unlovely, +shabby-looking sort of barrack, with a clock in its shapeless cupola and +two small arches in its front, in each of which enclosures sits all day +a gigantic horseman in steel cuirass and high jack-boots. The country +visitor comes here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> to wonder at the size and the accoutrements of the +splendid soldiers; the nursery-maid loves the spot, and gazes with open +mouth and sparkling eyes at the athletic cavaliers, and too often, like +Hylas sent with his urn to the fountain, "<i>proposito florem prætulit +officio</i>," prefers looking at the gorgeous military carnation blazing +before her to the duty of watching her infantile charge in the +perambulator. This building is the famous "Horse Guards," where the +Commander-in-Chief is enthroned. I suppose the theory of the thing was, +that while the army system was to be shaped out and directed in the War +Office, the actual details of practical administration were to be +managed at the Horse Guards. But of late years the relations of the two +departments appear to have got into an almost inextricable and hopeless +muddle, so that no one can pretend to say where the responsibility of +the War Office ends or the authority of the Horse Guards begins. The +Duke of Cambridge, it is said, habitually acts upon his own authority +and ignores the War Office altogether. Things are done by him of which +the Secretary for War knows nothing until they are done. The late Sidney +Herbert, a man devoted to the duties of the War Department, over which +he presided for some years, once emphatically refused during a debate in +the House of Commons to evade the responsibility of some step taken at +the Horse Guards, by pleading that it was made without the knowledge of +the War Office. He declared that he considered himself, as War +Secretary, responsible to Parliament for everything done in any office +of the War Department. But it was quite evident from the tone of his +speech that the thing had been done without his knowledge or consent, +and that if anybody but the Queen's cousin had done it there would have +been a "row in the building." Now Sidney Herbert was an aristocrat of +high rank, of splendid fortune, of unsurpassed social dignity and +influence, of great political talents and reputation. If he then could +not attempt to control and rebuke the Queen's cousin, how could such an +attempt be expected from a man like Mr. Cardwell, the present War +Secretary? Mr. Cardwell is a dull, steady-going, respectable man, who +has no pretension to anything like the rank, social influence, or even +popularity of Sidney Herbert. In fact, the War Secretaries stand +sometimes in much the same relation toward the Duke of Cambridge that a +New York judge occasionally holds toward one of the great leaders of the +bar who pleads before him and is formally supposed to acknowledge his +superior authority. The person holding the position nominally superior +feels himself in reality quite "over-crowed," to use a Spenserian +expression, by the influence, importance, and dignity of the other. Let +any stranger in London who happens to be in the gallery of the House of +Lords, observe the astonishing deference with which even a pure-blooded +marquis or earl of antique title will receive the greeting of the Duke +of Cambridge; and then say what chance there is of a War Secretary, who +probably belongs to the middle or manufacturing classes, venturing to +dictate to or rebuke so tremendous a <i>magnifico</i>. Lately an audacious +critic of the Duke has started up in the person of a clever, vivacious +young member of Parliament, George Otto Trevelyan, son of one of the +ablest Indian administrators and nephew of Lord Macaulay. Trevelyan once +held, I think, some subordinate place in the War Department, and he has +lately been horrifying the conservatism and veneration of English +society by boldly making speeches in which he attacks the Queen's +cousin, declares that the latter is an injury and nuisance to the army +system, that he stands in the way of all improvement, and that he ought +to be abolished. But although most people do profoundly and potently +believe what this saucy Trevelyan says, yet his words find little echo +in public debate, and his direct motions in the House of Commons have +been unsuccessful. The Duke, I perceive, has lately, however, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>descended +so far from his position of supreme dignity as to defend himself in a +public speech, and to claim the merit of having always been a +progressive and indeed rather daring army reformer. But I do not believe +the English Government or Parliament would ever have ventured to take +one step to lessen the Duke of Cambridge's power of doing harm to the +military service, were it not for the pressure of events with which +England had nothing directly to do, and which nevertheless have proved +too strong for the resistance even of princes and of vested interests. +The practical dethronement of the Duke of Cambridge I hold to be as +certain as any mortal event still in the future can well be declared. +The anomaly, the inconvenience, the degradation which English +Governments and Parliaments would have endured forever if left to +themselves, may be regarded as destined to be swept away by the same +flood which overwhelmed the military organization of France, and washed +the Bonapartes off the throne of the Tuileries. The Duke of Cambridge +too had to surrender at Sedan.</p> + +<p>For with the overwhelming successes of Prussia and the unparalleled +collapse of France, there arose in England so loud and general a cry for +the reorganization of the decaying old army system that no Government +could possibly attempt to disregard it. Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet had the +sense and spirit to see that no middle course of reform would be worth +anything. <i>In medio tutissimus ibis</i> would never apply to this case. Any +reform must count on the obstinate opposition of vested interests—a +tremendous power in English affairs; and the only way to bear down that +opposition would be by introducing a reform so thorough and grand as to +carry with it the enthusiasm of popular support. Therefore the +Government have undertaken a new work of revolution, certainly not less +bold than that which overthrew the Irish Church, and destined perhaps to +have a still more decisive influence on the political organization of +English society. One of the many changes this measure will +introduce—and it is certain to be carried, first or last—will be the +extinction of the anomaly now represented by the position of the Duke of +Cambridge. I shall not inflict any of the details of the measure upon my +readers in <span class="smcap">The Galaxy</span>, and shall even give but slight attention to such +of its main features as are of purely military character and import. But +I shall endeavor briefly to make it clear that some of the changes it +proposes to introduce will have a profound influence on the political +and social condition of England, and are in fact steps in that great +English revolution which is steadily marching on under our very eyes.</p> + +<p>First comes the abolition of the purchase system as regards the +commissions held by military officers. Except in certain regiments, and +certain branches of the service outside England itself, the rule is that +an officer obtains his commission by purchase. Promotion can be bought +in the same way. A commission is a vested interest. The owner has paid +so much for it, and expects to sell it for an equal sum. The regulation +price recognized by law and the Horse Guards is by no means the actual +price of the article. It is worth ever so much more to the holder, and +he must of course have its real, not its regulation value. The pay in +the English army is, for the officers, ridiculously small. The habits of +the army, among officers, are ridiculously expensive. An officer is not +expected to live upon his pay. Whether expected to do so or not, he +could hardly accomplish the feat under any conditions; under the common +conditions of an officers' mess-room the thing would be utterly +impossible. Now let any reader ask himself what becomes of a department +of the public service where you obtain admission by payment, and where +when admitted you receive practically no remuneration? Of course it +becomes a mere club and association for the wealthy and aristocratic; a +brotherhood into which admission is sought for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> sake of social +distinction. Every man of rank in England will, as a matter of course, +have one of his sons in the army. It is the right sort of thing to do, +like hunting or going into the House of Commons. Then, on the other +hand, every person who has made money sends one of his sons into the +army, because thereby he acquires a stamp of gentility. Poverty and +merit have no chance and no business there. It certainly is not true, as +is commonly believed here, that promotion from the ranks never takes +place; but speaking of the system as a whole, one may fairly say that +promotion from the ranks is opposed to the ordinary regulation, and +occurs so rarely that it need hardly be taken into our consideration +here. Therefore the English army became an essentially aristocratic +service. To be an officer was the right of the aristocratic, the luxury, +ambition, and ornament of the wealthy. One is almost afraid now to +venture on saying anything in praise of the French military system; but +it had, if I do not greatly mistake, one regulation among others which +honorably distinguished it from the English. I believe it was not +permitted to a wealthy officer to distinguish himself from his fellows +while in barracks by extravagance of expenditure. He had to live as the +others lived. But the English system allowed full scope to wealth, and +the result was that certain regiments prided themselves on luxury and +ostentation, and a poor man, or even a man of moderate means, could not +live in them. Add to all this that while the expenses were great and the +pay next to nothing, there were certain valuable prizes, sinecures, and +monopolies to be had in the army, which favoritism and family influence +could procure, and which therefore rendered it additionally desirable +that the control of the military organization should be retained in the +hands of the aristocracy. John Bright described the military and +diplomatic services of England as "a gigantic system of outdoor relief +for the broken-down members of the British aristocracy." This was +especially true of the military service, which had a large number of +rich and pleasant prizes to be awarded at the uncontrolled discretion of +the authorities. It might be fairly said that every aristocratic family +had at least one scion in the army. Every aristocratic family had +likewise one in the House of Commons; sometimes two, or three, or four +sons and nephews. The mere numerical strength of the military officers +who had seats in the House of Commons was enough to hold up a tremendous +barrier in the way of army reform or political reform. It was as clear +as light that a popular Parliament would among its very first works of +reformation proceed to throw open the army to the competition of merit, +independently of either aristocratic rank or moneyed influence. So the +military men in the House of Commons were, with some few and remarkable +exceptions, steady Tories and firm opponents of all reform either in the +army or the political system. Year after year did gallant old De Lacy +Evans bring forward his motion for the abolition of the purchase system +in vain. He was always met by the supposed practical authority of the +great bulk of the military members and by the dead weight of +aristocratic influence and vested interests. The army, as then +organized, was at once the fortress and the trophy of the English +aristocracy. At last the effort at reform seemed to be given up +altogether. Though humane reformers did at last succeed in getting rid +of the detestable system of flogging in the army, the practice of +trafficking in commissions seemed safer than ever. One difficulty in the +way of its abolition was always pressed with special emphasis by persons +who otherwise were prodigal enough of the public money—the cost such a +measure would entail on the people of England. It would be impossible, +of course, to abolish such a system without compensating those who had +paid money for the commissions which thenceforward could be sold no +more. The amount of money required for such <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>compensation would be some +forty millions of dollars. Moreover, when commissions are given away +among all classes according to merit, the pay of officers will have to +be raised. It would indeed be a cruel mockery to give poor Claude +Melnotte an officer's rank if he does not at the same time get pay +enough to enable him to live. Therefore for once the English aristocrats +and Tories were heard to raise their voices in favor of the saving of +public money; but they were only assuming the attitude of economists for +the sake of upholding their own privileges and defending their vested +interests. There will, of course, be a fierce and long fight made even +still against the change, but the change, I take it, will be +accomplished. The English army will cease to be an army officered +exclusively from among the ranks of the aristocracy and the wealthy. Our +time has seen no step attempted in English political affairs more +distinctly democratic than this. I can hardly realize to my mind what +England will be like when commissions and promotions in its military +service are the recognized prizes of merit in whatever rank of life, and +are won by open competition.</p> + +<p>Next, the English Government, approaching rather delicately the +difficulty about the Commander-in-Chief, propose to unite the two +departments of the service under one roof. The Commander-in-Chief and +his staff and offices will be transferred from the Horse Guards in +Whitehall to the War Office in Pall Mall, and placed more directly under +the control of the Secretary of War. This change must inevitably bring +about the end at which it aims—the abolition of the embarrassing and +injurious dualism of system now prevailing. It must indeed reduce the +General commanding-in-chief to his proper position as the executive +officer of the War Secretary, who is himself the servant of Parliament. +Such a position would entail no restriction whatever on the military +capacity or genius of the Commander-in-Chief were he another +Marlborough; but it would make him responsible to somebody who is +himself responsible to the House of Commons. I think it may be taken for +granted that this will come to mean, sooner or later, the shelving of +the Duke of Cambridge. It may be hoped that he will not consider it +consistent with his dignity as a member of the royal family to remain in +a position thus made virtually that of a subordinate. Some other place +perhaps will be found for the cousin of the Queen. I have already heard +some talk about the possibility and propriety of sending his Royal +Highness as Lord Lieutenant to govern Ireland. Why not? There is a <i>vile +corpus</i> convenient and ready to hand for any experiment. It would be +quite in keeping with all the traditions of English rule, with the +practice which was illustrated only a few years ago when the noisy and +brainless scamp Sir Robert Peel, whom "Punch" christened "The Mountebank +Member," was made Irish Secretary, if the Duke of Cambridge were allowed +to soothe his offended dignity by practising his skilful hand on the +government of Ireland.</p> + +<p>Finally, the Government propose to introduce measures calculated to weld +together as far as possible the regular and irregular forces of the +country. There are in England three classes of soldiery—the regular +army, the militia, and the volunteers. The militia constitute a force as +nearly as possible corresponding with that in whose companionship Sir +John Falstaff declined to march through Coventry. Bombastes Furioso or +the Grande Duchesse hardly ever marshalled such a body of men as may be +seen when a British militia regiment is turned out for exercise. Awkward +country bumpkins and beer-swilling rowdies of the poacher class make up +the bulk of the privates. They are a terror to any small town where they +may happen to be exercising, and where not infrequently they finish up a +day's drill by a general smashing of windows, sacking of shops, and +plundering of inhabitants. The volunteers are a force composed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> of a +much better class of men, and are capable, I think, of great military +efficiency and service if properly organized. Of late the volunteer +force has, I believe, been growing somewhat demoralized. The Government +never gave it very cordial encouragement, its position was hardly +defined, and the national enthusiasm out of which it sprang naturally +began to languish. We in England have always owed our volunteer force to +some sudden menace or dread of French invasion. It was so in the time of +William Pitt. We all remember the famous sarcasm with which that +statesman replied to the request of some volunteer regiments not to be +sent out on foreign service. Pitt gravely assured them that they never +should be sent out of the country unless in case of England's invasion. +Erskine was a volunteer, and I think it was as an officer of volunteers +that Gibbon said he acquired a practical knowledge of military affairs, +which proved useful to him in describing the decline and fall of the +Roman empire. Our present volunteer service originated in the last of +the "three panics" described by Cobden—the fear of invasion by Louis +Napoleon, the panic which Tennyson endeavored to foment by his weak and +foolish "Form, form! Riflemen, form!" The volunteer force, however, +continued to grow stronger and stronger long after the alarm had died +away; and even though recently the progress of improvement seems to have +been somewhat checked, and the volunteer body to have become lax in its +organization, it appears to me that in its intelligence, its +earnestness, and its physical capacity there exists the material out of +which might be moulded a very valuable arm of the military service. The +War Minister now proposes to take steps which shall render the militia a +decent body, commanded by really qualified and responsible officers, +which shall give better officers to the volunteers, and place these +latter under more effective discipline, and which shall bring militia +and volunteers into closer relationship with the regular army. How far +these objects may be attained by the measures now under consideration I +do not pretend to judge; but I cannot regard the present War Minister as +a man highly qualified for the place he holds. Mr. Cardwell is an +admirable clerk—patient, plodding, untiring; but I doubt whether he has +any of the higher qualities of an administrator or much force of +character. He is perhaps the very dullest speaker holding a marked +position in the House of Commons. He is fluent, not as Gladstone and a +river are fluent, but as the sand in an hour-glass is fluent. That sand +itself is not more dull, colorless, monotonous, and dry, than is the +eloquence of the War Minister. Mr. Cardwell is not always fortunate in +his military prophecies. On the memorable night in last July when the +news reached London that France had declared war against Prussia, Mr. +Cardwell affirmed that that meant the occupation of Berlin by the French +within a month. It must be remembered, however, as an excuse for the War +Minister's unlucky prediction, that an English military commission sent +to examine the two systems had shortly before reported wholly in favor +of the French army organization and dead against that of Prussia.</p> + +<p>The English Government, wisely, I think, decline to attempt the +introduction of any measure for general and compulsory service, except +as a last resource in desperate exigencies. The England of the future is +not likely, I trust, to embroil herself much in Continental quarrels; +and she may be quite expected to hold her own in the improbable event of +any of her neighbors attempting to invade her. For myself, I can +recollect no instance recorded by history of any foreign war wherein +England took part, from which good temper, discretion, judgment, and +justice would not alike have counselled her to hold aloof.</p> + +<p>Such then are in substance the changes which are proposed for the +reconstruction of the English army. The one grand reform or revolution +is the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>abolition of the purchase system. This change will inevitably +convert the army into a practical and regular profession, to which all +classes will look as a possible means of providing for some of their +children. It will have one advantage over the bar, that admission to the +ranks of the officers will not necessarily involve the preliminary +payment of any sum of money, however small. The profession will cease to +be ornamental and aristocratic. It will no longer constitute one of the +great props, one of the grand privileges, of the system of aristocracy. +Its reorganization will be another and a bold step toward the +establishment of that principle of equality which is of late years +beginning to exercise so powerful a fascination over the popular mind of +England. Caste had in Great Britain no such illustration and no such +bulwark as the army system presented. I should be slow to undertake to +limit the possible depth and extent of the influence which the impulse +given by this reform may exercise over the political condition of +England. I can hardly realize to myself by any effort of imagination the +effect which such a change will work in what is called society in +England, and in the literature, especially the romantic and satirical +literature, of the country. Are we then no longer to have Rawdon +Crawley, and Sir Derby Oaks, and "Captain Gandaw of the Pinks"? Was +Black-Bottle Cardigan really the last of a race? Will people a +generation hence fail to understand what was meant by the intimation +that "the Tenth don't dance"? Is Guy Livingstone to become as utter a +tradition and myth as Guy of Warwick? Is the English military officer to +be henceforward simply a hard-working, well-qualified public servant, +who obtains his place in open competition by virtue of his merits? +Appreciate the full meaning of the change who can, it is too much for +me; I can only wonder, admire, and hope. But it is surely not possible +that the Duke of Cambridge, cousin of the Queen, can continue to preside +over a service wherein the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker +have as good a chance of obtaining commissions for their sons as the +marquis or the earl or the great millionaire. Only think of the flood of +light which will be poured in upon all the details of the military +organization, when once it becomes the direct interest of each of us to +see that the profession is properly managed in which his own son, +however poor in purse and humble in rank, has a chance of obtaining a +commission! I believe the Duke of Cambridge had and has an honest hatred +and contempt for the coarse and noisy interference of public and +unprofessional criticism where the business of the sacred Horse Guards +is concerned. Once, when goaded on to sheer desperation by comments in +the papers, his Royal Highness actually wrote or dictated a letter of +explanation to the "Times," signed with the monosyllabic grandeur of his +name "George," we all held up the hands and eyes of wonder that such +things had come to pass, that royal princes condescended to write to +newspapers, and yet the world rolled on. I cannot think the Duke will +abide the awful changes that are coming. He will probably pass into the +twilight and repose of some dignified office, where blundering has no +occupation and obstinacy can do no harm. Everything considered, I think +we may say of him that he might have been a great deal worse than he +was. My own impression is that he is rather better than his reputation. +If the popular voice of England were to ask in the words of +Shakespeare's "Lucio," "And was the Duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and a +coward, as you then reported him to be?" I might answer, in the language +of the pretended friar, "You must change persons with me ere you make +that my report. You indeed spoke so of him, and much more, much worse."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>BRIGHAM YOUNG.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>Those among us who are not too young to have had "Evenings at Home" for +a schoolday companion and instructor will remember the story called +"Eyes and No Eyes" and its moral. They will remember that, of the two +little boys who accomplished precisely the same walk at the same time, +one saw all manner of delightful and wonderful things, while the other +saw nothing whatever that was worth recollection or description. The +former had eyes prepared to see, and the other had not; and that made +all the difference. I have to confess that, during a recent visit to +Salt Lake City—a visit lasting nearly as many days as that out of which +my friend, Hepworth Dixon, made the better part of a volume—I must have +been in the condition of the dull little reprobate who had no eyes to +see the wonders which delighted his companion. For, so far as the city +itself, its streets and its structures, are concerned, I really saw +nothing in particular. A muddy little country town, with one or two +tolerably decent streets, wherein a few handsome stores are mixed up +with old shanties, is not much to see in any part of the civilized +world. Other travellers have seen a wondrous sight on the very same +spot. They have seen a large and beautiful city, with spacious, splendid +streets, shaded by majestic trees and watered by silvery currents +flowing in marble channels; they have seen a city combining the +cleanliness and activity of young America with the picturesqueness and +dignity of the Orient; a city which would be beautiful and wonderful +anywhere, but which, raised up here on the bare bosom of the desert, is +a phenomenon of apparently almost magical creation. Naturally, +therefore, they have gone into raptures over the energy, and industry, +and æstheticism of the Mormons; and, even while condemning sternly the +doctrine and practice of polygamy, they have nevertheless been haunted +by an uneasy doubt as to whether, after all, there is not some peculiar +virtue in the having half a dozen wives together which endows a man with +super-human gifts as a builder of cities. Otherwise how comes this +beautiful and perfect city, here on the unfriendly and unsheltering +waste?</p> + +<p>Well, I saw no beautiful and wonderful city, although I spent several +days in the Mormon capital, and tramped every one of its streets, and +lanes, and roads, scores of times over. Where others beheld the glorious +virgin, Dulcinea del Toboso, radiant in beauty and bedight with queenly +apparel, I saw only the homely milkmaid, with her red elbows and her +russet gown. In plain words, the Mormon city appeared to me just a +commonplace little country town, and no more. I saw in it no evidences +of preternatural energy or skill. It has one decent street, wherein may +be found, at most, half a dozen well-built and attractive-looking shops. +It has a good many comfortable residences in the environs. It has two or +three decentish hotels, like the hotels of any other fiftieth-class +country town. It has the huge Tabernacle, a gigantic barn merely, a +simple covering in and over of so much space—a thing in shape "very +like a land turtle," as President George L. Smith, First Councillor of +Brigham Young, observed to me. Salt Lake City has no lighting and no +draining, except such draining as is done by the little runnels of water +to be found in every street, and which remind one faintly and sadly of +dear, quaint old Berne in Switzerland. At night you have to trudge along +in the darkness and the mud, or slush, or dust, and it is a perilous +quest the seeking of your way home, for at every crossing you must look +or feel for the plank which bridges over the artificial brooklets +already described,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> or you plunge helpless and hopeless into the little +torrent. Decidedly, a "one-horse" place, in my estimation; I don't see +how men endowed with average heads and arms could for twenty years have +been occupied in the building of a city, and produced anything less +creditable than this. I do not wonder at the complacency and +self-conceit with which all the Mormon residents talk of the beauty of +their city and the wonderful things they have accomplished, when Gentile +travellers of credit and distinction have glorified this shabby, swampy, +ricketty, common-place, vulgar, little hamlet into a town of sweetness +and light, of symmetry and beauty. For my part, and for those who were +with me, I can only say that we spent the first day or so in perpetual +wonder as to whether this really could be the Mormon city of which we +had read so many bewildering and glorious descriptions. And the +theatre—oh, Hepworth Dixon, I like you much, and I think you are often +abused and assailed most unjustly; but how could you write so about that +theatre? Or was the beautiful temple of the drama which <i>you</i> saw here +deliberately taken down, and did they raise in its place the big, gaunt, +ugly, dirty, dismal structure which <i>I</i> saw, and in which I and my +companions made part of a dreary dozen or two of audience, and blinked +in the dim, depressing light of mediæval oil-lamps? I observe that, when +driven to bay by sceptical inquiry, complacent Mormons generally fall +back on the abundance of shade-trees in the streets. Let them have the +full credit of this plantation. They have put trees in the streets, and +the trees have grown; and, when we observe to a Mormon that we have seen +rows of trees similarly growing in even smaller towns of the benighted +European continent, he evidently thinks it is our monogamic perversity +and prejudice which force us to deny the wondrous works of Mormonism. +Making due allowance for every natural difficulty, remembering how +nearly every implement, and utensil, and scrap of raw material had to be +brought from across yonder rampart of mountains, and from hundreds of +miles away, I yet fail to see anything very remarkable about this little +Mormon town. Perhaps no other set of people could have made much more of +the place; I cannot help thinking that no other set of people who were +not Digger Indians could have made much less.</p> + +<p>In fact, to retain the proper and picturesque ideas of Salt Lake City, +one never ought to have entered the town at all. We ought to have +remained on this hillside, from which you can look across that most +lovely of all valleys on earth, cinctured as it is by a perfect girdle +of mountains, the outlines of which are peerless and ineffable in their +symmetry and beauty. The air is as clear, the skies are as blue, the +grass as green as the dream of a poet or painter could show him. There +below, fringed and mantled in the clustering green of its trees, you see +the city, with the long, low, rounded dome or back of the Tabernacle +rising broad and conspicuous. Looking down, you may well believe that +the city thus exquisitely placed, thus deliciously shaded and +surrounded, is itself a wonder of picturesqueness and symmetry. Why go +down into the two or three dirty, irregular, shabby little streets, with +their dust or mud for road pavement, their nozzling pigs trotting along +the sidewalks, their dung-heaps and masses of decaying vegetable matter, +their utterly commonplace, mean and disheartening aspect everywhere? But +then we did go down—and where others had seen a fair and goodly, aye, +and queenly city, we saw a muddy, uninteresting, straggling little +village, disfiguring the lovely plain on which it stood.</p> + +<p>Profound disappointment, then, is my first sensation in Salt Lake City. +The place is so like any other place! Certainly, one receives a bracing +little shock every now and then, which admonishes him that, despite the +small, shabby stores<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> and the pigs, and the dunghills, he is not in the +regions of merely commonplace dirt. For instance, we learn that the +proprietor of the hotel where we are staying has four wives; and it is +something odd to talk with a civil, respectable, burgess-like man, +dressed in ordinary coat and pantaloons, and wearing mutton-chop +whiskers—a sort of man who in England would probably be a +church-warden—and who has more consorts than an average Turk. Then +again it is startling to be asked, "Do you know Mr. ——?" and when I +say "No, I don't," to be told, "Oh, you ought to know him. He came from +England, and he has lately married two such nice English girls!" One +morning, too, we have another kind of shock. There is a pretty little +chambermaid in our hotel, a new-comer apparently, and she happens to +find out that my wife and I had lived for many years in that part of the +North of England from which she comes herself, whereupon she bursts into +a perfect passion and tempest of tears, declares that she would rather +be in her grave than in Salt Lake City, that she was deceived into +coming, that the Mormonism she heard preached by the Mormon propaganda +in England was a quite different thing from the Mormonism practised +here, and that her only longing was to get out of the place, anyhow, +forever. The girl seemed to be perfectly, passionately sincere. What +could be done for her? Apparently nothing. She had spent all her money +in coming out; and she seemed to be strongly under the conviction that, +even if she had money, she could not get away. An influence was +evidently over her which she had not the courage or strength of mind to +attempt to resist, or even to elude. Doubtless, as she was a very pretty +girl, she would be very soon sealed to some ruling elder. She said her +sister had come with her, but the sister was in another part of the +city, and since their arrival—only a few days, however—they had not +met. My wife endeavored to console or encourage her, but the girl could +only sob and protest that she never could learn to endure the place, but +that she could not get away, and that she would rather be in her grave. +We spoke of this case to one of the civil officers of the United States +stationed in the city, and he shook his head and thought nothing could +be done. The influence which enslaved this poor girl was not wholly that +of force, but a power which worked upon her senses and her +superstitions. I should think an underground railway would be a valuable +institution to establish in connection with the Mormon city.</p> + +<p>I well remember that when I lived in Liverpool, some ten or a dozen +years ago, the Mormon propaganda, very active there, always kept the +polygamy institution modestly in the background. Proselytes were courted +and won by descriptions of a new Happy Valley, of a City of the Blest, +where eternal summer shone, where the fruits were always ripe, where the +earth smiled with a perpetual harvest, where labor and reward were +plenty for all, and where the outworn toilers of Western Europe could +renew their youth like the eagles. I remember, too, the remarkable case +of a Liverpool family having a large business establishment in the most +fashionable street of the great town, who were actually beguiled into +selling off all their goods and property and migrating, parents, sons, +and daughters, to the land of promise beyond the American wilderness, +and how, before people had ceased to wonder at their folly, they all +came back, humiliated, disgusted, cured. They had money and something +like education, and they were a whole family, and so they were able, +when they found themselves deceived, to effect a rapid retreat at the +cost of nothing worse than disappointment and pecuniary loss. But for +the poor, pretty serving-lass from Lancashire I do not know that there +is much hope. Poverty and timidity and superstitious weakness will help +to lock the Mormon chains around her. Perhaps she will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> get used to the +place in time. Ought one to wish that she may—or rather to echo her own +prayer, and petition that she may find an early grave? The graveyards +are densely planted with tombs here in this sacred city of Mormonism.</p> + +<p>The place is unspeakably dreary. Hardly any women are ever seen in the +streets, except on the Sunday, when all the families pour in to service +in the huge Tabernacle. Most of the dwelling houses round the city are +pent in behind walls. Most of the houses, too, have their dismal little +<i>sucursales</i>, one or two or more, built on to the sides—and in each of +these additions or wings to the original building a different wife and +family are caged. There are no flower gardens anywhere. Children are +bawling everywhere. Sometimes a wretched, slatternly, dispirited woman +is seen lounging at the door or hanging over the gate of a house with a +baby at her breast. More often, however, the house, or clump of houses, +gives no external sign of life. It stands back gloomy in the sullen +shade of its thick fruit trees, and might seem untenanted if one did not +hear the incessant yelling of the children. We saw the women in +hundreds, probably in thousands, at the Tabernacle on the Sunday—and +what women they were! Such faces, so dispirited, depressed, shapeless, +hopeless, soulless faces! No trace of woman's graceful pride and +neatness in these slatternly, shabby, slouching, listless figures; no +purple light of youth over these cheeks; no sparkle in these +half-extinguished eyes. I protest that only in some of the <i>cretin</i> +villages of the Swiss mountains have I seen creatures in female form so +dull, miserable, moping, hopeless as the vast majority of these Mormon +women. As we leave the Tabernacle, and walk slowly down the street amid +the crowd, we see two prettily-dressed, lively-looking girls, who laugh +with each other and are seemingly happy, and we thank Heaven that there +are at least two merry, spirited girls in Salt Lake City. A few days +after we meet our blithesome pair at Mintah station; and they are +travelling with their father and mother on to San Francisco, whither we +too are going—and we learn that they are not Mormons, but +Gentiles—pleasant lasses from Philadelphia who had come with their +parents to have a passing look at the externals of Mormonism.</p> + +<p>My object, however, in writing this paper was to speak of the chief, +Brigham Young himself, rather than of his city or his system. We saw +Brigham Young, were admitted to prolonged speech of him, and received +his parting benediction. The interview took place in the now famous +house with the white walls and the gilded beehive on the top. We were +received in a kind of office or parlor, hung round with oil paintings of +the kind which in England we regard as "furniture," and which +represented all the great captains and elders of Mormonism. Joseph Smith +is there, and Brigham Young, and George L. Smith, now First Councillor; +and various others whom to enumerate would be long, even if I knew or +remembered their names. President Young was engaged just at the moment +when we came, but his Secretary, a Scotchman, I think, and President +George L. Smith, are very civil and cordial. George L. Smith is a huge, +burly man, with a Friar Tuck joviality of paunch and visage, and a roll +in his bright eye which, in some odd, undefined sort of way, suggests +cakes and ale. He talks well, in a deep rolling voice, and with a dash +of humor in his words and tone—he it is who irreverently but accurately +likens the Tabernacle to a land-turtle. He speaks with immense +admiration and reverence of Brigham Young, and specially commends his +abstemiousness and hermit-like frugality in the matter of eating and +drinking. Presently a door opens, and the oddest, most whimsical figure +I have ever seen off the boards of an English country theatre stands in +the room; and in a moment we are presented formally to Brigham Young.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p><p>There must be something of impressiveness and dignity about the man, +for, odd as is his appearance and make up, one feels no inclination to +laugh. But such a figure! Brigham Young wears a long-tailed, +high-collared coat; the swallow-tails nearly touch the ground; the +collar is about his ears. In shape the garment is like the swallow-tail +coats which negro-melodists sometimes wear, or like the dandy English +dress coat one can still see in prints in some of the shops of St. James +street, London. But the material of Brigham's coat is some kind of +rough, gray frieze, and the garment is adorned with huge brass buttons. +The vest and trowsers are of the same material. Round the neck of the +patriarch is some kind of bright crimson shawl, and on the patriarch's +feet are natty little boots of the shiniest polished leather. I must say +that the gray frieze coat of antique and wonderful construction, the +gaudy crimson shawl, and the dandy boots make up an incongruous whole +which irresistibly reminds one at first of the holiday get-up of some +African King who adds to a great coat, preserved as an heirloom since +Mungo Park's day, a pair of modern top-boots, and a lady's bonnet. The +whole appearance of the patriarch, when one has got over the African +monarch impression, is like that of a Suffolk farmer as presented on the +boards of a Surrey theatre. But there is decidedly an amount of +composure and even of dignity about Brigham Young which soon makes one +forget the mere ludicrousness of the patriarch's external appearance. +Young is a handsome man—much handsomer than his portrait on the wall +would show him. Close upon seventy years of age, he has as clear an eye +and as bright a complexion as if he were a hale English farmer of +fifty-five. But there is something fox-like and cunning lurking under +the superficial good-nature and kindliness of the face. He seems, when +he speaks to you most effusively and plausibly, to be quietly studying +your expression to see whether he is really talking you over or not. The +expression of his face, especially of his eyes, strangely and +provokingly reminds me of Kossuth. I think I have seen Kossuth thus +watch the face of a listener to see whether or not the listener was +conquered by his wonderful power of talk. Kossuth's face, apart from its +intellectual qualities, appeared to me to express a strange blending of +vanity, craft, and weakness; and Brigham Young's countenance now seems +to show just such a mixture of qualities. Great force of character the +man must surely have; great force of character Kossuth, too, had; but +the face of neither man seemed to declare the possession of such a +quality. Brigham Young decidedly does not impress me as a man of great +ability; but rather as a man of great plausibility. I can at once +understand how such a man, with such an eye and tongue, can easily exert +an immense influence over women. Beyond doubt he is a man of genius; but +his genius does not reveal itself, to me at least, in his face or his +words. He speaks in a thin, clear, almost shrill tone, and with much +apparent <i>bonhomie</i>. After a little commonplace conversation about the +city, its improvements, approaches etc., the Prophet voluntarily goes on +to speak of himself, his system, and his calumniators. His talk soon +flows into a kind of monologue, and is indeed a curious rhapsody of +religion, sentimentality, shrewdness and egotism. Sometimes several +sentences succeed each other in which his hearers hardly seem to make +out any meaning whatever, and Brigham Young appears a grotesque kind of +Coleridge. Then again in a moment comes up a shrewd meaning very +distinctly expressed, and with a dash of humor and sarcasm gleaming +fantastically amid the scriptural allusions and the rhapsody of unctuous +words. The purport of the whole is that Brigham Young has been +misunderstood, misprized, and calumniated, even as Christ was; that were +Christ to come up to-morrow in New York<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> or London, He would be +misunderstood, misprized, and caluminated, even as Brigham Young now is; +and that Brigham Young is not to be dismayed though the stars in their +courses should fight against him. He protests with especial emphasis and +at the same time especial meekness, with eyes half closed and +delicately-modulated voice, against the false reports that any manner of +force or influence whatever is, or ever was, exercised to keep men or +women in Salt Lake City against their will. He appeals to the evidence +of our own eyes, and asks us whether we have not seen for ourselves that +the city is free to all to come and go as they will. At this time we had +not heard the story told by the poor little maid at the hotel; but in +any case the evidence of our eyes could go no farther than to prove that +travellers like ourselves were free to enter and depart. We have, +however, little occasion to trouble ourselves about answering; for the +Prophet keeps the talk pretty well all to himself. His manner is +certainly not that of a man of culture, but it has a good deal of the +quiet grace and self-possession of what we call a gentleman. There is +nothing <i>prononcé</i> or vulgar about him. Even when he is most rhapsodical +his speech never loses its ease and gentleness of tone. He is bland, +benevolent, sometimes quietly pathetic in manner. He poses himself <i>en +victime</i>, but with the air of one who does this regretfully and only +from a disinterested sense of duty. I begin very soon to find that there +is no need of my troubling myself much to keep up the conversation; that +my business is that of a listener; that the Prophet conceives himself to +be addressing some portion of the English or American press through my +humble medium. So I listen and my companion listens; and Brigham Young +talks on; and I do declare and acknowledge that we are fast drifting +into a hazy mental condition by virtue of which we begin to regard the +Mormon President as a victim of cruel persecution, a suffering martyr +and an injured angel!</p> + +<p>Time, surely, that the interview should come to a close. We tear +ourselves away, and the Prophet dismisses us with a fervent and effusive +blessing. "Good-bye—do well, mean well, pray always. Christ be with +you, God be with you, God bless you." All this, and a great deal more to +the same effect, was uttered with no vulgar, maw-worm demonstrativeness +of tone or gesture, no nasal twang, no uplifted hands; but quietly, +earnestly, as if it came unaffectedly from the heart of the speaker. We +took leave of Brigham Young, and came away a little puzzled as to +whether we had been conversing with an impostor or a fanatic, a Peter +the Hermit or a Tartuffe. One thing, however, is clear to me. I do not +say that Brigham Young is a Tartuffe; but I know now how Tartuffe ought +to be played so as to render the part more effective and more apparently +natural and lifelike than I have ever seen it on French or English +stage.</p> + +<p>No one can doubt the sincerity of the homage which the Mormons in +general pay to Brigham Young. One man, of the working class, apparently, +with whom I talked at the gate of the Tabernacle, spoke almost with +tears in his eyes of the condescension the Prophet always manifested. My +informant told me that he was at one time disabled by some hurt or +ailment; and, the first day that he was able to come into the street +again, President Young happened to be passing in his carriage, and +caught sight of the convalescent. "He stopped his carriage, sir, called +me over to him, addressed me by my name, shook hands with me, asked me +how I was getting on, and said he was glad to see me out again." The +poor man was as proud of this as a French soldier might have been if the +Little Corporal had recognized him and called him by his name. There is +no flattery which the great can offer to the humble like this way of +addressing the man by his right name, and thus proving that the identity +of the small creature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> has lived clearly in the memory of the great +being. Many a renowned commander has endeared himself to the soldiers +whom he regarded and treated only as the instruments of his business, by +the mere fact that he took care to remember men's names. They would +gladly die for one who could be so nobly gracious, and could thus prove +that they were regarded by him as worthy to occupy each a distinct place +in his busy mind. The niggardliness and selfishness of John, Duke of +Marlborough, the savage recklessness of Claverhouse, were easily +forgotten by the poor private soldiers whom each commander made it his +business, when occasion required, to address correctly by their +appropriate names of Tom, Dick, or Harry. Lord Palmerston governed the +House of Commons and most of those outside it with whom he usually came +into contact, by just such little arts or courtesies as this. In one of +Messrs. Erckmann and Chatrian's novels we read of a soldier who declares +himself ready to go to the death for Marshal Ney because the Marshal, +who originally belonged to the same district as himself, had just +recognized his fellow-countryman and called him by his name. But the +hero of the novel is somewhat grim and sarcastic, and he thinks it was +not so wonderful a condescension that Ney should have recognized an old +comrade and called him by his name. Perhaps the hero of the tale had not +himself received any such recognition from Ney—perhaps if it had been +vouchsafed to him he, too, would have been ready to go to the death. +Anyhow, this correct calling of names, and quick recognition has always +been a great power in the governing of men and women. "Deal you in +words," is the advice of Mephistophiles to the student, in Faust, "and +you may leave others to do the best they can with things." I was able to +appreciate the governing power of Brigham Young all the better when I +had heard the expression of this poor Mormon's gratitude and homage to +the great President who had shaken hands with him and addressed him +promptly and correctly by his name.</p> + +<p>This same Mormon was very communicative. Indeed, as a rule, I found most +of the men in Salt Lake City ready and even eager to discuss their +"peculiar institution," and to invite Gentile opinion on it. He showed +us his two wives, and declared that they lived together in perfect +harmony and happiness; never had a word of quarrel, but were contented +and loving as two sisters. He delivered a panegyric on the moral +condition of Salt Lake City, where, he declared, there was no +dishonesty, no drunkenness, and no prostitution. I believe he was +correct in his description of the place. From many quite impartial +authorities I heard the same accounts of the honesty of the Mormons. +There certainly is no drunkenness to be observed anywhere openly, and I +believe (although I have heard others assert the contrary) that Salt +Lake City is really and truly free from this vice; and I suppose it goes +without saying that there is little or no prostitution in a place where +a man is expected to keep as many wives as his means will allow him. +Intelligent Mormons rely immensely on this absence of prostitution as a +justification of their system. They seem to think that when they have +said, "We have no prostitutes," all is said; and that the Gentile, with +the shames of London, Paris and New York burning in his memory and his +conscience, must be left without a word of reply. Brigham Young, in +conversation with me, dwelt much on this absence of prostitution. Orson +Pratt preached in the Tabernacle during our stay a sermon obviously "at" +the Gentile visitors, who were just then specially numerous; and he drew +an emphatic contrast between the hideous profligacy of the Eastern +cities and the purity of the Salt Lake community. I must say, for +myself, that I do not think the question can thus be settled; I do not +think prostitution so great an evil as polygamy. If this blunt +declaration should shock anybody's moral feelings I am sorry for it; but +it is none the less the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>expression of my sincere conviction. Pray do +not set me down as excusing prostitution. I think it the worst of all +social evils—except polygamy. I think polygamy the worse evil, because +I am convinced that, regarded from a physiological, moral, religious, +and even merely poetical and sentimental point of view, the only true +social bond to be sought and maintained and justified is the loving +union of one man with one woman—at least until death shall part the +two. Now, I regard the existence of prostitution as a proof that some +men and women fail to keep to the right path. I look on polygamy as a +proof that a whole community is going directly the wrong way. No man +proposes to himself to lead a life of profligacy. He falls into it. He +would get out of it if he only could—if the world and the flesh and the +devil were not now and then too strong for him. But the polygamist +deliberately sets up and justifies and glorifies a system which is as +false to physiology as it is to morals. Observe that I do not say the +polygamist is necessarily an immoral man. Doubtless he is often—in Utah +I really believe he is commonly—a sincere, devoted, mistaken man, who +honestly believes himself to be doing right. But when he attempts to +vindicate his system on the ground that it banishes prostitution, I, for +myself, declare that I believe a society which has to put up with +prostitution is in better case and hope than one which deliberately +adopts polygamy. I am emphatic in expressing this opinion because, as I +am opposed to any stronghanded or legal movement whatever to put down +Brigham Young and his system, I desire to have it clearly understood +that my opinions on the subject of polygamy are quite decided, and that +no one who has clamored, or may hereafter clamor, for the uprooting of +Mormonism by fire and sword, can have less sympathy than I have with +Mormonism's peculiar institution.</p> + +<p>Let me return to Brigham Young. I saw the Prophet but twice—once in the +street and once in his own house, where the interview took place which I +have described. The day after that on which I last saw him he left Salt +Lake City and went into the country—some people said to avoid the +necessity of meeting Mr. Colfax, who was just then expected to arrive +with his party from the West. My impressions, therefore, of Brigham +Young and his personal character are necessarily hasty, and probably +superficial. I can only say that he did not impress me either as a man +of great genius, or as a mere <i>charlatan</i>. My impression is that he is a +sincere man—that is to say, a man who sincerely believes in himself, +accepts his own impulses, prejudices and passions as divine instincts +and intuitions to be the law of life for himself and others, and who, +therefore, has attained that supreme condition of utterly unsparing and +pitiless selfishness when the voice of self is listened to as the voice +of God. With such a sincerity is quite consistent the adoption of every +craft and trick in the government of men and women. Nobody can doubt +that Napoleon I. was perfectly sincere as regards his faith in himself, +his destiny, and his duty; and yet there was no trick of lawyer, or +play-actor, or priest, of which he would not condescend to avail himself +if it served his purpose. This is not the sincerity of a Pascal, or a +Garibaldi, or a Garrison; but it is just as genuine and infinitely more +common. It is the kind of sincerity which we meet every day in ordinary +life, when we see some dogmatic, obstinate father of a family or +sense-carrier of a small circle trying to mould every will and +conscience and life under his control according to his own pedantic +standard, and firmly confident all the time that his own perverseness +and egotism are a guiding inspiration from heaven. After all, the +downright, conventional stage-hypocrite is the rarest of all beings in +real life. I sometimes doubt whether there ever was <i>in rerum naturâ</i> +any one such creature. I suppose Tartuffe had persuaded himself into +self-worship, into the conviction that everything he said and did must +be right. I look upon Brigham Young as a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> of such a temperament and +character. Cunning and crafty he undoubtedly is, unless all evidences of +eye, and lip, and voice belie him; but we all know that many a fanatic +who boldly and cheerfully mounted the funeral pile or the scaffold for +his creed had over and over again availed himself of all the tricks of +craft and cunning to maintain his ascendancy over his followers. The +fanatic is often crafty just as the madman is: the presence of craft in +neither case disproves the existence of sincerity.</p> + +<p>I believe Brigham Young to be simply a crafty fanatic. That he professes +and leads his creed of Mormonism merely to obtain lands and beeves and +wives, I do not believe, although this seems to be the general +impression among the Gentiles who visit his city. I am convinced that he +regards himself as a prophet and a heaven-appointed leader, and that +this belief prevents him from seeing how selfish he is in one sense and +how ridiculous in another. Any man who can deliberately put on such a +coat in combination with such a pair of boots, as Brigham Young +displayed during my interview with him, must have a faith in himself +which would sustain him in anything. No human creature capable of +looking at any two sides of a question where he himself was concerned, +ever did or could present himself in public and expect to be reverenced +when arrayed in such uncouth and preposterous toggery.</p> + +<p>I cannot pretend to have had any extraordinary revelations of the inner +mysteries or miseries of Mormonism made to me during my stay at Salt +Lake City. Other travellers, nearly all other travellers indeed, have +apparently been more fortunate or more pushing and persevering. I fancy +it is rather difficult just now to get to know much of the interior of +Mormon households; and I confess that I never could quite understand how +people, otherwise honorable and upright, can think themselves justified +in worming their way into Mormon confidences, and then making profit one +way or another by revelations to the public. But one naturally and +unavoidably hears, in Salt Lake City, of things which are deeply +significant and which he may without scruple put into print. For +example—there was a terrible pathos to my mind in the history of a +respectable and intelligent woman who, years and years ago, when her +life, now fading, was in its prime, married a man now a shining light of +Mormonism, whose photograph you may see anywhere in Salt Lake City. She +has been superseded since by divers successive wives; she is now +striving in a condition far worse than widowhood to bring up her seven +or eight children, and she has not been favored with even a passing call +for more than a year and a half by the husband of her youth, who lives +with the newest of his wives a few hundred yards away. I am told that +such things are perfectly common; that the result of the system is to +plant in Utah a number of families which may be described practically as +households without husbands and fathers. I believe the lady of whom I +have just spoken accepts her destiny with sad and firm resignation. Her +faith in the religion of Mormonism is unshaken, and she regards her +forlorn and widowed life as the heaven-appointed cross, by the bearing +of which she is to win her eternal crown. Of course the Indian widows +regard their bed of flames, the Russian women-fanatics behold their +mutilated and mangled breasts with a similar enthusiasm of hope and +superstition. But none the less ghastly and appalling is the monstrous +faith which exacts and glorifies such unnatural sacrifices. These dreary +homes, widowed not by death, seem to be the saddest, most shocking birth +of Mormonism. After all, this is not the polygamy of the East, bad as +that may be. "Give us," exclaimed M. Thiers in the French Chamber, three +or four years ago, when Imperialism had reached the zenith of its +despotic power—"give us liberty as in Austria!" So I can well imagine +one of these superseded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> and lonely wives in Salt Lake City, crying +aloud in the bitterness of her heart, "Give us polygamy as in Turkey!"</p> + +<p>That the thing is a religion, however hideously it may show, I do not +doubt. I mean that I feel no doubt that the great majority of the Mormon +men are drawn to and kept in Mormonism by a belief in its truth and +vital force as a religion. I do not believe that conscious and +hypocritical sensuality is the leading impulse in making them or keeping +them members of the Mormon church. I never heard of any community where +a sensual man found any difficulty in gratifying his sensuality; nor are +the vast majority of the Mormons men belonging to a class on whom a +severe public opinion would bear so directly that they must necessarily +wander thousands of miles away across the desert in order to be able +comfortably to gratify their immoral propensities. To me, therefore, the +possibility which appears most dangerous of all is the chance of any +sudden crusade, legal or otherwise, being set on foot against this +perverted and unfortunate people. Left to itself, I firmly believe that +Mormonism will never long bear the glare of daylight, the throng of +witnesses, the intelligent rivalry, the earnest and active criticism, +poured in and forced in upon it by the Pacific railroads. But if it can +bear all this then it can bear anything whatever which human ingenuity +or force can put in arms against it; and it will run its course and have +its day, let the Federal Hercules himself do what he may. Meanwhile it +would be well to bear in mind that Mormonism has thus far cumbered the +earth for comparatively a very few years; that all its members there in +Utah counted together would hardly equal the population of a respectable +street in London; and that at this moment the whole concern is ricketty +and shaky, and threatens to tumble to pieces. I know that some of the +ruling elders are panting for persecution; that they are openly doing +their very best to "draw fire;" that they are daily endeavoring to work +on the fears or the passions of Federal officials resident at Salt Lake +by threats of terrible deeds to be done in the event of any attempt +being made to interfere with Mormonism. Many of these Mormon apostles, +dull, vulgar and clownish as they seem, have foresight enough to see +that their system sadly needs just now the stimulus of a little +persecution, and have fanatical courage enough to put themselves gladly +in the front of any danger for the sake of sowing by their martyrdom the +seed of the church. "That man," said William the Third of England, +speaking of an inveterate conspirator against him "is determined to be +made a victim, and I am determined not to make him one." I hope the +United States will deal with the Mormons in a similar spirit. At the +same time, I would ask my brothers of the pen whether those of them who +have visited Salt Lake City have not made the place seem a good deal +more wonderful, more alluringly mysterious, more grandly paradoxical in +its nature, than it really is? I feel convinced that if people in +Lancashire and Wales and Sweden had all been made distinctly aware that +Salt Lake City is only a dusty or muddy little commonplace country +hamlet, where labor is not less hard and is not any better paid than in +dozens or scores of small hamlets this side the Missouri, one vast +temptation to emigrate thither, the temptation supplied by morbid +curiosity and ignorant wonder, would never have had any conquering +power, and Mormonism would have been deprived of many thousand votaries. +For, regarded in an artistic point of view, the City of the Saints is a +vulgar sham; a trumpery humbug; and I verily believe that it has swelled +into importance not more through the fanatical energy of its governing +elders and the ignorance of their followers, than through the +extravagant exaggeration and silly wonder of most of its hostile +visitors and critics.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>A year ago I happened to be talking with some French friends at a +dinner-table in Paris, about the Reform agitation then going on in +England. "We admire your great orators and leaders," said an +enthusiastic French gentleman; "your Bright, your Beales"—and he was +warming to the subject when he saw that I was smiling, and he at once +pulled up, and asked me earnestly whether he had said anything +ridiculous. I endeavored to explain to him gently that in England we did +not usually place our Bright and our Beales on exactly the same +level—that the former was our greatest orator, our most powerful +leader, and the latter a respectable, earnest gentleman of warm emotions +and ordinary abilities whom chance had made the figure-head of a passing +and vehement agitation, and who would probably be forgotten the day +after to-morrow or thereabouts.</p> + +<p>My French friend did not seem convinced. He had seen Mr. Beales's name +in the London papers quite as often and as prominently for some months +as Mr. Bright's; and, moreover, he had met Mr. Beales at dinner, and did +not like to be told that he had not thereby made the acquaintance of a +great tribune of the British people. So I dropped the subject and +allowed our Bright and and our Beales to rank together without farther +protest.</p> + +<p>Here in New York, where English politics are understood infinitely +better than in Paris, I have noticed not a little of this "Bright and +Beales" classification when people talk of the leaders of English +Liberalism. I have heard, with surprise, this or that respectable member +of Parliament, who never for a moment dreamed of being classed among the +chiefs of his party, exalted to a place of equality with Gladstone or +Bright. In truth the English Liberal party (I mean now the advancing and +popular party—not the old Whigs) has only three men who can be called +leaders. After Gladstone, Bright, and Mill there comes a huge gap—and +then follow the subalterns, of whom one might name half a dozen having +about equal rank and influence, and of whom you may choose any favorite +you like. Take, for example, Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. +Thomas Hughes, the O'Donoghue, Mr. Coleridge (who, however, is marked +out for the judicial bench, and therefore need hardly be counted), and +one or two others, and you have the captains of the advanced Liberal +party. The Liberals are not rich in rising talent; at least there seems +no man of the younger political generation who gives any promise of +commanding ability. They have many good debaters and clever politicians, +but I see no "pony Gladstone" to succeed him who used to be called the +"pony Peel;" and the man has yet to show himself in whom the House of +Commons can hope for a future Bright. The great Liberals of our day have +apparently not the gift of training disciples in order that the latter +may become apostles in their time. Like Cavour, they are too earnest +about the work and do too much of it themselves to have leisure or +inclination for teaching and pushing others.</p> + +<p>Officially Mr. Gladstone has been, of course, for several years the +leader of the party. He is formally invested with all the insignia of +command. He is indeed the only possible leader; for he is the only man +who has the slightest chance just now of commanding the allegiance of +the old Whigs with their dukes and earls, and the young Radicals with +their philosophers, their Comtists,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> their Irish Nationalists, and their +working men. But the true soul and voice and heart of the Liberal party +pay silent allegiance to John Bright. He is, by universal +acknowledgment, the maker of the Reform agitation and the Reform Bill.</p> + +<p>Mr. Disraeli has over and over again flung in the face of Mr. Gladstone +the fact that Bright, and not he, is the master spirit of Radicalism. Of +late the Tories have taken to praising and courting Bright incessantly +and ostentatiously, and contrasting his calm, consistent wisdom with +Gladstone's impetuosity and fitfulness. Of course both Bright and +Gladstone thoroughly understand the meaning of this, and smile at it and +despise it. The obvious purpose is to try to set up a rivalry between +the two. If Gladstone's authority could be damaged that would be quite +enough; for it would be impossible at present to get the Whig dukes and +earls to follow Bright, and the dethronement of Gladstone would be the +break-up of the party. The trick is an utter failure. Bright is +sincerely and generously loyal to Gladstone, and is a man as completely +devoid of personal vanity or self-seeking as he is of fear. No personal +question will ever divide these two men.</p> + +<p>Gladstone is beyond doubt the most fluent and brilliant speaker in the +English Parliament. No other man has anything like his inexhaustible +flow and rush of varied and vivid expression. His memory is as +surprising as his fluency. Grattan spoke of the eloquence of Fox as +"rolling in resistless as the waves of the Atlantic." So far as this +description conveys the idea of a vast volume of splendid words pouring +unceasingly in, it may be applied to Gladstone. A listener new to the +House is almost certain to prefer him to any other speaker there, and to +regard him as the greatest English orator of the present generation. I +was myself for a long time completely under the spell, and a little +impatient of those who insisted on the superiority of Bright. But when +one becomes accustomed to the speaking of the two men it is impossible +not to find the fluency, the glitter, the impetuous volubility, the +involved and complicated sentences, the Latinized, sesquipedalian words +of Gladstone gradually losing their early charm and influence, just as +the pure noble Saxon, the unforced energy, the exquisite simplicity, the +perfect "fusion of reason and passion" which are the special +characteristics of Bright's eloquence, grow more and more fascinating +and commanding. Perhaps the same effect may be found to arise from a +study or a contrast (if one must contrast them) between the political +characters of the two men.</p> + +<p>It is a somewhat singular fact that one English county has produced the +three men who undoubtedly rank beyond all others in England as +Parliamentary orators. The Earl of Derby, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Bright +are all Lancashire men. But Gladstone is only Lancashire by birth. His +shrewd old Scotch father came to Liverpool from across the Tweed, and +made his money and founded his family in the great port of the Mersey. +The Gladstones had, and have, large West Indian property; and when +England emancipated her slaves by paying off the planters, the +Gladstones came in for no small share of the national purchase-money. +When the great Liberal orator came out so impetuously and unluckily with +his celebrated panegyric on Jefferson Davis, a few years ago, some +people shook their heads and remarked that the old planter spirit does +not quite die out in the course of one generation; and I heard bitter +allusion made to the celebrated declaration flung by Cooke, the great +tragedian, in the face of an indignant theatre in Liverpool, that there +was not a stone in the walls of that town which was not "cemented by the +blood of Africans." But,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> indeed, Gladstone's outburst had no +traditional, or hereditary, or other such source. It came straight from +the impulsive heart and nature of the speaker. His strength and his +weakness are alike illustrated by that sudden, indiscreet, +unjustifiable, and repented outburst. Thus he every now and then +disappoints his friends and shakes the confidence of his followers. A +keen, intellectual, cynical member of the Liberal party, Mr. Grant Duff, +not long since publicly reproached Mr. Gladstone with this trick of +suddenly "turning round and firing his revolver in the face of his +followers." Certain it is that there is little or no enthusiasm felt +toward Gladstone personally, by his party. Admirers of Mr. Disraeli are +usually devotees of the man himself. Young men, especially, delight in +him and adore him. Mr. Gladstone is followed as a leader, admired as an +orator; but I have heard very few of his followers ever express any +personal affection or enthusiasm for him; but it is quite notorious in +London that some of his adherents can hardly control their dislike of +him. Mr. Bright, although a man of somewhat cold and reserved demeanor, +and occasionally <i>brusque</i> in manner, is popular everywhere in the +House. Mr. Gladstone is not personally popular even among his own +followers. What is the reason? His enemies say that he has a bad temper +and an unbending intellectual pride, which is as untrue as if they were +to say he had a hoarse voice and a stammer. The obscurest man in the +House of Commons is not more modest; and there is nothing ungenial in +his manner or his temper. But the truth is that people cannot rely upon +him, or think they cannot, which, so far as they are concerned, amounts +to the same thing. His strongest passion in life—stronger than his love +of figures, or of Homer, or even of liberty—is a love of argument. He +is always ready to sacrifice his friend, or his party, or even his +cause, to his argument. Add to this that he has a conscience so +sensitive that it can hardly ever find any cause or deed smooth enough +to be wholly satisfactory; add, moreover, that he has an eloquence so +fluent as to flow literally away from him, or with him, and the wonder +will be how such a man ever came to be the successful leader of a great +party at all. He is always reconsidering what he has done, always +penitent for something he has said, always turning up to-day the side of +the question which everybody supposed was finally put away and done with +yesterday.</p> + +<p>You can read all this in his face. Furrowed with deep and rigid lines, +it proclaims a certain self-torturing nature—the nature of the +penitent, self-examining ascetic, whose heart is always vexed by doubts +of his own worth and purity, and past and future. Decidedly, Gladstone +wants force of character, and force of intellect as well. He is not a +man of great thought. Every such man settles a question, so far as he is +himself concerned, finally, one way or the other, before long; sees and +accepts what the human limitations of thinking are; recognizes the +necessity of being done with mere thinking about it, and so decides and +is free to act. There is intellectual weakness in Gladstone's +interminable consideration and reconsideration, qualification and +requalification of every subject and branch of a subject. But there is +also a strong, genuine, unmingled delight in mere argument—perhaps as +barren a delight as human intellect can yield to.</p> + +<p>Last year there were three Fenian prisoners lying under sentence of +death in Manchester. Their crime was such as undoubtedly all civil +governments are accustomed to punish by death. But there was +considerable sympathy for them, partly because of their youth, partly +because the deed they had done—the killing of a policeman in order to +rescue a political conspirator—did not seem to be a mere base and +malignant murder. Some eminent Liberals, Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> Bright among the rest, +endeavored to obtain a mitigation of the sentence. The Tory Government +refused; then a point of law was raised on their behalf, and argued in +the House of Commons. The point was new, the Tory law-officers, dull men +at the best, were taken by surprise, and broke down in reply. Yet there +was a reply, and legally, a sufficient one. Mr. Gladstone saw it; saw +where the point raised was defective, and how it might be disposed of. +He sprang to his feet, pulled the Tory law-officers out of their +difficulty, and upset the case for the Fenians. Now this must have +seemed to a conscientious man quite the right thing to do. To a lover of +argument the temptation of upsetting a defective plea was irresistible. +But most of Mr. Gladstone's Irish followers, on whom he must needs rely, +were surprised and angry, and even some of his English friends thought +he might have left the Tories unaided to hang their own political +prisoners. Gladstone's conduct was eminently characteristic. No +impartial man could honestly say that he had done a wrong thing; but no +one acquainted with political life could feel surprised that a leader +who habitually does such things, is almost always being grumbled at by +one or other section of his followers.</p> + +<p>There is an obvious lack of directness as well as of robustness in the +whole intellectual and political character of the man. I think it was +Nathaniel Hawthorne who said of General McClellan that if he could only +have shut one eye he might have gone straight into Richmond almost at +any time during his command of the Army of the Potomac. I am sure if +Gladstone would only close one eye now and then he might lead his party +much more easily to splendid victory. With all his great, varied, +comprehensive faculties, he is not a man to make a deep mark on the +history of his country. He has to be driven on. Somebody must stand +behind him. He is not self-sufficing. His style of eloquence is not +straightforward, cleaving its way like an arrow. It goes round and round +a subject, turning it up, holding it to the light, now this way, now +that, examining and re-examining it. Even his reform speeches are as +Disraeli once said very happily of Lord Palmerston, rather speeches +about Reform than orations on behalf of it. He is indeed the brilliant +Halifax of his age—at least he is a complete embodiment of Lord +Macaulay's Halifax. A leader with so many splendid gifts and merits, no +English parliamentary party of modern times has ever had. Taking manner, +voice, elocution and all into account, as is but right in judging of a +speaker, I think he is the most splendid of all English orators. Burke's +manner and accent were terribly against him; Fox was full of repetition, +and often stammered and stuttered in the very rush and tumult of his +thoughts; Sheridan's glitter was sometimes tawdriness; both the Pitts +were given to pompousness and affectation; Bright has neither the silver +voice nor the varied information of Gladstone; Disraeli I do not rank +among orators at all. Gladstone has none of the special defects of any +of these men, yet I am convinced that Fox was a <i>greater</i> orator than +Gladstone; I know that Bright is; while Burke's speeches are, as +intellectual studies, incomparably beyond anything that Gladstone will +ever bequeath to posterity; and as instruments to an end, some of +Disraeli's speeches have been more effective and triumphant than +anything ever spoken by his present rival.</p> + +<p>In brief, Gladstone is not, to my thinking, a <i>great</i> orator; and I do +not believe he is a great statesman. A great statesman, I presume, is +tested by a crisis, and is greatest at a crisis. Such was Chatham; such +was Washington; such was Napoleon Bonaparte; such was Cavour; such is +Bismarck. All I have seen of Gladstone compels me to believe that he is +not such a man. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> is just the man to lead the Liberal party at this +time; but I should despair of the triumph of that party for the present +generation, if there were not stronger and simpler minds behind his to +keep him in the right way, to drive him on—and, above all, to prevent +him from recoiling after he has made an effective stride forward.</p> + +<p>One of the great questions likely to arise soon in English political +discussion is that of national education. On educational questions I +fancy Mr. Gladstone is rather narrow-minded and old-fashioned; taking +too much the tone and view of a college Don. His recent severance from +the political representation of Oxford may have done something to +release his mind from tradition and pedantry; but I much doubt whether +he will not be found sadly wanting when a serious attempt is made to +revolutionize the principles and the system of the English universities, +and to substitute there (I quote again the language of Grant Duff) "the +studies of men for the studies of children." Gladstone is a devotee of +classical study; and his whole nature is under the influence of +æstheticism, or of what is commonly called "sentiment." The sweet and +genial traditions of the past have immense influence over him. His love +of Greek poetry and of Italian art follow him into politics. With the +Teuton, his poetry and his politics he has little or no sympathy; and I +think the question to be decided shortly as regards the university +system in England maybe figuratively described as a question between +Classic and Teuton. Gladstone is a profound Greek and Latin scholar—a +master of Italian, a connoisseur of Italian art; he does not, I believe, +know or care much about German literature. Accordingly, he was a devoted +Philhellene and a passionate champion of Italian independence; while the +outbreak of the recent struggle between the past and the present in +Germany found him indifferent, and probably even ignorant. So it was in +regard to the American crisis the other day. He knew little of American +politics and national life; and the whole thing was a bewilderment and a +surprise to him. If the Laocoon had been the work of a New England +artist I think the North would have found at once a warm advocate in Mr. +Gladstone.</p> + +<p>Of a mould utterly different is John Bright, at the very root of whose +character are found simplicity and straightforwardness. By simplicity I +do not mean freedom from pretence or affectation; for no man can be more +thoroughly unaffected and sincere than Gladstone. I mean that purely +intellectual attribute which frees the judgment from the influence of +complex emotions; which distinguishes at once essentials from +non-essentials; which sees at a glance the true end and the real way to +it, and can go directly onward. Men supremely gifted with this great +practical quality are commonly set down as men of one idea. In this +sense, undoubtedly, John Bright is a man of one idea; but the phrase +does not justly describe him, or men like him, who are peculiar merely +in having an accurate appreciation of what I may call political +perspective, and thus knowing what proportion of public consideration +certain objects ought, under certain circumstances, to obtain.</p> + +<p>So far as ideas are the offspring of information, Mr. Bright has +undoubtedly fewer ideas than some of his contemporaries. He is not a +profound classical scholar like Gladstone; he has had nothing like the +varied culture of Lowe; he makes, of course, no pretence to the +attainments of Mill, who is at once a master of science, of classics, +and of <i>belles-lettres</i>. But given a subject, almost any subject, coming +at all within the domain of politics or economics, and time to think +over it, and he is much more likely to be right in his judgment of it +than any of the three men I have named. He is gifted beyond any +Englishman now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> living with the rare and admirable faculty of seeing +right into the heart of a subject, and discerning what it means and what +it is worth. Nor is this ever a lucky jump at a conclusion. Bright never +gives an opinion at random or off-hand. Some new policy is announced; +some new subject is broached in the House of Commons; and Bright sits +silent and listens. Friends and followers come round him and ask him +what he thinks of it. "Wait until to-morrow and I will tell you," is +almost invariably, in whatever form of words, the tenor of his +reply—and to-morrow's judgment is certain to be right. I can remember +no great public question coming up in England for the past dozen years +in regard to which Mr. Bright's deliberate judgment did not prove itself +to be just.</p> + +<p>This quality of sagacious judgment, however valuable and uncommon, would +not of itself make a man a great statesman or even a great party leader; +but it is only one of many remarkable attributes which are found +harmoniously illustrated in the character of Mr. Bright. I do not mean, +however, to dwell at any length here on the place John Bright holds in +English political life or the qualities which have won him that place. +He has lately been the subject of an article in this magazine, and he is +indeed better known to American readers than any other English political +man now living. One or two observations are all that just now seem +necessary to make.</p> + +<p>Men who have not heard Bright speak, and who only know him by repute as +a powerful tribune of the people, a demagogue ("John of Bromwicham," +Carlyle calls him, classing him with John of Leyden), are naturally apt +to think of him as an impetuous, passionate, stormy orator, shaking +people's souls with sound and fury. Almost anybody who only knew the two +men vaguely and by rumor, would be likely to assume that the style of +the classical Gladstone was stately, calm, and regular; that of the +popular orator and democrat, impetuous, rugged, and vehement. Now, the +great characteristic of Gladstone, after his fluency, is his +impetuosity; that of Bright is his magnificent composure and +self-control. Intensity is his great peculiarity. He never foams or +froths or bellows, or wildly gesticulates. The heat of his oratorical +passion is a white heat which consumes without flash or smoke or +sputter. Some of his greatest effects have been produced by passages of +pathetic appeal, of irony, or of invective, which were delivered with a +calm intensity that might almost have seemed coldness, if the fire of +genius and of eloquence did not burn beneath it. Another remark I should +make is that Mr. Bright is the greatest master of pure Saxon English now +speaking the English language. As the blind commonly have their sense of +sound and of touch intensified, so it may be that Mr. Bright's +comparative indifference to classic and foreign literature has tended to +concentrate all his attention upon the culture of pure English, and +given him a supreme faculty of appreciating and employing it. Certain it +is that his unvarying choice of the very best Saxon word in every case +seems to come from an instinct which is in itself something like genius.</p> + +<p>Finally, let me remark, that the extent of Mr. Bright's democratic +tendencies would probably disappoint some Americans. I may say now what +I should probably have been laughed at for saying two or three years +ago, that there is a good deal of the conservative about John Bright; +that he is by nature disposed to shrink from innovation; that change for +the mere sake of change is quite abhorrent to him; and that he is about +the last man in England who would care to make political war for an +idea. He seems to me to be the only one Englishman I have lately spoken +with who retains any genuine feeling of personal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>loyalty toward the +sovereign of England. But for his eloquence and his power, I fancy Mr. +Bright would seem rather a slow sort of politician to many of the +younger Radicals. The "Times" lately attributed Mr. Bright's +conservatism to his advancing years. This was merely absurd. Mr. Bright +is little older now than O'Connell was when he began his Parliamentary +career. He is considerably younger than Disraeli, or Gladstone, or Mill. +What Bright now is he always was. A dozen years ago he was defending the +Queen and Prince Albert against the attacks of Tories and of some +Radicals. He never was a Democrat in the French or Italian sense. He has +always been wanting even, in sympathy, with popular revolution abroad. +He never showed the slightest interest in speculative politics. I doubt +if he ever talked of the "brotherhood of peoples." He has been driven +into political agitation only because, like Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, he +saw positive, practical, and pressing grievances bearing down upon his +neighbors, which he felt called by duty to make war against. I have many +times heard Mr. Bright say that he detests the House of Commons, and +would be glad if it were permitted him never to mount a platform again.</p> + +<p>But if Mr. Bright had little natural inclination for a Parliamentary +career, what is one to say of Mr. John Stuart Mill's natural +disinclination for such a path of life?</p> + +<p>Physical constitution, intellectual peculiarities, temperament, +habits—all seemed to mark out Mr. Mill as a man destined to close his +career, as he had so long conducted it—in almost absolute seclusion. He +is a silent, shy, shrinking man, of feeble frame and lonely ways. Until +the general election of three years back, Mr. Mill was to his countrymen +but as an oracle—as a voice—almost as a myth. The influence of his +writings was immense. Personally he was but a name. He never came into +any public place; he knew nobody. When the promoters of the movement to +return him to Parliament came to canvass the Westminster electors, the +great difficulty they had to contend with was, that three out of every +four of the honest traders and shopkeepers had never heard of him; and +the few who knew anything of his books had a vague impression that the +author was dead years before. The very men who formed the executive of +his committee could not say that they knew him, even by sight. Half in +jest, half for a serious purpose, some of the Tories sent abroad over +Westminster an awful report that there was no such man in existence as +John Stuart Mill. "Did you ever see him?" was the bewildering question +constantly put to this or that earnest canvasser, and invariably +answered with an apologetic negative. I believe the services of my +friend Dr. Chapman, editor of the "Westminster Review," were brought +into pressing requisition, because he was one of the very few who really +could boast a personal acquaintance with Stuart Mill. The day when the +latter first entered the House of Commons was the first time he and +Bright ever saw each other. I believe Cobden and Mill never met. Mill +had no university acquaintances—he had never been to any university. He +had no school friends—he had never been to a school. Perhaps the best +educated man of his time in England, he owes his education to the +personal care and teaching of his distinguished father, James Mill, who +would have been illustrious if his son had not overshadowed his fame. +Assuredly, to know James Mill intimately was, if I may thus apply Leigh +Hunt's saying, in itself a liberal education. Following his father's +steps at the India House, John Mill worked there methodically and +quietly, until he rose to the highest position his father had occupied; +and then he resigned his office, declined an offer of a seat at the +Indian Council Board, subsequently made by Lord Stanley, and lapsed +wholly into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>private life. Of late he rarely met even his close and +early friends. Some estrangement, not necessary to dwell on, had taken +place, I believe, between him and his old friend Thomas Carlyle, and I +suppose they ceased to meet. After the death of the wife whom he so +loved and revered, Mill lived almost always at Avignon, in the south of +France, where she died, and where he raised a monument over her remains, +which he visits and tends with a romantic devotion and constancy worthy +of a Roland.</p> + +<p>Only a profound sense of duty could drag such a man from his scholarly +and sacred seclusion into the stress and storm of a parliamentary life. +But it was urged upon Mill that he could do good to the popular cause by +going into Parliament; and he is not a man to think anything of his +personal preference in such a case. He accepted the contest and won. +Some of his warmest admirers regretted that he had ever given his +consent. They feared not so much that he might damage his reputation as +that he might weaken the influence of his authority, and with it the +strength of every great popular cause. Certainly those who thought thus, +and who met Mr. Mill for the first time during the progress of the +Westminster contest, did not feel much inclined to take a more +encouraging view of the prospect.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mill seems cut out by nature not to be a parliamentary success. He +has a thin, fragile, awkward frame; he has a nervous, incessant +twitching of the lips and eyes; he has a weak voice and a sort of +stammer; he is over sixty years of age; he had never, so far as I know, +addressed a political meeting of any kind up to the time of the +Westminster contest. Yet with all these disadvantages, Mill has, as a +political leader and speaker, been an undoubted success with the +country, and a sort of success in the House. An orator of any kind he +never could be. One might call him a wretchedly bad speaker, if his +speaking were not so utterly unlike anybody else's, as to refuse to be +classified with any other speaking, good or bad. But, so far as the best +selection of words, the clearest style, the most coherent and convincing +argument can constitute eloquence, Mill's speeches are eloquent. They +are, of course, only spoken essays. They differ in no wise from the +speaker's writings; and I need hardly say that a speech, to be +effective, must never be just what the speaker would have written if it +were to be consigned at once to print as a letter or an essay. As +speeches, therefore, Mr. Mill's utterances in the House have little or +no effect. Indeed, they are only listened to by a very few men of real +intelligence and judgment on both sides. Some of the more boisterous of +the Tories made many attempts to cough and laugh Mill into silence; +indeed, there was obviously a deliberate plan of this kind in operation +at one time. But Mill is a man whom nothing can deter from saying or +doing what he thinks right. A more absolutely fearless being does not +exist. He is even free from that fear which has sometimes paralyzed the +boldest spirits, the fear of becoming ridiculous. So the Tory trick +failed. Mill went on with patient, imperturbable, proud good-humor, +despite all interruption—now and then paying off his Tory enemies by +some keen contemptuous epigram or sarcasm, made all the more pungent by +the thin, bland tone in which it was uttered. So the Tories gave up +shouting, groaning and laughing; the more quickly because one at least +of their chiefs, the Marquis of Salisbury (then in the House of Commons +as Lord Cranbourne) had the spirit and sense to express openly and +loudly his anger and disgust at the vulgar and brutal behaviour of some +of his followers. Therefore Mr. Mill ceased to be interrupted; but he is +not much listened to. That supreme, irrefutable evidence that a man +fails to interest the House—the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> fact that a hum and buzz of +conversation may be heard all the time he is speaking—is always fatally +manifest when Mr. Mill addresses the Commons. But the House, after all, +is only a platform from which a man endeavors to speak to the country, +and if Mill does not always get the ear of the House, he never fails to +be heard by the nation. I have no doubt that even the Tory members of +the House read Mill's speeches when they appear in print; assuredly all +intelligent Tories do. These speeches, in any case, are never lost on +the country. They form at once a part of the really successful +literature of each session. They always excite controversy of some +kind—not even the great orations of Bright and Gladstone are more +talked of.</p> + +<p>So far they are a success, and there is something in the personal +character of Mr. Mill himself, which makes him specially popular with +the working classes of England. I doubt if there is now any Englishman +whose name would be received with a more cordial outburst of applause at +a popular meeting. Working-men, in fact, are very proud of Mr. Mill's +scholarship, culture, and profundity. They can perceive easily enough +that he is remarkable for just those intellectual qualities which the +conventional demagogue never has. Tory newspapers and the "Saturday +Review" sometimes affect to regard Mr. Bright as a man of defective +education, but it is impossible to pretend to think that Mill is +ignorant of Greek or superficial in his knowledge of history. When such +a man makes himself especially the champion of working-men, the +working-men think of him very much as the Irish peasants of '98 and '48 +did of Edward Fitzgerald and Smith O'Brien, the aristocrats of birth and +rank, who stepped down from their high places and gave themselves up to +the cause of the unlettered and the poor.</p> + +<p>There is something fascinating, moreover, about the singular blending of +the emotional, and even the romantic, with the keen, vigorous, logical +intellect, which is to be observed in Mill. Even political economy, in +Mill's mind, is strangely guided and governed by mere feeling. Somebody +said he was a combination of Ricardo and Tom Hughes—somebody else said, +rather more happily, I think, that he is Adam Smith and Fénélon revived +and rolled into one. The "Pall Mall Gazette" found his picture well +painted in Lord Macaulay's analysis of the motives which influenced +Edmund Burke, when he flung his soul into the impeachment of Warren +Hastings. The mere eccentricities, the very defects of such a nature +have in them something captivating. The admirers of Mr. Mill are +therefore not unusually somewhat given to exalting admiration into +idolatry. The classes who most admire him are the scholarly and +adventurous young Radicals, who have a dash of Positivism in them; the +extreme Radicals, who are prepared to go any and all lengths for the +mere sake of change; and the working-men.</p> + +<p>This is the Triumvirate of the English Liberal Party. Combined they +represent, guide, and govern every section and fraction of that party +that is worth taking into any consideration. Mr. Gladstone represents +official Liberalism; Mr. Bright speaks for and directs the +old-fashioned, robust, popular Liberalism of which Manchester was the +school; Mr. Mill is the exponent of the new Liberalism, the Liberalism +of Idea and Logic. Bright's programme is a little ahead of Gladstone's, +but Gladstone will probably be easily pulled up to it. Mill goes far +beyond either, far beyond any point at which either is ever likely to +arrive. Indeed, Mr. Mill may be fairly described by a phrase, which I +believe is German, as a man in advance of every possible future—at +least in England. But he is quite prepared to act loyally and steadily +with his party and its leader on all momentous issues. On some minor +questions he has lately gone widely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> away from them, and given thereby +much offence; and indeed I am sure there are not a few of the +old-fashioned Liberals and the Manchester men who would rather Mr. Mill +had never come into Parliament and sat at their side. But on nearly all +questions of Parliamentary Reform, and on that of the Irish Church, Mill +and his Liberal colleagues will pull cordially together. So, too, on +most economic questions, reduction of taxation, imposition of duties and +the like. Where a sharp difference is likely to arise will only be in +relation to some subject having an idea behind it—some question of +foreign policy perhaps, something not at present imminent; and, let us +hope, not destined in any case to be vital to the interests of the +party. Only where an idea is involved will Mr. Mill refuse to allow his +own judgment to bend to the general necessities of the party. It was his +objection (a very unwise one, I think) to the idea behind the system of +the ballot, which led him to separate himself sharply from Bright and +other Liberals on that subject; it was the idea which lies at the bottom +of a representation of minorities, which beguiled him into lending his +advocacy to that most chimerical, awkward, and absurd piece of political +mechanism which we know in England as the three-cornered constituency. +The cohesion of Gladstone and Bright is decidedly more close and likely +to endure than that between Bright and Mill. But on all immediate +questions of great importance, these two men are sure to be found side +by side. Mill has a deep and earnest admiration for Bright, who is +sometimes, perhaps, a little impatient of the Politics of Idea.</p> + +<p>During the session of 1868, I attended a meeting of a few representative +Liberals of all classes, brought together to decide on some course of +agitation with regard to Ireland. Mr. Mill was there, so were Professor +Fawcett, Mr. Thomas Hughes, Lord Amberley, and other members of +Parliament; Mr. Frederick Harrison, with some of his Positivist +colleagues, and several representative working men. Mr. Bright was +unable to attend. A certain course of action being recommended, Mr. Mill +expressed his own approval of it, but emphatically declared that he +considered Mr. Bright's judgment was entitled to be regarded as +authoritative, and that should Mr. Bright recommend the meeting not to +go on, the scheme had better be given up. Mr. Bright subsequently +discouraged the scheme, and it was, on Mr. Mill's recommendation, at +once abandoned. I mention this fact to illustrate the loyalty which Mr. +Mill, with all his tendency to political eccentricity, usually displays +toward the men whom he regards as the leaders of the party.</p> + +<p>Mill and Bright are alike warm admirers of Gladstone and believers in +him. Indeed one sometimes feels ashamed to doubt for a moment the +steadfastness of a man in whom Bright and Mill put so full a faith.</p> + +<p>Certainly the English Liberal has reason to congratulate himself, and +feel proud when he remembers what sort of men his party's leaders used +to be, and sees what men they are to-day. It will not do to study too +closely the private characters of the chiefs of any political band in +the House of Commons, from the days of Bolingbroke to those of Fox. The +man who was not a sinecurist or a peculator was pretty sure to be a +profligate or a gambler. Not a few eminent men were sinecurists, +peculators, profligates, and gamblers. The political purity of the +English Liberal leaders to-day is absolutely without the faintest shade +of suspicion—it never even occurs to any one to suspect them, while +their private lives, it may be said without indelicacy, are in pure and +perfect accord with the noble principles they profess. Not often has +there been a political triumvirate of greater men; of better men, never.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>THE ENGLISH POSITIVISTS.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>Some few months ago, a little bubble of interest was made on the surface +of London life, by a course of Sunday lectures of a peculiar kind.</p> + +<p>These lectures were given in a small room in Bouverie street, off Fleet +street—Bouverie street, sacred to publishing and newspaper offices—and +only a very small stream of persons was drawn to the place. There was +something very peculiar, however, about the lectures, the lecturer, and +the audience, which might well have repaid a stranger in London for the +trouble of going there. I doubt whether such a proportion of +intellectual faces could have been seen among the congregation of any +London church on these Sunday mornings; and I know one, at least, who +attended the lectures, less for the sake of what he heard than because +such listeners as the authoress of "Romola" were among the audience. The +lecturer was Mr. Richard Congreve, and the subject of his discourses was +the creed of Positivism.</p> + +<p>I do not know how familiar Mr. Congreve and his writings and his +doctrines are to the American public. In London, Mr. Congreve is, in a +quiet way, a sort of celebrity or peculiarity. He is the head of the +small, compact band of English Positivists. It is understood that he +goes as far in the direction of the creed which was the dream of Auguste +Comte's later years as any sane human creature can well go. I have, +however, very little to say here of Mr. Congreve, individually; and I +take his recent course of Sunday lectures only as a convenient starting +point from which to begin a few remarks on the political principles, +character, and influence of that small, resolute, aggressive body of +intellectual, highly-educated and able men who are beginning to be known +in the politics and society of England as the London Positivists.</p> + +<p>A discourse on the principles of Positivism would be quite out of place +here; but even those who understand the whole subject will, perhaps, +allow me, for the benefit of those who do not, to explain very briefly +what an English Positivist is. Positivism, it is known to my readers, is +the name given to the philosophy which Auguste Comte, more than any +other man, helped to reduce to a system. Regarded as a philosophy of +history and human society, its grand and fundamental doctrine merely is +that human life evolves itself in obedience to certain fixed laws, of +which we could obtain a knowledge if only we applied ourselves to this +study as we do to all other studies in practical science, by the patient +observation of phenomena. Auguste Comte's reduction of this +philosophical theory to a scientific system is undoubtedly one of the +grandest achievements of human intellect. The philosophy did not begin +with him or his generation, or, indeed, any generation of which we have +authentic record. Whenever there were men capable of thinking at all, +there must have been some whose minds were instinct with this doctrine; +but Comte made it a system at once simple, grand, and fascinating, and +he will always remain identified with its development, in the memory of +the modern world. Unfortunately, Comte, in his later years, set to +founding a <i>religion</i> also—a religion which has, perhaps, called down +upon its founder and its followers more ridicule, contempt, and +discredit than any vagary of human imagination in our day. I speak of +all this only to explain to my readers that there is some little +difficulty in defining what is meant by a Positivist. If we mean merely +a believer in the philosophical theory of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>history, then Positivists +are, indeed, to be named as legion, and their captains are among the +greatest intellects of the world to-day. In England, we regard Mr. John +Stuart Mill as, in this sense, the greatest Positivist, and undoubtedly +he is so regarded here. But Mill utterly rejects and ridicules the +fantastic religion which Comte, in his days of declining mental power, +sought to graft on his grand philosophy. In his treatise on Comte, Mr. +Mill showed no mercy to the Positivist religion, and, indeed, bitterly +offended many of its votaries by his contemptuous exposure of its +follies. What is said of Mill may be said of nineteen out of every +twenty, at least, of the English followers of Comte. They accept the +philosophy as grand, scientific, inexorable truth; they reject the +religion with pity or with scorn, as a fantastic and barren chimera. Mr. +Congreve is, in London, the leader of the small school who go for taking +all or nothing, and to whom Auguste Comte is the prophet of a new and +final religion, as well as the teacher of a new philosophy. Now this +little school is the nucleus of the body of Englishmen of whom I write.</p> + +<p>When I speak, therefore, of English Positivists, I do not mean the men +who go no farther than John Stuart Mill does. These men are to be found +everywhere; they are of all schools, and all religions. I mean the much +smaller body of votaries who go, or feel inclined to go, much farther, +and accept Comte's religious teaching as a law of life. It is quite +probable that, even among the men who are now identified more or less, +in the public mind, with Mr. Congreve and his school, there may be some +who do not adopt, or even concern themselves about the religion of +Positivism. A community of sentiment on historical and political +questions, the habit of meeting together, consulting together, writing +for publication together, might naturally bring into the group men who +may not go the length of adopting the Comte worship. It is quite +possible, therefore, that, in mentioning the names of English +Positivists, I may happen to speak of some who have no more to do with +that worship than I have.</p> + +<p>I mean, then, only the group of men, most of whom are young, most of +whom are highly cultured, many of whom are endowed with remarkable +ability, who are to be found in a literary and political phalanstery +with Mr. Congreve, and of whom the majority are understood to be actual +votaries of the religion of Comte. Of course I have nothing to do here +with their faith or their practices. If they adopt the worship of woman +I think they do a better thing after all than the increasing and popular +class of writers, whose principal business in life is to persuade us +that our wives and sisters are all Messalinas in heart and nearly all +Messalinas in practice. If, when they pray, they touch certain cranial +bumps at certain passages of the prayer, I do not see that they +institute anything worse than the genuflections of the Ritualist or the +breast-beating of the Roman Catholics. If, finally, one is sometimes a +little puzzled when he receives a letter from a Positivist friend, and +finds it dated "5th Marcus Aurelius," or "12th Auguste Comte," instead +of July or December, as the case may be, one must remember that there +never yet was a young sect which did not delight in puzzling outsiders +by a new and peculiar nomenclature. I never heard anything worse charged +against the Positivists than that they worship woman, touch their +foreheads when they pray, and arrange the calendar according to a plan +of their own invention; except, of course, the general charge of +Atheism; but as that is made in England against anybody whom all his +neighbors do not quite understand, I hardly think it worth discussing in +this particular instance. We are all Atheists in England in the +estimation of our neighbors, whose political opinions are different from +our own.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p><p>The English Positivists, then, are beginning to stand out sharply +against the common background of political life. They are a little +school; as distinctly a school for their time and chances as the +Girondists were, or the Manchester school, or the Massachusetts +Abolitionists, or the Boston Transcendentalists. They are Radical, of +course, but their Radicalism has a curious twist in it. On any given +question of Radicalism they go as far as any practical politician does; +but then they also go in most cases so very much farther that they often +alarm the practical politician out of his ordinary composure. They are +generally incisive of speech, aggressive of purpose, defiant of +political prudery, and even of political prudence. Their politics are +always politics of idea.</p> + +<p>Some three or four years ago the Positivists published a large and +ponderous volume of essays on subjects of international policy. Each man +who contributed an essay signed his name, and although a general +community of idea and principle pervaded the book, it was not understood +that everybody who wrote necessarily adopted all the views of his +associates. The book, in fact, was constructed on the model of the +famous "Essays and Reviews" which had sent such a thrill through the +religious world a few years before. The political essays naturally +failed to create anything like the sensation which was produced by their +theological predecessors; but they did excite considerable attention, +and awoke the echoes. They astonished a good many Liberal politicians of +the steady old school, and they set many men thinking. What surprised +people at first was the singular combination of literary culture and +ultra-Radical opinion. Literary young men in England, of late, are +generally to be divided into two classes—the smart writers for +periodicals, the minor novelists and dramatists, and so forth, who know +no more and care no more about politics than ballet girls do, and the +University men, the men of "culture," who affect Toryism as something +fine and distinguished, and profess a patrician horror of democracy and +the "mob." If at the time this volume was published one had taken aside +some practical politician in London and said, "Here is a collection of +practical essays written by a cluster of young men who all have +University degrees after their names—will you read it?" the answer +would certainly have been—"Not I, it's sure to be some contemptible +sham Tory rubbish; some 'blood-and-culture' trash; some schoolboy +impertinence about demagoguism and the mob." Therefore the surprise was +not slight to such men when they read the book and found that its +central idea, its connecting thread, was a Radicalism which might well +be called thorough; a Radicalism which made Bright look like a steady +old Conservative; invited Mill to push his ideas a little farther; and +poured scorn upon the Radical press for its slowness and its timidity. A +simple, startling foreign policy was prescribed to England. Its gospel, +after all, was but an old one—so old that it had been forgotten in +English politics. It was merely—Be just and fear not. Renounce all +aggression; give back the spoils of conquest. Give Gibraltar back to the +Spaniards who own it; prepare to cast loose your colonial dependencies; +prepare even to quit your loved India; ask the Irish people fairly and +clearly what they want, and if they desire to be free of your rule, bid +them go and be free and Godspeed. All the old traditional policies +seemed to these men only obsolete and odious superstitions. They would +have England, the State, to stand up and act precisely as an Englishman +of honor and conscience would do, and they treated with utter contempt +any policy of expediency or any policy whatever that aimed at any end +but that of finding out the right thing to do and then doing it at once. +This seemed to me, studying the school quite as an outside observer, its +one great central idea; and it would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> of course be impossible not to +honor the body of writers who proposed to show how it was to be +accomplished.</p> + +<p>But no school lives on one grand idea; and this school had its chimeras +and crotchets—almost its crazes. For example, the leader of the +Positivist band took great trouble to argue that Europe ought to form +herself into a noble federation of States, to the exclusion of Russia, +which was to be regarded as an Oriental, barbarous, unmanageable, +intolerable sort of thing, and pushed out of the European system +altogether. Then a good many of the leading minds of the school are +imbued with a passionate love for a sort of celestial despotism, an +ideal imperialism which the people are first to create and then to +obey—which is to teach them, house them, keep them in employment, keep +them in health, and leave them nothing to do for themselves, while yet +securing to them the most absolute freedom. To some of these men the +condition of New York, where the State does hardly anything for the +individual, would seem as distressing and objectionable as that of +despotic Paris or even Constantinople. A distinguished member of the +school declared that nothing was to him more odious than any manner of +voluntaryism, and that he hoped to see State operation introduced into +every department of English social organization. The connection of this +theory with the principle of Positivism, which would mould all men into +a sort of hierarchy, is natural and obvious enough, and there is, to +support it, a certain reaction now in England against the voluntary +principle, in education and in public charities. But, as it is put +forward and argued by men of the school I describe, it may be taken as +one of the most remarkable points of departure from the common tendency +of thought in England. The Positivists are all, indeed, un-English, in +the common use of a phrase which is ceasing of late to be so dreaded a +stigma as it once used to be in British politics. They are, as I have +already said, a somewhat aggressive body, and are imbued with a +contempt, which they never care to conceal, for the average public +opinion of the British Philistine, whether he present himself as a West +End tradesman or a West End Peer.</p> + +<p>The Positivists are almost always to be found in antagonism with this +sort of public opinion. They attack the Philistine, and they attack no +less readily the dainty scholar and critic who lately gave the +Philistine his name, and whose over-refining love of sweetness and light +is so terribly offended by the rough and earnest work of Radical +politics. Whatever way average opinion tends, the influence of the +Positivists is sure to tend the other way.</p> + +<p>There was a time, nearly two years ago, when the average English mind +was suddenly seized with a passion of blended hate, fear, and contempt +for Fenianism. The thing was first beginning to show itself in a serious +light and it had not gone far enough to show what it really was. It +looked more formidable than it proved to be, and it seemed less like an +ordinary rebellious organization than like some mysterious and +demoniacal league against property and public security. When I say it +seemed, I mean it seemed to the average English mind, to the ordinary +swell and the ordinary shopkeeper. Just at this time the Positivists +drew up a petition to be presented to the House of Commons, in which +they called upon the House to insist that lenity should be shown to all +Fenian prisoners, that they should be regarded as men driven into +rebellion by a deep sense of injustice, and that measures should be +taken to prevent the British troops from committing such excesses in +Ireland as had been perpetrated in the suppression of the Indian mutiny, +and more lately in Jamaica. Now, if there was anything peculiarly +calculated to vex and aggravate the House of Commons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> and the English +public generally, it was such a view of the business as this. Fenianism +had not acquired the solemn and tragic interest which it obtained a few +months afterward. It is only just to say that Englishmen in general +began to look with pity and a sort of respect on Fenianism, once it +became clear that it had among its followers men who, to quote the +language of one of the least sympathetic of London newspapers, "knew how +to die." But, at the time I speak of, Fenianism was a vague, mystic, +accursed thing, which it was proper to regard as utterly detestable and +contemptible. Imagine then what the feeling of the English county member +must have been when he learned that there were actually in London a set +of educated Englishmen, nearly all trained in the universities and +nearly all moving in good society, who regarded the Fenians just as he +himself regarded rebels against the Emperor of Austria or the Pope of +Rome, and who not merely asked that consideration should be shown toward +them, but went on to talk of the necessity of protecting them against +the brutality of the loyal British soldier! The petition was signed by +all who had a share in its preparation. Such men as Richard Congreve, T. +M. Ludlow, Frederick Harrison and Professor Beesly, were among the +petitioners who risked their admission into respectable society by +signing the document. The petitioners did not feel quite sure about +getting any one of mark to present their appeal; and it is certain that +a good many professed Liberals, of advanced opinions and full of +sympathy with foreign rebels of any class or character, would have +promptly refused to accept the ungenial office. The petitioners, +however, applied to one who was not likely to be influenced by any +considerations but those of right and justice, and whom, moreover, no +body in the House of Commons would think of trying to put down. They +asked Mr. Bright to present their petition, and there was, of course, no +hesitation on his part. Mr. Bright not merely presented the petition, +but read it amid the angry and impatient murmurs of an amazed and +indignant House; and he declared, in tones of measured and impressive +calmness, that he entirely approved of and adopted the sentiments which +the petitioners expressed. There was, of course, a storm of indignation, +and some members went the length of recommending that the petition +should not even be received—an extreme and indeed extravagant course in +a country where the right of petition is supposed to be held sacred, and +which the good sense even of some Tory members promptly repudiated. Mr. +Disraeli did his very best to aggravate the feeling of the House against +the petitioners. During the Indian mutiny he had himself loudly +protested against the spirit of vengeance which our press encouraged; +asked whether we meant to make Nana Sahib the model for a British +officer, and whether Moloch or Christ was our divinity. Yet he now +declared that the language of the petition was a libel on the Indian +army, and that nothing had ever occurred during the Bengal outbreak to +warrant the imputations cast on the humanity of our soldiers.</p> + +<p>I suppose it is not easy to convey to an American reader a correct idea +of the degree of boldness involved in the presentation of this +celebrated petition. It really was a very bold thing to do. It was +running right in the very teeth of the public opinion of all the classes +which are called respectable in England. It was, however, strictly +characteristic of the men who signed it. Most, if not all of them, took +a prominent part in the prosecution of Governor Eyre of Jamaica, for the +lawless execution of George William Gordon and the wholesale and +merciless floggings and hangings by which order was made to reign in the +island. Most of them, indeed, have a pretty spirit of contradiction of +their own, and a pretty gift of sarcasm. I think I hardly remember any +man who received,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> during an equal length of time, a greater amount of +abuse from the press than Professor Beesly drew down on himself not very +long ago. It was at the time when the public mind was in its wildest +thrill of horror at the really fearful revelations of organized murder +in connection with the Sawgrinders' Union in Sheffield. The whole +question of trades' union organization had been under discussion; and +even before the Sheffield revelations came out, the general voice of +English respectability was against the workmen's societies altogether. +But when the disclosures of organized murder in connection with one +union came out, a sort of panic took possession of the public mind. The +first, and not unnatural impulse was to assume that all trades' unions +must be very much the same sort of thing, and that the societies of +workmen were little better than organized Thuggism. Now, Professor +Beesly, Mr. Frederick Harrison and other signers of the petition for the +Fenians, had long been prominent and influential advocates of the +trades' union principle. They had been to the English artisan something +like what the Boston Abolitionist was so long to the negro. The trades' +union bodies, who felt aggrieved at the unjust suspicion which made them +a party to hideous crimes they abhorred, began to hold public meetings +to repudiate the charge, and record their detestation of the Sheffield +outrages. Professor Beesly attended one of these meetings in London. He +made a speech, in which he told the working men that he thought enough +had been done in the way of disavowing crimes which no one had a right +to impute to them; that there was no need of their further humiliating +themselves; and that it was rather odd the English Aristocracy had such +a horror of murderers among the poorer classes, seeing how very fond +they were of men like Eyre, of Jamaica! In fact, Professor Beesly +uplifted his voice very honestly, but rather recklessly and out of time, +against the social hypocrisy which is the stain and curse of London +society, and which is never so happy as when it can find some chance of +denouncing sin or crime among Republicans, or Irishmen, or workingmen. +There was nothing Professor Beesly said which had not sense and truth in +it; but it might have been said more discreetly and at a better time; +and it was said with a sarcastic and scornful bitterness which is one of +the characteristics of the speaker. For several days the London press +literally raged at the professor. "Punch" persevered for a long time in +calling him "Professor Beastly;" a a strong effort was made to obtain +his expulsion from the college in which he has a chair. He was talked of +and written of as if he were the advocate and the accomplice of +assassins, instead of being, as he is, an honorable gentleman and an +enlightened scholar, whose great influence over the working classes had +always been exerted in the cause of peaceful progress and good order. It +was a common thing, for days and weeks, to see the names of Broadhead +and Beesly coupled with ostentatious malignity in the leading columns of +London newspapers.</p> + +<p>I give these random illustrations only to show in what manner the school +of writers and thinkers I speak of usually present themselves before the +English public. Now Mr. Harrison devotes himself to a pertinacious, +powerful series of attacks on Eyre, of Jamaica, at a time when that +personage is the hero and pet martyr of English society; now Professor +Beesly horrifies British respectability by pointing out that there are +respectable murderers who are quite as bad as Broadhead; now Mr. John +Morley undertakes even to criticise the Queen; now Mr. Congreve assails +the anonymous writers of the London press as hired and masked assassins; +now the whole band unite in the defence of Fenians. This sort of thing +has a startling effect upon the steady public mind of England;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> and it +is thus, and not otherwise, that the public mind of England ever comes +to hear of these really gifted and honest, but very antagonistic and +somewhat crochetty men. Several of them are brilliant and powerful +writers. Professor Beesly writes with a keen, caustic, bitter force +which has something Parisian in it. I know of no writer in English +journalism who more closely resembles in style a certain type of the +literary gladiator of French controversy. He has much of Eugene Pelletan +in him, and something of Henri Rochefort, blended with a good deal that +reminds one of Jules Simon. Frederick Harrison is fast becoming a power +in the Radical politics and literature of England. John Morley is a +young man of great culture, and who writes with a quite remarkable +freshness and force. I could mention many other men of the same school +(I have already said that I do not know whether each and every one of +these is or is not a professed Positivist) who would be distinguished as +scholars and writers in the literature of any country. However they may +differ on minor points, however they may differ in ability, in +experience, in discretion, they have one peculiarity in common: they are +to be found foremost in every liberal and radical cause; they are always +to be found on the side of the weak, and standing up for the oppressed; +they are inveterate enemies of cant; they hate vulgar idolatry and +vulgar idols. Looking back a few years, I can remember that almost, if +not quite, every man I have alluded to was a fearless and outspoken +advocate of the cause of the North, at a time when it was <i>de rigueur</i> +among men of "culture" in London to champion the cause of the South. +Some of the men I have named were indefatigable workers at that time on +the unfashionable side. They wrote pamphlets; they wrote leading +articles; they made speeches; they delivered lectures in out-of-the-way +quarters to workingmen and poor men of all kinds; they hardly came, in +any prominent way, before the public, in most of this work. It brought +them, probably, no notoriety or recognition whatever on this side of the +ocean; but their work was a power in England. I feel convinced that, in +any case, the English workingmen would have gone right on such a +question as that which was at issue between North and South. As Mr. +Motley truly said in his address to the New York Historical Society, the +workers and the thinkers were never misled; but I am bound to say that +the admirable knowledge of the realities of the subject; the clear, +quick, and penetrating judgment, and the patient, unswerving hope and +confidence which were so signally displayed by the London workingmen +from first to last of that great struggle, were in no slight degree the +result of the teaching and the labor of men like Professor Beesly and +Frederick Harrison.</p> + +<p>If I were to set up a typical Positivist, in order to make my American +reader more readily and completely familiar with the picture which the +word calls up in the minds of Londoners, I should do it in the following +way: I should exhibit my model Positivist as a man still young for +anything like prominence in English public life, but not actually young +in years—say thirty-eight or forty. He has had a training at one of the +great historical Universities, or at all events at the modern and +popular University of London. He is a barrister, but does not practise +much, and has probably a modest competence on which he can live without +working for the sake of living, and can indulge his own tastes in +literature and politics. He has immense earnestness and great +self-conceit. He has an utter contempt for dull men and timid or +half-measure men, and he scorns Whigs even more than Tories. He devotes +much of his time generously and patiently to the political and other +instruction of working men. He writes in the "Fortnightly Review," and +sometimes in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>"MacMillan," and sometimes in the "Westminster Review." He +plunges into gallant and fearless controversy with the "Pall Mall +Gazette," and he is not easily worsted, for his pen is sharp and his ink +very acrid. Nevertheless, is any great question stirring, with a serious +principle or a deep human interest at the heart of it, he is sure to be +found on the right side. Where the controversy is of a smaller kind and +admits of crotchet, then he is pretty sure to bring out a crotchet of +some kind. He is perpetually giving the "Saturday Review" an opportunity +to ridicule him and abuse him, and he does not care. He writes pamphlets +and goes to immense trouble to get up the facts, and expense to give +them to the world, and he never grudges trouble or money, where any +cause or even any crotchet is to be served. He is ready to stand up +alone, against all the world if needs be, for his opinions or his +friends. Benevolent schemes which are of the nature of mere charity he +never concerns himself about. I never heard of him on a platform with +the Earl of Shaftesbury, and I fancy he has a contempt for all patronage +of the poor or projects of an eleemosynary character. He is for giving +men their political rights and educating them—if necessary compelling +them to be educated; and he has little faith in any other way of doing +good. He has, of course, a high admiration for and faith in Mr. Mill. +His nature is not quite reverential—in general he is rather inclined to +sit in the chair of the scorner; but if he reverenced any living man it +would be Mill. He admires the manly, noble character of Bright, and his +calm, strong eloquence. I do not think he cares much about Gladstone—I +rather fancy our Positivist looks upon Gladstone as somewhat weak and +unsteady—and with him to be weak is indeed to be miserable. Disraeli is +to him an object of entire scorn and detestation, for he can endure no +one who has not deeply-rooted principles of some kind. He has a crotchet +about Russia, a theory about China; he gets quite beside himself in his +anger over the anonymous leading articles of the London press. He is not +an English type of man at all, in the present and conventional sense. He +cares not a rush about tradition, and mocks at the wisdom of our +ancestors. The bare fact that some custom, or institution, or way of +thinking has been sanctioned and hallowed by long generations of usage, +is in his eyes rather a <i>prima facie</i> reason for despising it than +otherwise. He is pitilessly intolerant of all superstitions—save his +own—that is to say, he is intolerant in words and logic and ridicule, +for the wildest superstition would find him its defender, if it once +came to be practically oppressed or even threatened. He is "ever a +fighter," like one of Browning's heroes; he is the knight-errant, the +Quixote of modern English politics. He admires George Eliot in +literature, and, I should say, he regards Charles Dickens as a sort of +person who does very well to amuse idlers and ignorant people. I do not +hear of his going much to the theatre, and it is a doubt to me if he has +yet heard of the "Grande Duchesse." Life with him is a very earnest +business, and, although he has a pretty gift of sarcasm, which he uses +as a weapon of offence against his enemies, I cannot, with any effort of +imagination, picture him to myself as in the act of making a joke.</p> + +<p>A small drawing-room would assuredly hold all the London Positivists who +make themselves effective in English politics. Yet I do not hesitate to +say that they are becoming—that they have already become—a power which +no one, calculating on the chances of any coming struggle, can afford to +leave out of his consideration. Their public influence thus far has been +wholly for good; and they set up no propaganda that I have ever seen or +heard of, as regards either philosophy or religion. The course of +lectures I have already mentioned was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> nearest approach to any +public diffusion of their peculiar doctrines which I can remember, and +it created little or no sensation in London. Indeed, little or no +publicity was sought for it. I have read lately somewhere that a +newspaper, specially devoted to the propagation and vindication of +Positivism, is about to be, or has been started in London. I do not know +whether this is true or not; but for any such journal I should +anticipate a very small circulation, and an existence only to be +maintained by continual subsidy.</p> + +<p>So quietly have these men hitherto pursued their course, whatever it may +be, in religion or religious philosophy, that it was long indeed before +any idea got abroad that the cluster of highly-educated, ultra-radical +thinkers, who were to be found sharpshooting on the side of every great +human principle and every oppressed cause, and who seemed positively to +delight in standing up against the vulgar rush of public opinion, were +anything more than chance associates, or were bound by any tie more +close and firm than that of general political sympathy. Even now that +people are beginning to know them, and to classify them, in a vague sort +of way, as "those Positivists," they make so little parade of any +peculiarity of faith that, without precise and personal knowledge, it +would be rash to say for certain that this or that member of the group +is or is not an actual professor of the Comtist religion. I read a few +days ago, in one of the few sensible books written on America by an +Englishman, some remarks made about a peculiar view of Europe's duty to +Egypt, which was described as being held by "the Comtists." I do not +know whether the men referred to hold the view ascribed to them or not; +but, assuredly, if they do, the fact has no more direct connection with +their Comtism than Bright's free-trade views have with Bright's +Quakerism. An illustration, however, will serve well enough as an +example of the vague and careless sort of way in which doctrines and the +men who profess them get mixed up together insolubly in the public mind. +The Sultan of a generation back, who told the European diplomatist that +if he changed his religion at all he would become a Roman Catholic, +because he observed that Roman Catholic people always grew the best +wine, was not more unreasonable in his logic than many well-informed men +when they are striving to connect cause and effect in dealing with the +religion of others.</p> + +<p>I do not myself make any attempt to explain why a follower of Comte's +worship should, at least in England, be always on the side of liberty +and equality and human progress. Indeed, if inclined to discuss such a +question at all, I should rather be disposed to put it the other way and +ask how it happens that men so enlightened and liberal in education and +principles should yield a moment's obedience to the ghostly shadow of +Roman Catholic superstition, which Auguste Comte, in the decaying years +of his noble intellect, conjured up to form a new religion. But I am +quite content to let the question go unanswered—and should be willing, +indeed, to leave it unasked. I wish just now to do nothing more than to +direct the attention of American readers to the fact that a new set or +sect has arisen to influence English politics, and that their influence +and its origin are different from anything which, judging by the history +of previous generations, one might naturally have been led to expect. +"Culture" in England has, of late years, almost invariably ranked itself +on the side of privilege. The Oxford undergraduate shouts himself hoarse +in cheering for Disraeli and groaning for Bright. Oxford rejects +Gladstone the moment he becomes a Liberal. The vigorous Radicalism of +Thorold Rogers costs him his chair as professor of political economy, +although no man in England is a more perfect master of some of the more +important branches of that science. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> journals which are started for +the sake of being read by men of "culture" are sure to throw their +influence, nine times out of ten, into the cause of privilege and class +ascendency. The "Saturday Review" does this deliberately; the "Pall Mall +Gazette" does it instinctively. Suddenly there comes out from the bosom +of the universities themselves a band of keen, acute, fearless +gladiators, who throw themselves into the van of every great movement +which works for democracy, equality and freedom. They invade the press +and the platform; they write in this journal and in that; they are +always writing, always printing; they are ready for any assailant, +however big, they are willing to work with any ally, however small; they +shrink from no logical consequence or practical inconvenience of any +argument or opinion; they take the working man by the hand and talk to +him and tell him all they know—and it is something worth studying, the +fact that their scholarship and his no-scholarship so often come to the +same conclusion. They will work with anybody, because they go farther +than almost anybody; and they will allow anybody the full swing of his +own crotchet, even though he be not so willing to give them scope enough +for theirs. Thus they are commonly associated with Goldwin Smith, who +has a perfect horror of French Democracy and French Imperialism, and who +sees in Mirabeau only a "Voltairean debauchee;" with Tom Hughes, who is +a sturdy member of the Church of England, and does not, I fancy, care +three straws about the policy of ideas; with Bright, whose somewhat +Puritanical mind draws back with a kind of dread from anything that +savors of free-thinking; with Auberon Herbert, the mild young +aristocrat, converted from Toryism by pure sentimentalism and +philanthropy; with Connolly, the eloquent Irish plasterer, whose +vigorous stump oratory aroused the warm admiration of Louis Blanc. It +would be impossible that such a knot of men, so gifted and so fearless, +so independent and so unresting, so keen of pen, and so unsparing of +logic, should be without a clear and marked influence on the politics of +England. It is quite a curious phenomenon that such a group of men +should be found in close and constant co-operation with the English +artisan, his trades' union organizations, and his political cause. +Frederick Harrison represented the working men in the Parliamentary +commission lately held to inquire into the whole operation of the +trades' unions. Professor Beesly writes continually in the "Beehive," +the newspaper which is the organ of George Potter and the trades' +societies. I cannot see how the cause of Democracy can fail to derive +strength and help from this sort of alliance, and I therefore welcome +the influence upon English politics of the little group of Positivist +penmen, believing that it will have a deeper reach than most people now +imagine, and that where it operates effectively at all, it will be for good.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>ENGLISH TORYISM AND ITS LEADERS.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>Sir John Mandeville tells a story of a man who set out on a voyage of +discovery, and sailing on and on in a westerly direction, at last +touched a land where he was surprised to find a climate the same as his +own; animals like those he had left behind; men and women not only +having the same dress and complexion, but actually speaking the same +language as the people of his own country. He was so struck with this +unexpected and wonderful discovery, that he took to his ship again +without delay, and sailed back eastward to impart to his own people the +news that in a far-off, strange, western sea he had found a race +identical with themselves. The truth was that the simple voyager had +gone round the world, reached his own country without recognizing it, +and then went round the world again to get home.</p> + +<p>If the voyage were made in our time, and the explorer were a British +Tory who had left England in the opening of the year 1867, and after +unconsciously sailing round the world had fallen in with British Tories +again in the autumn of the same year, one could easily excuse his +failing to recognize his own people. For in the interval of time from +February to August, British Toryism underwent the most sudden and +complete transformation known outside the sphere of Ovid's +Metamorphoses. If any of my American readers will try to imagine a whole +political party, great in numbers, greater still in wealth, station and +influence, suddenly performing just such a turn-round as the "New York +Herald" accomplished at a certain early crisis of the late civil war, he +will have some idea of the marvellous and unprecedented feat which was +executed by the English Tories, when, renouncing all their time-honored +traditions, watchwords and principles, they changed a limited and +oligarchical franchise into household suffrage. It is singular, indeed, +that such a thing should have been done. It is more singular still that +it should have been done, as it most assuredly was done, in order that +one man should be kept in power. It is even more singular yet that it +should have been done by a party of men individually high principled, +honorable, unselfish, incapable of any deliberate meanness—and of whom +many if not most actually disliked and distrusted the man in whose +interest and by whose influence the surrender of principle was made.</p> + +<p>Perhaps when I have said a little about the leadership of the English +Tories, the phenomenon will appear less wonderful or at least more +intelligible. It was not a mere epigram which Mr. Mill uttered when he +described the Tories as the stupid party. An average Tory really is a +stupid man. He is a gentleman in all the ordinary acceptation of the +word. He has been to Oxford or Cambridge; he has received a decent +classical education; he has travelled along the beaten tracks—made what +would have been called in Mary Wortley Montague's day "the grand tour;" +he has birth and high breeding; he is a good fellow, with manly, +honorable ways, and that genial consideration for the feelings of others +which is the fundamental condition, the vital element of gentlemanly +breeding. But he is, with all this, stupid. His mind is narrow, dull, +inflexible; he cannot connect cause with effect, or see that a change is +coming, or why it should come; with him <i>post hoc</i> always means <i>propter +hoc</i>; he cannot account for Goodwin Sands otherwise than because of +Tenterden steeple. You cannot help liking him, and sometimes laughing at +him. It may seem paradoxical, but I at least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> am unable to get out of my +mind the conviction that there is a solid basis of stupidity in the mind +of the great Conservative Chief, Lord Derby. Let me explain what I mean. +The Earl of Derby is in one sense a highly accomplished man. He is a +good classical scholar, and can make a speech in Latin. He has produced +some very spirited translations from Horace; and I like his version of +the Iliad better on the whole than any other I know. He is a splendid +debater—Macaulay said very truly that with Lord Derby the science of +debate was an instinct. He will roll out resonant, rotund, verbose +sentences by the hour, by the yard; he is great at making hits and +points; he has immense power of reply and repartee—of a certain easy +and obvious kind; his voice is fine, his manner is noble, his invective +is powerful. But he has no ideas. The light he throws out is a polarized +light. He adds nothing new to the political thought of the age. I have +heard many of his finest speeches; and I can remember that they were +then very telling, in a Parliamentary point of view; but I cannot +remember anything he said. He is always interpreting into eloquent and +effective words the commonplace Philistine notions, the hereditary +conventionalities of his party—and nothing more. His mind is not open +to new impressions, and he is not able to appreciate the cause, the +purpose or the tendency of change. This I hold to be the essential +characteristic of stupidity; and this is an attribute of Lord Derby, +with all his Greek, his Latin, his impetuous rhetoric, his debating +skill and his audacious blunders, which sometimes almost deceive one +into thinking him a man of genius. Now the Earl of Derby is the greatest +Tory living; and if I have fairly described the highest type of Tory, +one can easily form some conception of what the average Tory must be. +Every one likes Lord Derby, and I fully believe it to be the fact that +those who know him best like him best. I cannot imagine Lord Derby doing +a mean thing; I cannot imagine him haughty to a poor man, or +patronizingly offensive to a timid visitor of humble birth. Look at Lord +Derby through the wrong end of the intellectual telescope and you have +the average British Tory. The Tory's knowledge is confined to classics +and field sports—when he knows anything. Even Lord Derby has been +guilty of the most flagrant mistakes in geography and modern history. +People are never tired of alluding to a famous blunder of his about +Tambov in Russia. It is also told of him that he once spoke in +Parliament of Demerara as an island; and when one of his colleagues +afterward remonstrated with him on the mistake, he asked with +ingenuousness and <i>naïvete</i> "How on earth was I to know that Demerara +was not an island?" He once, at a public meeting, spoke of himself very +frankly as having been born "in the pre-scientific period"—the period +but too recently closed, when English Universities and high class +schools troubled themselves only about Greek and Latin, and thought it +beneath their dignity to show much interest in such vulgar, practical +studies as chemistry and natural history, to say nothing of that +ungentlemanly and ungenerous study, the science of political economy. +The average British Tory is a Lord Derby without eloquence, brains, +official habits and political experience.</p> + +<p>How, then, do the Tories exist as a party? How do they continue to +believe themselves to be Tories, and speak of themselves as Tories, when +they have surrendered all, or nearly all, the great principles which are +the creed and faith, and business of Toryism? Because they have, in our +times, never had Tories for leaders. A man is not a Tory merely because +he fights the Tory battles, any more than a captain of the Irish Brigade +was a Frenchman because he fought for King Louis, or Hobart Pasha is a +Turk because he commands the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> Ottoman navy. The Tory party has always, +of late years, had to call in the aid of brilliant outsiders, political +renegades, refugees from broken-down agitations, disappointed and +cynical deserters from the Liberal camp, or mere adventurers, to fight +their battles for them. It used to be quite a curious sight, some three +or four years ago, when the Tories were, as they are now again, in +opposition, to look down from the gallery of the House of Commons and +see the men who did gladiatorial duty for the party. Along the back +benches, above and below the "gangway," were stretched out huge at +length the stalwart, handsome, manly country gentlemen, the bone and +sinew of the Tory party—the only real Tories to be found in the House. +But <i>they</i> did not bear the brunt of debate. They could cheer +splendidly, and vote in platoons; but you don't suppose they were just +the sort of men to confront Gladstone, and reply to Bright? Not they; +and they knew it. There sat Disraeli, the brilliant renegade from +Radicalism, who was ready to think for them and talk for them: and who +were his lieutenants? Cairns, the successful, adroit, eloquent lawyer, a +North of Ireland man, with about as much of the genuine British Tory in +him as there is in Disraeli himself; Seymour Fitzgerald, the clever, +pushing Irishman, also a lawyer; Whiteside, the voluble, eloquent, +rather boisterous advocate, also a lawyer, and also an Irishman; smart, +saucy Pope Hennessy, a young Irish adventurer, who had taken up with +Toryism and ultramontanism as the best way of making a career, and who +would, at the slightest hint from his chief, have risen, utterly +ignorant of the subject under debate, and challenged Gladstone's finance +or Roundel Palmer's law. These men, and such men—these and no +others—did the debating and the fighting for the great Tory party of +England at a most critical period of that party's existence. Needless to +say that the party who were compelled by their own poverty of idea, +their own stupidity, to have these men for their representatives, were +stupid enough to be led anywhere and into anything by the force of a +little dexterity and daring on the part of the one man into whose hands +they had confided their destinies.</p> + +<p>In speaking, therefore, of the leaders of Toryism, I must distinctly say +that I am not speaking of Tories. The rank and file are Tories; the +general and officers belong to another race. Mr. Disraeli is so well +known on this side of the Atlantic that I need not occupy much time or +space in describing him. He is the most brilliant specimen of the +adventurer or political soldier of fortune known to English public life +in our days. I do not suppose anybody believes Mr. Disraeli's Toryism to +be a genuine faith. This is not merely because he has changed his +opinions so completely since the time when he came out as a Radical, +under the patronage of O'Connell, and wrote to William Johnson Fox, the +Democratic orator, a famous letter, in which he, Disraeli, boasted that +"his forte was revolution." Men have changed their views as completely, +and even as suddenly, and yet obtained credit for sincerity and +integrity. It is not even because, in all of Mr. Disraeli's novels, a +prime and favorite personage is a daring political adventurer, who +carries all before him by the audacity of his genius and his +unscrupulousness; it is not even that Mr. Disraeli, in private life, +frequently speaks of success in politics as the one grand object worth +striving for or living for. "What do you and I come to this House of +Commons night after night for?" said Mr. Disraeli once to a great +Englishman, and when the latter failed to reply very quickly, he +answered his own question by saying, "You know we come here for fame." +The man to whom he spoke declared, in all truthfulness, that he did not +follow a political career for the sake of fame. But Disraeli was quite +incredulous, and probably could not, by any earnestness and apparent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +sincerity of asseveration, be got to believe that there lives a being +who could sacrifice time, and money, and intellect, and eloquence merely +for the sake of serving the public. Yet it is not alone this cynical +avowal of selfishness which makes people so profoundly sceptical as to +Mr. Disraeli's Toryism. It is the fact that he always escapes into +Liberalism whenever he has an opportunity; that he lives by hawking +Toryism, not by imbibing it himself; that he is ready to sell it, or +betray it, or drag it in the dirt whenever he can safely serve himself +by doing so; that he can become the most ardent of Freetraders, the most +uncompromising champion of a Popular Suffrage to-day, when it is for his +interest, after having fought fiercely against both yesterday, when to +fight against them was for his interest. Mr. Disraeli is decidedly a man +without scruple. Those who have read his "Vivian Grey" will remember +with what zest and unction he describes his hero bewildering a company +and dumbfoundering a scientific authority by extemporizing an imaginary +quotation from a book which he holds in his hand, and from which he +pretends to read the passage he is reciting. It is not long since Mr. +Disraeli himself publicly ventured on a bold little experiment of a +somewhat similar kind. The story is curious, and worth hearing; and it +is certain that it cannot be contradicted.</p> + +<p>Three or four years ago, a bitter factious attack was made in the House +of Commons upon Mr. Stansfeld, then holding office in the Liberal +government, because of his open and avowed friendship for, and intimacy +with Mazzini. This was at a time when the French government were +endeavoring to connect Mazzini with a plot to assassinate the Emperor +Napoleon. Mr. Disraeli was very stern in his condemnation of Mr. +Stansfeld for his friendship with one who, twenty odd years before, had +encouraged a young enthusiast (as the enthusiast said) in a design to +kill Charles Albert, King of Sardinia. Mr. Bright, in a moderate and +kindly speech, deprecated the idea of making unpardonable crimes out of +the hotheaded follies of enthusiastic men in their young days; and he +added that he believed there would be found in a certain poem, written +by Disraeli himself some twenty-five or thirty years before, and called +"A Revolutionary Epick," some lines of eloquent apostrophe in praise of +tyrannicide. Up sprang Mr. Disraeli, indignant and excited, and +vehemently denied that any such sentiment, any such line, could be found +in the poem. Mr. Bright at once accepted the assurance; said he had +never seen the poem himself, but only heard that there was such a +passage in it; apologized for the mistake—and there most people thought +the matter would have ended. In truth, the volume which Mr. Disraeli had +published a generation before, with the grandiloquent title, "A +Revolutionary Epick" (not "epic," in the common way, but dignified, +old-fashioned "epick"), was a piece of youthful, bombastic folly long +out of print, and almost wholly forgotten. But Disraeli chose to attach +great importance to the charge he supposed to be made against him; and +he declared that he felt himself bound to refute it utterly by more than +a mere denial. Accordingly, in a few weeks, there came out a new edition +of the Epick, with a dedication to Lord Stanley, and a preface +explaining that, as the first edition was out of print, and as a charge +founded on a passage in it had been made against the author, said author +felt bound to issue this new edition, that all the world might see how +unfounded was the accusation. Sure enough, the publication did seem to +dispose of the charge effectually. There was only one passage which in +any way bore on the subject of tyrannicide, and that certainly did not +express approval. What could be more satisfactory? Unluckily, however, +the gentleman on whose hint Mr. Bright spoke, happened to possess one +copy of the original edition. He compared this, to make <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>assurance +doubly sure, with the copy at the British Museum, the only other copy +accessible to him, and he found that the passage which contained the +praise of tyrannicide had been partly altered, partly suppressed, in the +new edition specially issued by Mr. Disraeli, in order to prove to the +world that he had not written a line in the poem to imply that he +sanctioned the slaying of a tyrant. Now, this was a small and trifling +affair; but just see how significant and characteristic it was! It +surely did not make much matter whether Mr. Disraeli, in his young, +nonsensical days, had or had not indulged in a burst of enthusiasm about +the slaying of tyrants, in a poem so bombastical that no rational man +could think of it with any seriousness. But Mr. Disraeli chose to regard +his reputation as seriously assailed; and what did he do to vindicate +himself? He published a new edition, which he trumpeted as not merely +authentic, but as issued for the sole purpose of proving that he had not +praised tyrannicide, and he deliberately excised the lines which +contained the passage in question! The controversy turned on some two +lines and a half; and of these Mr. Disraeli cut out all the dangerous +words and gave the garbled version to the world as his authoritative +reply to the charge made against him! This, too, after the famous +"annexation" of one of Thiers's speeches, and the delivery of it as a +panegyric on the memory of the Duke of Wellington, and after the +appropriation of a page or two out of an essay by Macaulay, and its +introduction wholesale, as original, into one of Mr. Disraeli's novels.</p> + +<p>The truth is that Disraeli is so reckless a gladiator that he will catch +up any weapon of defence, use any means of evasion and escape; will +fight anyhow, and win anyhow. In political affairs, at least, he has no +moral sense whatever; and the public seems to tolerate him on that +understanding. Certainly, escapades and practices which would ruin the +reputation of any other public man do not seem to bring Disraeli into +serious disrepute. The few high-toned men of his own party and the other +who hold all trickery in detestation, had made up their minds about him +long ago; and nothing could hurt him more in their esteem—the great +majority of politicians laugh at the whole thing, and take no thought. +The feeling seems to be, "We don't expect grave and severe virtue from +this man; we take him as he is. It would be ridiculous to apply a grave +moral test to anything he may say or do." In Lockhart's "Life of Walter +Scott," it is told that the great novelist went one morning very early +to call on a certain friend. The friend was in bed, and Scott, pushing +into the room familiarly, found that his friend was—not alone, as he +expected him to be. Scott was a highly moral man, and he would have +turned his back indignantly on any other of his friends whom he found +guilty of vice; but his biographer says that he took the discovery he +had made very lightly in this instance; and he afterward explained that +the delinquent was so ridiculously without depth of character it would +be absurd to find serious fault with anything he did. Perhaps it is in a +similar spirit that the British public regard Mr. Disraeli. He delivered +a memorable peroration one night last year in the House of Commons, the +utterance and the language of which were so peculiar that charity itself +could not affect to be ignorant of the stimulating cause which sent +forth such extraordinary eloquence. Yet hardly anybody seemed to regard +it as more than a good joke; and the newspapers which were most +indignant and most scandalized over Andrew Johnson's celebrated +inaugural address made no allusion whatever to Mr. Disraeli's +bewildering outburst. One reason, probably, is that Disraeli, in +private, is much liked. He is very kindly; he is a good friend; he is +sympathetic in his dealings with young politicians, and is always glad +to give a helping hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> to a young man of talent. Personal ambition, +which, in Mr. Bright's eyes, is something despicable, and which Mr. +Gladstone probably regards as a sin, is, in Disraeli's acceptation, +something generous and elevating, something to be fostered and +encouraged. Therefore, young men of talent admire Disraeli, and are glad +and proud to gather round him. The men who have any brains in the Tory +ranks are usually of the adventurer class; and they form a phalanx by +the aid of which Disraeli can do great things. No matter how the honest, +dull bulk of his party may distrust him, they cannot do without him and +his phalanx; and they allow him to win his battles by the force of their +votes, and they think he is winning their battles all the time.</p> + +<p>One young man of brains there was on the Tory side of the House of +Commons, who did not like Disraeli, and never professed to like him. +This was Lord Robert Cecil, who subsequently became Viscount Cranbourne, +and now sits in the House of Lords as Marquis of Salisbury. Lord Robert +Cecil was by far the ablest scion of noble Toryism in the House of +Commons. Younger than Lord Stanley he had not Lord Stanley's solidity +and caution; but he had much more of original ability; he had brilliant +ideas, great readiness in debate, and a perfect genius for saying bitter +things in the bitterest tone. The younger son of a wealthy peer, he had, +in consequence of a dispute with his father, manfully accepted honorable +poverty, and was glad, for no short time, to help out his means by the +use of his pen. He wrote in the "Quarterly Review," the time-honored +organ of Toryism; and after a while certain political articles regularly +appearing in that periodical became identified with his name. One great +object of these articles seemed to be to denounce Mr. Disraeli and warn +the Tory party against him as a traitor, certain in the end to sell and +surrender their principles. Lord Robert Cecil was an ultra-Tory—or at +least thought himself so—I feel convinced that his intellect and his +experience will set him free one day. He was a Tory on principle and +would listen to no compromise. People did not at first see how much +ability there was in him—very few indeed saw how much of genuine +manhood and nobleness there was in him. His tall, bent, awkward figure; +his prematurely bald crown, his face with an outline and a beard that +reminded one of a Jew pedler from the Minories, his ungainly gestures, +his unmelodious voice, and the extraordinary and wanton bitterness of +his tongue, set the ordinary observer strongly against him. He seemed to +delight in being gratuitously offensive. Let me give one illustration. +He assailed Mr. Gladstone's financial policy one night, and said it was +like the practice of a pettifogging attorney. This was rather coarse and +it was received with loud murmurs of disapprobation, but Lord Robert +went on unheeding. Next night, however, when the debate was resumed, he +rose and said he feared he had used language the previous evening which +was calculated to give offence, and which he could not justify. There +were murmurs of encouraging applause—nothing delights the House of +Commons like an unsolicited and manly apology. Yes, he had, on the +previous night, in a moment of excitement, compared the policy of the +Chancellor of the Exchequer to the practice of a pettifogging attorney. +That was language which on sober consideration he felt he could not +justify and ought not to have used, "and therefore," said Lord Robert, +"I beg leave to offer my sincere apology"—here Mr. Gladstone half rose +from his seat, with face of eager generosity, ready to pardon even +before fully asked—"I beg leave to tender my sincere apology—to the +attorneys!" Half the House roared with laughter, the other half with +anger—and Gladstone threw himself back in his seat with an expression +of mingled disappointment, pity and scorn, on his pallid, noble +features.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p><p>There was something so wanton, something so nearly approaching to +outrageous buffoonery, in conduct like this, on the part of Lord Robert +Cecil, that it was long before impartial observers came to recognize the +fine intellect and the manly character that were disguised under such an +unprepossessing exterior. When the Tories came into power, the great +place of Secretary for India was given to Lord Robert, who had then +become Viscount Cranbourne, and the responsibilities of office wrought +as complete a change in him as the wearing of the crown did in Harry the +Fifth. No man ever displayed in so short a time greater aptitude for the +duties of the office he had undertaken, or a loftier sense of its +tremendous moral and political responsibility, than did Lord Cranbourne +during his too brief tenure of the Indian Secretaryship. The cynic had +become a statesman, the intellectual gladiator an earnest champion of +exalted political principle. The license of tongue, in which Lord +Cranbourne had revelled while yet a free lance, he absolutely renounced +when he became a responsible minister. He extorted the respect and +admiration of Gladstone and Bright, and indeed of every one who took the +slightest interest in the condition and the future of India. The manner +of his leaving office became him, too, almost as much as his occupation +of it. He was sincerely opposed to a sudden lowering of the franchise, +and he insisted that his party ought to think nothing of power when +compared with principle. He found that Disraeli was determined to +surrender anything rather than power, and he withdrew from the +uncongenial companionship. He resigned office, and dropped into the +ranks once more, never hesitating to express his conviction of the utter +insincerity of the Conservative leader. He would have been a sharp and +stinging thorn in Disraeli's side, only that death intervened and took +away, not him, but his father. The death of his elder brother had made +Lord Robert Cecil, Viscount Cranbourne; the death of his father now +converted Viscount Cranbourne into the Marquis of Salisbury, and +condemned him to the languid, inert, lifeless atmosphere of the House of +Peers. The sincere pity of all who admired him followed the brilliant +Salisbury in his melancholy descent. I should despair of conveying to an +American reader unacquainted with English politics any adequate idea of +the profundity and hopelessness of the fall which precipitates a young, +ardent and gifted politician from the brilliant battle-ground of the +House of Commons into the lifeless, Lethean pool of the House of Lords.</p> + +<p>Still, the Tory party may be led, as it has been, by a chief in the +House of Lords, although its great and splendid fights must be fought in +the Commons. If then, in our time, Toryism ever should again become a +principle which a man of genius and high character could fairly fight +for, it has a leader ready to its hand in the Marquis of Salisbury. For +the present it has Lord Cairns. The Earl of Derby's health no longer +allows him to undertake the serious and laborious duties of party +leadership. When he withdrew from the front, an attempt was made to put +up with Lord Malmesbury. But Malmesbury is stupid and muddle-headed to a +degree which even Tory peers cannot endure in a Tory peer; and it has +somehow been "borne in upon him" that he had better leave the place to +some one really qualified to fill it. Now, the Tories in the House of +Commons, the country gentlemen of England, the men whose ancestors came +over, perhaps, with the Conqueror, the men who imbibed family Toryism +from the breasts of their mothers, are driven, when they want a capable +leader, to follow a renegade Radical, the son of a middle-class Jew. In +like manner the Tory Lords, also sadly needing an efficient leader, are +compelled to take up with a lawyer from Belfast, the son of middle-class +parents in the North of Ireland,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> who has fought his way by sheer talent +and energy into the front rank of the bar, into the front bench of the +Parliamentary Opposition, and at last into a peerage. Lord Cairns is a +very capable man; his sudden rise into high place and influence proves +the fact of itself, for he was not a young man when he entered +Parliament, obscure and unknown, and he is now only in the prime of +life, while he leads the Opposition in the House of Lords. He is one of +the most fluent and effective debaters in either House; he has great +command of telling argument; his training at the bar gives him the +faculty of making the very most, and at the shortest notice, of all the +knowledge and all the facts he can bring to bear on any question. He has +shown more than once that he is capable of pouring forth a powerful, +almost indeed, a passionate invective. An orator in the highest sense he +certainly is not. No gleam of the poetic softens or brightens his lithe +and nervous logic; no deep feeling animates, inspires and sanctifies it. +He has made no speeches which anybody hereafter will care to read. He +has made, he will make, no mark upon his age. When he dies, he wholly +dies. But living, he is a skilful and a capable man—far better +qualified to be a party leader than an Erskine or a Grattan would be. A +North of Ireland Presbyterian, he has made his way to a peerage, and now +to be the leader of peers, with less of native genius than that which +conducted Wolfe Tone, another North of Ireland Presbyterian, to +rebellion and failure and a bloody death. He has, above all things, +skill and discretion; and he can lead the Tory party well, so long as no +great cause has to be vindicated, no splendid phantom of a principle +maintained. His name and his antecedents are useful to us now, inasmuch +as they serve still farther to illustrate the fact that Toryism is not +led by Tories.</p> + +<p>In speaking of Tory leaders one ought not, of course, to leave out the +name of Lord Stanley. But Lord Stanley is only a Tory <i>ex officio</i>, and +by virtue of his position as the eldest son and heir of the great Earl +of Derby. I have never heard of Lord Stanley's uttering a Tory +sentiment, even when he had to play a Tory part. His speeches are all +the speeches of a steady, respectable, thoughtful sort of Liberal, +inclined to study carefully both or all sides of a question, and opposed +to extreme opinions either way. He will never, it is quite clear, be +guilty of the audacity of openly breaking with his party while his +father lives; and perhaps when he becomes Earl of Derby, there may be +nothing distinctively Tory worth fighting about. Lord Stanley is indeed +totally devoid of that generous ardor which makes men open converts. He +is no longer young, and he will probably remain all his life where he +stands at present. But a genuine Tory he is not. I confess that at one +time I looked to him with great hope, as a man likely to develop into +statesmanship of the highest order, and to announce himself as a votary +of political and intellectual progress. Some years ago I wrote an +article in the "Westminster Review," the object of which was to point to +Lord Stanley as the future colleague of Gladstone in a great and a +really liberal government. I have changed my opinion since. Lord Stanley +wants, not the brains, but the heart for such a place. He has not the +spirit to step out of his hereditary way. He is one of the sort of men +of whom Goethe used to say, "If only they would commit an extravagance +even, I should have some hope for them." He seems to care for little +beyond accuracy of judgment and propriety; and I do not suppose accuracy +of judgment and propriety ever made a great statesman. There is nothing +venturesome about Lord Stanley—therefore there is nothing great. A man +to be great must brave being ridiculous; and I do not remember that Lord +Stanley has ever run the risk of being ridiculous. One of the finest and +most celebrated passages of modern <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>Parliamentary eloquence is that in +which George Canning, vindicating his recognition of the South American +republics, proclaimed that he had called in the New World to redress the +balance of the Old. I once heard a member of the House of Lords, now +dead, who sat in the House of Commons near Canning, when Canning spoke +that famous speech, say that when the orator came to the great climax +the House was actually breaking into a titter, so absurd then did any +grandiloquence about South American republics seem; and it was only the +earnestness and resolve of his manner that commanded a respectful +attention, and thus compelled the House to recognize the genuine +grandeur of the idea, and to break into a tempest of applause. I have +heard something the same told of one of the grandest passages in any of +Bright's speeches—that in one of his orations against the Crimean War, +in which he declared that he already heard, during the debate, the +beating of the wings of the Angel of Death. The House was under the +influence of a war fever, and disposed to scoff at all appeals to +prudence or to pity; and it was just on the verge of a laugh at the +orator's majestic apostrophe, when his earnestness conquered, the +grandeur of the moment was recognized, and a peal of irrepressible +applause proclaimed the triumph of his eloquence. Now, these are the +risks that a man like Lord Stanley never will run. Only genius makes +such ventures. He is always safe: great statesmen must sometimes brave +terrible hazards. In England he has received immense praise for the part +he took in averting a war between France and Prussia on the Luxembourg +question. Now, it is quite true that he did much; that, in fact, he lent +all the influence of England to the mode of arrangement by which both +the contending Powers were enabled to back decently out of a dangerous +and painful position. But the idea of such a mode of settlement did not +come from him. It was originated by Baron von Beust, the Austrian Prime +Minister, and it was quietly urged a good deal before Lord Stanley saw +it. Von Beust, who has a keener wit than Stanley, knew that if the +proposition came directly from him it would, <i>ipso facto</i>, be odious to +Prussia; and he was, therefore, rejoiced when Lord Stanley took it up +and adopted it as his own and England's. Von Beust was well content, and +so was Lord Stanley—just as Cuddie Headrigg, in "Old Mortality," is +content that John Gudyill shall have the responsibility and the honor of +the shot which the latter never fired. The one original thing which Lord +Stanley did during the controversy was to write a dispatch to Prussia +recommending her to come to terms, because of the superior navy of +France, and the certainty, in the event of war, that France would have +the best of it at sea.</p> + +<p>Now, this was a capital argument to influence a man like Lord Stanley +himself—calm, cold-blooded, utterly rational. But human ingenuity could +hardly have devised an appeal less likely to influence Prussia in the +way of peace. Prussia, flushed with her splendid victories over Austria, +and deeply offended by the arrogant and dictatorial conduct of France, +was much more likely to be stung by such an argument, if it affected her +at all, into flinging down the gauntlet at once, and inviting France to +come if she dared. The use of such a mode of persuasion is, indeed, an +adequate illustration of the whole character of Lord Stanley. Cool, +prudent, and rational, he is capable enough of weighing things fairly +when they are presented to him; but he can neither create an opportunity +nor run a risk. Therefore, he remains officially a Tory, mentally a +Liberal, politically neither the one nor the other. His bones are +marrowless, his blood is cold. He can forfeit his own career, and hazard +his reputation for his party; but that is all. He cannot give his mind +to it, and he cannot redeem himself from his futile bondage to it. He is +a respectable speaker, despite his defective<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> articulation and his +lifeless manner; he will be a respectable politician, despite his want +of faith in, or zeal for the cause he tries to follow. That is his +career; that is the doom to which he voluntarily condemns himself.</p> + +<p>I do not know that there are any other Tory chiefs worth talking about. +Sir Stafford Northcote looks like a Bonn or Heidelberg professor, and +has a fair average intellect, fit for commonplace finance and elementary +politics; there is not a ghost of an idea in him. Walpole is a pompous, +well-meaning, gentlemanlike imbecile. Gathorne Hardy is fluent, as the +sand in an hourglass is fluent—he can pour out words and serve to mark +the passing of time. Sir John Pakington is an educated Dogberry, a +respectable Justice Shallow. Not upon men like these do the political +fortunes of the Tory party of our day depend, although Walpole and +Pakington fairly represent the sincerity, the manhood, and the +respectability of Toryism.</p> + +<p>I come back to the point from which I started—that Toryism, in itself, +is only another word for stupidity, and that any triumphs the party have +won or may win are secured by the surrender of the principle they +profess to be fighting for, and by the skilful management of men whose +conscience permits them to adapt the means unscrupulously to the end. +Were the Tory party led by genuine Tories it would have been extinct +long ago. It lives and looks upon the earth, it has its triumphs and its +gains, its present and its future, only because by very virtue of its +own dulness it has allowed itself to be led by men whom it ought to +detest, whom it sometimes does distrust, but who have the wit to sell +principle in the dearest market, and buy reputation in the cheapest.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>"GEORGE ELIOT" AND GEORGE LEWES.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>Literary reputations are, in one respect, like wines—some are greatly +improved by a long voyage, while others lose all zest and strength in +the process of crossing the ocean. There ought to be hardly any +difference, one would think, between the literary taste of the public of +London and that of the public of New York; and yet it is certain that an +author or a book may be positively celebrated in the one city and only +barely known and coldly recognized in the other. Every one, of course, +has noticed the fact that certain English authors are better known and +appreciated in New York than in London; certain American writers more +talked of in London than in New York. The general public of England do +not seem to me to appreciate the true position of Whittier and Lowell +among American poets. The average Englishman knows hardly anything of +any American poet but Longfellow, who receives, I venture to think, a +far more wholesale and enthusiastic admiration in England than in his +own country. Robert Buchanan, the Scottish poet, lately, I have read, +described "Evangeline" as a far finer poem than Goethe's "Hermann und +Dorothea," a judgment which I presume and hope it would be impossible to +get any American scholar and critic to indorse or even to consider +seriously. On the other hand, it is well known that both the +Brownings—certainly Mrs. Browning—found quicker and more cordial +appreciation in America than in England. Lately, we in London have taken +to discussing and debating over Walt Whitman with a warmth and interest +which people in New York do not seem to manifest in regard to the author +of "Leaves of Grass." Charles Dickens appears to me to have more devoted +admirers among the best class of readers here than he has in his own +country. Of course, it would be hardly possible for any man to be more +popular and more successful than Dickens is in England; but New York +journals quote him and draw illustrations from him much more frequently +than London papers do—I do not think any day has passed since first I +came to this country, six or seven months ago, that I have not seen at +least two or three allusions to Dickens in the leading articles of the +daily papers—and I question whether, among critics standing as high in +London as George William Curtis does here, Dickens could find the +enthusiastic, the almost lyrical devotion of Curtis's admiration. +Charles Reade, again, is more generally and warmly admired here than in +England. Am I wrong in supposing that the reverse is the case with +regard to the authoress of "Romola" and "The Mill on the Floss?" All +American critics and all American readers of taste, have doubtless +testified practically their recognition of the genius of this +extraordinary woman; but there seems to me to be relatively less +admiration for her in New York than in London. The general verdict of +English criticism would, I feel no doubt, place George Eliot on a higher +pedestal than Charles Dickens. We regard her as belonging to a higher +school of art, as more nearly affined to the great immortal few whose +genius and fame transcend the fashion of the age and defy the caprice of +public taste. So far as I have been able to observe, I do not think this +is the opinion of American criticism.</p> + +<p>In any case, the mere question will excuse my writing a few pages about +a woman whom I regard as the greatest living novelist of England; as, on +the whole, the greatest woman now engaged in European literature. Only +George Sand and Harriet Martineau could fairly be compared with her; +and, while Miss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> Martineau, of course, is far inferior in all the higher +gifts of imagination and the higher faculties of art, George Sand, with +all her passion, her rich fancy, and daring, subtle analysis of certain +natures, has never exhibited the serene, symmetrical power displayed in +"Romola" and in "Silas Marner." Mrs. Lewes (it would be affectation to +try to assume that there is still any mystery about the identity of +"George Eliot") is what George Sand is not—a great writer, merely as a +writer. Few, indeed, are the beings who have ever combined so many high +qualities in one person as Mrs. Lewes does. Her literary career began as +a translator and an essayist. Her tastes seemed then to lead her wholly +into the somewhat barren fields where German metaphysics endeavor to +come to the relief or the confusion of German theology. She became a +contributor to the "Westminster Review;" then she became its assistant +editor, and worked assiduously for it under the direction of Dr. John +Chapman, the editor, with whose family she lived for a time, and in +whose house she first met George Henry Lewes. She is an accomplished +linguist, a brilliant talker, a musician of extraordinary skill. She has +a musical sense so delicate and exquisite that there are tender, simple, +true ballad melodies which fill her with a pathetic pain almost too keen +to bear; and yet she has the firm, strong command of tone and touch, +without which a really scientific musician cannot be made. I do not +think this exceeding sensibility of nature is often to be found in +combination with a genuine mastery of the practical science of music. +But Mrs. Lewes has mastered many sciences as well as literatures. +Probably no other novel writer, since novel writing became a business, +ever possessed one tithe of her scientific knowledge. Indeed, hardly +anything is rarer than the union of the scientific and the literary or +artistic temperaments. So rare is it, that the exceptional, the almost +solitary instance of Goethe comes up at once, distinct and striking, to +the mind. English novelists are even less likely to have anything of a +scientific taste than French or German. Dickens knows nothing of +science, and has, indeed, as little knowledge of any kind, save that +which is derived from observation, as any respectable Englishman could +well have. Thackeray was a man of varied reading, versed in the lighter +literature of several languages, and strongly imbued with artistic +tastes; but he had no care for science, and knew nothing of it but just +what every one has to learn at school. Lord Lytton's science is a mere +sham. Charlotte Bronté was all genius and ignorance. Mrs. Lewes is all +genius and culture. Had she never written a page of fiction, nay, had +she never written a line of poetry or prose, she must have been regarded +with wonder and admiration by all who knew her as a woman of vast and +varied knowledge; a woman who could think deeply and talk brilliantly, +who could play high and severe classical music like a professional +performer, and could bring forth the most delicate and tender aroma of +nature and poetry lying deep in the heart of some simple, old-fashioned +Scotch or English ballad. Nature, indeed, seemed to have given to this +extraordinary woman all the gifts a woman could ask or have—save one. +It will not, I hope, be considered a piece of gossipping personality if +I allude to a fact which must, some day or other, be part of literary +history. Mrs. Lewes is not beautiful. In her appearance there is nothing +whatever to attract admiration. Hers is not even a face like that of +Charlotte Cushman, which, at least, must make a deep impression, and +seize at once the attention of the gazer. Nor does it seem, like that of +Madame de Staël or Elizabeth Barrett Browning, informed and illuminated +by the light of genius. Mrs. Lewes is what we in England call decidedly +plain—what people in New York call homely; and what persons who did not +care to soften the force of an unpleasant truth would describe probably +by a still harder and more emphatic adjective.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p><p>This woman, thus rarely gifted with poetry and music and +imagination—thus disciplined in man's highest studies and accustomed to +the most laborious of man's literary drudgery—does not seem to have +found out, until she had passed what is conventionally regarded as the +age of romance, that she had in her, transcendent above all other gifts, +the faculty of the novelist. When an author who is not very young makes +a great hit at last, we soon begin to learn that he had already made +many attempts in the same direction, and his publishers find an eager +demand for the stories and sketches which, when they first appeared, +utterly failed to attract attention. Thackeray's early efforts, +Trollope's, Charles Reade's, Nathaniel Hawthorne's, all these have been +lighted into success by the blaze of the later triumph. But it does not +seem that Miss Marion Evans, as she then was, ever published anything in +the way of fiction previous to the series of sketches which appeared in +"Blackwood's Magazine," and were called "Scenes of Clerical Life." These +sketches attracted considerable attention, and were much admired; but I +do not think many people saw in them the capacity which produced "Adam +Bede" and "Romola." With the publication of "Adam Bede" came a complete +triumph. The author was elevated at once and by acclamation to the +highest rank among living novelists. I think it was in the very first +number of the "Cornhill Magazine" that Thackeray, in a gossiping +paragraph about novelists of the day, whom he mentioned alphabetically +and by their initials, spoke of "E" as a "star of the first magnitude +just risen on the horizon." Thackeray, it will be remembered, was one of +the first, if not, indeed, the very first, to recognize the genius +manifested in "Jane Eyre." The publishers sent him some of the proof +sheets for his advice, and Thackeray saw in them the work of a great +novelist.</p> + +<p>The place which Mrs. Lewes thus so suddenly won, she has, of course, +always maintained. Her position of absolute supremacy over all other +women writers in England is something peculiar and curious. She is +first—and there is no second. No living authoress in Britain is ever +now compared with her. I read, not long since, in a New York paper, a +sentence which spoke of George Eliot and Miss Mulock as being the +greatest English authoresses in the field of fiction. It seemed very odd +and funny to me. Certainly, an English critic would never have thought +of bracketing together such a pair. Miss Mulock is a graceful, +true-hearted, good writer; but Miss Mulock and George Eliot! Robert +Lytton and Robert Browning! "A. K. H. B." (I think these are the +initials) and John Stuart Mill! Mark Lemon's novels and Charles +Dickens's! Mrs. Lewes has made people read novels who perhaps never read +fiction from any other pen. She has made the novel the companion and +friend and study of scholars and thinkers and statesmen. Her books are +discussed by the gravest critics as productions of the highest school of +art. Men and journals which have always regarded, or affected to regard, +Thackeray as a mere cynic, and Dickens as little better than a +professional buffoon, have discussed "The Mill on the Floss" and +"Romola" as if these novels were already classic. Of course it would be +a very doubtful kind of merit which commanded the admiration of literary +prigs or pedants; but that is not the merit of George Eliot. Her books +find their way to all hearts and intelligences, but it is their +peculiarity that they compel, they extort the admiration of men who +would disparage all novels, if they could, as frivolous and worthless, +but who are forced even by their own canons and principles to recognize +the deep clear thought, the noble culture, the penetrating, analytical +power, which are evident in almost every chapter of these stories. Most +of our novelists write in a slipslop, careless style. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>Dickens is +worthless, if regarded merely as a prose writer; Trollope hardly cares +about grammar; Charles Reade, with all his masculine force and +clearness, is terribly irregular and rugged. The woman writers have +seldom any style at all. George Eliot's prose might be the study of a +scholar anxious to acquire and appreciate a noble English style. It is +as luminous as the language of Mill; far more truly picturesque than +that of Ruskin; capable of forcible, memorable expression as the robust +Saxon of Bright. I am not going into a criticism of George Eliot, who +has been, no doubt, fully criticised in America already. I am merely +engaged in pointing out the special reasons why she has won in England a +certain kind of admiration which, it seems to me, hardly any novelist +ever has had before. I think she has infused into the novel some +elements it never had before, and so thoroughly infused them that they +blend with all the other materials, and do not form anywhere a solid +lump or mass distinguishable from the rest. There are philosophical +novels—"Wilhelm Meister," for example—which are weighed down and +loaded with the philosophy, and which the world admires in spite of the +philosophy. There are political novels—Disraeli's, for instance—which +are only intelligible to those who make politics and political +personalities a study, and which viewed merely as stories would not be +worth speaking about. There are novels with a great direct purpose in +them, such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin," or "Bleak House," or Charles Reade's +"Hard Cash;" but these, after all, are only magnificent pamphlets, +splendidly illustrated diatribes. The deep philosophic thought of George +Eliot's novels suffuses and illumines them everywhere. You can point to +no sermon here, no lecture there, no solid mass interposing between this +incident and that, no ponderous moral hung around the neck of this or +that personage. Only you feel that you are under the control of one who +is not merely a great story-teller but who is also a deep thinker.</p> + +<p>It is not, perhaps, unnecessary to say to American readers that George +Eliot is the only novelist who can paint such English people as the +Poysers and the Tullivers just as they really are. She looks into the +very souls of these people. She tracks out their slow peculiar mental +processes; she reproduces them fresh and firm from very life. Mere +realism, mere photographing, even from the life, is not in art a very +great triumph. But George Eliot can make her dullest people interesting +and dramatically effective. She can paint two dull people with quite +different ways of dulness—say a dull man and a dull woman, for +example—and you are astonished to find how utterly distinct the two +kinds of stupidity are—and how intensely amusing both can be made. Look +at the two pedantic, pompous, dull advocates in the later part of Robert +Browning's "The Ring and the Book." How distinct they are; how +different, how unlike, and how true, are the two portraits. But then it +must be owned that the poet is himself terribly tedious just there. His +pedants are quite as tiresome as they would be in real life, if each +successively held you by the button. George Eliot never is guilty of +this great artistic fault. You never want to be rid of Mrs. Poyser or +Aunt Glegg, or the prattling Florentines in "Romola." It is almost +superfluous to say that there never was or could be a Mark Tapley, or a +Sam Weller. We put up with these impossibilities and delight in them, +because they are so amusing and so full of fantastic humor. But Mrs. +Poyser lives, and I have met Aunt Glegg often; and poor Mrs. Tulliver's +cares and hopes, and little fears, and pitiful reasonings, are animating +scores of Mrs. Tullivers all over England to-day. I would propose a safe +and easy test to any American or other "foreigner" (I am supposing +myself now again in England), who is curious to know how much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> he +understands of the English character. Let him read any of George Eliot's +novels—even "Felix Holt," which is so decidedly inferior to the +rest—and if he fails to follow, with thorough appreciation, the talk +and the ways of the Poysers and such like personages, he may be assured +he does not understand one great phase of English life.</p> + +<p>Are these novels popular in England? Educated public opinion, I repeat, +ranks them higher than the novels of any other living author. But they +are not popular—that is, as Wilkie Collins or Miss Braddon is popular; +and I do not mean to say anything slighting of either Wilkie Collins or +Miss Braddon, both of whom I think possess very great talents, and have +been treated with quite too much of the <i>de haut en bas</i> mood of the +great critics. George Eliot's novels certainly are not run after and +devoured by the average circulating library readers, as "The Woman in +White," and "Lady Audley's Secret" were. She has, of course, nothing +like the number of readers who follow Charles Dickens; nor even, I +should say, nearly as many as Anthony Trollope. When "Romola," which the +"Saturday Review" justly pronounced to be, if not the greatest, +certainly the noblest romance of modern days, was being published as a +serial in the "Cornhill Magazine," it was comparatively a failure, in +the circulating library sense; and even when it appeared in its complete +form, and the public could better appreciate its artistic perfection, it +was anything but a splendid success, as regarded from the publisher's +point of view. Perhaps this may be partly accounted for by the nature of +the subject, the scene and the time; but even the warmest admirer of +George Eliot may freely admit that "Romola" lacks a little of that +passionate heat which is needed to make a writer of fiction thoroughly +popular. When a statue of pure and perfect marble attracts as great a +crowd of gazers as a glowing picture, then a novel like "Romola" will +have as many admirers as a novel like "Consuelo" or "Villette."</p> + +<p>I am not one of the admirers of George Eliot who regret that she +ventured on the production of a long poem. I think "The Spanish Gypsy" a +true and a fine poem, although I do not place it so high in artistic +rank as the best of the author's prose writings. But I believe it to be +the greatest story in verse ever produced by an Englishwoman. This is +not, perhaps, very high praise, for Englishwomen have seldom done much +in the higher fields of poetry; but we have "Aurora Leigh;" and I think +"The Spanish Gypsy," on the whole, a finer piece of work. Most of our +English critics fell to discussing the question whether "The Spanish +Gypsy" was to be regarded as poetry at all, or only as a story put into +verse; and in this futile and vexatious controversy the artistic value +of the work itself almost escaped analysis. I own that I think criticism +shows to little advantage when it occupies itself in considering whether +a work of art is to be called by this name or that; and I am rather +impatient of the critic who comes with his canons of art, his +Thirty-Nine articles of literary dogma, and judges a book, not by what +it is in itself, but by the answer it gives to his self-invented +catechism. I do not believe that the art of man ever can invent—I know +it never has invented—any set of rules or formulas by which you can +decide, off-hand and with certainty, that a great story in verse, which +you admit to have power and beauty and pathos and melody, does not +belong to true poetry. One great school of critics discovered, by the +application of such high rules and canons that Shakespeare, though a +great genius was not a great poet; a later school made a similar +discovery with regard to Schiller; a certain body of critics now say the +same of Byron. I don't think it matters much what you call the work. +"The Spanish Gypsy" has imagination and beauty; it has exquisite +pictures and lofty thoughts; it has melody and music. Admitting this +much, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> most depreciating critics did admit it, I think it hardly +worth considering what name we are to apply to the book. Such, however, +was the sort of controversy in which all deep and true consideration of +the artistic value of "The Spanish Gypsy" evaporated. I am not sorry +Mrs. Lewes published the poem; but I am sorry she put her literary name +to it in the first instance. Had it appeared anonymously it would have +astonished and delighted the world. But people compared "The Spaniel +Gypsy" with the author's prose works, and were disappointed because the +woman who surpassed Dickens in fiction did not likewise surpass Tennyson +and Browning in poetry. Thus, and in no other sense, was "The Spanish +Gypsy" a failure. No woman had written anything of the same kind to +surpass it; but some men, even of our own day, had—and no man of our +day has written novels which excel those of George Eliot. Mrs. Lewes +will probably not write any more long poems; but I think English poetry +has gained something by her one venture.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lewes's mind is of a class which, however varied its power, is not +fairly described by the word "versatile." Versatility is a smaller kind +of faculty, a dexterity of intellect and capacity—the property of a +mind of the second order. If we want a perfect type and pattern of +versatility, we may find it very close to the authoress of "Silas +Marner," in the person of her husband, George Henry Lewes. What man of +our day has done so many things and done them so well? He is the +biographer of Goethe and of Robespierre; he has compiled the "History of +Philosophy," in which he has something really his own to say of every +great philosopher, from Thales to Schelling; he has translated Spinoza; +he has published various scientific works; he has written at least two +novels; he has made one of the most successful dramatic adaptations +known to our stage; he is an accomplished theatrical critic; he was at +one time so successful as an amateur actor that he seriously +contemplated taking to the stage as a profession, in the full +conviction, which he did not hesitate frankly to avow, that he was +destined to be the successor to Macready. He did actually join a company +at one of the Manchester theatres, and perform there for some time under +a feigned name; but the amount of encouragement he received from the +public did not stimulate him to continue on the boards, although I +believe his confidence in his own capacity to succeed Macready remained +unshaken. Mr. Lewes was always remarkable for a frank and fearless +self-conceit, which, by its very sincerity and audacity, almost disarmed +criticism. Indeed, I do not suppose any man less gifted with +self-confidence would have even attempted to do half the things which +George Henry Lewes has done well. Margaret Fuller was very unfavorably +impressed by Lewes when she met him at Thomas Carlyle's house, and she +wrote of him contemptuously and angrily. But these were the days of +Lewes's Bohemianism; days of an audacity and a self-conceit unsubdued as +yet by experience and the world, and some saddening and some refining +influences; and Margaret Fuller failed to appreciate the amount of +intellect and manliness that was in him. Charlotte Bronté, on the other +hand, was quite enthusiastic about Lewes, and wrote to him and of him +with an almost amusing veneration. Indeed, he is a man of ability and +versatility that may fairly be called extraordinary. His merit is not +that he has written books on a great variety of subjects. London has +many hack writers who could go to work at any publisher's order and +produce successively an epic poem, a novel, a treatise on the philosophy +of the conditioned, a handbook of astronomy, a farce, a life of Julius +Cæsar, a history of African explorations, and a volume of sermons. But +none of these productions would have one gleam of genuine native +vitality about it. The moment it had served its purpose in the literary +market it would go, dead, down to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> dead. Lewes's works are of quite +a different style. They have positive merit and value of their own, and +they live. It was a characteristically audacious thing to attempt to +cram the history of philosophy into a couple of medium-sized volumes, +polishing off each philosopher in a few pages—draining him, plucking +out the heart of his mystery and his system, and stowing him away in the +glass jar designed to exhibit him to an edified class of students. But +it must be avowed that Lewes's has been a marvellously clever and +successful attempt. He certainly crumples up the whole science of +metaphysics, sweeps away transcendental philosophy, and demolishes <i>a +priori</i> reasoning, in a manner which strongly reminds one of Arthur +Pendennis upsetting, in a dashing criticism and on the faith of an +hour's reading in an encyclopædia, some great scientific theory of which +he had never heard previously, and the development of which had been the +life's labor of a sage. But Lewes does, somehow or other, very often +come to a right conclusion, and measure great theories and men with +accurate estimate; and the work is immensely interesting, and it is not +easy to see how anybody could have done it better. His "Life of Goethe" +is undoubtedly a very successful, symmetrical, and comprehensive piece +of biography. Some of his scientific studies have a genuine value, and +they are all fascinating. One of his pieces—adapted from the French, of +course, as most so-called English pieces are—will always be played +while Charles Mathews lives, or while there are actors who can play in +Charles Mathews's style. I wonder whether any of the readers of <span class="smcap">The +Galaxy</span> read, or having read remember, Lewes's novels? I only recollect +two of them, and I do not know whether he wrote any others. One was +called "Ranthorpe," and it had, in its day, quite a sort of success. How +long ago was it published? Fully twenty years, I should think: I +remember quite well being thrown into youthful raptures with it at the +time. But I do not go upon my boyish admiration for it. I came across it +somewhere much more recently, and read it through. There was a good deal +of inflation, and audacity, and nonsense in it; but at the same time it +showed more of brains and artistic impulse and constructive power than +nine out of every ten novels published in England to-day. It was all +about a young poet, who came to London and made, for a moment, a great +success, and was dazzled by it, and became intoxicated with love for a +lustrous beauty of high rank, who only played with him; and how he +forgot, for a time, the modest, delightful, simple girl to whom he was +pledged at home; and how he did not get on, and the public and the +<i>salons</i> grew tired of him; and he became miserable, and was going to +drown himself (I think), but was prevented by some wise and timely +person; and how, of course, it all came right in the end, and he was +redeemed. This outline, probably, will not suggest much of originality +to any reader; but there was a great deal of freshness and thought in +the book, some of the incidents and one or two of the characters had a +flavor of originality about them; and the style was, for the most part, +animated and attractive. It was the work of a man of brains, and +culture, and taste; and one felt this all through, and was not ashamed +of the time spent in reading it. The other of Lewes's novels was called +"Rose, Blanche, and Violet." It charmed me a good deal when I read it; +but I have not read it lately, and so I forbear giving any decided +opinion as to its merits. It is, of course, quite settled now that +George Lewes had not in him the materials to make a successful novelist; +but men of far less talent have produced far worse novels than his, and +been, in their way, successful.</p> + +<p>Lewes first became prominent in literature as a contributor to the +"Leader," a very remarkable weekly organ of advanced opinions on all +questions, which was started in London seventeen or eighteen years ago, +and died, after much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> flickering and lingering, in 1861 or thereabouts. +The "Leader," in its early and best days, fairly sparkled all over with +talent, originality and audacity. It was to extreme philosophical +radicalism, (with a dash of something like atheism) what the "Saturday +Review" now is to cultured swelldom and Belgravian Sadduceeism. Miss +Martineau wrote for it. Lewes and Thornton Hunt (they were then +intimates, unfortunately for Lewes) were among its principal +contributors; Edward Whitty flung over its pages the brilliant eccentric +light which was destined to immature and melancholy extinction. Lewes's +theatrical criticisms, which he used to sign "Vivian," were inimitable +in their vivacity, their wit, and their keenness, even when their +soundness of judgment was most open to question. Poor Charles Kean was +an especial object of Lewes's detestation, and was accordingly pelted +and peppered with torturingly clever and piquant pasquinades in the form +of criticism. Lewes has got wonderfully sober and grave in style since +those wild days, and his occasional contributions in the shape of +dramatic criticism to the "Pall Mall Gazette" are doubtless more +generally accurate, are certainly much more thoughtful, but are far less +amusing than the admirable fooling of days gone by. It was in the +"Leader," I think, that Lewes carried on his famous controversy with +Charles Dickens on the possibility of such spontaneous combustion as +that of the old brute in "Bleak House," and it was in the "Leader" that +he made an equally famous exposure of a sham spiritualist medium, about +whom London was then much agitated. The "Leader," probably, never paid; +it was far too iconoclastic and eccentric to be a commercial success, +but it made quite a mark and will always be a memory. It did not succeed +in its object; but, like the arrow of the hero in Virgil, it left a long +line of sparkles and light behind it. Lewes has abandoned Bohemia long +since, and Edward Whitty is dead, and Thornton Hunt has come to +nothing—and there is another "Leader" now in London which bears about +as much resemblance to the original and real "Leader" as Richard +Cromwell did to Oliver, or Charles Kean to Edmund.</p> + +<p>Bohemianism, and novel-writing, and amateur acting, and persiflage, and +epigram, are all gone by now with Lewes. He has settled into a grave and +steady writer, for the most part of late confining himself to scientific +subjects. A few years ago he started the "Fortnightly Review," in the +hope of establishing in England a counterpart of the "Revue des Deux +Mondes." The first number was enriched by one of the most thoughtful, +subtle, beautiful essays lately contributed to literature; and it bore +the signature of George Eliot. Lewes himself wrote a series of essays on +"The Principles of Success in Literature," very good, very sound, but +not very lively reading. A great English novelist was pleased graciously +to say, <i>apropos</i> of these essays, "Success in literature! What does +Lewes know about success in literature?" and the small devotees of the +great successful novelist laughed and repeated the joke. It is certain +that the "Fortnightly Review" was not a success under the editorship of +George Henry Lewes; and people said, I do not know how truly, that a +good deal of the nobly-earned money paid for "Silas Marner" and the +"Mill on the Floss" disappeared in the attempt to erect a British "Revue +des Deux Mondes." The "Fortnightly" lives still, and is called +"Fortnightly" still, although it now only comes out once a month, but +Lewes has long ceased to edit it. I think the present editor, John +Morley, a young man of great ability and promise, is better suited for +the work than Lewes was—indeed I doubt whether Lewes, with all his +varied gifts and acquirements, possesses the peculiar qualities which +make a man a genuine editor. But, the difference between wild Hal, the +Prince of Gadshill, and grave, wise Henry the Fifth, could hardly be +greater than that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>between the Vivian of the "Leader" and the late +editor of the solemn, ponderous "Fortnightly Review."</p> + +<p>Lewes wrote at one time a great deal for the "Westminster Review." It +was during his connection with it that he became acquainted, at Dr. +Chapman's house, with Marion Evans. There was a great similarity between +their tastes. Both loved the study of languages, and of philosophical +thought, and of literature and science generally. Both were splendid in +conversation, brilliant in epigram; both loved music and were intensely +susceptible to its influence. The mind of the woman was, I need hardly +say, far the stronger, wider, deeper of the two; but the affinity was +clear and close. A great misfortune had fallen on Lewes; and he was +probably in that condition of mind which makes a man not unlikely to +lose his faith in everything and drift into hopeless, perpetual +cynicism. From this, if this impended over him, Lewes was saved by his +intercourse with the rarely-gifted woman he had met in so timely an +hour. The result is, as every one knows, a companionship and union +unusual indeed in literary life. Very seldom has a distinguished author +had for wife a distinguished authoress, or <i>vice versa</i>; indeed, it used +to be one of the dear delightful theories of blockheads that such +unions, if they could take place, would be miserably unhappy. This +theory, so soothing to complacent dulness, was hardly borne out in the +instance of the Brownings; it is just as little corroborated by the +example of "George Eliot" and George Lewes. I believe, too, the example +of George Eliot is highly unsatisfactory to the devotees of that other +theory, so long cherished by dolts of both sexes, that a woman of talent +and culture can never do anything in the way of mending or making, of +cooking a chop or ordering a household. People tell us they can trace +the influence of Lewes's varied scholarship and critical judgment in the +novels of George Eliot. It is hardly possible to doubt that some such +influence must be there, but I certainly never saw it anywhere +distinctly and openly evident. It would be poor art which allowed a thin +stream of Lewes to be seen sparkling through the broad, deep, luminous +lake which mirrors the genius of George Eliot. I am, however, rather +inclined to fancy that Lewes, in general, abstains from critical +<i>surveillance</i> or restraint over the productions of his greater +companion, believing, perhaps, that the higher mind had better be a law +to itself. If this be so, I think it is a wholesome principle pushed +sometimes too far, for one can hardly believe that the calm judgment of +any sincere and qualified adviser would not have discouraged and +condemned the painful, unnecessary underplot of past intrigue and sin +which is so great a blot in "Felix Holt," or suggested a rapider +dramatic movement in some passages of "The Spanish Gypsy." Lewes once +wrote to Charlotte Bronté that he would rather be the author of Miss +Austen's stories than of the whole of the Waverley Novels. I certainly +do not agree with him in that opinion; but it is strange that one who +held it should not have endeavored to prevent an authoress greater than +Miss Austen, and far more directly under his influence than Charlotte +Bronté, from sinking, in one or two instances, into faults which neither +Miss Austen nor Miss Bronté would ever have committed. Many things are +strange about this literary and domestic companionship; this +comparatively trifling fact seems to me not the least strange.</p> + +<p>Finally let me say that I fully expect George Eliot yet to give to the +world some work of art even greater than any she has already produced. +She is not a woman to close with even a comparative failure. Her maxim, +I feel confident, would be that of the Emperor Napoleon—offer terms of +peace and repose after a great victory; never otherwise.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>GEORGE SAND.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>We are all of us probably inclined now and then to waste a little time +in vaguely speculating on what might have happened if this or that +particular event had not given a special direction to the career of some +great man or woman. If there had been an inch of difference in the size +of Cleopatra's nose; if Hannibal had not lingered at Capua; if Cromwell +had carried out his idea of emigration; if Napoleon Bonaparte had taken +service under the Turk—and so on through all the old familiar +illustrations dear to the minor essayist and the debating society. I +have sometimes felt tempted thus to lose myself in speculating on what +might have happened if the woman whom all the world knows as George Sand +had been happily married in her youth to the husband of her choice. +Would she ever have taken to literature at all? Would she, loving as she +does, and as Frenchwomen so rarely do, the changing face of inanimate +nature—the fields, the flowers, and the brooks—have lived a peaceful +and obscure life in some happy country place, and been content with +home, and family, and love, and never thought of fame? Or if, thus +happily married, she still had allowed her genius to find an expression +in literature, would she have written books with no passionate purpose +in them—books which might have seemed like those of a good Miss Mulock +made perfect—books which Podsnap might have read with approval and put +without a scruple into the hands of that modest young person, his +daughter? Certainly one cannot but think that a different kind of early +life would have given a quite different complexion to the literary +individuality of George Sand.</p> + +<p>Bulwer Lytton, in one of his novels, insists that true genius is always +quite independent of the individual sufferings or joys of its possessor, +and describes some inspired youth in the novel as sitting down while +sorrow is in his heart and hunger gnawing at his vitals, to throw off a +sparkling and gladsome little fairy tale. Now this is undoubtedly true +in general of any high order of genius; but there are at least some +great and striking exceptions. Rousseau and Byron are, in modern days, +remarkable illustrations of genius, admittedly of a very high rank, +governed and guided almost wholly by the individual fortunes of the men +themselves. So too must we speak of the genius of George Sand. Not +Rousseau, not even Byron, was in this sense more egotistic than the +woman who broke the chains of her ill-assorted marriage with a crash +that made its echoes heard at last in every civilized country in the +world. Just as people are constantly quoting <i>nous avons changé tout +cela</i> who never read a page of Molière, or <i>pour encourager les autres</i> +without even being aware that there is a story of Voltaire's called +"Candide," so there have been thousands of passionate protests uttered +in America and Europe for the last twenty years by people who never saw +a volume of George Sand, and yet are only echoing her sentiments and +even repeating her words.</p> + +<p>In a former number of <span class="smcap">The Galaxy</span> I expressed casually the opinion that +George Sand is probably the most influential writer of our day. I am +still, and deliberately, of the same opinion. It must be remembered that +very few English or American authors have any wide or deep influence +over peoples who do not speak English. Even of the very greatest authors +this is true. Compare, for example, the literary dominion of Shakespeare +with that of Cervantes. All <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>nations who read Shakespeare read +Cervantes: in Stratford-upon-Avon itself Don Quixote is probably as +familiar a figure in people's minds as Falstaff; but Shakespeare is +little known indeed to the vast majority of readers in the country of +Cervantes, in the land of Dante, or in that of Racine and Victor Hugo. +In something of the same way we may compare the influence of George Sand +with that of even the greatest living authors of England and America. +What influence has Charles Dickens or George Eliot outside the range of +the English tongue? But George Sand's genius has been felt as a power in +every country of the world where people read any manner of books. It has +been felt almost as Rousseau's once was felt; it has aroused anger, +terror, pity, or wild and rapturous excitement and admiration; it has +rallied around it every instinct in man or woman which is revolutionary; +it has ranged against it all that is conservative. It is not so much a +literary influence as a great disorganizing force, riving the rocks of +custom, resolving into their original elements the social combinations +which tradition and convention would declare to be indissoluble. I am +not now speaking merely of the sentiments which George Sand does or did +entertain on the subject of marriage. Divested of all startling effects +and thrilling dramatic illustrations, these sentiments probably amounted +to nothing more dreadful than the belief that an unwedded union between +two people who love and are true to each other is less immoral than the +legal marriage of two uncongenial creatures who do not love and probably +are not true to each other. But the grand, revolutionary idea which +George Sand announced was that of the social independence and equality +of woman—the principle that woman is not made for man in any other +sense than as man is made for woman. For the first time in the history +of the world woman spoke out for herself with a voice as powerful as +that of man. For the first time in the history of the world woman spoke +out as woman, not as the servant, the satellite, the pupil, the +plaything, or the goddess of man.</p> + +<p>Now I intend at present to write of George Sand rather as an individual, +or an influence, than as the author of certain works of fiction. +Criticism would now be superfluously bestowed on the literary merits and +peculiarities of the great woman whose astonishing intellectual activity +has never ceased to produce, during the last thirty years, works which +take already a classical place in French literature. If any reputation +of our day may be looked upon as established, we may thus regard the +reputation of George Sand. She is, beyond comparison, the greatest +living novelist of France. She has won this position by the most +legitimate application of the gifts of an artist. With all her +marvellous fecundity, she has hardly ever given to the world any work +which does not seem at least to have been the subject of the most +elaborate and patient care. The greatest temptation which tries a +story-teller is perhaps the temptation to rely on the attractiveness of +story-telling, and to pay little or no attention to style. Walter +Scott's prose, for example, if regarded as mere prose, is rambling, +irregular, and almost worthless. Dickens's prose is as bad a model for +imitation as a musical performance which is out of tune. Of course, I +need hardly say that attention to style is almost as characteristic of +French authors in general, as the lack of it is characteristic of +English authors; but even in France, the prose of George Sand stands out +conspicuous for its wonderful expressiveness and force, its almost +perfect beauty. Then of all modern French authors—I might perhaps say +of all modern novelists of any country—George Sand has added to +fiction, has annexed from the worlds of reality and of imagination, the +greatest number of original characters—of what Emerson calls new +organic creations. Moreover, George Sand is, after Rousseau, the one +only great French author who has looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> directly and lovingly into the +face of Nature, and learned the secrets which skies and waters, fields +and lanes, can teach to the heart that loves them. Gifts such as these +have won her the almost unrivalled place which she holds in living +literature, and she has conquered at last even the public opinion which +once detested and proscribed her. I could therefore hope to add nothing +to what has been already said by criticism in regard to her merits as a +novelist. Indeed, I think it probable that the majority of readers in +this country know more of George Sand through the interpretation of the +critics than through the pages of her books. And in her case criticism +is so nearly unanimous as to her literary merits, that I may safely +assume the public in general to have in their minds a just recognition +of her position as a novelist. My object is rather to say something +about the place which George Sand has taken as a social revolutionist, +about the influence she has so long exercised over the world, and about +the woman herself. For she is assuredly the greatest champion of woman's +rights, in one sense, that the world has ever seen; and she is, on the +other hand, the one woman out of all the world who has been most +commonly pointed to as the appalling example to scare doubtful and +fluttering womanhood back into its sheepfold of submissiveness and +conventionality. There is hardly a woman's heart anywhere in the +civilized world which has not felt the vibration of George Sand's +thrilling voice. Women who never saw one of her books, nay, who never +heard even her <i>nom de plume</i>, have been stirred by emotions of doubt or +fear or repining or ambition, which they never would have known but for +George Sand, and perhaps but for George Sand's uncongenial marriage. For +indeed there is not now, and has not been for twenty years, I venture to +think, a single "revolutionary" idea, as slow and steady-going people +would call it, afloat anywhere in Europe or America, on the subject of +woman's relations to man, society, and destiny, which is not due +immediately to the influence of George Sand, and to the influence of +George Sand's unhappy marriage upon George Sand herself.</p> + +<p>The world has of late years grown used to this extraordinary woman, and +has lost much of the wonder and terror with which it once regarded her. +I can quite remember—younger people than I can remember—the time when +all good and proper personages in England regarded the authoress of +"Indiana" as a sort of feminine fiend, endowed with a hideous power for +the destruction of souls and an inextinguishable thirst for the +slaughter of virtuous beliefs. I fancy a good deal of this sentiment was +due to the fearful reports wafted across the seas, that this terrible +woman had not merely repudiated the marriage bond, but had actually put +off the garments sacred to womanhood. That George Sand appeared in men's +clothes was an outrage upon consecrated proprieties far more astonishing +than any theoretical onslaught upon old opinions could be. Reformers +indeed should always, if they are wise in their generation, have a care +of the proprieties. Many worthy people can listen with comparative +fortitude when sacred and eternal truths are assailed, who are stricken +with horror when the ark of propriety is never so lightly touched. +George Sand's pantaloons were therefore regarded as the most appalling +illustration of George Sand's wickedness. I well remember what +excitement, scandal, and horror were created in the provincial town +where I lived some twenty years ago, when the editor of a local +Panjandrum (to borrow Mr. Trollope's word) insulted the feelings and the +morals of his constituents and subscribers by polluting his pages with a +translation from one of George Sand's shorter novels. Ah me, the little +novel might, so far as morality was concerned, have been written every +word by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> Miss Phelps, or the authoress of the "Heir of Redcliffe"; it +had not a word, from beginning to end, which might not have been read +out to a Sunday school of girls; the translation was made by a woman of +the purest soul, and in her own locality the highest name; and yet how +virtue did shriek out against the publication! The editor persevered in +the publishing of the novel, spurred on to boldness by some of his very +young and therefore fearless coadjutors, who thought it delightful to +confront public opinion, and liked the notion of the stars in their +courses fighting against Sisera, and Sisera not being dismayed. That +charming, tender, touching little story! I would submit it to-day +cheerfully to the verdict of a jury of matrons, confident that it would +be declared a fit and proper publication. But at that time it was enough +that the story bore the odious name of George Sand; public opinion +condemned it, and sent the magazine which ventured to translate it to an +early and dishonored grave. I remember reading about that time a short +notice of George Sand by an English authoress of some talent and +culture, in which the Frenchwoman's novels were described as so +abominably filthy, that even the denizens of the Paris brothels were +ashamed to be caught reading them. Now this declaration was made in all +good faith, in the simple good faith of that class of persons who will +pass wholesale and emphatic judgment upon works of which they have never +read a single page. For I need hardly tell any intelligent person of +to-day, that whatever may be said of George Sand's doctrines, she is no +more open to the charge of indelicacy than the authoress of "Romola." I +cannot myself remember any passage in George Sand's novels which can be +called indelicate; and indeed her severest and most hostile critics are +fond of saying, not without a certain justice, that one of the worst +characteristics of her works is the delicacy and beauty of her style, +which thus commends to pure and innocent minds certain doctrines that, +broadly stated, would repel and shock them. Were I one of George Sand's +inveterate opponents, this, or something like it, is the ground I would +take up. I would say: "The welfare of the human family demands that a +marriage, legally made, shall never be questioned or undone. Marriage is +not a union depending on love or congeniality, or any such condition. It +is just as sacred when made for money, or for ambition, or for lust of +the flesh, or for any other purpose, however ignoble and base, as when +contracted in the spirit of the purest mutual love. Here is a woman of +great power and daring genius, who says that the essential condition of +marriage is love and natural fitness; that a legal union of man and +woman without this is no marriage at all, but a detestable and +disgusting sin. Now the more delicately, modestly, plausibly she can put +this revolutionary and pernicious doctrine, the more dangerous she +becomes, and the more earnestly we ought to denounce her." This was in +fact what a great many persons did say; and the protest was at least +consistent and logical.</p> + +<p>But horror is an emotion which cannot long live on the old fuel, and +even the world of English Philistinism soon ceased to regard George Sand +as a mere monster. Any one now taking up "Indiana," for example, would +perhaps find it not quite easy to understand how the book produced such +an effect. Our novel-writing women of to-day commonly feed us on more +fiery stuff than this. Not to speak of such accomplished artists in +impurity as the lady who calls herself Ouida, and one or two others of +the same school, we have young women only just promoted from +pantalettes, who can throw you off such glowing chapters of passion and +young desire as would make the rhapsodies of "Indiana" seem very feeble +milk-and-water brewage by comparison. Indeed, except for some of the +descriptions in the opening chapters, I fail to see any extraordinary +merit <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>in "Indiana"; and toward the end it seems to me to grow verbose, +weak, and tiresome. "Leone Leoni" opens with one of the finest dramatic +outbursts of emotion known to the literature of modern fiction; but it +soon wanders away into discursive weakness, and only just toward the +close brightens up into a burst of lurid splendor. It is not those which +I may call the questionable novels of George Sand—the novels which were +believed to illustrate in naked and appalling simplicity her doctrines +and her life—that will bear up her fame through succeeding generations. +If every one of the novels which thus in their time drew down the +thunders of society's denunciation were to be swept into the wallet +wherein Time, according to Shakespeare, carries scraps for oblivion, +George Sand would still remain where she now is, at the head of the +French fiction of her day. It is true, as Goethe says, that +"miracle-working pictures are rarely works of art." The books which make +the hair of the respectable public stand on end, are not often the works +by which the fame of the author is preserved for posterity.</p> + +<p>It is a curious fact that at the early time to which I have been +alluding, little or nothing was known in England (or, I presume, in +America) of the real life of Aurore Amandine Dupin, who had been pleased +to call herself George Sand. People knew, or had heard, that she had +separated from her husband, that she had written novels which +depreciated the sanctity of legal marriage, and that she sometimes wore +male costume in the streets. This was enough. In England, at least, we +were ready to infer any enormity regarding a woman who was unsound on +the legal marriage question, and who did not wear petticoats. What would +have been said had people then commonly known half the stories which +were circulated in Paris; half the extravagances into which a passionate +soul and the stimulus of sudden emancipation from restraint had hurried +the authoress of "Indiana" and "Lucrezia Floriani"? For it must be owned +that the life of that woman was, in its earlier years, a strange and +wild phenomenon, hardly to be comprehended perhaps by American or +English natures. I have heard George Sand bitterly arraigned even by +persons who protested that they were at one with her as regards the +early sentiments which used to excite such odium. I have heard her +described by such as a sort of Lamia of literature and passion; a +creature who could seize some noble, generous, youthful heart, drain it +of its love, its aspirations, its profoundest emotions, and then fling +it, squeezed and lifeless, away. I have heard it declared that George +Sand made "copy" of the fierce and passionate loves which she knew so +well how to awaken and to foster; that she distilled the life-blood of +youth to obtain the mixture out of which she derived her inspiration. +The charge so commonly (I think unjustly) made against Goethe, that he +played with the girlish love of Bettina and of others in order to obtain +a subject for literary dissection, is vehemently and deliberately urged +in an aggravated form, in many aggravated forms, against George Sand. +Where, such accusers ask, is that young poet, endowed with a lyrical +genius rare indeed in the France of later days, that young poet whose +imagination was at once so daring and so subtle; who might have been +Béranger and Heine in one, and have risen to an atmosphere in which +neither Béranger nor Heine ever floated? Where is he, and what evil +influence was it which sapped the strength of his nature, corrupted his +genius, and prepared for him a premature and shameful grave? Where is +that young musician, whose pure, tender, and lofty strains sound sweetly +and sadly in the ears, as the very hymn and music of the +Might-Have-Been—where is he now, and what was the seductive power which +made a plaything of him and then flung him away? Here and there some man +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> stronger mould is pointed out as one who was at the first conquered, +and then deceived and trifled with, but who ordered his stout heart to +bear, and rose superior to the hour, and lived to retrieve his nature +and make himself a name of respect; but the others, of more sensitive +and perhaps finer organizations, are only the more to be pitied because +they were so terribly in earnest. Seldom, even in the literary history +of modern France, has there been a more strange and shocking episode +than the publication by George Sand of the little book called "Elle et +Lui," and the rejoinder to it by Paul de Musset called "Lui et Elle." I +can hardly be accused of straying into the regions of private scandal +when I speak of two books which had a wide circulation, are still being +read, and may be had, I presume, in any New York bookstore where French +literature is sold. The former of the two books, "She and He," was a +story, or something which purported to be a story, by George Sand, +telling of two ill-assorted beings whom fate had thrown together for a +while, and of whom the woman was all tenderness, love, patience, the man +all egotism, selfishness, sensuousness, and eccentricity. The point of +the whole business was to show how sublimely the woman suffered, and how +wantonly the man flung happiness away. Had it been merely a piece of +fiction, it must have been regarded by any healthy mind as a morbid, +unwholesome, disagreeable production; a sin of the highest æsthetic kind +against true art, which must always, even in its pathos and its tragedy, +leave on the mind exalted and delightful impressions. But every one in +Paris at once hailed the story as a chapter of autobiography, as the +author's vindication of one episode in her own career—a vindication at +the expense of a man who had gone down, ruined and lost, to an early +grave. Therefore the brother of the dead man flung into literature a +little book called "He and She," in which a story, substantially the +same in its outlines, is so told as exactly to reverse the conditions +under which the verdict of public opinion was sought. Very curious +indeed was the manner in which the same substance of facts was made to +present the two principal figures with complexions and characters so +strangely altered. In the woman's book, the woman was made the patient, +loving, suffering victim; in the man's reply, this same woman was +depicted as the most utterly selfish and depraved creature the human +imagination could conceive. Even if one had no other means whatever of +forming an estimate of the character of George Sand, it would be hardly +possible to accept as her likeness the hideous picture sketched by Paul +de Musset. No woman, I am glad to believe, ever existed in real life so +utterly selfish, base, and wicked as his bitter pen has drawn. I must +say that the thing is very cleverly done. The picture is at least +consistent with itself. As a character in romance it might be pronounced +original, bold, brilliant, and, in an artistic sense, quite natural. +There is something thoroughly French in the easy and delicate force of +the final touch with which de Musset dismisses his hideous subject. +Having sketched this woman in tints that seem to flame across the eyes +of the reader; having described with wonderful realism and power her +affectation, her deceit, her reckless caprices, her base and cruel +coquetries, her devouring wantonness, her soul-destroying arts, her +unutterable selfishness and egotism; having, to use a vulgar phrase, +"turned her inside out," and told her story backwards, the author calmly +explains that the hero of the narrative in his dying hour called his +brother to his bedside, and enjoined him, if occasion should ever arise, +if the partner of his sin should ever calumniate him in his grave, to +vindicate his memory and avenge the treason practised upon him. "Of +course," adds the narrator, "the brother made the promise—and I have +since heard that he has kept his word." I can hardly hope to convey to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +the reader any adequate idea of the effect produced on the mind by these +few simple words of compressed, whispered hatred and triumph, closing a +philippic, or a revelation, or a libel of such extraordinary bitterness +and ferocity. The whole episode is, I believe and earnestly hope, +without precedent or imitation in literary controversy. Never, that I +know of, has a living woman been publicly exhibited to the world in a +portraiture so hideous as that which Paul de Musset drew of George Sand. +Never, that I know of, has any woman gone so near to deserving and +justifying such a measure of retaliation.</p> + +<p>For if it be assumed—and I suppose it never has been disputed—that in +writing "Elle et Lui" George Sand meant to describe herself and Alfred +de Musset, it is hard to conceive of any sin against taste and feeling, +against art and morals, more flagrant than such a publication. The +practice, to which French writers are so much addicted, of making "copy" +of the private lives, characters, and relationships of themselves and +their friends, seems to me in all cases utterly detestable. Lamartine's +sins of this kind were grievous and glaring; but were they red as +scarlet, they would seem whiter than snow when compared with the lurid +monstrosity of George Sand's assault on the memory of the dead poet who +was once her favorite. The whole affair indeed is so unlike anything +which could occur in America or in England, that we can hardly find any +canons by which to try it, or any standard of punishment by which to +regulate its censure. I allude to it now because it is the only +substantial evidence I know of which does fairly seem to justify the +worst of the accusations brought against George Sand; and I do not think +it right, when writing for grown men and women, who are supposed to have +sense and judgment, to affect not to know that such accusations are +made, or to pretend to think that it would be proper not to allude to +them. They have been put forward, replied to, urged again, made the +theme of all manner of controversy in scores of French and in some +English publications. Pray let it be distinctly understood that I am not +entering into any criticism of the morality of any part of George Sand's +private life. With that we have nothing here to do. I am now dealing +with the question, fairly belonging to public controversy, whether the +great artist did not deliberately deal with human hearts as the painter +of old is said to have done with a purchased slave—inflicting torture +in order the better to learn how to depict the struggles and contortions +of mortal agony. In answer to such a question I can only point to +"Lucrezia Floriani" and to "Elle et Lui," and say that unless the +universal opinion of qualified critics be wrong these books, and others +too, owe their piquancy and their dramatic force to the anatomization of +dead passions and discarded lovers. We have all laughed over the +pedantic surgeon in Molière's "Malade Imaginaire," who invites his +<i>fiancée</i> as a delightful treat to see him dissect the body of a woman. +I am afraid that George Sand did sometimes invite an admiring public to +an exhibition yet more ghastly and revolting—the dissection of the +heart of a dead lover.</p> + +<p>But in truth we shall never judge George Sand and her writings at all if +we insist on criticising them from any point of view set up by the +proprieties or even the moralities of Old England or New England. When +the passionate young woman, in whose veins ran the wild blood of Marshal +Saxe, found herself surrendered by legality and prescription to a +marriage bond against which her soul revolted, society seemed for her to +have resolved itself into its original elements. Its conventionalities +and traditions contained nothing which she held herself bound to +respect. The world was not her friend, nor the world's law. By one great +decisive step she sundered herself forever from the bonds of what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> we +call society. She had shaken the dust of convention from her feet; the +world was all before her where to choose. No creature on earth is so +absolutely free as the Frenchwoman who has broken with society. There, +then, stood this daring young woman, on the threshold of a new, fresh, +and illimitable world; a young woman gifted with genius such as our +later years have rarely seen, and blessed or cursed with a nature so +strangely uniting the most characteristic qualities of man and woman as +to be in itself quite unparalleled and unique. Just think of it—try to +think of it! Society and the world had no longer any laws which she +recognized. Nothing was sacred; nothing was settled. She had to evolve +from her own heart and brain her own law of life. What wonder if she +made some sad mistakes? Nay, is it not rather a theme for wonder and +admiration that she did somehow come right at last? I know of no one who +seems to me to have been open at once to the temptations of woman's +nature and man's nature except this George Sand. Her soul, her brain, +her style may be described, from one point of view, as exuberantly and +splendidly feminine; yet no other woman has ever shown the same power of +understanding and entering into the nature of a man. If Balzac is the +only man who has ever thoroughly mastered the mysteries of a woman's +heart, George Sand is the only woman, so far as I know, who has ever +shown that she could feel as a man can feel. I have read stray passages +in her novels which I would confidently submit to the criticism of any +intelligent men unacquainted with the text, convinced that they would +declare that only a man could have thus analyzed the emotions of +manhood. I have in my mind just now especially a passage in the novel +"Piccinino" which, were the authorship unknown, would, I am satisfied, +secure the decision of a jury of literary experts that the author must +be a man. Now this gift of entire appreciation of the feelings of a +different sex or race is, I take it, one of the rarest and highest +dramatic qualities. Especially is it difficult for a woman, as our +social life goes, to enter into the feelings of a man. While men and +women alike admit the accuracy of certain pictures of women drawn by +such artists as Cervantes, Molière, Balzac, and Thackeray, there are few +women—indeed, perhaps there are no women but one—by whom a man has +been so painted as to challenge and compel the recognition and +acknowledgment of men. In <span class="smcap">The Galaxy</span> some months ago I wrote of a great +Englishwoman, the authoress of "Romola," and I expressed my conviction +that on the whole she is entitled to higher rank as a novelist than even +the authoress of "Consuelo." Many, very many men and women, for whose +judgment I have the highest respect, differed from me in this opinion. I +still hold it, nevertheless; but I freely admit that George Eliot has +nothing like the dramatic insight which enables George Sand to enter +into the feelings and the experiences of a man. I go so far as to say +that, having some knowledge of the literature of fiction in most +countries, I am not aware of the existence of any woman but this one who +could draw a real, living, struggling, passion-tortured man. All other +novelists of George Sand's sex—even including Charlotte Brontë—draw +only what I may call "women's men." If ever the two natures could be +united in one form, if ever a single human being could have the soul of +man and the soul of woman at once, George Sand might be described as +that physical and psychological phenomenon. Now the point to which I +wish to direct attention is the peculiarity of the temptation to which a +nature such as this was necessarily exposed at every turn when, free of +all restraint and a rebel against all conventionality, it confronted the +world and the world's law, and stood up, itself alone, against the +domination of custom and the majesty of tradition. I claim, then, that +when we have taken all these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> considerations into account, we are bound +to admit that Aurora Dudevant deserves the generous recognition of the +world for the use which she made of her splendid gifts. Her influence on +French literature has been on the whole a purifying and strengthening +power. The cynicism, the recklessness, the wanton, licentious disregard +of any manner of principle, the debasing parade of disbelief in any +higher purpose or nobler restraint, which are the shame and curse of +modern French fiction, find no sanction in the pages of George Sand. I +remember no passage in her works which gives the slightest encouragement +to the "nothing new, and nothing true, and it don't signify" code of +ethics which has been so much in fashion of late years. I find nothing +in George Sand which does not do homage to the existence of a principle +and a law in everything. This daring woman, who broke with society so +early and so conspicuously, has always insisted, through every +illustration, character, and catastrophe in her books, that the one only +reality, the one only thing that can endure, is the rule of right and of +virtue. Nor has she ever, that I can recollect, fallen into the +enfeebling and sentimental theory so commonly expressed in the works of +Victor Hugo, that the vague abstraction society is always to bear the +blame of the faults committed by the individual man or woman. Of all +persons in the world Aurora Dudevant might be supposed most likely to +adopt this easy and complacent theory as her guiding principle. She had +every excuse, every reason for endeavoring to preach up the doctrine +that our errors are society's and our virtues our own. But I am not +aware that she ever taught any lesson save the lesson that men and women +must endeavor to be heroes and heroines for themselves, heroes and +heroines though all the world else were craven and weak and selfish and +unprincipled. Even that wretched and lamentable "Elle et Lui" affair, +utterly inexcusable as it is when we read between the lines its secret +history, has at least the merit of being an earnest and powerful protest +against the egotistical and debasing indulgence of moral weaknesses and +eccentricities which mean and vulgar minds are apt to regard as the +privilege of genius. "Stand upon your own ground; be your own ruler; +look to yourself, not to your stars, for your failure or success; always +make your standard a lofty ideal, and try persistently to reach it, +though all the temptations of earth and all the power of darkness strive +against you"—this and nothing else, if I have read her books rightly, +is the moral taught by George Sand. She may be wrong in her principle +sometimes, but at least she always has a principle. She has a profound +and generous faith in the possibilities of human nature; in the capacity +of man's heart for purity, self-sacrifice, and self-redemption. Indeed, +so far is she from holding counsel with wilful weakness or sin, that I +think she sometimes falls into the noble error of painting her heroes as +too glorious in their triumph over temptation, in their subjugation of +every passion and interest to the dictates of duty and of honor. Take, +for instance, that extraordinary book which has just been given to the +American public in Miss Virginia Vaughan's excellent translation, +"Mauprat." If I understand that magnificent romance at all, its purport +is to prove that no human nature is ever plunged into temptation beyond +its own strength to resist, provided that it really wills resistance; +that no character is irretrievable, no error inexpiable, where there is +sincere resolve to expiate and longing desire to retrieve. Take again +that exquisite little story, "La Dernière Aldini"; I do not know where +one could find a finer illustration of the entire sacrifice of man's +natural impulse, passion, interest, to what might almost be called an +abstract idea of honor and principle. I have never read this little +story without wondering how many men one ever has known who, placed in +the same situation as that of Nello, the hero,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> would have done the same +thing; and yet so simply and naturally are the characters wrought out +and the incidents described, that the idea of pompous, dramatic +self-sacrifice never enters the mind of the reader, and it seems to him +that Nello could not do otherwise than as he is doing. I speak of these +two stories particularly, because in both of them there is a good deal +of the world and the flesh; that is, both are stories of strong human +passion and temptation. Many of George Sand's novels, the shorter ones +especially, are as absolutely pure in moral tone, as entirely free from +even a taint or suggestion of impurity, as they are perfect in style. +Now, if we cannot help knowing that much of this great woman's life was +far from being irreproachable, are we not bound to give her all the +fuller credit because her genius at least kept so far the whiteness of +its soul? Revolutions are not to be made with rose water; you cannot +have omelettes without breaking of eggs. I am afraid that great social +revolutionists are not often creatures of the most pure and perfect +nature. It is not to patient Griselda you must look for any protest +against even the uttermost tyranny of social conventions. One thing I +think may at least be admitted as part of George Sand's +vindication—that the marriage system in France is the most debased and +debasing institution existing in civilized society, now that the buying +and selling of slaves has ceased to be a tolerated system. I hold that +the most ardent advocates of the irrevocable endurance of the marriage +bond are bound by their very principles to admit that in protesting +against the so-called marriage system of France George Sand stood on the +side of purity and right. Assuredly she often went into extravagances in +the other direction. It seems to be the fate of all French reformers to +rush suddenly to extremes; and we must remember that George Sand was not +a Bristol Quakeress or a Boston transcendentalist, but a passionate +Frenchwoman, the descendant of one of the maddest votaries of love and +war who ever stormed across the stage of European history.</p> + +<p>Regarding George Sand then as an influence in literature and on society, +I claim for her at least four great and special merits. First, she +insisted on calling public attention to the true principle of marriage; +that is to say, she put the question as it had not been put before. Of +course, the fundamental principle she would have enforced is always +being urged more or less feebly, more or less sincerely; but she made it +her own question, and illuminated it by the fervid, fierce rays of her +genius and her passion. Secondly, her works are an exposition of the +tremendous reality of the feelings which people who call themselves +practical are apt to regard with indifference or contempt as mere +sentiments. In the long run the passions decide the life-question one +way or the other. They are the tide which, as you know or do not know +how to use it, will either turn your mill and float your boat, or drown +your fields and sweep away your dwellings. Life and society receive no +impulse and no direction from the influences out of which the novels of +Dickens or even of Thackeray are made up. These are but pleasant or +tender toying with the playthings and puppets of existence. George Sand +constrains us to look at the realities through the medium of her +fiction. Thirdly, she insists that man can and shall make his own +career; not whine to the stars and rail out against the powers above, +when he has weakly or wantonly marred his own destiny. Fourthly—and +this ought not to be considered her least service to the literature of +her country—she has tried to teach people to look at nature with their +own eyes, and to invite the true love of her to flow into their hearts. +The great service which Ruskin, with all his eccentricities and +extravagances, has rendered to English-speaking peoples by teaching them +to use their own eyes when they look at clouds, and waters, and grasses, +and hills, George Sand has rendered to France.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p><p>I hold that these are virtues and services which ought to outweigh even +very grave personal and artistic errors. We often hear that this or that +great poet or romancist has painted men as they are; this other as they +ought to be. I think George Sand paints men as they are, and also not +merely as they ought to be, but as they can be. The sum of the lesson +taught by her books is one of confidence in man's possibilities, and +hope in his steady progress. At the same time she is entirely practical +in her faith and her aspirations. She never expects that the trees are +to grow up into the heavens, that men and women are to be other than men +and women. She does not want them to be other; she finds the springs and +sources of their social regeneration in the fact that they are just what +they are, to begin with. I am afraid some of the ladies who seem to base +their scheme of woman's emancipation and equality on the assumption +that, by some development of time or process of schooling, a condition +of things is to be brought about where difference of sex is no longer to +be a disturbing power, will find small comfort or encouragement in the +writings of George Sand. She deals in realities altogether; the +realities of life, even when they are such as to shallow minds may seem +mere sentiments and ecstasies; the realities of society, of suffering, +of passion, of inanimate nature. There is in her nothing unmeaning, +nothing untrue; there is in her much error, doubtless, but no sham.</p> + +<p>I believe George Sand is growing into a quiet and beautiful old age. +After a life of storm and stress, a life which, metaphorically at least, +was "worn by war and passion," her closing years seem likely to be +gilded with the calm glory of an autumnal sunset. One is glad to think +of her thus happy and peaceful, accepting so tranquilly the reality of +old age, still laboring with her unwearied pen, still delighting in +books, and landscapes, and friends, and work. The world can well afford +to forget as soon as possible her literary and other errors. Of the vast +mass of romances, stories, plays, sketches, criticisms, pamphlets, +political articles, even, it is said, ministerial manifestoes of +republican days, which she poured out, only a few comparatively will +perhaps be always treasured by posterity; but these will be enough to +secure her a classic place. And she will not be remembered by her +writings alone. Hers is probably the most powerful individuality +displayed by any modern Frenchwoman. The influence of Madame Roland was +but a glittering unreality, that of Madame de Staël only a boudoir and +coterie success, when compared with the power exercised over literature, +human feeling, and social law, by the energy, the courage, the genius, +even the very errors and extravagances of George Sand.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>EDWARD BULWER, LORD LYTTON.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>Ten years ago an important political question was agitating the English +House of Commons and the English public. It was the old question of +Parliamentary Reform in a new shape. Thirty years before Lord John +Russell had pleaded the right of the middle classes to have a voice in +the election of their Parliamentary representatives; this time he was +asserting a similar right for the working population. Then he had to +contend against the opposition of the aristocracy only; this time he had +to fight against the combined antagonism of the aristocracy and the +middle classes, the latter having made common cause with their old +enemies to preserve a monopoly of their new privileges. The debate in +the House of Commons on the proposed Reform Bill of 1860 was long and +bitter. When it was reaching its height, a speaker arose on the Tory +side of the House whose appearance on the scene of the debate lent a new +and piquant interest to the night's discussion. He sat on the front +bench of the Opposition, quite near to Disraeli himself. The moment he +rose, every head craned forward to see him; the moment he began to +speak, every ear was strained with keen curiosity to hear him. The ears +were for a while sorely tried and perplexed. What was he saying—nay, +what language was he speaking? What extraordinary, indescribable sounds +were those which were heard issuing from his lips? Were they articulate +sounds at all? For some minutes certainly those who like myself had +never heard the speaker before were utterly bewildered. We could only +hear what seemed to us an incoherent, inarticulate guttural jabber, like +the efforts at speech of somebody with a mutilated tongue or excided +palate. Anything like it I never heard before or since; for no +subsequent listening to the same speaker ever produced nearly the same +impression: either he had greatly improved in elocution, or his listener +had grown used to him. But the night of this famous speech, nothing +could have exceeded the extraordinary nature of the sensations produced +on those who heard the orator for the first time. After a while we began +to detect articulate sounds; then we guessed at and recognized words; +then whole sentences began to shape themselves out of the guttural fag; +and at last we grew to understand that, with an elocution the most +defective and abominable ever possessed by mortal orator, this Tory +speaker was really delivering a speech of astonishing brilliancy, +ingenuity, and power. The sentences had a magnificent, almost majestic +rotundity, energy, and power; they reminded one of something cut out of +solid and glittering marble, at once so dazzling and so impressive. The +speech was from first to last an aristocratic argument against the +fitness of the working man to be anything but a political serf. In the +true fashion of the aristocrat, the speaker was for patronizing the +working man in every possible way; behaving to him as a kind and +friendly master; seeing that he had a decent home to live in and coals +and blankets in winter; but all the time insisting that the ruin of +England must follow any successful attempt to place political power in +the hands of "poverty and passion." The speech overflowed with +illustration, ingenious analogy, felicitous quotation, brilliant +epigram, and political paradoxes that were made to sound wondrously like +maxims of wisdom. Despite all its hideous defects of delivery, this +speech was, beyond the most distant comparison, the finest delivered on +the Tory side during the whole of that long and memorable debate. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> a +time one was almost cheated into the belief that that elaborate and +splendid diction, now so stately and now so sparkling, was genuine +eloquence. Yet to the last the listener was frequently baffled by some +uncouth, semi-articulate, hardly intelligible sound. "What on earth does +he mean," asked a puzzled and indeed agonized reporter of some laboring +brother, "by talking so often about the political authority of Joe +Miller?" Careful inquiry elicited the fact that the name of the +political authority to which the orator had been alluding was John Mill. +Fortunately for his readers and his fame, the speaker had taken good +care to write out his oration and send the manuscript to the newspapers.</p> + +<p>Now this inarticulate orator, this Demosthenes without the +pebble-training, was, as my readers have already guessed, Edward +Bulwer-Lytton, then a baronet and a member of the House of Commons, now +a peer. Undoubtedly he succeeded, by this and one or two other speeches, +in securing for himself a place among the few great Parliamentary +debaters of the day. Despite of physical defects which would have +discouraged almost any other man from entering into public life at all, +he had succeeded in winning a reputation as a great speaker in a debate +where Palmerston, Gladstone, Bright, and Disraeli were champions. So +deaf that he could not hear the arguments of his opponents, so defective +in utterance as to become often almost unintelligible, he actually made +the House of Commons doubt for a while whether a new great orator had +not come among them. It was not great oratory after all; it was not true +oratory of any kind; but it was a splendid imitation of the real +thing—the finest electroplate anywhere to be found. "If it is not Bran, +it is Bran's brother," says a Scottish proverb. If this speech of +Bulwer-Lytton's was not true oratory, it was oratory's illegitimate +brother.</p> + +<p>Nearly a whole generation before the winning of that late success, +Bulwer-Lytton had tried the House of Commons, and miserably, ludicrously +failed. The young Tory members who vociferously cheered his great +anti-reform speech of 1860, were in their cradles when Bulwer-Lytton +first addressed the House of Commons, and having signally failed +withdrew, as people supposed, altogether from Parliamentary life. His +failure was even more complete than that of his friend Disraeli, and he +took the failure more to heart. Rumor affirms that the first serious +quarrel between Bulwer and his wife arose out of her vexation and +disappointment at his break-down, and the bitter, provoking taunts with +which she gave vent to her anger. I know no other instance of a +rhetorical triumph so long delayed, and at length so completely +effected. Nor can one learn that it was by any intervening practice or +training that Bulwer in his declining years atoned for the failure of +his youth. He was never that I know of a public speaker; he won his +Parliamentary success in defiance of Charles James Fox's famous axiom, +that a speaker can only improve himself at the expense of his audiences. +Between his failure and his triumph Bulwer-Lytton may be said to have +had no political audience.</p> + +<p>A statesman Bulwer-Lytton never became, although he held high office in +a Tory Cabinet. He did little or nothing to distinguish himself, unless +there be distinction in writing some high-flown, eloquent despatches, +such as Ernest Maltravers might have penned, to the discontented +islanders of Ionia; and it was he, if I remember rightly, who thought of +sending out "Gladstone the Philhellene" on that mission of futile +conciliation which only misled the Ionians and amused England. It always +seemed to me that in his political career Bulwer acted just as one of +the heroes of his own romances might have done. Having suffered defeat +and humiliation, he vowed a vow to wrest from Fate a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>victory upon the +very spot which had seen his discomfiture; and he kept his word, won his +victory, and then calmly quitted the field forever. A more prosaic +explanation might perhaps be found in the fact that weak physical health +rendered it impossible for Bulwer to encounter the severe continuous +labor which English political life exacts. But I prefer for myself the +more romantic and less commonplace explanation, and I hope my readers +will do likewise. I prefer to think of the great romancist retrieving +after thirty years of silence his Parliamentary defeat, and then, having +reconciled himself with Destiny, retiring from the scene contented, to +struggle in that arena no more. In all seriousness, there must be some +quality of greatness in the man who, after bearing such a defeat for so +many years, can struggle with Fate again, and accomplish so conspicuous +a success.</p> + +<p>Now this is in fact one grand explanation of Bulwer-Lytton's rank in +English literature. He has the self-reliance, the patience, the courage +so rare among literary men, by which one is enabled to extract their +full and utter value from whatsoever intellectual endowments he may +possess. Bulwer-Lytton alone among all famous English authors of our +days has apparently done all that he could possibly do—obtained from +his faculties their entire tribute. Readers of the letters of poor +Charlotte Brontë may remember the impatience with which she occasionally +complained that her idol Thackeray would not put forth his whole +strength. No such fault could possibly be found with Bulwer-Lytton. +Sooner or later he always put forth his whole strength. He had many +failures, but, as in the case of his political discomfiture, he had +always the art of learning from failure the way how to succeed, and +accordingly succeeding. When he wrote his wretched "Sea Captain," the +critics all told him he could not produce a successful drama. Bulwer +thought he could. He thought the very failure of that attempt would show +him how to succeed another time. He was determined not to give in until +he had satisfied himself as to his fitness, one way or the other, and so +he persevered. Now observe the character of the man, and see how much +superior he himself is to his works, and how much of their success the +works owe to the man's peculiar temper. We all know what authors usually +are, and how they receive criticism. In ordinary cases, when the critics +declare some piece of work a failure, the author either is crushed for +the time by the fiat, or he insists that the critics are idiots, hired +assassins, personal enemies, and so forth; he defiantly adheres to his +own notions and his own method—and he probably fails. Bulwer-Lytton +looked at the matter in quite a different light. He said, apparently, to +himself: "The critics only know what I have done; I know what I can do. +From their point of view they are quite right—this thing is a failure. +But I know that it is a failure only because I went to work the wrong +way. I <i>can</i> do something infinitely better. Their experience and their +comments have given me some valuable hints; I will forthwith go to work +on a better principle." So Bulwer-Lytton wrote "Richelieu," "Money," and +the "Lady of Lyons"—the last probably the most successful acting drama +produced in England since the days of Shakespeare, and the first hardly +below it in stage success. Of course I am not claiming for either of +these plays a high and genuine dramatic value. They probably bear the +same resemblance to the true drama that their author's Parliamentary +speech-making does to true eloquence. But of their popularity and their +transcendent technical success there cannot be the slightest doubt. +Bulwer-Lytton proved to his critics that he could do better than any +other living man the very thing they said he could never do—write a +play that should conquer the public and hold the stage. So to those who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +affirmed that, whatever else he might do, he never could be a +Parliamentary speaker, he replied by standing up when approaching the +very brink of old age, and delivering speeches which won the willing and +generous applause of Disraeli, and extorted the reluctant but manly and +frank recognition of such an opponent as John Bright.</p> + +<p>Bulwer-Lytton once insisted, in an address delivered to some English +literary institution, that the word "versatile" is generally used +wrongly when we speak of men who do a great many things well; that it is +a comprehensive, not merely a versatile mind, each of these men has; not +a knack of adroitly turning himself to many heterogeneous labors, but a +capacity so wide that it unfolds quite naturally many fields of labor. +In this sense Bulwer-Lytton has undoubtedly a more comprehensive mind +than any of his English contemporaries. He has written the most +successful dramas and some of the most successful novels of his day; and +he has so varied the method of his novel-writing that he may be said to +have at least three distinct and separate principles of construction. +Some of his poetic translations seem to me almost absolutely the best +done in England of late years; many of his essays approach a true +literary value, while all or nearly all of them are attractive reading; +his satire, "The New Timon," is the only thing of the kind which is +likely to outlive his age; and his political speeches are what I have +already described. Now, to estimate the personal value of these +successes, let us not fail to remember that their author never was +placed in a condition to make literary or other labor a necessity, and +that for nearly a whole generation he has been in the enjoyment of +actual wealth; that in England literature adds little or no social +distinction to a man of Bulwer-Lytton's rank; and that during a +considerable portion of his life the author of "The Caxtons" and "My +Novel" has been tortured by almost incessant ill-health. Almost +everything that could tend to make a man shun continuous and patient +labor (opulence and ill-health would be quite enough to make most of us +shun it) combined to render Bulwer-Lytton an idle or at least an +indolent man. Yet almost all the literary success he attained was due to +a patient toil which would have wearied out a penny-a-liner, and a +laborious self-study and self-culture which might have overtaxed the +nerves of a Königsberg professor. "Easy writing is cursed hard reading," +is a maxim which Bulwer-Lytton fully understood, and of which he showed +his appreciation in his personal practice.</p> + +<p>Bulwer-Lytton was born on the fringe of the aristocratic region. He can +hardly be said to belong to the genuine aristocracy, although of late, +thanks to his political opinions and his peerage, he has come to be +ranked among aristocrats. He is the brother of a distinguished +diplomatist, Sir Henry Bulwer, and the father of a somewhat promising +diplomatist, not quite unknown to Washington people, Robert Lytton, +"Owen Meredith." Bulwer-Lytton had advanced tolerably far upon his +career when he inherited through his mother a magnificent estate, which +enabled him to set up for an aristocrat. His baronetcy had been +conferred upon him by the Crown, as his peerage lately was. He started +in political life, like Mr. Disraeli, as a Liberal; indeed, it was, if I +am not greatly mistaken, on the introduction of Bulwer-Lytton that +Disraeli obtained the early patronage of Daniel O'Connell, which he so +soon forfeited by the political tergiversation that drew down from the +great Agitator the famous outburst of fierce and savage scorn wherein, +alluding to Disraeli's boasted Jewish origin, he proclaimed him +evidently descended in a right line from the blasphemous thief who died +impenitent on the cross. Disraeli's apostasy was sudden and glaring, and +he kept the field. Bulwer-Lytton soon faded out of politics altogether +for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> nearly thirty years, and when he reappeared in the House of Commons +and wore the garb of a Tory, his old friend and political patron +O'Connell had long become a mere tradition. Nearly all of those who +listened with curiosity to Bulwer-Lytton's speeches in 1859 and 1860, +were curious only to hear how a great romancist and dramatist would +acquit himself in a part which, so far as they were concerned, was +entirely a new appearance. They had no personal memory of his former +efforts; no recollection of the time when the young author of the +sparkling, piquant, and successful "Pelham" endeavored to take London by +storm as a political orator, and failed in the enterprise.</p> + +<p>In one peculiarity, at least, Bulwer-Lytton the novelist surpassed all +his rivals and contemporaries. His range was so wide as to take in all +circles and classes of English readers. He wrote fashionable novels, +historical novels, political novels, metaphysical novels, psychological +novels, moral-purpose novels, immoral purpose novels. "Wilhelm Meister" +was not too heavy nor "Tristram Shandy" too light for him. He tried to +rival Scott in the historical romance; he strove hard to be another +Goethe in his "Ernest Maltravers"; he quite surpassed Ainsworth's "Jack +Sheppard," and the general run of what we in England call "thieves' +literature," in his "Paul Clifford"; he became a sort of pinchbeck +Sterne in "The Caxtons," and was severely classical in "The Last Days of +Pompeii." One might divide his novels into at least half a dozen +classes, each class quite distinct and different from all the rest, and +yet the one author, the one Bulwer-Lytton, showing and shining through +them all. Bulwer is always there. He is masquerading now in the garb of +a mediæval baron, and now in that of an old Roman dandy; anon he is +disguised as a thief from St. Giles's, and again as a full-blooded +aristocrat from the region of St. James's. But he is the same man +always, and you can hardly fail to recognize him even in his cleverest +disguise. It may be questioned whether there is one spark of true and +original genius in Bulwer. Certain ideas commonly floating about in this +or that year he collects and brings to a focus, and by their aid he +burns a distinct impression into the public mind. Just as he expressed +the thin and spurious classicism of one period in his Pompeian romance, +so he made copy out of the pseudoscience and bastard psychology of a +later day in his "Strange Story." Never was there in literature a more +masterly and wonderful mechanic. Many-sided he never was, although +probably the fame of many-sidedness (if one may use so ungraceful an +expression) is the renown which he specially coveted and most +strenuously strove to win. Only genius can be many-sided, and +Bulwer-Lytton's marvellous capability never can be confounded with +genius. The nearest approach to genius in all his works may be found in +their occasional outbursts and flashes of audacious, preposterous +absurdity. The power which could palm off such outrageous nonsense as in +some instances he has done on two or three generations of novel-readers, +which could compel the public to swallow it and delight in it, despite +all that the satire of a Thackeray or a Jerrold could do, must surely, +one would almost say, have had something in it savoring of a sort of +genius. For there are in some even of the very best and purest of +Bulwer's novels whole scenes and characters which it seems almost +utterly impossible that any reader whatever could follow without +laughter. I protest that I think the author of "Ernest Maltravers" owed +much of his success to the daring which assumed that anything might be +imposed on the public, and to the absence of that sense of the ludicrous +which might have made a man of a different stamp laugh at his own +nonsense. I assume that Bulwer wrote in perfect faith and seriousness, +honestly believing them to be fine, the most ridiculous, bombastic,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +fantastic passages in all his novels. I take it for granted that Mr. +Morris's sad hero, "The Man who never Laughed Again," must have been +frivolity itself when compared with Bulwer-Lytton at work upon a novel. +The sensitive distrust of one's own capacity, the high-minded doubt of +the value of one's own works, which is probably the companion, the +Mentor, the tormentor often, and not unfrequently the conqueror and +destroyer of true genius, never seems to have vexed the author of +"Eugene Aram" and "Godolphin." Bulwer-Lytton won a great name partly +because he was not a man of genius. The kind of thing he tried to do +could not have been done truly and successfully, in the high artistic +sense, by any one with a capacity below that of a Shakespeare, or at +least a Goethe. A man of genius, but inferior genius, would have made a +wretched failure of it. Between the two stools of popularity and art, of +time and eternity, he must have fallen to the ground. But where genius +might fail to achieve a splendid success, talent and audacity might turn +out a magnificent sham. This is the sort of success, this and none +other, which I believe Bulwer-Lytton to have achieved. He is the finest +<i>faiseur</i> in the literature of to-day. His wax-work gallery surpasses +Madame Tussaud's; or rather his sham art is as much superior to that of +a James or an Ainsworth as Madame Tussaud's gallery is to Mrs. Jarley's +show. That sort of sentiment which lies somewhere down in the heart of +every one, however commonplace, or busy, or cynical—the sentiment which +is represented by the applause of the galleries in a popular theatre, +and which cultivated audiences are usually ashamed to acknowledge—was +the feeling which Bulwer-Lytton could always reach and draw forth. He +had so much at least of the true artistic instinct as to recognize that +the strongest element of popularity is the sentimental; and he knew that +out of ten persons who openly laugh at such a thing, nine are secretly +touched by it. Bulwer-Lytton found much of his stock and capital in the +human emotions which sympathize with youthful ambition and youthful +love, just as Dickens makes perpetual play with the feelings which are +touched by the death of children. When Claude Melnotte, transfigured +into the splendid Colonel Morier, rushes forward just at the critical +moment, outbids yon sordid huckster for his priceless jewel Pauline, +flings down the purse containing double the needful sum, declares that +he has bought every coin of it in the cause of nations with a +Frenchman's blood, and sweeps away his ransomed bride amid the thunder +of the galleries, of course we all know that sort of thing is not +poetry, or high art, or anything but splendiferous rubbish. Yet it does +touch most of us somehow. I know I always feel divided between laughter +and enthusiastic sympathy even still, when I see it for the hundred and +fiftieth time or so. In the same way, when Paul Clifford charges on +society the crimes of his outlaw career; when Rienzi vows vengeance for +his brother's blood; when Zanoni resigns his immortal youth that "the +flower at his feet may a little longer drink the dew"; when Ernest +Maltravers silently laments amid all his splendor of success the obscure +Arcadia of his boyish love, we can all see at a glance how bombastic, +gaudy, melodramatic, is the style in which the author works out his +ideas; how utterly unlike the simple, strong majesty of true art the +whole thing is; but yet we must acknowledge that the author understands +thoroughly how to touch a certain vein of what may be called elementary +emotion, common almost to all minds, which it is the object of society +to repress or suppress, and the object of the popular artist to stir up +into activity. Preach, advise, remonstrate, demonstrate as you will, the +majority of us will always feel inclined to give alms to beggar-women +and whining little children in the snowy streets. We know we are doing +unwisely, and perhaps even wrongly; we know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> that the misery which +touches us is probably a trumped-up and sham misery; we know that +whatever we give to the undeserving and the insincere is practically +withdrawn from the deserving and the sincere; we are ashamed to be seen +giving the money, and yet we do give it whenever we can. Because, after +all, our common emotion of sympathy with the more obvious, intelligible, +and I would almost say vulgar forms of human suffering, are far too +strong for our moderating maxims and our more refined mental conditions. +So of the sympathies which heroes and heroines, aspirations and agonies +of the style of Bulwer-Lytton awaken in us. Virtue cannot so inoculate +our old stock but we shall relish it; and is not he something of an +artist who recognizes this great fact in human nature, and plays upon +that vibrating, imperishable chord, and compels it to give him back such +an applauding echo? After all, I think there is just as much of sham and +of Madame Tussaud, and of the beggar-child in the snow, about Paul +Dombey's deathbed and Little Dorrit's filial devotion, as about the mock +heroics of Claude Melnotte or the domestic virtues of the Caxtons. Of +course I am not comparing Bulwer-Lytton with Dickens. The latter was a +man of genius, and one of the greatest humorists known at least to +modern literature. But nearly all the pathetic side of Dickens seems to +me of much the same origin as the heroic side of Bulwer-Lytton, and I +question whether the greater part of the popularity won by the author of +"Bleak House" has not been gained by a mastery of the very same kind of +art as that which sets galleries applauding for Claude Melnotte, and +young women in tears for Eugene Aram.</p> + +<p>There are, moreover, two points of superiority in artistic purpose which +may be claimed for Bulwer-Lytton over either Dickens or Thackeray. They +do not, perhaps, "amount to much" in any case; but they are worth +mentioning. Bulwer-Lytton has more than once drawn to the best of his +power a gentleman, and he has often drawn, or tried to draw, a man +possessed by some great, impersonal, unselfish object in life. The +former of these personages Dickens never seemed to have known or +believed in; the latter, Thackeray never even attempted to paint. Why +has Dickens never drawn a gentleman? I am not using the word in the +artificial, conventional, snobbish sense. I mean by a gentleman a +creature with intellect as well as heart, with refined and cultivated +tastes, with something of personal dignity about him. I do not care from +what origin he may have sprung, or to what class he may have belonged: +there is no reason, even in England, why a man born in a garret might +not acquire all the ways, and thoughts, and refinements of a gentleman. +Among the class to which most of Dickens's heroes are represented as +belonging, have we not all in England known gentlemen of intellect and +culture? Yet Dickens has never painted such a being. Nicholas Nickleby +is a plucky, honest, good-hearted blockhead; Tom Pinch is a benevolent +idiot; Eugene Wrayburn is a low-bred, impertinent snob—a mere "cad," as +Londoners would say. I have had no sympathy with the "Saturday Review" +in its perpetual accusations of vulgarity against Dickens; and I think a +recent English critic was pleasantly and purposely extravagant when he +charged the author of the "Christmas Carol" with having no loftier idea +of human happiness than the eating of plum pudding and kissing girls +under the mistletoe. But I do say that Dickens never drew a cultivated +English gentleman or lady—a cultivated and refined English man or +woman, if you will; and yet I know that there are such personages to be +found without troublesome quest among the very classes of society which +he was always describing.</p> + +<p>Now Thackeray could draw and has drawn English gentlemen and +gentlewomen; but has he ever drawn a high-minded, self-forgetting man or +woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> devoted to some, to any, great object, or cause, or purpose of +any kind in life—absorbed by it and faithful to it? Is it true that +even in London society men are wholly given up to dining, and paying +visits, and making and spending money? Is it true that all men, even in +London society, pass their lives in a purposeless, drifting way, making +good resolves and not carrying them out; doing good things now and then +out of easy, generous impulse; loving lightly, and recovering from love +quickly? Are there in London society, on the one hand, no passions; on +the other hand, no simple, strong, consistent, unselfish, high-minded +lives? Assuredly there are; but Thackeray, the greatest painter of +English society England has ever had, chose, for some reason or another, +to ignore them. Only when he comes to speak of artists, more especially +of painters, does he ever hint that he is aware of the existence of men +whose lives are consistent, steadfast, and unselfish. Surely this is a +great omission. One does not care to drag into this discussion the names +of living illustrations; but I should like to have pointed Thackeray's +attention to this and that and the other man whom, to my certain +knowledge, he knew and warmly, fully appreciated, and asked him, "Why, +when you were painting with such incomparable fidelity such +illustrations of English life as you chose to select, did you not think +fit to picture such a simple, strong, consistent, magnanimous, +self-forgetting, self-devoting nature as that, or that, or that?"—and +so on, through many examples which I or anybody could have named. I +suppose the honest answer would have been, "I cannot draw that kind of +character; I cannot quite enter into its experiences and make it look +life-like as I see it; it is not in my line, and I prefer not to attempt +it." Now, I think it to the credit of Bulwer-Lytton, as a mere artist, +that he did include such figures even in his wax-work gallery. He could +not make them look like life; but he showed at least that he was aware +of their existence, and that he did his best to teach the world to +recognize them.</p> + +<p>Thus then, using with inexhaustible energy and perseverance his +wonderful gifts as an intellectual mechanician, Edward Bulwer-Lytton +went on from 1828 to 1860 grinding out of his mill an almost unbroken +succession of novels and romances to suit all changes in public taste. I +do not believe he changed his themes and ways of treating them +purposely, to suit the changes of public taste; but rather that, being a +man of no true original and creative power, his style and his views were +modified by the modifying conditions of successive years. Some new idea, +some new way of looking at this or that question of human life came up, +and it attracted him who was always a close and diligent student of the +world and its fashions; and he made it into a romance. Whatever new +schools of fiction came into existence, Bulwer-Lytton, always directing +the new ideas into the channel where popular and elementary sympathies +flowed freely, succeeded in turning each change to advantage, and +keeping his place. Dickens sprang up and founded a school; and yet +Bulwer-Lytton held his own. Thackeray arose and established a new +school, and Bulwer-Lytton, whom no human being would have thought of +comparing with either as a man of genius, did not lose a reader. +Charlotte Brontë came like a shadow, and so departed; George Eliot gave +a new lift and life to romance; the realistic school was followed by the +sensational school; the Literature of Adultery ran its vulgar +course—and Bulwer-Lytton remained where he always had been, and moulted +no feather.</p> + +<p>It is not likely that any true critic ever thought very highly of him, +or indeed took him quite seriously; but for many, many years criticism, +which had so scoffed and girded at him once, had only civil words and +applauding smiles for him. How Thackeray once did make savage fun of +"Bullwig," and more lately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> how Thackeray praised him! Charles +Dickens—what an enthusiastic admirer of the genius of his friend Lytton +he too became! And Tennyson—what a fierce passage of arms that was long +ago between Bulwer and him; and now what cordial mutual admiration! +Fonblanque and Forster, the "Athenæum" and "Punch," Tray, Blanche, and +Sweetheart—how they all welcomed in chorus each new effort of genius by +the great romancist who was once the stock butt of all lively satirists. +How did this happy change come about? Nobody ever had harder dealing at +the hands of the critics than Bulwer when his powers were really most +fresh and forcible; nobody ever had more general and genial commendation +than shone of late years around his sunny way. How was this? Did the +critics really find that they had been mistaken and own themselves +conquered by his transcendent merit? Did he "win the wise who frowned +before to smile at last"? To some extent, yes. He showed that he was not +to be written down; that no critical article could snuff him out; that +he really had some stuff in him and plenty of mettle and perseverance; +and he soon became a literary institution, an accomplished fact which +criticism could not help recognizing. But there was much more than this +operating towards Bulwer-Lytton's reconciliation with criticism. He +became a wealthy man, a man of fashion, a sort of aristocrat, with yet a +sincere love for the society of authors and artists, with a taste for +encouraging private theatricals and endowing literary institutions, and +with a splendid country house. He became a genial, golden link between +literature and society. Even Bohemia was enabled by his liberal and +courteous good-will to penetrate sometimes into the regions of +Belgravia. The critics began to fall in love with him. I do not believe +that Lord Lytton made himself thus agreeable to his literary brethren +out of any motive whatever but that of honest goodfellowship and +kindness. I have heard too many instances of his frank and brotherly +friendliness to utterly obscure writers, who could be of no sort of +service to him or to anybody, not to feel satisfied of his unselfish +good-nature and his thorough loyalty to that which ought to be the +<i>esprit de corps</i> of the literary profession. But it is certain that he +thus converted enemies into friends, and stole the gall out of many an +inkstand, and the poison from many a penman's feathered dart. Not that +the critics simply sold their birthright of bitterness for an invitation +to dinner or the kindly smile of a literary Peer. But you cannot, I +suppose, deal very rigidly with the works of a man who is uniformly kind +to you; who brings you into a sort of society which otherwise you would +probably never have a chance of seeing; who, being himself a lord, +treats you, poor critic, as a friend and brother; and whose works, +moreover, are certain to have a great public success, no matter what you +say or leave unsaid. The temptation to look for and discover merit in +such books is strong indeed—perhaps too strong for frail critical +nature. Thus arises the great sin of English criticism. It is certainly +not venal; it is hardly ever malign. Mere ill-nature, or impatience, or +the human delight of showing one's strength, may often induce a London +critic to deal too sharply with some new and nameless author; but +although we who write books are each and all of us delighted to persuade +ourselves that any disparaging criticism must be the result of some +personal hatred, I cannot remember ever having had serious reason to +believe that a London critic had attacked a book because of his personal +ill-will to the author. The sin is quite of another kind—a tendency to +praise the books of certain authors merely because the critic knows the +men so intimately, and likes them so well, that he is at once naturally +prejudiced in their favor, and disinclined to say anything which could +hurt or injure them. Thus of late criticism has had hardly anything to +say of Lord Lytton, except in the way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> of praise. He is the head, and +patron, and ornament of a great London literary "Ring." I use this word +because none other could so well convey to a reader in New York a clear +idea of the friendly professional unity of the coterie I desire to +describe; but I wish it to be distinctly understood that I do not +attribute anything like venality or hired partisanship of any kind to +the literary Ring of which Lord Lytton is the sparkling gem. Of course +it has become, as such cliques always must become, somewhat of a Mutual +Admiration Society; and it is certain that a place in that brotherhood +secures a man against much disparaging criticism. There are indeed +literary cliques in London, of a somewhat lower range than this, where +the influence of personal friendships does operate in a manner that +closely borders upon a sort of literary corruption. But Lord Lytton and +his friends and admirers are not of that sort. They are friends +together, and they do admire each other, and I suppose everybody (save +one person) likes Lord Lytton now; and so it is only in the rare case of +a fresh, independent outsider, like the critic who wrote in the +"Westminster Review" some two years ago, that a really impartial, keen, +artistic survey is taken of the works of him that was "Bullwig." When +Lytton published his "Caxtons," the reviewer of the "Examiner," even up +to that time a journal of great influence and prestige, having nearly +exhausted all possible modes of panegyric, bethought himself that some +unappreciative and cynical persons might possibly think there was a lack +of originality in a work so obviously constructed after the model of +"Tristram Shandy." So he hastened to confute or convince all such +persons by pointing out that in this very fact consisted the special +claim of "The Caxtons" to absolute originality. The original genius of +Lytton was proved by his producing so excellent a copy. Don't you see? +You don't, perhaps. But then if you were intimate with Lord Lytton, and +were liked by him, and were a performer in the private theatricals at +Knebworth, his country seat, you would probably see it quite clearly, +and agree with it, every word.</p> + +<p>There was one person indeed who had no toleration for Lord Lytton, or +for his friendly critics. That was Lord Lytton's wife. There really is +no scandal in alluding to a conjugal quarrel which was brought so +persistently under public notice by one of the parties as that between +Bulwer-Lytton and his wife. I do not know whether I ought to call it a +quarrel. Can that be called a fight, piteously asks the man in Juvenal, +where my enemy only beats and I am merely beaten? Can that be called a +quarrel in which, so far as the public could judge, the wife did all the +denunciation, and the husband made no reply? Lady Lytton wrote novels +for the purpose of satirizing her husband and his friends—his +parasites, she called them. Bulwer-Lytton she gracefully described as +having "the head of a goat on the body of a grasshopper"—a description +which has just enough of comical truthfulness in its savage ferocity to +make it specially cruel to the victim of the satire, and amusing to the +unconcerned public. Lady Lytton attributed to her husband the most +odious meannesses, vices, and cruelties; but the public, with all its +love of scandal, seems to have steadfastly refused to take her +ladyship's word for these accusations. Dickens she denounced and +vilified as a mere parasite and sycophant of her husband. At one time +she poured out a gush of fulsome eulogy on Thackeray because he +apparently was not one of Lytton's friends; afterwards, when the +relationship between "Pelham" and "Pendennis" became friendly, she +changed her tune and tried to bite the file, to satirize the great +satirist. Disraeli she caricatured under the title of "Jericho Jabber." +This sort of thing she kept always going on. Sometimes she issued +pamphlets addressed to the women of England, calling on them to take up +her quarrel—which somehow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> they did not seem inclined to do. Once when +Lord Lytton, then only Sir Edward, was on the hustings, addressing his +constituents at a county election, her ladyship suddenly mounted the +platform and "went for" him. Sir Edward and his friends prudently and +quietly withdrew. I do not know anything of the merits of the quarrel, +and have always been disposed to think that something like insanity must +have been the explanation of much of Lady Lytton's conduct. But it is +beyond doubt that her husband's demeanor was remarkable for its quiet, +indomitable patience and dignity. Lately the public has happily heard +little of Lady Lytton's complaints. I did not even know whether she was +still living, until I saw a little book announced the other day by some +publisher, which bore her name. Let her pass—with the one remark that +her long succession of bitter attacks upon her husband does not seem to +have done him any damage in the estimation of the world.</p> + +<p>It is not likely that posterity will preserve much of Lord Lytton's +writings. They do not, I think, add to literature one original +character. Even the glorified murderer or robber, the Eugene Aram or +Paul Clifford sort of person, had been done and done much better by +Schiller, by Godwin, and by others, before Bulwer-Lytton tried him at +second hand. As pictures of English society, those of them which profess +to deal with modern English life have no value whatever. The historical +novels, the classical novels, are glaringly false in their color and +tone. Some of the personages in "The Last Days of Pompeii" are a good +deal more like modern English dandies than most of the people who are +given out as such in "Pelham." The attempts at political satire in "Paul +Clifford," at broad humor in "Eugene Aram" (the Corporal and his cat for +example), are feeble and miserable. There is hardly one touch of refined +and genuine pathos—of pathos drawn from other than the old stock +conventional sources—in the whole of the romances, plays, and poems. +The one great faculty which the author possessed was the capacity to +burnish up and display the absolutely commonplace, the merely +conventional, the utterly unreal, so that it looked new, original, and +real in the eyes of the ordinary public, and sometimes even succeeded, +for the hour, in deceiving the expert. Bulwer-Lytton's romance is only +the romance of the London "Family Herald" or the "New York Ledger," plus +high intellectual culture and an intimate acquaintance with the best +spheres of letters, art, and fashion. I own that I have considerable +admiration for the man who, with so small an original outfit, +accomplished so much. So successful a romancist; occasionally almost a +sort of poet; a perfect master of the art of writing plays to catch +audiences; so skilful an imitator of oratory that, despite almost +unparalleled physical defects, he once nearly persuaded the world that +his was genuine eloquence—who shall say that the capacity which can do +all this is not something to be admired? It is a clever thing to be able +to make ornaments of paste which shall pass with the world for diamonds; +mock-turtle soup which shall taste like real; wax figures which look at +first as if they were alive. Of the literary art which is akin to this, +our common literature has probably never had so great a master as Lord +Lytton. Such a man is especially the one to stand up as the appropriate +representative of literature in such an assembly as the English House of +Lords. I should be sorry to see a Browning, a Thackeray, a Carlyle, a +Tennyson, a Dickens there; but I think Lord Lytton is in his right +place—a splendid sham author in a splendid sham legislative assembly.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>"PAR NOBILE FRATRUM—THE TWO NEWMANS."</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>"The truth, friend," exclaims Mr. Arthur Pendennis, debating some +question with his comrade Warrington; "where is the truth? Show it me. I +see it on both sides. I see it in this man who worships by act of +Parliament, and is rewarded with a silk apron and five thousand a year; +in that man who, driven fatally by the remorseless logic of his creed, +gives up everything, friends, fame, dearest ties, closest vanities, the +respect of an army of churchmen, the recognized position of a leader, +and passes over, truth-impelled, to the enemy in whose ranks he is ready +to serve henceforth as a nameless private soldier; I see the truth in +that man as I do in his brother, whose logic drives him to quite a +different conclusion, and who, after having passed a life in vain +endeavors to reconcile an irreconcilable book, flings it at last down in +despair, and declares, with tearful eyes and hands up to heaven, his +revolt and recantation."</p> + +<p>Perhaps many American readers, meeting with this passage, may have +supposed that the two brothers here described were merely typical +figures, invented almost at random by Thackeray to enable Pendennis to +point his moral. But in England people know that the two brothers are +real personages, and still live. I saw one of them a few nights ago, the +one last mentioned by Arthur Pendennis. I saw him, as he is indeed often +to be seen, the centre and leader of a little group or knot, a hopeless +minority, vainly striving by force of argument and logic, of almost +unlimited erudition, and a keen bright intellect, to obtain public +attention for something which the public persisted in regarding as an +idle crotchet, an impotent craze. The other brother, the elder, is a man +whose secession from the Church of England has lately been described by +Disraeli, in the preface to the collected edition of his works, as +having "dealt a blow to the Church under which it still reels." "That +extraordinary event," says Disraeli, "has been 'apologized for' but has +never been explained. It was a mistake and a misfortune." Probably no +reader of "The Galaxy" will now need to be told that the typical +brothers alluded to by Pendennis are John Henry and Francis W. Newman.</p> + +<p>The Atlantic deals curiously and capriciously with reputations. Both +these brothers Newman seem to me to be less known in America than they +deserve to be. John Henry in especial I found to be thus comparatively +ignored in the United States. He is beyond doubt one of the greatest, +certainly one of the most influential Englishmen of our time. He has +engraved his name deeply on the history of his age. He has led perhaps +the most remarkable religious movement known to England for generations. +He is one of the very few men whose lofty and commanding intellect has +been acknowledged and admired by all sects and parties. Gather together +any company of eminent Englishmen, however select in its composition, +however splendid in its members, and John Henry Newman will be among the +few especially conspicuous.</p> + +<p>Perhaps most of my readers will be of opinion that Newman's intellect +has been sadly misused; that his influence has been for the most part +disastrous. But no one who knows anything of the subject can deny the +greatness alike of the intellect and of the influence. Let me add, too, +that no enemy ever yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> called into question the simple sincerity, the +blameless purity of John Henry Newman's purposes and character. Of later +years he has been rarely seen in London, for his duties keep him in +Birmingham, where he is at the head of a religious and educational +institution. I have heard that years are telling heavily on him, and +that when he now preaches he is listened to with the kind of +half-melancholy reverence which hangs on the words of a great man who is +already beginning to be a portion of the past. But his influence was a +power almost unequalled in its day, and that day has not yet wholly +faded.</p> + +<p>The Newman brothers are Londoners by birth, sons of a wealthy banker of +Lombard street—the British Wall street. Both were educated at Ealing +school, and both went to the University of Oxford. John Henry is by some +four years the senior of Francis, who was born in 1805, and who now +looks at least a dozen or fifteen years younger than his distinguished +brother. Both men were endowed with remarkable gifts; both had a +splendid faculty of acquiring knowledge. John Henry Newman became a +clergyman of the Established Church. He was a close and intimate friend +of Keble, of Pusey, and of Manning. He grew to be regarded as one of the +rising stars of Protestantism. No name, soon, stood higher than his. His +friends loved him, and Protestant England began to revere him. Now +observe the change that came on these two brothers, alike so gifted and +earnest, alike so wooed by the promise of brilliant worldly career. Two +movements of thought, having perhaps a common origin in the +dissatisfaction with the existing intellectual stagnation of the Church, +but tending in widely different directions, carried the brothers along +with them—"seized," to use the words of Richter, "their bleeding hearts +and flung them different ways." The younger brother found himself drawn +toward rationalism. He could not subscribe the Thirty-Nine Articles for +his degree as a Master; he left Oxford. He wandered for years in the +East, endeavoring, not very successfully, to teach Christianity on its +broadest basis to the Mohammedans; and he finally returned to England to +take his place among the leaders of that school of free thought which +the ignorant, the careless, or the malignant set down as infidelity. In +the mean time his brother became one of the pioneers of a still more +unexpected movement. In the English Church for a long time every thing +had seemed to be settled and at rest. The old controversy with Rome +appeared out of date, unnecessary, and perhaps vulgar. Everything was +just as it should be—stable and respectable. But it suddenly occurred +to some earnest, unresting souls, like that of Keble—souls "without +haste and without rest," like Goethe's star—to insist that the Church +of England had higher claims and nobler duties than those of preaching +harmless sermons and enriching bishops. Keble could not bear to think of +the Church taking pleasure since all is well. He urged on some of the +more vigorous and thoughtful minds around him that they should reclaim +for the Church the place which ought to be hers as the true successor of +the Apostles. He claimed for her that she, and she alone, was the real +Catholic Church, authorized to teach all nations, and that Rome had +wandered away from the right path, foregone the glorious mission which +she might have maintained. One of Keble's closest and dearest friends +was John Henry Newman, and Keble regarded Newman as a man qualified +beyond all others to become the teacher and leader of the new movement. +Keble preached a famous sermon in 1833, and inaugurated the publication +of a series of tracts designed to vindicate the real mission of the +Church of England. This was the Tractarian movement, which had early, +various, and memorable results. John Henry Newman wrote the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +celebrated of all the tracts, the famous "No. 90," which drew down the +censure of the University authorities on the ground that it actually +tended to abolish all difference between the Church of England and the +Church of Rome. Yet a little, and the gradual workings of Newman's mind +became evident to all the world. The brightest and most penetrating +intellect in the English Protestant Church was publicly and deliberately +withdrawn from her service, and John Henry Newman became a priest of the +Church of Rome. To this had the inquiry conducted him which led his +friend Dr. Pusey merely to endeavor to incorporate some of the mysticism +and the symbols of Rome with the practice and the progress of the +English Church; which had led Dr. Keble only to a more liberal and truly +Christianlike temper of Protestant faith; which had sent Francis Newman +into radical rationalism. The two brothers were intellectually divided +forever. Each renounced a career rich in promise for mere conscience' +sake; and the one went this way, the other that.</p> + +<p>Disraeli has in no wise exaggerated the depth and painfulness of the +sensation produced among English Protestants by the secession of John +Henry Newman. It was of course received upon the opposite side with +corresponding exultation. No man, indeed, could be less qualified than +Mr. Disraeli to understand the tremendous, the irresistible force of +conviction in a nature like that of Newman. The brilliant master of +political tactics has made it evident that he did not understand the +motive of Newman's secession any more than he did the meaning of the +title of Newman's celebrated book, "Apologia pro Vitâ suâ." "That +extraordinary event," says Disraeli, speaking of the secession, "has +been apologized for, but has never been explained." Evidently Disraeli +believed that the English word "apology" is the correct translation of +the Latinized Greek word "apologia," which it most certainly is not. +Nothing could have been further from Newman's mind or from the purpose, +or indeed from the title of his book, than to apologize for his +secession. On the contrary, the book is sharply and pertinaciously +aggressive. It was called forth by an attack made on Dr. Newman by the +Rev. Charles Kingsley. I think Kingsley was in the main right in his +views, but he was rough and blundering in his expression of them, and he +is about as well qualified to carry on a controversy with John Henry +Newman as Governor Hoffman would be to undertake a rhetorical +competition with Mr. Wendell Phillips. Kingsley's bluff, rude, illogical +way of fighting, his "wild and skipping spirit," were placed at +ludicrous and fearful disadvantage. Newman "went for him" unsparingly, +and literally tore him with the beak and claws of logic, satire, and +invective. One was reminded of Pascal's attacks on the Jesuits—only +that this time the wit and power were on the side which might fairly be +called Jesuitical. Out of this merciless onslaught on Kingsley came the +"Apologia pro Vitâ suâ," in which Newman endeavored to vindicate and +glorify, not excuse or apologize for, his strange secession. The book is +well worth reading, if only as a curious illustration of the utter +inadequacy of human intellect and human logic to secure a soul from the +strangest wandering, the saddest possible illusion. You cannot read a +page of it without admiration for the intellect of the author, and +without pity for the poverty even of the richest intellectual gifts +where guidance is sought in a faith and in things which transcend the +limits of human logic.</p> + +<p>John Henry Newman threw his whole soul, energy, genius, and fame into +the cause of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome welcomed him with that +cordial welcome she always gives to a new-comer, and she utilized him +and set work for him to do. Macaulay has shown very effectively in one +of his essays<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> how the Roman Church seldom loses any one it has gained, +because it is so skilful in finding for everybody his proper place, and +assigning him in her service the task he is best qualified to do, so +that her ambition becomes his ambition, her interest his interest, her +conquests his conquests. Newman appears to have been made a sort of +missionary from Rome to the intellect and culture of the English people. +Within the Church to which he had gone over he became an immense +influence and almost unequalled power. The Catholics delighted to have a +leader whose intellect no one could pretend to despise, whose gifts and +culture had been panegyrized in the most glowing terms, over and over +again, by the foremost statesmen and divines of the Protestant Church. +Newman was appointed head of the oratory of St. Philip Neri at +Birmingham, and was for some years rector of the Roman Catholic +University of Dublin. He rarely came before the public. In all the arts +that make an orator or a great preacher he is strikingly deficient. His +manner is constrained, awkward, and even ungainly; his voice is thin and +weak. His bearing is not impressive. His gaunt, emaciated figure, his +sharp, eagle face, his cold, meditative eye, rather repel than attract +those who see him for the first time. The matter of his discourse, +whether sermon, speech, or lecture, is always admirable, and the +language is concise, scholarly, expressive—perhaps a little +overweighted with thought; but there is nothing there of the orator. It +is as a writer, and as an "influence"—I don't know how better to +express it—that Newman has become famous. I doubt if we have many +better prose writers. He is full of keen, pungent, satirical humor; and +there is, on the other hand, a subtle vein of poetry and of pathos +suffusing nearly all he writes. One of the finest and one of the most +frequently quoted passages in modern English literature is Newman's +touching and noble apostrophe to England's "Saxon Bible." He has +published volumes of verse which I think belong to the very highest +order of verse-making that is not genuine poetry. They are full of +thought, feeling, pathos, tenderness, beauty of illustration; they are +all that verse can be made by one who just fails to be a poet. An +English critical review not long since classed the poetical works of Dr. +Newman and George Eliot together, as the nearest approach which +intellect and culture have made in our days toward the production of +genuine poetry. When Newman made his famous attack on Dr. Achilli, an +Italian priest who had renounced the Roman Church, and whom Newman +publicly accused of many crimes, the judge who had to sentence the +accuser to the payment of a fine for libel pronounced a panegyric on his +intellect and his character such as is rarely heard from an English +judgment seat. Not long after, when the subject came up somehow in the +House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone broke into an encomium of John Henry +Newman which might have seemed poetical by hyperbole to those who did +not know the merits of the one man and the conscientious truthfulness of +the other. We have heard the testimony borne by Mr. Disraeli to the +importance of Newman's intellect as a support of the English Church, and +the shock which was caused by his withdrawal. Seldom, indeed, has a man +seceded from one church and become the aggressive, unsparing, intolerant +champion of its enemy, and yet retained the esteem and the affection of +those whom he abandoned, as this good, great, mistaken Englishman has +done.</p> + +<p>The two brothers then are hopelessly divided. One consorts with the Pope +and Cardinal Wiseman and Archbishop Manning, and is the idol and saint +of the Ultramontanes, and devotes his noble intellect to the task of +making the Irish Catholic a more bigoted Catholic than ever. The other +falls in with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> little band, that once seemed a forlorn hope, of what +we may call the philosophical radicals of England. He becomes a +professor of the rationalistic University of London, and a contributor +to the free-thinking "Westminster Review." Judging each brother's +success merely by what each sought to do, I suppose the career of the +Catholic has been the more successful. Not that I think he has made much +way toward the conversion of England to Catholicism. With all its +Puseyism and ritualism, England seems to have little real inclination +toward the doctrines of Rome. There is indeed a distinguished "convert" +every now and then—the Marquis of Bute some two years ago, Lord Robert +Montagu last year; but the great mass of the English people remain +obstinately anti-papal. The tendency is far more toward Rationalism than +toward Romanism; with the Newman who withdrew from all churches rather +than with the Newman who renounced one church to enter another. +Therefore, when I say that the career of John Newman appears to me to +have been more successful than that of Francis, I mean only that he has +been a greater influence, a more powerful instrument of his cause than +his brother ever has been. The boast was made unjustly for Voltaire that +he almost arrested the progress of Christianity in Europe. I think the +admirers of John Newman might claim for him that he actually did for a +time at least arrest the progress of Protestantism in England. He had +indeed the great advantage of passing from one organization to another. +Like Coriolanus, when he seceded he became the leader of the enemy's +army. It was quite otherwise with his brother, who leaving the English +Church was thenceforward only an individual, and for the most part an +isolated worker. But indeed, with all his intellect, his high culture, +and his indomitable courage, Francis Newman has never been an +influential man in English politics. It may be that his keen logic is +too uncompromising; and there can be no practical statesmanship without +compromise. It may be that there is something eccentric, egotistic (in +the less offensive sense), and crotchety in that sharp, independent, and +self-sufficing intelligence. Whatever the reason, nine out of ten men in +London set down Francis Newman as hopelessly given over to crotchets, +while the tenth man, admiring however much his character and his +capacity, is sometimes grieved and sometimes provoked that both together +do not make him a greater power in the nation. I never remember Francis +Newman to have been in accord with what I may call the average public +opinion of English political life, except in one instance; and in that +case I believe him to have been wrong. He was in favor of the Crimean +war; and for this once therefore he found himself on the side of the +majority. As if to mark the contrast of views which it has been the fate +of these two brothers to present during their lives, it so happened +that, so far as John Henry's opinions on the subject could be learned by +the public, they were against the war. At least they were decidedly +against the Turks. I remember hearing him deliver at that time a course +of lectures in an educational institution, having for their subject the +origin and the results of the Ottoman settlement in Europe. I well +remember how effectively and vividly he argued, with his thin voice and +his constrained, ungraceful action, that the Turk had no greater moral +right to the territory he occupies, but does not cultivate and improve, +than the pirate has to the sea over which he sails. But Francis Newman +was then for once mixed up with the majority; and I doubt whether he +could have much liked the unwonted position. He certainly took care to +explain more than once that his reasons for taking that side were not +those of the average Englishman. He thus might have given some of his +casual associates occasion to say of him, as Charles Mathews says of +woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> in general, that even when he is right he is right in a wrong +sort of way. For myself I am inclined to reverse the saying, and declare +of Francis Newman that even when he is wrong he is wrong in a right sort +of way. He was right, and in a very right sort of way, when he came out +from his habitual seclusion during the American civil war, and stood up +on many a platform for the cause of the Union. Like his brother, he is a +poor public speaker. At his very best he is the professor talking to his +class, not the orator addressing a crowd. His manner is singularly +constrained, ineffective, and even awkward; his voice is thin and weak. +There is a certain very small and rare class of bad speakers, which has +yet a virtue and charm of its own almost equal to eloquence. I am now +thinking of men utterly wanting in all the arts and graces, in all the +power and effect of rhetorical delivery, but who yet with whatever +defect of manner can say such striking things, can put such noble +thoughts into expressive words, can be so entirely original and so +completely masters of their subject, that they seem to be orators in all +but voice and manner. Horace Greeley always is, to me at least, such a +speaker; so is Stuart Mill. These are bad speakers as Jane Eyre or +Consuelo may have been an unlovely woman; all the rules declare against +them, all the intelligences and sympathies are in their favor. But +Francis Newman is not a speaker of this kind. He is feeble, ineffective, +and often even commonplace. Nature has denied to him the faculty of +adequately expressing himself in spoken words. He is almost as much out +of his element when addressing a public meeting as he would be if he +were singing in an opera. Few Englishmen living can claim to be the +intellectual superiors of Francis Newman; but you would never know +Francis Newman by hearing him speak on a platform. The last time I heard +him address a public meeting was on an occasion to which I have already +alluded. He was presiding over an assemblage called together to protest +against compulsory vaccination. The Government and Parliament have +lately made very stringent the enactment for compulsory vaccination, in +consequence of the terrible increase of small-pox. There is in London, +as in all other great capitals, a certain knot of persons who would +refuse to wash their faces or kiss their wives if Government ordered or +even recommended either performance. Therefore there was a small +agitation got up against vaccination, and Francis Newman consented to +become the president of one of its meetings. This meeting was held in +Exeter Hall—not indeed in the vast hall where the oratorios are +performed, and where once upon a time Henry Ward Beecher pleaded the +cause of the Union; but in the "lower hall," as it is called, a little +subterranean den. Some eminent classic person, I really forget who, +being reproached with the small size of his apartments, declared that he +should be only too glad if he could fill his rooms, small as they were, +with men his friends. The organizers of this meeting might have been +content if they could have filled the hall, small as it was, with men +and women their friends. The attendance was not nearly up to the size of +the room. There on the platform sat the good, the gifted, and the +fearless Francis Newman; and immediately around him were some dozen +embodied and living crotchets and crazes. There was this learned +physician who has communication with the spirit-world regularly. There +was this other eminent person who has long been trying in vain to teach +an apathetic Government how to cure crime on phrenological principles. +There was Smith, who is opposed to all wars; Brown, who firmly believes +that every disease comes from the use of salt; Jones, who has at his own +expense put into circulation thousands of copies of his work against the +employment of medical men in puerperal cases; Robinson, who is ready to +spend his last coin for the purpose of proving that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> vaccination and +original sin are one and the same thing. How often, oh, how often have I +not heard those theories expounded! How often have I marvelled at the +extraordinary perversion of ingenuity by which figures, facts, +philosophy, and Scripture are jumbled up together to convince you that +the moon is made of green cheese! We just wanted on this memorable +occasion the awful persons who prove to you that the earth is flat, and +the indefatigable ladies who expound their claims to the British crown +feloniously usurped by Queen Victoria. There sat Francis Newman +presiding over this preposterous little conclave, and having of course +what seemed to him satisfactory and just reasons for the position he +occupied. He spoke rather better than usual, and there was a bewildering +bravery of paradox writhing through his speech which must have delighted +his listeners. The meeting came to nothing. The papers took hardly any +notice of it (London papers were never in my time so entirely +conventional, respectable, and Philistinish as they are just now); and +Newman's effort went wholly in vain. I have mentioned it only because it +was illustrative or typical of so much in the man's whole career. So +much of lovely independence; such a disdain of public opinion and public +ridicule; such an absence of all perception of the ridiculous! Thus it +was that he endeavored to rouse up the English public, who except for +the extreme democracy always have had a strong hankering for the +Austrian Government, to a sense of the crimes of the House of Hapsburg +against its subjects. Thus he was for reform in Parliament when +Parliamentary reform was a theme supposed to be dead and buried; when +Palmerston had trampled on its ashes, and Disraeli had made merry over +its coffin. Thus he came out for the American Union when John Bright +stood almost alone in the House of Commons, and Mill and Goldwin Smith +and two or three others were trying to organize public opinion outside +the House. The same qualities after all which made Newman nearly sublime +in these latter instances, were just those which made him well nigh +ridiculous in the anti-vaccination business. But in all the instances +alike the same thing can be said of Francis Newman. There is a turn or +twist of some kind in his nature and intellect which always seems to mar +his best efforts at practical accomplishment. Even his purely literary +and scholastic productions are marked by the same fatal characteristic. +All the outfit, all the materials are there in surprising profusion. +There is the culture, there is the intellect, the patience, the +sincerity. But the result is not in proportion to the value of the +materials. The blending is not complete, is not effectual. Something has +always intervened or been wanting. Francis Newman has never done and +probably never will do anything equal to his strength and his capacity.</p> + +<p>I am not inviting a comparison between these two brothers, so alike in +their sincerity, their devotion, their courage, and their gifts—so +singularly unlike, so utterly divided, in their creeds and their +careers. My own sympathies, of course, naturally go with Francis Newman, +who has in a vast majority of instances been a teacher of some opinion, +a champion of some political cause of which I am proud to be a disciple +and a follower. But I suppose the greater intellect and the richer gifts +were those which were given up so meekly and wholly to the service of +the dogmatism of the Roman Catholic Church. The career of John Henry +Newman may probably be regarded as having practically closed. His latest +work of note, "The Grammar of Assent," does not indeed seem to show any +falling away of his intellectual powers; but I have heard that his +physical strength has suffered severely with years, and he never was a +strong man. He is now in his seventieth year, and it is therefore only +reasonable to regard him as one who has done his work and whose life is +fully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> open to the judgment of his time. May I be allowed to say that I +think he has done some good even to that English Church to which his +secession struck so heavy a blow? Newman was really the mainspring of +that movement which proposed to rescue the Church from apathy, from dull +easy-going quiescence, from the perfunctory discharge of formal duties, +and to quicken her once again with the spirit of a priesthood, to arouse +her to the living work, physical and spiritual, of an ecclesiastical +sovereignty. The impulse indeed overshot itself in his case, and was +misdirected in the case of Dr. Pusey, plunging blindly into Romanism +with the one, degenerating into a somewhat barren symbolism with the +other. But throughout the English Church in general there has been +surely a higher spirit at work since that famous Oxford movement which +was inspired by John Henry Newman. I think its influence has been more +active, more beneficent, more human, and yet at the same time more +spiritual, since that sudden and startling impulse was given. For the +man himself little more needs to be said. Every one acknowledges his +gifts and his virtues. No one doubts that in his marvellous change he +sought only the pure truth. His theology, I presume, is not that of the +readers of "The Galaxy" in general, any more than it is mine; but I +trust there is none of us so narrowed to his own form of Christianity as +to refuse his respect and admiration to one so highly lifted above the +average of men in goodness and intellect, even though his career may +have been sacrificed at the shrine of a faith that is not ours. For me, +I am sometimes lost in wonder at the sacrifice, but I can only think +with respect and even veneration of the man.</p> + +<p>The younger brother needs no apology or vindication, in the United +States especially. He is, be it understood, a thoroughly religious man. +He has never sunk into materialism or frittered away his earnestness in +mere skepticism. He is not orthodox—he has gone his own way as regards +church dogma and discipline; but except in the vulgarest and narrowest +application of the word, he is no "infidel." The United States owe him +some good feeling, for he was one of the few eminent men in England who +never were faithless to the cause of the Union, and never doubted of its +ultimate triumph. I have now before me one of the most powerful +arguments addressed to an English audience for the Union and against +secession that reason, justice, and eloquence could frame. It is a +pamphlet published in 1863 by "F. W. Newman, late Professor at +University College, London," in the form of a "Letter to a Friend who +had joined the Southern Independence Association." How wonderful it +seems now that such arguments ever should have been needed; how few +there were then in England who regarded them; how completely time has +justified and sealed them as true, right, and prophetic. I read the +pages over, and all the old struggle comes back with its rancors and its +dangers, and I honor anew the brave man who was not afraid to stand as +one of a little group, isolated, denounced, and laughed at, confiding +always in justice and time.</p> + +<p>The story of these two brothers is on the whole as strange a chapter as +any I know in the biography of human intellect and creed. I think it may +at least teach us a lesson of toleration, if nothing better. The very +pride of intellect itself can hardly pretend to look down with mere +scorn upon beliefs or errors which have carried off in contrary +directions these two Newmans. The sternest bigot can scarcely refuse to +admit that truthfulness and goodness may abide without the limits of his +own creed, when he remembers the high and noble example of pure, true, +and disinterested lives which these intellectually-sundered brothers +alike have given to their fellow-men.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>ARCHBISHOP MANNING.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>St. James's Hall, London, is primarily a place for concerts and singers, +as Exeter Hall is. But, like its venerable predecessor, St. James's Hall +has come to be identified with political meetings of a certain class. +Exeter Hall, a huge, gaunt, unadorned, and dreary room in the Strand, is +resorted to for the most part as the arena and platform of +ultra-Protestantism. St. James's Hall, a beautiful and almost lavishly +ornate structure in Piccadilly, is commonly used by the leading Roman +Catholics of London when they desire to make a demonstration. There are +political classes which will use either place indifferently; but Exeter +Hall has usually a tinge of Protestant exclusiveness about its political +expression, while the ceiling of the other building has rung alike to +the thrilling music of John Bright's voice, to the strident vehemence of +Mr. Bradlaugh, the humdrum humming of Mr. Odger, and the clear, +delicate, tremulous intonations of Stuart Mill. But I never heard of a +Roman Catholic meeting of great importance being held anywhere in London +lately, except in St. James's Hall.</p> + +<p>Let us attend such a meeting there. The hall is a huge oblong, with +galleries around three of the sides, and a platform bearing a splendid +organ on the fourth. The room is brilliantly lighted, and the mode of +lighting is peculiar and picturesque. The platform, the galleries, the +body of the hall alike are crowded. This is a meeting held to make a +demonstration in favor of some Roman Catholic demand—say for separate +education. On the platform are the great Catholic peers, most of them +men of lineage stretching back to years when Catholicism was yet +unsuspicious of any possible rivalry in England. There are the Norfolks, +the Denbighs, the Dormers, the Petres, the Staffords; there are such +later accessions to Catholicism as the Marquis of Bute, whose change +created such a sensation, and Lord Robert Montagu, who "went over" only +last year. There are some recent accessions of the peerage also—Lord +Acton, for instance, head of a distinguished and ancient family, but +only lately called to the Upper House, and who, when Sir John Acton, won +honorable fame as a writer and scholar. Lord Acton not many years ago +started the "Home and Foreign Review," a quarterly periodical which +endeavored to reconcile Catholicism with liberalism and science. The +universal opinion of England and of Europe declared the "Home and +Foreign Review" to be unsurpassed for ability, scholarship, and +political information by any publication<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> in the world. It leaped at one +bound to a level with the "Edinburgh," the "Quarterly," and the "Revue +des Deux Mondes." But the Pope thought the Review too liberal, and +intimated that it ought to be suppressed; and Lord Acton meekly bowed +his head and suppressed it in all the bloom of its growing fame. Some +Irish members of Parliament are on the platform—men of station and +wealth like Munsell, men of energy and brains like John Francis Maguire; +perhaps, too, the handsome, brilliant-minded O'Donoghue, with his +picturesque pedigree and his broken fortunes. But in general there is +not a very cordial <i>rapprochement</i> between the English Catholic peers +and the Irish Catholic members. Of all slow, cold, stately Conservatives +in the world, the slowest, coldest, and stateliest is the English +Catholic peer. Only the common bond of religion brings these two sets of +men together now and then. They meet, but do not blend. In the body of +the hall are the middle-class Catholics of London, the shopkeepers and +clerks, mostly Irish or of Irish parentage. In the galleries are +swarming the genuine Irishmen of London, the Paddies who are always +threatening to interrupt Garibaldian gatherings in the parks, and who +throw up their hats at the prospect of any "row" on behalf of the Pope. +The chair is taken by some duke or earl, who is listened to +respectfully, but without any special fervor of admiration. The English +Catholics are undemonstrative in any case, and Irish Paddy does not care +much about a chilly English peer. But a speaker is presently introduced +who has only to make his appearance in front of the platform in order to +awaken one universal burst of applause. Paddy and the Duke of Norfolk +vie with each other; the steady English shopkeeper from Islington is as +demonstrative as any O'Donoghue or Maguire. The meeting is wide awake +and informed by one spirit and soul at last.</p> + +<p>The man who has aroused all this emotion shrinks back almost as if he +were afraid of it, although it is surely not new to him. He is a tall +thin personage, some sixty-two years of age. His face is bloodless—pale +as a ghost, one might say. He is so thin as to look almost cadaverous. +The outlines of the face are handsome and dignified. There is much of +courtly grace and refinement about the bearing and gestures of this +pale, weak, and wasted man. He wears a long robe of violet silk, with +some kind of dark cape or collar, and has a massive gold chain round his +neck, holding attached to it a great gold cross. There is a certain +nervous quivering about his eyes and lips, but otherwise he is perfectly +collected and master of the occasion. His voice is thin, but wonderfully +clear and penetrating. It is heard all through this great hall—a moment +ago so noisy, now so silent. The words fall with a slow, quiet force, +like drops of water. Whatever your opinion may be, you cannot choose but +listen; and, indeed, you want only to listen and see. For this is the +foremost man in the Catholic Church of England. This is the Cardinal +Grandison of Disraeli's "Lothair"—Dr. Henry Edward Manning, Roman +Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, successor in that office of the late +Cardinal Wiseman.</p> + +<p>It is no wonder that the Irishmen at the meeting are enthusiastic about +Archbishop Manning. An Englishman of Englishmen, with no drop of Irish +blood in his veins, he is more Hibernian than the Hibernians themselves +in his sympathies with Ireland. A man of social position, of old family, +of the highest education and the most refined instincts, he would leave +the Catholic noblemen at any time to go down to his Irish teetotallers +at the East End of London. He firmly believes that the salvation of +England is yet to be accomplished through the influence of that +religious devotion which is at the bottom of the Irish nature, and which +some of us call superstition. He loves his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> country dearly, but +turns away from her present condition of industrial prosperity to the +days before the Reformation, when yet saints trod the English soil. "In +England there has been no saint since the Reformation," he said the +other day, in sad, sweet tones, to one of wholly different opinions, who +listened with a mingling of amazement and reverence. No views that I +have ever heard put into living words embodied to anything like the same +extent the full claims and pretensions of Ultramontanism. It is quite +wonderful to sit and listen. One cannot but be impressed by the +sweetness, the thoughtfulness, the dignity, I had almost said the +sanctity of the man who thus pours forth, with a manner full of the most +tranquil conviction, opinions which proclaim all modern progress a +failure, and glorify the Roman priest or the Irish peasant as the true +herald and repository of light, liberty, and regeneration to a sinking +and degraded world.</p> + +<p>Years ago, Henry Edward Manning was one of the brilliant lights of the +English Protestant Church. Just twenty years back he was appointed to +the high place of Archdeacon of Chichester, having also, according to +the manner in which the English State Church rewards its dignitaries, +more than one other ecclesiastical appointment at the same time. Dr. +Manning had distinguished himself highly during his career at the +University of Oxford. His father was a member of the House of Commons, +and Manning on starting into life had many friends and very bright +prospects. Nothing would have been easier, nothing seemingly would have +been more natural than for him to tread the way so plainly opened before +him, and to rise to higher and higher dignity, until at last perhaps the +princely renown of a bishopric and a seat in the House of Lords would +have been his reward. But Dr. Manning's career was cast in a time of +stress and trial for the English State Church. I have described briefly +in a former article the origin, growth, and effects of that remarkable +movement which, beginning within the Church itself and seeking to +establish loftier claims for her than she had long put forward, ended by +convulsing her in a manner more troublous than any religious crisis +which had occurred since the Reformation. Dr. Manning's is evidently a +nature which must have been specially allured by what I may be allowed +to call the supernatural claims put forward on behalf of the Church of +England. He was of course correspondingly disappointed by what he +considered the failure of those claims. As Coleridge says that every man +is born an Aristotelian or a Platonist, so it may perhaps be said that +every man is born with a predisposition to lean either on natural or +supernatural laws in the direct guidance of life. I am not now raising +any religious question whatever. What I say may be said of members of +the same sect or church—of any sect, of any church. One man, as +faithful and devout a believer as any, is yet content to go through his +daily duties and fulfil his career trusting to his religious principles, +his insight, and his reason, without requiring at every moment the light +of spiritual or supernatural guidance. Another must always have his +world in direct communion with the spiritual, or it is no world of faith +to him. Now it is impossible to look in Dr. Manning's face without +seeing that his is one of those sensitive, spiritual, I had almost said +morbid natures, which can find no endurable existence without a close +and constant communion with the supernatural. Keble, Newman, Time and +the Hour, called out for the assertion of the claim that the Church of +England was the true heir of the apostolic succession. Such a nature as +Manning's must have delightedly welcomed the claim. But the mere +investigation sent, as I have already explained, one Newman to +Catholicism and the other to Rationalism. Dr. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>Manning, too, felt +compelled to ask himself whether the Church could make good its claim, +and whether, if it could not, he had any longer a place within its +walls. The change does not appear to have come so rapidly to fulfilment +with him as with John Henry Newman. Dr. Manning seems to me to have a +less aggressive temperament than his distinguished predecessor in +secession. There is more about him of the quietist, of the ecstatic, so +far as religious thought is concerned, while it is possible that he may +be a more practical and influential guide in the mere policy of the +church to which he belongs. There is an amount of scorn in Newman's +nature which sometimes reminds one of Pascal, and which I have not +observed in Dr. Manning or in his writings. I cannot imagine Dr. +Manning, for example, pelting Charles Kingsley with sarcasms and +overwhelming him with contempt, as Dr. Newman evidently delighted to do +in the famous controversy which was provoked by the apostle of Muscular +Christianity. I suppose therefore that Dr. Manning clung for a long time +to the faith in which he was bred. But his whole nature is evidently +cast in the mould which makes Roman Catholic devotees. He is a man of +the type which perhaps found in Fénelon its most illustrious example. I +think it is not too much to say that to him that light of private +judgment which some of us regard as man's grandest and most peculiarly +divine attribute, must always have presented itself as something +abhorrent to his nature. I am judging, of course, as an outsider and as +one little acquainted with theological subjects; but my impression of +the two men would be that Dr. Newman joined the Roman Catholic Church in +obedience to some compulsion of reason, acting in what must seem to most +of us an inscrutable manner, and that Dr. Manning never would have been +a Protestant at all if he had not believed that the Protestant Church +was truly all which its rival claims to be.</p> + +<p>Dr. Manning in fact did not leave the Church. The Church left him. He +had misunderstood it. It became revealed at last as it really is, a +church founded on the right of private judgment, and Manning was +appalled and turned away from it. Something that may almost be called +accident brought home to his mind the true character of the Church to +which he belonged. Many readers of "The Galaxy" may have some +recollection of the once celebrated Gorham case in England—a case which +I shall not now describe any further than by saying that it raised the +question whether the Church of England can prescribe the religion of the +State. Had the Church the right to decide whether certain doctrine +taught by one of its clergy was heretical, and to condemn it if so +declared? In England, Church and State are so bound up together, that it +is practically the State and not the Church which decides whether this +or that teaching is heresy or true religion. A lord chancellor who may +be an infidel, and two or three "law lords" who may be anything or +nothing, settle the question in the end. We all remember the epigram +about Lord Chancellor Westbury, the least godly of men, having +"dismissed Hell with costs," and taken away from the English Protestant +"his last hope of damnation." The Gorham case, twenty years ago, showed +that the Church, as an ecclesiastical body, had no power to condemn +heresy. This, to men like Stuart Mill, appears on the whole a +satisfactory condition of things so long as there is a State Church, for +the plain reason which he gives—namely, that the State in England is +now far more liberal than the Church. But to Dr. Manning the idea of the +Church thus abdicating its function of interpreting and declaring +doctrine was equivalent to the renunciation of its right to existence. +He strove hard to bring about an organized and solemn declaration and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>protest from the Church—a declaration of doctrine, a protest against +secular control. He became the leader of an effort in this direction. +The effort met with little support. The then Bishop of London did indeed +introduce a bill into the House of Lords for the purpose of enacting +that in matters of doctrine, as distinct from questions of mere law, the +final decision should rest with the prelates. Dr. Manning sat in the +gallery of the House of Lords on that memorable night. The Bishop of +London wholly failed. The House of Lords scouted the idea of liberal +England tolerating a sort of ecclesiastical inquisition. Every one +admitted the anomalous condition in which things then were placed; but +few indeed would think of enacting a dogma of infallibility in favor of +the bishops of the Church. Lord Brougham spoke against the bill with +what Dr. Manning himself admits to be plain English common sense. He +said the House of Lords through its law peers could decide questions of +mere ecclesiastical law, and the decisions would carry weight and +authority; but neither peers nor bishops could in England decide a +question of doctrine. Suppose, he asked, the bishops were divided +equally on such a question, where would the decision be then? Suppose +there was a very small majority, who would accept such a decision? Or +even suppose there was a large majority, but that the minority comprised +the few men of greatest knowledge, ability, and authority, what value +would attach to the judgment of such a majority? The bill was a hopeless +failure. Dr. Manning has himself described with equal candor and +clearness the effect which the debate had upon him. He mentally +supplemented Lord Brougham's questions by one other. Suppose that all +the bishops of the Church of England should decide unanimously on any +doctrine, would any one receive the decision as infallible? He was +compelled to answer, "No one." The Church of England had no pretension +to be the infallible spiritual guide of men. Were she to raise any such +pretension, it would be rejected with contempt by the common mind of the +nation. Hear then how this conviction affected the man who up to that +time had had no thought but for the interests and duties of the English +Church. "To those," he has himself told us, "who believed that God has +established upon the earth a divine and therefore an unerring guardian +and teacher of his faith, this event demonstrated that the Church of +England could not be that guardian and teacher."</p> + +<p>While Dr. Manning was still uncertain whither to turn, the celebrated +"Papal aggression" took place. Cardinal Wiseman was sent to England by +the Pope, with the title of Archbishop of Westminster. All England +raged. Earl Russell wrote his famous "Durham Letter." The Lord +Chancellor Campbell, at a public dinner in the city of London, called up +a storm of enthusiasm by quoting the line from Shakespeare, which +declares that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>Under our feet we'll stamp the cardinal's hat.</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Protestant zealots in Stockport belabored the Roman Catholics and sacked +their houses; Irish laborers in Birkenhead retorted upon the +Protestants. The Government brought in the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill—a +measure making it penal for any Catholic prelate to call himself +archbishop or bishop of any place in England. Let him be "Archbishop +Wiseman" or "Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop of Mesopotamia," as long as he +liked—but not Archbishop of Westminster or Tuam. The bill was +powerfully, splendidly opposed by Gladstone, Bright, and Cobden, on the +broad ground that it invaded the precincts of religious liberty; but it +was carried and made law. There it remained. There never was the +slightest attempt made to enforce it. The Catholic prelates held<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> to the +titles the Pope had given them; and no English court, judge, magistrate, +or policeman ever offered to prevent or punish them. So ludicrous, so +barren a proceeding as the carrying of that measure has not been known +in the England of our time.</p> + +<p>Cardinal Wiseman was an able and a discreet man. He was calm, plausible, +powerful. He was very earnest in the cause of his Church, but he seemed +much more like a man of the world than Newman or Dr. Manning. There was +little of the loftily spiritual in his manner or appearance. His bulky +person and swollen face suggested at the first glance a sort of Abbot +Boniface; he was, I believe, in reality an ascetic. The corpulence which +seemed the result of good living was only the effect of ill health. He +had a persuasive and an imposing way. His ability was singularly +flexible. His eloquence was often too gorgeous and ornamental for a pure +taste, but when the occasion needed he could address an audience in +language of the simplest and most practical common sense. The same +adaptability, if I may use such a word, was evident in all he did. He +would talk with a cabinet minister on terms of calm equality, as if his +rank must be self-evident, and he delighted to set a band of poor school +children playing around him. He was a cosmopolitan—English and Irish by +extraction, Spanish by birth, Roman by education. When he spoke English +he was exactly like what a portly, dignified British bishop ought to +be—a John Bull in every respect. When he spoke Italian at Rome he fell +instinctively and at once into all the peculiarities of intonation and +gesture which distinguish the people of Italy from all other races. When +he conversed in Spanish he subsided into the grave, somewhat saturnine +dignity and repose of the true Castilian. All this, I presume, was but +the natural effect of that flexibility of temperament I have attempted +to describe. I had but slight personal acquaintance with Cardinal +Wiseman, and I paint him only as he impressed me, a casual observer. I +am satisfied that he was a profoundly earnest and single-minded man; the +testimony of many whom I know and who knew him well compels me to that +conviction. But such was not the impression he would have left on a mere +acquaintance. He seemed rather one who could, for a purpose which he +believed great, be all things to all men. He impressed me quite +differently from the manner in which I have been impressed by John Henry +Newman and by Archbishop Manning. He reminded one of some great, +capable, worldly-wise, astute Prince of the Church of other generations, +politician rather than priest, more ready to sustain and skilled to +defend the temporal power of the Papacy than to illustrate its highest +spiritual influence.</p> + +<p>The events which brought Cardinal Wiseman to England had naturally a +powerful effect upon the mind of Dr. Manning. It was the renewed claim +of the Roman Church to enfold England in its spiritual jurisdiction. For +Dr. Manning, who had just seen what he regarded as the voluntary +abdication of the English Church, the claim would in any case have +probably been decisive. It "stepped between him and his fighting soul." +But the personal influence of Cardinal Wiseman had likewise an immense +weight and force. Dr. Manning ever since that time entertained a feeling +of the profoundest devotion and reverence for Cardinal Wiseman. The +change was consummated in 1851, and one of the first practical comments +upon the value of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act was the announcement +that a scholar and divine of whom the Protestant Church had long been +especially proud had resigned his preferments, his dignities, and his +prospects, and passed over to the Church of Rome. I cannot better +illustrate the effect produced on the public mind than by saying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> that +even the secession of John Henry Newman hardly made a deeper impression.</p> + +<p>Dr. Manning, of course, rose to high rank in the church of his adoption. +He became Roman of the Romans—Ultramontane of the Ultramontanes. On the +death of his friend and leader, Cardinal Wiseman, whose funeral sermon +he preached, Henry Manning became Archbishop of Westminster. Except for +his frequent journeys to Rome, he has always since his appointment lived +in London. Although a good deal of an ascetic, as his emaciated face and +figure would testify, he is nothing of a hermit. He mingles to a certain +extent in society, he takes part in many public movements, and he has +doubtless given Mr. Disraeli ample opportunity of studying his manner +and bearing. I don't believe Mr. Disraeli capable of understanding the +profound devotion and single-minded sincerity of the man. A more +singular, striking, marvellous figure does not stand out, I think, in +our English society. Everything that an ordinary Englishman or American +would regard as admirable and auspicious in the progress of our +civilization, Dr. Manning calmly looks upon as lamentable and +evil-omened. What we call progress is to his mind decay. What we call +light is to him darkness. What we reverence as individual liberty he +deplores as spiritual slavery. The mere fact that a man gives reasons +for his faith seems shocking to this strangely-gifted apostle of +unconditional belief. Though you were to accept on bended knees +ninety-nine of the decrees of Rome, you would still be in his mind a +heretic if you paused to consider as to the acceptance of the hundredth +dogma. All the peculiarly modern changes in the legislation of England, +the admission of Jews to Parliament, the introduction of the principle +of divorce, the practical recognition of the English divine's right of +private judgment, are painful and odious to him. I have never heard from +any other source anything so clear, complete, and astonishing as his +cordial acceptance of the uttermost claims of Rome; the prostration of +all reason and judgment before the supposed supernatural attributes of +the Papal throne. In one of the finest passages of his own writings he +says: "My love for England begins with the England of St. Bede. Saxon +England, with all its tumults, seems to me saintly and beautiful. Norman +England I have always loved less, because, although majestic, it became +continually less Catholic, until the evil spirit of the world broke off +the light yoke of faith at the so-called Reformation. Still I loved the +Christian England which survived, and all the lingering outlines of +diocese and parishes, cathedrals and churches, with the names of saints +upon them. It is this vision of the past which still hovers over England +and makes it beautiful and full of the memories of the kingdom of God. +Nay, I loved the parish church of my childhood and the college chapel of +my youth, and the little church under a green hillside where the morning +and evening prayers and the music of the English Bible for seventeen +years became a part of my soul. Nothing is more beautiful in the natural +order, and if there were no eternal world I could have made it my home." +To Dr. Manning the time when saints walked the earth of England is more +of a reality than the day before yesterday to most of us. Where the +ordinary eye sees only a poor, ignorant Irish peasant, Dr. Manning +discerns a heaven-commissioned bearer of light and truth, destined by +the power of his unquestioning faith to redeem perhaps, in the end, even +English philosophers and statesmen. When it was said in the praise of +the murdered Archbishop of Paris that he was disposed to regret the +introduction of the dogma of infallibility, Archbishop Manning came +eagerly to the rescue of his friend's memory, and as one would vindicate +a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>person unjustly accused of crime, he vindicated the dead Archbishop +from the stigma of having for a moment dared to have an opinion of his +own on such a subject. Of course, if Dr. Manning were an ordinary +theological devotee or fanatic, there would be nothing remarkable in all +this. But he is a man of the widest culture, of high intellectual gifts, +of keen and penetrating judgment in all ordinary affairs, remarkable for +his close and logical argument, his persuasive reasoning, and for a +genial, quiet kind of humor which seems especially calculated to +dissolve sophistry by its action. He is an English gentleman, a man of +the world; he was educated at Oxford with Arthur Pendennis and young +Lord Magnus Charters; he lives at York Place in the London of to-day; he +drives down to the House of Commons and talks politics in the lobby with +Gladstone and Lowe; he meets Disraeli at dinner parties, and is on +friendly terms, I dare say, with Huxley and Herbert Spencer; he reads +the newspapers, and I make no doubt is now well acquainted with the +history of the agitation against Tammany and Boss Tweed. I think such a +man is a marvellous phenomenon in our age. It is as if one of the +mediæval saints from the stained windows of a church should suddenly +become infused with life and take a part in all the ways of our present +world. I can understand the long-abiding power of the Catholic Church +when I remember that I have heard and seen and talked with Henry Edward +Manning.</p> + +<p>Dr. Manning is not, I fancy, very much of a political reformer. His +inclinations would probably be rather conservative than otherwise. He is +drawn toward Gladstone and the Liberal party less by distinct political +affinity, of which there is but little, than by his hope and belief that +through Gladstone something will be done for that Ireland which to this +Oxford scholar is still the "island of the saints." The Catholic members +of Parliament, whether English or Irish, consult Archbishop Manning +constantly upon all questions connected with education or religion. His +parlor in York Place—not far from where Mme. Tussaud's wax-work +exhibition attracts the country visitor—is the frequent scene of +conferences which have their influence upon the action of the House of +Commons. He is a devoted upholder of the doctrine of total abstinence +from intoxicating drinks; and he is the only Englishman of real +influence and ability, except Francis Newman, who is in favor of +prohibitory legislation. He is the medium of communication between Rome +and England; the living link of connection between the English Catholic +peer and the Irish Catholic bricklayer. The position which he occupies +is at all events quite distinctive. There is nobody else in England who +could set up the faintest claim to any such place. It would be +superfluous to remark that I do not expect the readers of "The Galaxy" +to have any sympathy with the opinions, theological or political, of +such a man. But the man himself is worthy of profound interest, of +study, and even of admiration. He is the spirit, the soul, the ideal of +mediæval faith embodied in the form of a living English scholar and +gentleman. He represents and illustrates a movement the most remarkable, +possibly the most portentous, which has disturbed England and the +English Church since the time of Wyckliffe. No one can have any real +knowledge of the influences at work in English life to-day, no one can +understand the history of the past twenty years, or even pretend to +conjecture as to the possibilities of the future, who has not paid some +attention to the movement which has Dr. Manning for one of its most +distinguished leaders, and to the position and character of Manning himself.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>JOHN RUSKIN.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>Any one who has visited the National Gallery in London must have seen, +and seeing must have studied, the contrasted paintings placed side by +side of Turner and of Claude. They will attract attention if only +because the two Turners are thus placed apart from the rooms used as a +Turner Gallery, and containing the great collection of the master's +works. The pictures of which I am now speaking are hung in a room +principally occupied by the paintings of Murillo. As you enter you are +at once attracted by four large pictures which hang on either side of +the door opposite. On the right are Turner's "Dido Building Carthage," +and Claude's "Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba." On the left are a +"Landscape with the Sun Rising" by Turner, and "The Marriage of Isaac +and Rebecca" by Claude. Nobody could fail to observe that the pictures +are thus arranged for some distinct purpose. They are in fact placed +side by side for the sake of comparison and contrast. They are all +eminently characteristic; they have the peculiar faults and the peculiar +merits of the artists. In the Claudes we have even one of those yellow +trunks which are the abomination of the critic I am about to speak of, +and one might almost suppose that the Queen of Sheba was embarking for +Saratoga. I do not propose to criticise the pictures; but in them you +have, to the full, Turner and Claude.</p> + +<p>Now in the contrast between these pictures may be found, symbolically at +least, the origin and motive of John Ruskin's career. He sprang into +literary life simply as a vindicator of the fame and genius of Turner. +But as he went on with his task he found, or at least he convinced +himself, that the vindication of the great painter was essentially a +vindication of all true art. Still further proceeding with his +self-imposed task, he persuaded himself that the cause of true art was +identical with the cause of truth, and that truth, from Ruskin's point +of view, enclosed in the same rules and principles all the morals, all +the politics, all the science, industry, and daily business of life. +Therefore from an art-critic he became a moralist, a political +economist, a philosopher, a statesman, a preacher—anything, everything +that human intelligence can impel a man to be. All that he has written +since his first appeal to the public has been inspired by this +conviction—that an appreciation of the truth in art reveals to him who +has it the truth in everything. This belief has been the source of Mr. +Ruskin's greatest successes and of his most complete and ludicrous +failures. It has made him the admiration of the world one week, and the +object of its placid pity or broad laughter the next. A being who could +be Joan of Arc to-day and Voltaire's Pucelle to-morrow would hardly +exhibit a stronger psychical paradox than the eccentric genius of Mr. +Ruskin commonly displays. But in order to understand him, or to do him +common justice—in order not to regard him as a mere erratic utterer of +eloquent contradictions, poured out on the impulse of each moment's new +freak of fancy—we must always bear in mind this fundamental faith of +the man. Extravagant as this or that doctrine may be, outrageous as +to-day's contradiction of yesterday's assertion may be, yet the whole +career is consistent with its essential principles and belief.</p> + +<p>Ruskin was singularly fitted by fortune to live for a purpose; to +consecrate his life to the cause of art and of what he considered truth. +As everybody knows, he was born to wealth so considerable as to allow +him to indulge all his tastes and whims, and to write without any regard +for money profit. I hardly know of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> any other author of eminence who in +our time has worked with so complete an independence of publisher, +public, or paymaster. I do not suppose Ruskin ever wrote one line for +money. Some of his works must have brought him in a good return of mere +pounds and shillings; but they would have been written just the same if +they had never paid for printing; and indeed the author is always +spending money on some benevolent crotchet. He was born in London, and +he himself attributes much of his early love for nature to the fact that +he was "accustomed for two or three years to no other prospect than that +of the brick walls over the way," and that he had "no brothers nor +sisters nor companions." I question whether anybody not acquainted with +London can understand how completely one can be shut in from the pure +face of free nature in that vast city. In New York one can hardly walk +far in any direction without catching glimpses of the water and the +shores of New Jersey or Long Island. But in some of the most respectable +middle-class regions of London, you might drudge away or dream away your +life and never have one sight of open nature unless you made a regular +expedition to find her. Ruskin speaks somewhere of the strange and +exquisite delight which the cockney feels when he treads on grass; and +every biographical sketch of him recalls that passage in his writings +which tells us of the first thing he could remember as an event in his +life—his being taken by his nurse to the brow of one of the crags +overlooking Derwentwater, and the "intense joy, mingled with awe, that I +had in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots over the crag into +the dark lake, and which has associated itself more or less with all +twining roots of trees ever since." Ruskin travelled much, and at a very +early age, through Europe. He became familiar with most of the beautiful +show-places of the European Continent when a boy, and I believe he never +extended the sphere of his travels. About his early life there is little +to be said. He completed his education at Oxford, and, more successful +than Arthur Pendennis, he went in for a prize poem and won the prize. He +visited the Continent, more especially Switzerland and Italy, again and +again. He married a Scottish lady, and the marriage was not a happy one. +I don't propose to go into any of the scandal and talk which the events +created; but I may say that the marriage was dissolved without any moral +blame resting on or even imputed to either of the parties, and that the +lady afterwards became the wife of Mr. Millais. Since then Mr. Ruskin +has led a secluded rather than a lonely life. His constitution is +feeble; he has as little robustness of <i>physique</i> as can well be +conceived, and no kind of excitement is suitable for him. Only the other +day he sank into a condition of such exhaustion that for a while it was +believed impossible he could recover. At one time he used to appear in +public rather often; and was ready to deliver lectures on the ethics of +art wherever he thought his teaching could benefit the ignorant or the +poor. He was especially ready to address assemblages of workingmen, the +pupils of charitable institutions for the teaching of drawing. I cannot +remember his ever having taken part in any fashionable pageant or +demonstration of any kind. Of late he has ceased to show himself at any +manner of public meeting, and he addresses his favorite workingmen +through the medium of an irregular little publication, a sort of +periodical or tract which he calls "Fors Clavigera." Of this publication +"I send a copy," he announces, "to each of the principal journals and +periodicals, to be noticed or not at their pleasure; otherwise, I shall +use no advertisements." The author also informs us that "the tracts will +be sold for sevenpence each, without abatement on quantity." I doubt +whether many sales have taken place, or whether the reference<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> to +purchase in quantity was at all necessary, or whether indeed the author +cared one way or the other. In one of these printed letters he says: +"The scientific men are busy as ants, examining the sun and the moon and +the seven stars; and can tell me all about them, I believe, by this +time, and how they move and what they are made of. And I do not care, +for my part, two copper spangles how they move nor what they are made +of. I can't move them any other way than they go, nor make them of +anything else better than they are made." This might sound wonderfully +sharp and practical, if, a few pages on, Mr. Ruskin did not broach his +proposition for the founding of a little model colony of labor in +England, where boys and girls alike are to be taught agriculture, vocal +music, Latin, and the history of five cities—Athens, Rome, Venice, +Florence, and London. This scheme was broached last August, and it is +rather soon yet even to ask whether any steps have been taken to put it +into execution; but Mr. Ruskin has already given five thousand dollars +to begin with, and will probably give a good deal more before he +acknowledges the inevitable failure. Ruskin lives in one of the most +beautiful of London suburbs, on Denmark Hill, at the south side of the +river, near Dulwich and the exquisite Sydenham slopes where the Crystal +Palace stands. Here he indulges his love of pictures and statues, and of +rest—when he is not in the mood for unrest—and nourishes philanthropic +schemes of eccentric kinds, and is altogether about the nearest approach +to an independent, self-sufficing philosopher our modern days have +known. Of his life as a private citizen this much is about all that it +concerns us to hear.</p> + +<p>Twenty-eight years have passed away since Mr. Ruskin leaped into the +critical arena, with a spring as bold and startling as that of Edward +Kean on the Kemble-haunted stage. The little volume, so modest in its +appearance, so self-sufficient in its tone, which the author defiantly +flung down like a gage of battle before the world, was entitled "Modern +Painters: their Superiority in the Art of Landscape Painting to all the +Ancient Masters. By a Graduate of Oxford." I was a boy of thirteen, +living in a small provincial town, when this book made its first +appearance, but it seems to me that the echo of the sensation it created +still rings in my ears. It was a challenge to all established beliefs +and prejudices; and the challenge was delivered in the tones of one who +felt confident that he could make good his words against any and all +opponents. If there was one thing that more than another seemed to have +been fixed and rooted in the English mind, it was that Claude and one or +two other of the old masters possessed the secret of landscape painting. +When, therefore, this bold young dogmatist involved in one common +denunciation "Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Ruysdael, Paul +Potter, Cavaletto, and the various Van-Somethings and Koek-Somethings, +more especially and malignantly those who have libelled the sea," it was +no wonder that affronted authority raised its indignant voice and +thundered at him. Affronted authority, however, gained little by its +thunder. The young Oxford graduate possessed, along with genius and +profound conviction, an imperturbable and magnificent self-conceit, +against which the surges of angry criticism dashed themselves in vain. +Mr. Ruskin, when putting on his armor, had boasted himself as one who +takes it off; but in his case there proved to be little rashness in the +premature fortification. For assuredly that book overrode and bore down +its critics. I need not follow it through its various editions, its +successive volumes, its amplifications, wherein at last the original +design, the vindication of Turner, swelled into an enunciation and +illustration of the true principles of landscape art. Nor do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> I mean to +say that the book carried all its points. Far from it. Claude still +lives, and Salvator Rosa has his admirers, among whom most of us are +very glad to enroll ourselves; and Ruskin himself has since that time +pointed out many serious defects in Turner, and has unsaid a great deal +of what he then proclaimed. But if the Oxford graduate had been wrong in +every illustration of his principal doctrine, I should still hold that +the doctrine itself was true and of inestimable value, and that the book +was a triumph. For, I think, it proclaimed and firmly established the +true point of view from which we must judge of the art of painting in +all its departments. In plain words, Ruskin taught the English public +that they must look at nature with their own eyes, and judge of art by +the help of nature. Up to the publication of that book England, at +least, had been falling into the way of regarding art as a sort of +polite school to which it was our duty to endeavor to make nature +conform. Conventionality and apathy had sunk apparently into the very +souls of men and women. Hardly one in ten thousand ever really saw a +landscape, a wave, a ray of the sun as it is. Nobody used his own eyes. +Every one was content to think that he saw what the painters told him he +saw. Ruskin himself tells us somewhere about a test question which used +to be put to young landscape painters by one who was supposed to be a +master of the craft: "Where do you put your brown tree?" The question +illustrates the whole theory and school of conventionality. +Conventionality had decreed first that there are brown trees, and next +that there cannot be a respectable landscape without a brown tree. Long +after the teaching of Ruskin had well-nigh revolutionized opinion in +England, I stood once with a lover of art of the old-fashioned school, +looking on one of the most beautiful and famous scenes in England. The +tender autumn season, the melancholy woods in the background, the little +lake, the half-ruined abbey, did not even need the halo of poetic and +romantic association which hung around them in order to render the scene +a very temptation, one might have thought, to the true artist. I +suggested something of the kind. My companion shook his head almost +contemptuously. "You could never make a picture of that," he said. I +pressed him to tell me why so picturesque a scene could not be +represented somehow in a picture. He did not care evidently to argue +with ignorance, and he even endeavored to concede something to my +untutored whim. "Perhaps," he began with hesitation, "if one were to put +a large dark tree in there to the left, one might make something of it. +But no" (he had done his best and could not humor me any further), "it +is out of the question; there couldn't be a picture made out of <i>that</i>." +How could I illustrate more clearly the kind of thing which Ruskin came +to put down and did put down in England?</p> + +<p>Of course Mr. Ruskin was never a man to do anything by halves, and +having once laid down the canon that nature and truth are to be the +guides of the artist, he soon began to write and to think as if nature +and truth alone were concerned. He seemed to have taken no account of +the fact that one great object of art is simply to give delight, and +that however natural and truthful an artist may be, yet he is to bear in +mind this one purpose of his work, or he might almost as well let it +alone. Nature and truth are to be his guides to the delighting of men; +to show him how he is to give a delight which shall be pure and genuine. +A single inaccuracy as to fact seems at one time to have spoiled all Mr. +Ruskin's enjoyment of a painting, and filled him with a feeling of scorn +and detestation for it. He denounces Raphael's "Charge to Peter," on the +ground that the apostles are not dressed as men of that time and place +would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> have been when going out fishing; and he makes no allowance for +the fact, pointed out by M. Taine, that Raphael's design first of all +was to represent a group of noble, serious men, majestic and +picturesque, and that mere realism entered little into his purpose. It +may seem the oddest thing to compare Ruskin with Macaulay, but it is +certain that the very kind of objection which the former urges against +the paintings of Raphael the latter brings forward against one of the +poems of Goldsmith. "What would be thought of a painter," asks Macaulay, +"who would mix January and August in one landscape, who would introduce +a frozen river into a harvest scene? Would it be a sufficient defence of +such a picture to say that every part was exquisitely colored; that the +green hedges, the apple trees loaded with fruit, the wagons reeling +under the yellow sheaves, and the sunburned reapers wiping their +foreheads, were very fine; and that the ice and the boys sliding were +also very fine? To such a picture the 'Deserted Village' bears a great +resemblance." Now it would indeed be an incomprehensible mistake if a +painter were to mix up August and January as Macaulay suggests, or to +depict the apostles like a group of Greek philosophers, as in Ruskin's +opinion Raphael did. But I venture to think that even the extraordinary +blunder mentioned in the first part of the sentence would not +necessarily condemn a picture to utter contempt. It was a great mistake +to make Dido and Iulus contemporaries; a great mistake to represent +angels employing gunpowder for the suppression of Lucifer's +insurrection; a great mistake to talk of the clock having struck in the +time of Julius Cæsar. Yet I suppose Virgil and Milton and Shakespeare +were great poets, and that the very passages in which those errors occur +are nevertheless genuine poetry. Now Ruskin criticises Raphael and +Claude on precisely the principle which would declare Virgil, Milton, +and Shakespeare worthless because of the errors I have mentioned. The +errors are errors no doubt, and ought to be pointed out, and there an +end. Virgil was not writing a history of the foundation of Carthage. +Shakespeare was not describing the social life of Rome under Julius +Cæsar. Milton was not a gazetteer of the revolt of Lucifer and his +angels. Mr. Ruskin might as well dispose of a sculptured group of +Centaurs by remarking that there never were Centaurs, or of the famous +hermaphrodite in the Louvre by explaining that hermaphrodites of that +perfect order are unknown to physiology. The beauty of color and +contour, the effect of graceful grouping, the reach of poetic +imagination, the dignity of embodied thought, outlive all such criticism +even when in its way it is just, for they bear in themselves the +vindication of their existence. But Ruskin's criticism is the legitimate +result of the cardinal error of his career—the belief that the morality +of art exactly corresponds with the morality of human life; that there +is a central law of right and wrong for everything, like Stephen Pearl +Andrews's universal science, of which when you have once got the key you +can open every lock—which is the solving word of every enigma, the +standard by which everything is finally to be judged. I need not show +how he followed out that creed and gave it a new application in "The +Seven Lamps of Architecture" and the "Stones of Venice." In these +masterpieces of eloquent declamation, the building of houses was brought +up to be tried according to Mr. Ruskin's self-constructed canons of +æsthetic and architectural morality. No one, I venture to think, cares +much about the doctrine; everybody is carried away by the eloquence, the +originality, and the feeling. Later still Mr. Ruskin applied the same +central, all-pervading principle to the condemnation of fluttering +ribbons in a woman's bonnet. The stucco of a house he set down as false +and immoral,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> like the painting of a meretricious cheek. His æsthetic +transcendentalism soon ceased to have any practical influence. It would +be idle to try to persuade English house-builders that the attributes of +a building are moral qualities, and that the component parts of a London +residence ought to symbolize and embody "action," "voice," and "beauty." +It may be doubted whether a single architect was ever practically +influenced by the dogmatic eloquence of Mr. Ruskin. In fact the +architects, above all other men, rebelled against the books and scorned +them. But the books made their way with the public, who, caring nothing +about the principles of morality which underlie the construction of +houses, were charmed by the dazzling rhetoric, the wealth of gorgeous +imagery, the interesting and animated digressions, the frequent flashes +of vigorous good sense, and the lofty thought whose only fault was that +which least affected the ordinary reader—its utter inapplicability to +the practical subject of the books.</p> + +<p>It was about the year 1849 that that great secession movement in art +broke out to which its leaders chose to give the title of +pre-Raphaelite. The principal founder of the movement has since been +almost forgotten as an artist, but has come into a sort of celebrity as +a poet—Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. With him were allied, it is almost +needless to say, the two now famous and successful painters, Holman Hunt +and Millais. Decidedly that was the most thriving controversy in the +world of art and letters during our time. It was the only battle of +schools which could tell us what the war for and against the +Sturm-und-Drang school in Germany, the Byron epoch in England, the +struggle of the Classicists and Romanticists in France, must have been +like. The pre-Raphaelite dispute has long ceased to be heard. Years ago +Mr. Ruskin himself, the prophet and apostle of the new sect, described +the defection of its greatest pupil as "not a fall, but a catastrophe." +Rossetti's sonnets are criticised, but not his paintings. "Are not you +still a pre-Raphaelite?" asked an inquisitive person lately of the +sonneteer. "I am not an 'ite' of any kind," was the answer; "I am an +artist." John Everett Millais is among the most fortunate and +fashionable painters of the day. Those who saw his wonderful +"Somnambulist" in last season's exhibition of the London Royal Academy +would have found in it little of the harsh and "crawling realism" which +distinguished the "Beauty in Bricks Brotherhood," as somebody called the +rebellious school of twenty years ago. A London comic paper lately +published a capital likeness of Mr. Millais, handsome, respectable, +tending to stoutness and baldness, and described the portrait as that of +the converted pre-Raphaelite. The progress of things was exactly similar +to that which goes on in the English political world so often. A fiery +young Radical member of Parliament begins by denouncing the Government +and the constitution. He wins first notoriety, and then, if he has any +real stuff in him, reputation; and then he is invited to office, and he +takes it and becomes respectable, wealthy, and fashionable; and his +rebellion is all over, and the world goes on just as before. Such was, +so far as individuals are concerned, the course of the pre-Raphaelite +rebellion; undoubtedly the movement did some good; most rebellions do. +It was a protest against the vague and feeble generalizations and the +vapid classicism which were growing too common in art. Ruskin himself +has happily described the generalized and conventional way of painting +trees and shrubs which was growing to be common and tolerated, and which +he says was no less absurd than if a painter were to depict some +anomalous animal, and defend it as a generalization of pig and pony. +Anything which teaches a careful and rigid study of nature must do good. +The pre-Raphaelite school was excellent discipline for its young +scholars. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>Probably even those of Millais's paintings which bear on the +face of them least evident traces of that early school, might have been +far inferior to what they are, were it not for the slow and severe study +which the original principles of the movement demanded. The present +interest which the secession has for me is less on its own account than +because of the vigorous, ingenious, and eloquent pages which Ruskin +poured forth in its vindication. He gave it meanings which it never had; +found out truth and beauty in its most prosaic details such as its +working scholars never meant to symbolize; he explained and expounded it +as Johnson did the meaning of the word "slow" in the opening line of the +"Traveller," and in fact well-nigh persuaded himself and the world that +a new priesthood had arisen to teach the divinity of art. But even he +could not write pre-Raphaelitism into popularity and vitality. The +common instinct of human nature, which looks to art as the +representative of beauty, pathos, humor, and passion, could not be +talked into an acceptance of ignoble and ugly realisms. It may be an +error to depict a Judean fisherman like a stately Greek philosopher; but +error for error, it is far less gross and grievous than to paint the +exquisite heroine of Keats's lovely poem as a lank and scraggy spinster, +with high cheek bones like one of Walter Scott's fishwives, undressing +herself in a green moonlight, and displaying a neck and shoulders worthy +of Miss Miggs, and stays and petticoat that bring to mind Tilly Slowboy.</p> + +<p>The pre-Raphaelite mania faded away, but Ruskin's vindication endures; +just as the letters of Pascal are still read by every one, although +nobody cares "two copper spangles" about the controversy which provoked +them. Mr. Ruskin's mental energy did not long lie fallow. Turning the +bull's-eye of his central theory upon other subjects, he dragged +political economy up for judgment. Who can forget the whimsical +sensation produced by the appearance in the "Cornhill Magazine" of the +letters entitled "Unto this Last"? I need not say much about them. They +were a series of fantastic sermons, sometimes eloquent and instructive, +sometimes turgid and absurd, on the moral duty of man. They had +literally nothing to do with the subject of political economy. The +political economists were talking of one thing, and Mr. Ruskin was +talking of another and a totally different thing. The value of an +article is what it will bring in the market, say the economists. "For +shame!" cries Mr. Ruskin; "is the value of her rudder to a ship at sea +in a tempest only what it would be bought for at home in Wapping?" So on +through the whole, the two disputants talking on quite different +subjects. Mr. Ruskin might just as reasonably have interrupted a medical +professor lecturing to his class on the effects and uses of castor oil, +by telling him in eloquent verbiage that castor oil will not make men +virtuous and nations great. Nobody ever said it would; but it is +important to explain the properties of castor oil for all that. It would +be a grand thing of course if, as Mr. Ruskin prayed, England would "cast +all thoughts of possessive wealth back to the barbaric nations among +whom they first arose," and leave "the sands of the Indus and the +adamant of Golconda" to "stiffen the housings of the charger, and flash +from the turban of the slave." This would be ever so much finer than +opening banks, making railways (which Mr. Ruskin specially detests), and +dealing in stocks. But it has nothing to do, good or bad, with the +practical exposition of the economic laws of banking and exchange. It is +about as effective a refutation of the political economist's doctrines +as a tract from the Peace Society denouncing all war would be to a +lecture from Von Moltke on the practical science of campaigning. But Mr. +Ruskin never saw this, and never was disconcerted. He turned to other +missions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> with the firm conviction that he had finished off political +economy, as a clever free-thinking London lady calmly announced a few +years back to her friends that she had abolished Christianity. Then Mr. +Ruskin condemned mines and factories, railways and engines. With all the +same strenuous and ornate eloquence he passed sentence on London +pantomimes and "cascades of girls," and the too liberal exposure of +"lower limbs" by the young ladies composing those cascades. Nothing is +too trivial for the omniscient philosopher, and nothing is too great. +The moral government of a nation is decreed by the same voice and on the +same principles as those which have prescribed the length of a lady's +waist-ribbon and the shape of a door-scraper. The first Napoleon never +claimed for himself the divine right of intermeddling with and arranging +everything more complacently than does the mild and fragile philosopher +of Denmark Hill. Be it observed that his absolute ignorance of a subject +never deters Mr. Ruskin from pronouncing prompt judgment upon it. It may +be some complicated question of foreign, say of American politics, on +which men of good ability, who have mastered all the facts and studied +the arguments on both sides, are slow to pronounce. Mr. Ruskin, boldly +acknowledging that until this morning he never heard of the subject, +settles it out of hand and delivers final judgment. Sometimes his +restless impulses and his extravagant way of plunging at conclusions and +conjecturing facts lead him into unpleasant predicaments. He delivered a +manifesto some years ago upon the brutality of the lower orders of +Englishmen, founded on certain extraordinary persecutions inflicted on +his friend Thomas Carlyle. Behold Carlyle himself coming out with a +letter in which he declares that all these stories of persecution were +not only untrue, but were "curiously the reverse of truth." Of course +every one knew that Ruskin believed them to be true; that he half heard +something, conjectured something else, jumped at a conclusion, and as +usual regarded himself as an inspired prophet, compelled by his mission +to come forward and deliver judgment on a sinful people.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ruskin's devotion to Carlyle has been unfortunate for him, as it has +for so many others. For that which is reality in Carlyle is only echo +and imitation in Ruskin, and the latter has power enough and a field +wide enough of his own to render inexcusable the attempt to follow +slavishly another man. Moreover, Carlyle's utterances, right or wrong, +have meaning and practical application; but when Ruskin repeats them +they become meaningless and inapplicable. Mr. Ruskin endeavoring to +apply Carlyle's dogmas to the business of art and social life and +politics often reminds one of the humorous Hindoo story of the Gooroo +Simple and his followers, who went through life making the most +outrageous blunders, because they would insist on the literal +application of their traditional maxims of wisdom to every common +incident of existence. When a self-conceited man ever consents to make +another man his idol, even his very self-conceit only tends to render +him more awkwardly and unconditionally devoted and servile. The amount +of nonsense that Ruskin has talked and written, under the evident +conviction that thus and not otherwise would Thomas Carlyle have dealt +with the subject, is something almost inconceivable. I never heard of +Ruskin taking up any political question without being on the wrong side +of it. I am not merely speaking of what I personally consider the wrong +side; I am alluding to questions which history and hard fact and the +common voice and feeling of humanity have since decided. Against every +movement to give political freedom to his countrymen, against every +movement to do common justice to the negro race, against every effort +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> secure fair play for a democratic cause, Mr. Ruskin has peremptorily +arrayed himself. "I am a Kingsman and no Mobsman," he declares; and this +declaration seems in his mind to settle the question and to justify his +vindication of every despotism of caste or sovereignty. To this has his +doctrine of æsthetic moral law, to this has his worship of Carlyle, +conducted him.</p> + +<p>For myself, I doubt whether Mr. Ruskin has any great qualities but his +eloquence, and his true, honest love of Nature. As a man to stand up +before a society of which one part was fashionably languid and the other +part only too busy and greedy, and preach to it of Nature's immortal +beauty and of the true way to do her reverence, I think Ruskin had and +has a place almost worthy the dignity of a prophet. I think, too, that +he has the capacity to fill the place, to fulfil its every duty. Surely +this ought to be enough for the work and for the praise of any man. But +the womanish restlessness of Ruskin's temperament, combined with the +extraordinary self-sufficiency which contributed so much to his success +when he was master of a subject, sent him perpetually intruding into +fields where he was unfit to labor, and enterprises which he had no +capacity to conduct. No man has ever contradicted himself so often, so +recklessly, so complacently, as Mr. Ruskin has done. It is absurd to +call him a great critic even in art, for he seldom expresses any opinion +one day without flatly contradicting it the next. He is a great writer, +as Rousseau was—fresh, eloquent, audacious, writing out of the fulness +of the present mood, and heedless how far the impulse of to-day may +contravene that of yesterday; but as Rousseau was always faithful to his +idea of Truth, so Ruskin is ever faithful to Nature. When all his errors +and paradoxes and contradictions shall have been utterly forgotten, this +his great praise will remain: No man since Wordsworth's brightest days +ever did half so much to teach his countrymen, and those who speak his +language, how to appreciate and honor that silent Nature which "never +did betray the heart that loved her."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHARLES READE.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>A few days ago I came by chance upon an old number of an illustrated +publication which made a rather brilliant start in London four or five +years since, but died, I believe, not long after. It sprang up when +there was a sudden rage in England for satirical portraits of eminent +persons, and it really showed some skill and humor in this not very +healthful or dignified department of art. This number of which I speak +has a humorous cartoon called "Companions of the Bath," and representing +a miscellaneous crowd of the celebrated men and women of the day +enjoying a plunge in the waves at Havre, Dieppe, or some other French +bathing-place. There are Gladstone and Disraeli; burly Alexandre Dumas +and small, fragile Swinburne; Tennyson and Longfellow; Christine Nilsson +and Adelina Patti, the two latter looking very pretty in their tunics +and <i>caleçons</i>. Most of the likenesses are good, and the attitudes are +often characteristic and droll. Mr. Spurgeon flounders and puffs wildly +in the waves; Gladstone cleaves his way sternly and earnestly; Mario +floats with easy grace. One group at present attracts very special +attention. It represents a big, heavy, gray-headed man, ungainly of +appearance, whom a smaller personage, bald and neat, is pushing off a +plank into the water. The smaller man is Dion Boucicault; the larger is +Mr. Charles Reade. This was the time when Reade and Boucicault were +working together in "Foul Play." The insinuation of the artist evidently +was that Boucicault, always ready for any plunge into the waves of +sensationalism, had to give a push to his hesitating companion in order +to impel him to the decisive "header."</p> + +<p>The artist has been evidently unjust to Mr. Reade. Indeed, one can +hardly help suspecting that there must have been some little personal +grievance which the pencil was employed to pay off, after the fashion +threatened more than once by Hogarth. Mr. Reade is not an Adonis, but +this attempt at his likeness is cruelly grotesque and extravagant. +Charles Reade is a big, heavy, rugged, gray man; a sort of portlier Walt +Whitman, but with closer-cut hair and beard; a Walt Whitman, let us say, +put into training for the part of a stout British vestryman. He +impresses you at once as a man of character, energy, and originality, +although he is by no means the sort of person you would pick out as a +typical romancist. But the artist who has delineated him in this +cartoon, and who has dealt so fairly, albeit humorously, with Tennyson +and Swinburne and Longfellow, must surely have had some spite against +the author of "Peg Woffington"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> when he depicted him as a sort of huge +human gorilla. It is in fact for this reason only that I have thought it +worth while to introduce an allusion to such a caricature. The +caricature is in itself illustrative of my subject. It helps to +introduce an inevitable allusion to a weakness of Mr. Charles Reade's +which makes for him many enemies and satirists among minor authors, +critics, and artists in London. To a wonderful energy and virility of +genius and temperament Charles Reade adds a more than feminine +susceptibility and impatience when criticism attempts to touch him. With +a faith in his own capacity and an admiration for his own works such as +never were surpassed in literary history, he can yet be rendered almost +beside himself by a disparaging remark from the obscurest critic in the +corner of the poorest provincial newspaper. There is no pen so feeble +anywhere but it can sting Charles Reade into something like delirium. He +replies to every attack, and he discovers a personal enemy in every +critic. Therefore he is always in quarrels, always assailing this man +and being assailed by that, and to the very utmost of his power trying +to prevent the public from appreciating or even recognizing the wealth +of genuine manhood, truth, and feeling, which is bestowed everywhere in +the rugged ore of his strange and paradoxical character. I am not myself +one of Mr. Reade's friends, or even acquaintances; but from those who +are, and whom I know, I have always heard the one opinion of the +sterling integrity, kindness, and trueheartedness of the man who so +often runs counter to all principles of social amenity, and whose bursts +of impulsive ill-humor have offended many who would fain have admired.</p> + +<p>I said once before in the pages of "The Galaxy," when speaking of +another English novelist, that Charles Reade seems to me to rank more +highly in America than he does in England. It is only of quite recent +years that English criticism of the higher class has treated him with +anything like fair consideration. There was a long time of Reade's +growing popularity during which such criticism declined altogether to +regard him <i>au sérieux</i>. Even now he has not justice done to him. But if +I cannot help believing that Mr. Reade rates himself far too highly, and +announces his opinion far too frankly, neither can I help thinking that +English criticism in general fails to do him justice. For a long time he +had to struggle hard to obtain a mere recognition. He had during part of +his early career the good sense, or the spirit, or the misfortune, +according as people choose to view it, to write in one of the popular +weekly journals of London which correspond somewhat with the "New York +Ledger." I think Charles Dickens described Reade as the one only man +with a genuine literary reputation who at that time had ventured upon +such a performance. There are indeed men now of undoubted rank in +literature who began their career with work like this; but they did not +put their names to it, and the world was never the wiser. Reade worked +boldly and worked his best, and put his own name to it; and therefore +the London press for some time regarded or affected to regard him as an +author of that class whose genius supplies weekly instalments of +sensation and tremendously high life, to delight the servant girls of +Islington and the errand boys of the City. Long after the issue of some +of the finest novels Reade has written, the annual publication called +"Men of the Time" contained no notice of the author. The odd thing about +this is that Reade is an author of the very class which English +criticisms of the kind I allude to ought to have delighted to encourage. +In the reaction against literary Bohemianism, which of late years has +grown up in England, and which the "Saturday Review" may be said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> to +have inaugurated, it became the whim and fashion to believe that only +gentlemen with university degrees, only "blood and culture," as the cant +phrase was, could write anything which gentlemanly persons could find it +worth their while to read. The "Saturday Review" for a long time +affected to treat Dickens as a good-humored and vulgar buffoon, with a +gift of genius to delight the lower classes. It usually regarded +Thackeray as a person made for better things, who had forfeited his +position as a gentleman and a university man by descending to literature +and to lectures. Now Charles Reade is what in the phraseology of English +<i>caste</i> would be called a gentleman. He is of good English family; he is +a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford. He is a man of culture and +scholarship. His reading, and especially his classical acquirements, I +presume to be far wider and deeper than those of Thackeray, who, it need +hardly be said, was as Porson or Parr when compared with Dickens. +Altogether Reade seems to have been the sort of man whom the "Saturday +Review," for example, ought to have taken promptly up and patted on the +back and loftily patronized. But nothing of the sort occurred. Reade was +treated merely as the clever, audacious concocter of sensational +stories. He was hardly dealt with as an artist at all. The reviews only +began to come round when they discovered that the public were positively +with the new and stirring romancist. What renders this more curious is +the fact that the earlier novels were incomparably more highly finished +works of art than their successors. "Peg Woffington" and "Christie +Johnstone"—the former published so long ago as 1852—seem almost +perfect in their symmetry and beauty. "The Cloister and the Hearth" +might well-nigh have persuaded a reader that a new Walter Scott was +about to arise on the horizon of our literature. All the more recent +works seem crude and rough by comparison. They ought to have been the +vigorous, uncouth, undisciplined efforts of the author's earlier years. +They ought to have led up to the "Cloister and the Hearth" and "Peg +Woffington," instead of succeeding them. Yet, if I am not greatly +mistaken, it was while he was publishing those earlier and finer +products of his fresh intellect that Charles Reade was especially +depreciated and even despised by what is called high-class English +criticism. He never indeed has had much for which to thank the English +critics, and he has never been slow to express his peculiar sense of +obligation; but assuredly they treated with greater respect the works +which will be soonest forgotten than those on which he may perhaps rest +a claim to a more enduring reputation.</p> + +<p>The general public, however, soon began to find him out. "Peg +Woffington" was a decided success. Its dramatic adaptation is still one +of the favorite pieces of the English stage. "It is Never Too Late to +Mend" set everybody talking. Reade began to devote himself to exposing +this or that social and legal grievance calling for reform, and people +came to understand that a new branch of the art of novel-writing was in +process of development, the special gift of which was to convert a +Parliamentary blue-book into a work of fiction. The treatment of +criminals in prisons and in far-off penal settlements, the manner in +which patients are dealt with in private lunatic asylums, became the +main subject and backbone of the new style of novel, instead of the +misunderstandings of lovers, the trials of honest poverty, or the +struggles for ascendancy in the fashionable circles of Belgravia. Mr. +Reade undoubtedly stands supreme and indeed alone in work of this kind. +No man but he can make a blue-book live and yet be a blue-book still. +When Dickens undertook some special and practical question, we all knew +that we had to look for lavish outpouring of humor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> fancy, and +eccentricity, for generous pathos, and for a sentimental misapplication +or complete elimination of the actual facts. Miss Martineau made dry +little stories about political economy; and Disraeli's "Sibyl" is only a +fashionable novel and a string of tracts bound up together and called by +one name. But Reade takes the hard and naked facts as he finds them in +some newspaper or in the report of some Parliamentary commission, and he +so fuses them into the other material whereof his romance is to be made +up that it would require a chemical analysis to separate the fiction +from the reality. You are not conscious that you are going through the +boiled-down contents of a blue-book. You have no aggrieved sense of +being entrapped into the dry details of some harassing social question. +The reality reads like romance; the romance carries you along like +reality. No author ever indulged in a fairer piece of self-glorification +than that contained in the last sentence of "Put Yourself in his Place": +"I have taken a few undeniable truths out of many, and have labored to +make my readers realize those appalling facts of the day which most men +know, but not one in a thousand comprehends, and not one in a hundred +thousand realizes, until fiction—which, whatever you may have been told +to the contrary, is the highest, widest, noblest, and greatest of all +the arts—comes to his aid, studies, penetrates, digests the hard facts +of chronicles and blue-books, and makes their dry bones live." To this +object, to this kind of work, Reade seems to have deliberately purposed +to devote himself. It was evidently in accordance with his natural +tastes and sympathies. He is a man of exuberant and irrepressible +energy. He must be doing something definite always. He did actually +bestir himself in the case of a person whom he believed to be unjustly +confined in a lunatic asylum, as energetically as he makes Dr. Sampson +do in "Hard Cash," and with equal success. Most of the scenes he +describes, in England at least, have thus in some way fallen in to be +part of his own experience. Whatever he undertakes to do he does with a +tremendous earnestness. His method of workmanship is, I believe, +something like that of Mr. Wilkie Collins, but of course the object is +totally different. Wilkie Collins collects all the remarkable police +cases and other judicial narratives he can find, and makes what Jean +Paul Richter called "quarry" of them—a vast accumulation of materials +in which to go digging for subjects and illustrations at leisure. +Charles Reade does the same with blue-books and the reports of official +inquiries. The author of the "Dead Secret" is looking for perplexing +little mysteries of human crime; the author of "Hard Cash" for stories +of legal or social wrong to be redressed. I need hardly say, perhaps, +that I rank Charles Reade high above Wilkie Collins. The latter can +string his dry bones on wires with remarkable ingenuity; the former can, +as he fairly boasts, make the dry bones live.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, let us follow out the progress of Mr. Charles Reade as a +literary influence. He grows to have a distinct place and power in +England quite independently of the reviewers, and at last the very storm +of controversy which his books awaken compels the reviewers themselves +to take him into account. "It is Never Too Late to Mend" raised a clamor +among prison disciplinarians. Years after its publication it is brought +out as a drama in London, and its first appearance creates a sort of +riot in the Princess's Theatre. Hostile critics rise in the stalls and +denounce it; supporters and admirers vehemently defend it; speeches are +made on either side. Mr. Reade plunges into the arena of controversy a +day or two after in the newspapers, assails one of the critics by name, +and charges him with having denounced the piece in the theatre, and +applauded his own denunciation in the journal for which he wrote.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> Some +friend of the critic replies by the assertion that one of Mr. Reade's +most enthusiastic literary supporters is Mr. Reade's own nephew. All +this sort of thing is dreadfully undignified, but it brings an author at +all events into public notice, and it did for Mr. Reade what I am +convinced he would have disdained to do consciously—it "puffed" his +books. An amusing story is told in connection with the production of +this drama. An East End manager thought of bringing it out. (The East +End, I need hardly say, is the lower and poorer quarter of London.) This +manager came and studied the piece as produced at the West End. One of +the strong scenes, the sensation scene, was a realistic exhibition of +prison discipline. The West End had been duly impressed and thrilled +with this scene. But the East End manager shook his head. "It would +never do for <i>me</i>," he said despondingly to a friend. "Not like the real +thing at all. <i>My</i> gallery would never stand it. Bless you, my fellows +know the real thing too well to put up with <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>In this, as in other cases, Mr. Reade's hot temper, immense +self-conceit, and eager love of controversy plunged him into discussions +from which another man would have shrunk with disgust. He went so far on +one occasion as to write to the editor of a London daily paper, +threatening that if his books were not more fairly dealt with he would +order his publisher to withdraw his advertisements from the offending +journal. One can fancy what terror the threat of a loss of a few +shillings a month would have had upon the proprietors of a flourishing +London paper, and the amount of ridicule to which the bare suggestion of +such a thing exposed the irritable novelist. But Reade was, and probably +is, incurable. He would keep pelting his peppery little notes at the +head of any and everybody against whom he fancied that he had a +grievance. I remember one peculiarly whimsical illustration of this +weakness, which found its way into print some years ago in London, but +which perhaps will be quite new in the United States, and I cannot +resist the temptation to reproduce it. Once upon a time, it would seem +from the correspondence, Mr. Reade wrote a play called "Gold," which was +produced at Drury Lane Theatre. Except from this correspondence I own +that I never heard of the play. Subsequently, Mr. Reade presented +himself one night at the stage-door of Drury Lane Theatre, and was +refused admittance. Mr. Charles Mathews was then performing at the +theatre, and Mr. Reade evidently supposed him to have been the manager +and responsible for all the arrangements. Therefore he addressed his +complaint to the incomparable light comedian, who is as renowned for +easy sparkling humor and wit off the stage as for brilliant acting on +it. Here is the correspondence; and we shall see how much Mr. Reade took +by his motion:</p> + +<blockquote><p class="right"><span class="smcap">Garrick Club, Covent Garden</span>, November 28.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: I was stopped the other night at the stage-door of Drury +Lane Theatre by people whom I remember to have seen at the Lyceum +under your reign.</p> + +<p>This is the first time such an affront was ever put upon me in any +theatre where I had produced a play, and is without precedent +unless when an affront was intended. As I never forgive an affront, +I am not hasty to suppose one intended. It is very possible that +this was done inadvertently; and the present stage-list may have +been made out without the older claims being examined.</p> + +<p>Will you be so kind as to let me know at once whether this is so, +and if the people who stopped me at the stage-door are yours, will +you protect the author of "Gold," etc., from any repetition of such +an annoyance?</p> + +<p class="center">I am, dear sir, yours faithfully,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Charles Reade</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p><p>To this imperious demand Mr. Reade received next day the following +genial answer:</p> + +<blockquote><p class="right"><span class="smcap">T. R., Drury Lane</span>, November 29.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: If ignorance is bliss on general occasions, on the +present it certainly would be folly to be wise. I am therefore +happy to be able to inform you that I am ignorant of your having +produced a play at this theatre; ignorant that you are the author +of "Gold"; ignorant of the merits of that play; ignorant that your +name has been erased from the list at the stage-door; ignorant that +it had ever been on it; ignorant that you had presented yourself +for admittance; ignorant that it had been refused; ignorant that +such a refusal was without precedent; ignorant that in the man who +stopped you you recognized one of the persons lately with me at the +Lyceum; ignorant that the doorkeeper was ever in that theatre; +ignorant that you never forgive an affront; ignorant that any had +been offered; ignorant of when, how, or by whom the list was made +out, and equally so by whom it was altered.</p> + +<p>Allow me to add that I am quite incapable of offering any +discourtesy to a gentleman I have barely the pleasure of knowing, +and moreover have no power whatever to interfere with Mr. Smith's +arrangements or disarrangements; and, with this wholesale admission +of ignorance, incapacity, and impotence, believe me</p> + +<p class="center">Faithfully yours,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">C. T. Mathews</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Charles Reade, Esq.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>The correspondence got into print somehow, and created, I need hardly +say, infinite merriment in the literary clubs and circles of London. Not +all disputes with Charles Reade ended so humorously, for the British +novelist is as fond of actions at law as Fenimore Cooper used to be. +Thus more than one critic has had to dread the terrors of an action for +damages when he has ventured in a rash moment to disparage the literary +value of Mr. Reade's teaching. Lately, however, in the case of the +"Times," and its attack on "A Terrible Temptation," Mr. Reade adopted +the unexpected tone of mild and even flattering remonstrance. Whether he +thought it hopeless to alarm the "Times" by any threat of action, or +feared that if he wrote a savage letter the journal would not even give +him the comfort of seeing it in print, I do not know. But he certainly +took a meek tone and endeavored to propitiate, and got rather coarsely +rebuked for his pains. People in London were amused to find that he +could be thus mild and gentle. I do remember, however, that on one +occasion he wrote a letter of remonstrance, which was probably intended +to be a kind of rugged compliment to the "Saturday Review," a paper +which likewise cares nothing about actions for damages. Usually, +however, his tone of argument with his critics is perfervid, and his +estimate of himself is exquisitely candid. In one of his manifestoes he +assured the world that he never allowed a publisher to offer any +suggestions with regard to his story, but simply sold the manuscript in +bulk—"<i>c'est à prendre ou à laisser</i>." In another instance he spoke of +one of his novels as "floating" the serial publication in which it was +making its appearance, and which we were therefore given to understand +would have sunk to the bottom but for his coöperation. In short, it is +well known in London that Mr. Charles Readers character is disfigured by +a self-conceit which amounts to something like mania, and an impatience +of criticism which occasionally makes him all but a laughing-stock to +the public. Rarely, indeed, in literary history have high and genuine +talents been united with such a flatulence of self-conceit.</p> + +<p>Probably Reade had reached his highest position just after the +publication of "Hard Cash." This remarkable novel, crammed with +substance enough to make half a dozen novels, appeared in the first +instance in Dickens's "All the Year Round." Dickens himself, if I +remember rightly, felt bound to publish a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> note disclaiming any +concurrence in or personal responsibility for the attacks on the private +madhouse system, and the whole subject aroused a very lively +controversy, wherein, I think, Reade certainly was not worsted. The +"Griffith Gaunt" controversy we all remember. I confess that I have no +sympathy whatever with the kind of criticism which treats any of Mr. +Reade's works as immoral in tendency, and I think the charge was even +more absurd when urged against "Griffith Gaunt" than when pressed +against the "Terrible Temptation." To me the clear tendency of Reade's +novels seems always healthy, purifying, and bracing, like a fresh, +strong breeze. I cannot understand how any man or woman could be the +worse for reading one of them. They are always novels with a purpose, +and I, at least, never could discern any purpose in them which was not +honest and sound. I feel inclined to excuse all Reade's vehemence of +self-vindication and childish frankness of self-praise when I read some +of the attacks against what people try to paint as the immorality of his +books. But I need not go into that controversy. Enough to say for my own +part that I found "Griffith Gaunt" a grim and dreary book—a tiresome +book, in fact; but I saw nothing in it which could with any justice be +said to have the slightest tendency to demoralize any reader. I have +indeed heard people who are in general fair critics condemn "Adam Bede" +as immoral because Hetty is seduced; and I have even heard poor Maggie +Tulliver rated as unfit for decent society because she ever allowed even +a moment's thought of her cousin's engaged lover to enter her mind. On +this principle, doubtless, "Griffith Gaunt" is immoral. There are people +in the book who commit sin, and yet are not eaten by lions or bodily +carried down below like Don Juan. But if we are to have novels made up +only of good people who always do right and the one stock villain who +always does wrong, I think the novelist's art cannot too soon be +delegated to its only fitting province—the amusement of the nursery. +"Griffith Gaunt," however, I regard as a falling off, because it is a +sour, unpleasant, and therefore inartistic book. "Foul Play" was a +clever <i>tour de force</i>, a brilliant thing, made to sell, with hardly +more character in it than would suffice for a Bowery melodrama. "Put +Yourself in his Place" was a wholesome return to the former style, a +marrowy, living blue-book, instinct with power and passion. "A Terrible +Temptation" I do not admire. I do not think it immoral, but it hardly +calls for any deliberate criticism. Since "Hard Cash" Mr. Reade has, in +my opinion, written only one novel which the literary world will care to +preserve, and even that one, "Put Yourself in his Place," can hardly be +said to add one cubit to his stature.</p> + +<p>Mr. Reade has, I believe, rather a passion for dramatic enterprise, and +a characteristic faith in his power to turn out a good drama. A season +or two back he hired, I am told, a London theatre, in order to have the +complete superintendence of the production of one of his novels turned +into a drama. I have been assured that the dramatic version was +accomplished entirely by himself. If so, I am sure no enemy could have +more cruelly damaged the original work. All the character was completely +sponged out of it. The one really effective and original personage in +the novel did not appear in the play. A number of the most antique and +conventional melodramatic situations and surprises were crammed into the +piece. All the silly old stage business about mysterious conspiracies +carried on under the very ear of the identical personage who never ought +to have been allowed to hear them are called in to form an essential +feature of the drama. The play, of course, was not successful, although +the novel had in it naturally all the elements of a stirring and +powerful drama. If Charles Reade really with his own hand converted a +vigorous and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> thrilling story into that limp, languid, and vapid play, +it was surely the most awful warning against amateur dramatic enterprise +that ever self-conceit could receive undismayed.</p> + +<p>Of course we won't rank Mr. Reade as one of the most popular novelists +now in England. But his popularity is something very different indeed +from that of Dickens, or even from that of Thackeray. In Forster's "Life +of Dickens" there is a letter of the great novelist's in which he +complains of having been treated (by Bentley, I think) no better than +any author who had sold but fifteen hundred copies. I should think the +occasions were very rare when Mr. Reade's circulation in England went +much beyond fifteen hundred copies. The whole system of publishing is so +different in England from that which prevails in America, our fictitious +prices and the controlling monopoly of our great libraries so restrict +and limit the sale, that a New York reader would perhaps hardly believe +how small a number constitute a good circulation for an English +novelist. I assume that, speaking roughly, Reade, Wilkie Collins, and +Trollope may be said to have about the same kind of circulation—almost +immeasurably below Dickens, and below some such abnormal sale as that of +"Lothair" or "Lady Audley's Secret," but much above even the best of the +younger novelists. I venture to think that not one of these three +popular and successful authors may be counted on to reach a circulation +of two thousand copies. Probably about eighteen hundred copies would be +a decidedly good thing for one of Charles Reade's novels. Of the three, +I should say that Wilkie Collins has the most eager readers; that +Trollope's novels take the highest place in what is called "society"; +and that Reade's rank the best among men of brains. But there is so wide +a difference between the popularity of Dickens and that of Reade that it +seems almost absurd to employ the same word to describe two things so +utterly unlike. It is, indeed, a remarkable proof of Reade's power and +success that, setting out as he always does to tell a story which shall +convey information and a purpose of some practical kind, he can get any +sort of large circulation at all. For one great charm and excellence of +our library system is that it creates a huge class of regular, I might +almost say professional, novel-readers, who subscribe to Mudie's by the +year, want to get all the reading they can out of it, and instinctively +shudder at the thought of any novel that is weighted by solid +information and overtaxing thought. This is the class for whom and by +whom the circulating libraries exist, and Mr. Reade deserves the full +credit of having utterly disregarded them, or rather boldly encountered +them, and at least to some extent compelled them to read him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Reade's position as a novelist may be adjudged now as safely as ever +a novelist's place can be fixed by a contemporary generation. He is +nearly sixty years old, and he has written about a dozen novels. It is +not likely that he will ever write anything which could greatly enhance +the estimate the public have already formed of him; and no future +failures could affect his past success. I think his career is, +therefore, fairly and fully before us. We know how singularly limited +his <i>dramatis personæ</i> are. He marches them on and off the stage boldly +ever so often, and by a change of dresses every now and then he for a +while almost succeeds in making us believe that he has a very full +company at his command. But we soon get to know every one by sight, and +can swear to him or her, no matter by what name or garb disguised. We +know the sweet, impulsive, incoherent heroine, who is always +contradicting herself and saying what she ought not to say and does not +mean to say; who now denounces the hero, and then falls upon his neck +and vows that she loves him more than life. This young woman is +sometimes Julia and sometimes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> Helen and sometimes Grace; she now is +exiled for a while on a lonely island, and even she is carried away by a +flood; but in every case she is just the same girl rescued by the same +hero. That hero is always a being of wonderful mechanical and scientific +knowledge of some kind or other, whether as Captain Dodd he makes love +to Lucy Fountain, or as Henry Little he captivates Grace Carden, or as +the gentleman in "Foul Play" he cures the heroine of consumption and +builds island huts better than Robinson Crusoe. Then we have the rough, +clever, eccentric personage, Dr. Sampson or Dr. Amboyne, whose business +principally is to act a part like that of Herr Mittler in Goethe's +novel, and help the characters of the book through every difficulty. +Then we have the white-livered sneak, the villain of the book when he is +bad enough for such a part; the Coventry of "Put Yourself in his Place"; +I forget what his name is in "Foul Play." These are the puppets which +principally make up the show. Very vigorously and cleverly do they +dance, and capitally do they imitate life; but there are so very few of +them that we grow a little tired of seeing them over and over again. +Indeed, Charles Reade's array of characters sometimes reminds us of the +simple system of Plautus, in which we have for every play the same types +of people—the rather stingy father, the embarrassed lover, the clever +comic slave, and so forth. It cannot be said that Reade has added a +single character to fiction. He understands human nature, or at least +such types of it as he habitually selects, very well, and he draws +vigorously his figures and groups; but he has discovered nothing fresh, +he has rescued no existence from the commonplace and evanescent +realistics of life, to be preserved immortal in a work of art. Not one +of his characters is cited in ordinary conversation or in the writings +of journalists. Nobody quotes from him unless in reference to some one +of the stirring social topics which he has illustrated, and even then +only as one would quote from a correspondent of the "Times." Every +educated man and woman in England is assumed, as a matter of course, to +be familiar with the works of George Eliot; but nobody is necessarily +assumed to have read Charles Reade. That educated people do read him and +do admire him is certain; but it is quite a matter of option with them +to read him or let him alone so far as society and public opinion are +concerned. There are certain tests and evidences of a novelist's having +attained a front-rank place in England which are unmistakable. They are +purely social, may be only superficial, and will neither one way nor the +other affect the views of foreign critics or of posterity; but they are +decisive as far as England is concerned. Among them I shall mention two +or three. One is the fact that writers in the press allude to some of +his characters without feeling bound to explain in whose novel and what +novel the characters appear. Another is the fact that artists +voluntarily select from his works subjects for paintings to be sent to +the Royal Academy's annual exhibition or elsewhere. A third is the fact +that articles about him, not formal reviews of a work just published, +appear pretty often in the magazines. Now, whatever may be the genius +and merits of an author, I think he cannot be said to have attained the +front rank in English public opinion unless he can show these evidences +of success; and, so far as I know, Mr. Reade cannot show any of them. +For myself, I do not believe that Mr. Reade ever could under any +circumstances have become a really great novelist. All the higher gifts +of imagination and all the richer veins of humor have been denied to +him. Not one gleam of poetic fancy ever seems to have floated across the +nervous Saxon of his style. He is a powerful story-teller, who has a +manly purpose in every tale he tells, and that is all. That surely is a +great deal. No one tells a story more thrillingly. Once you begin to +listen, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> cannot release yourself from the spell of the <i>raconteur</i> +until all be done. A strong, healthy air of honest and high purpose +breathes through nearly all the stories. An utter absence of cant, +affectation, and sham distinguishes them. A surprising variety of +descriptive power, at once bold, broad, and realistic, is one of their +great merits. Mr. Reade can describe a sea-fight, a storm, the forging +of a horseshoe, the ravages of an inundation, the trimming of a lady's +dress, the tuning of a piano, with equal accuracy and apparent zest. I +once heard an animated discussion in a literary club as to whether the +scrap of minute description was artistic and effective or absurd and +ludicrous which makes us acquainted with the fact that when Henry Little +dragged Grace Carden out of the raging flood, the force of the water +washed away the heroine's stockings and garters and left her barefoot. +Some irreverent critics would only laugh at the gravity with which the +author detailed this important circumstance. Others, however, insisted +that this little touch, so homely, and to the profane mind so +exceedingly ridiculous, was necessary and artistic; that it heightened +the effect of the great word-picture previously shown by the force of +its practical and circumstantial reality. However this momentous +controversy may settle itself in the estimation of readers, it cannot be +denied that some at least of Reade's success is due to the courage and +self-reliance which will brave the risk of being ridiculous for the sake +of being real and effective. Indeed, Mr. Reade wants no quality which is +necessary to make a powerful story-teller, while he is distinguished +from all mere story-tellers by the fact that he has some great social +object to serve in nearly everything he undertakes to detail. More than +this I do not believe he is, nor, despite the evidences of something yet +higher which were given in "Christie Johnstone" and "The Cloister and +the Hearth," do I think he ever could have been. He is a magnificent +specimen of the modern special correspondent, endowed with the +additional and unique gift of a faculty for throwing his report into the +form of a thrilling story. But it requires something more than this, +something higher than this, to make a great novelist whom the world will +always remember. Mr. Reade is unsurpassed in the second class of English +novelists, but he does not belong to the front rank. His success has +been great in its way, but it is for an age and not for time.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>THE EXILE-WORLD OF LONDON.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>Leicester Square and the region that lies around it are conventionally +regarded as the exile quarter of London. The name of Leicester square +suggests the idea of an exile, as surely and readily, even to the mind +of one who has never looked on the mournful and decaying enclosure, as +the name of Billingsgate does that of fish-woman, or the name of the +Temple that of a law-student. Yet, if a stranger visiting London thinks +he is likely to see any exile of celebrity, while pacing the streets +which branch off Leicester square, he will be almost as much mistaken as +if he were to range Eastcheap in the hope of meeting the wild Prince and +Poins.</p> + +<p>Many a conspiracy has had its followers and understrappers in the +Leicester square region; but the great conspirators do not live there +any more. The place is falling, falling; the foreign and distinctive +character of the population remains as marked as ever, but the +foreigners whom London people would care to see are not to be found +there any longer. The exiles who have made part of history, whose names +are on record, do not care for Leicester square. They are to be found in +Kensington, in Brompton, in Hampstead and Highgate; in the Regent's Park +district; a few in Bloomsbury, a few in Mayfair. A marble slab and an +inscription now mark the house in King street, St. James's, where Louis +Napoleon lodged; and there is a house in Belgrave square dear to all +true Legitimists, where the Count de Chambord ("Henri Cinq") received +Berryer and his brother pilgrims. Only poor exiles herd together now in +London. Only poverty, I suppose, ever causes nationalities to herd +together anywhere. The men who group around Leicester square are the +exiles without a fame; the subterranean workers in politics; the men who +come like shadows, and so depart; the men whose names are writ in water, +even though their life-paths may have been marked in blood.</p> + +<p>Living in London, I had of late years many opportunities of meeting with +the exiles of each class. I know few men more to be pitied than the +great majority of those who make up the latter or Leicester square +section. On the other hand, I should say that few men, indeed, are more +to be envied by any of their fellow-creatures who love to be courted and +"lionized," than the political exiles of great name who come to London +and do not stay too long there.</p> + +<p>Far away as the days of Thaddeus of Warsaw and the conventional and +romantic type of exile now seem, there is still a fervent yearning in +British society toward the representative of any Continental nationality +which happens to be oppressed. No man had ever before received such a +welcome in London as Kossuth did; but Kossuth stayed too long, became +domesticized and familiarized, and society in London likes its lions to +be always new and fresh. Moreover, the late Lord Palmerston, a warm +patron of exiles when the patronage went no further than an invitation +to a dinner or an evening party, set his face against Kossuth from the +first; and polite society soon took the hint.</p> + +<p>The man who most completely conquered all society, even the very +highest, in London, during my recollection, was the man who probably +cared least about it, and who certainly never sought to win the favor of +fashion—I mean, of course, Garibaldi. To this day I am perfectly unable +to understand the demeanor of the British peerage toward Garibaldi, when +he visited London for a few days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> some years ago. The thing was utterly +unprecedented and inexplicable. The Peerage literally rushed at him. He +was beset by dukes, mobbed by countesses. He could not by any human +possibility have so divided his day as to find time for breakfasting and +dining with one-fifth of the noble hosts who fought and scrambled for +him. It was a perpetual torture to his secretaries and private friends +to decide between the rival claims of a Prime Minister and a Prince of +the blood; an Archbishop and a Duchess; the Lord Chancellor and the +leader of the Opposition. The Tories positively outdid the Whigs in the +struggle for the society of the simple seaman, the gallant guerilla. The +oddest thing about the business was, that three out of every four of +these noble personages had always previously spoken of Garibaldi—when +they did speak of him at all—with contempt and dislike, as a buccaneer +and a filibuster.</p> + +<p>What did it mean? Was it a little comedy? Was it their fun? Was it a +political <i>coup de théâtre</i>, to dodge the Radicals and the workingmen +out of their favorite hero? Certainly some of Garibaldi's friends +suspected something of the kind, and were utterly bewildered and +confounded by the unexpected rush of aristocratic admirers, who beset +the hero from the moment he touched the shore of England.</p> + +<p>It was a strange sight, not easily to be forgotten, to see the manner in +which Garibaldi sat among the dukes and marchionesses—simple, sweet, +arrayed in the calm, serene dignity of a manly, noble heart. There was +something of Oriental stateliness in the unruffled, imperturbable, bland +composure, with which he bore himself amid the throng of demonstrative +and titled adulators. I do not think he believed in the sincerity of +half of it, any more than I did, but he showed no more sign of distrust +or impatience than he did of gratified vanity.</p> + +<p>The thing ended in a quarrel between the Aristocracy and the Democracy, +between Belgravia and Clerkenwell, for the custody of the hero, and +Garibaldi escaped somehow back to his island during the squabble. But I +think Lady Palmerston let the mask fall for a moment, when, growing +angry at the assurance of Garibaldi's humbler friends, and perhaps a +little tired of the whole business, she told some gentlemen of my +acquaintance, that quite too much work had been made about a person who, +after all, was only a respectable brigand. This was said (and it <i>was</i> +said) at the very meridian of the day of noble homage to the Emancipator +of Sicily.</p> + +<p>Garibaldi has never since returned to England. Should he ever do so, he +will find himself unembarrassed by the attentions of the Windsor uniform +and Order of the Garter. The play, however it was got up, or whatever +its object, was played out long ago. But the West End is, as a rule, +very fond of distinguished exiles, when they come and go quickly; and +Lord Palmerston's drawing-room was seldom without a representative of +the class. No man ever did less for any great cause than Lord Palmerston +did; but he liked brilliant exiles, and, perhaps, more particularly the +soldierly than the scholarly class. Such a man as the martial, dashing, +adventurous General Türr, for example, was the kind of refugee that Lord +and Lady Palmerston especially favored.</p> + +<p>Many English peers have, indeed, quite a <i>spécialité</i> in the way of +patronizing exiles; but, of course, in all such cases the exile must +have a name which brings some gratifying distinction to his host. He +must be somebody worth pointing out to the other guests. I know that +many Continental refugees have chafed at all this, and some have +steadily held aloof from it, and declined to be shown off for the +admiration of a novelty-hunting crowd. Many, too, have been deceived by +it; have mistaken such idle attention for profound and practical +sympathy, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> have thought that two or three peers and half a dozen +aristocratic petticoats could direct the foreign policy of England. They +have swelled with hope and confidence; have built their plans and based +their organizations on the faith that Park Lane meant the British +government, and that the politeness of a Cabinet Minister was as good as +the assistance of a British fleet; and have found out what idiots they +were in such a belief, and have gone nigh to breaking their hearts +accordingly. Indeed, the readiness of all classes in England to rush at +any distinguished exile, and become effusive about himself and his cause +is very often—or, at least, used to be—a cruel kindness, sure to be +misunderstood and to betray—a love that killed.</p> + +<p>Nothing could, in its way, have been more unfortunate and calamitous +than the outburst of popular enthusiasm in England about the Polish +insurrection four years ago. Some of the Polish leaders living in London +were completely deceived by it, and finally believed that England was +about to take up arms in their cause. An agitation was got up, outside +the House of Commons, by an earnest, well-meaning gentleman, who really +believed what he said; and inside the House by a bustling, quickwitted, +political adventurer, who certainly ought not to have believed what he +said. This latter gentleman actually went out to Cracow, in Austrian +Poland, and was received there with wild demonstrations of welcome as a +representative of the national will of England and the precursor of +English intervention. The Polish insurrection went on; and England wrote +a diplomatic note, which Russia resented as a piece of impertinence; and +there England's sympathy ended. "I think," said a great English Liberal +to me, "that every Englishman who helped to encourage these poor Poles +and give them hope of English help, has Polish blood on his hands." I +think so, too.</p> + +<p>I have always thought that Felice Orsini was in some sort a victim to +the kind of delusion which English popularity so easily fosters. I met +Orsini when he came to England, not very long before the unfortunate and +criminal attempt of the Rue Lepelletier; and I was much taken, as most +people who met him were, by the simplicity, sweetness, and soldierly +frankness of his demeanor. He delivered some lectures in London, +Manchester, Liverpool, and other large towns, on his own personal +adventures—principally his escape from prison—and though he had but a +moderate success as a lecturer, he was surrounded everywhere by +well-meaning and sympathizing groups, the extent of whose influence and +the practical value of whose sympathy he probably did not at first quite +understand. He certainly had, at one time, some vague hopes of obtaining +for the cause of Italian independence a substantial assistance from +England. A short experience cured him of that dream; and I fancy it was +then that he formed the resolution which he afterward attempted so +desperately to carry out. I think, from something I heard him say once, +that Mazzini had endeavored to enlighten him as to the true state of +affairs in England, and the real value of the sort of sympathy which +London so readily offers to any interesting exile. But I do not believe +Mazzini's advice had much influence over Orsini. Indeed, the latter, at +the time I saw him, had but little respect for Mazzini. He spoke with +something like contempt of the great conspirator. It would have been +well for Orsini if he had, in one thing at least, followed the counsels +of Mazzini. People used to say, some years ago, that odious and +desperate as Orsini's attempt was, it at least had the merit of +frightening Louis Napoleon into active efforts on behalf of Italy. There +was so much about Orsini that was worthy and noble that one would be +glad to regard him as even in his crime the instrument of good to the +country he loved so well. But documentary and other evidence has made +it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> clear since Orsini's death that the negotiations which ended in +Solferino and Villafranca were begun before Orsini had ever planned his +murderous enterprise. The fact is, that, during the Crimean war, Cavour +first tried England on the subject, through easy-going and heedless Lord +Clarendon—who hardly took the trouble to listen to the audacious +projects of his friend—and then turned to France, where quicker and +shrewder ears listened to what he had to say.</p> + +<p>I have spoken of Orsini's contempt for Mazzini. Such a feeling toward +such a man seems quite inexplicable. Many men detest Mazzini; many men +distrust him; many look up to him as a prophet, and adore him as a +chief; but I am not able to understand how any one can think of him with +mere contempt. For myself, I find it impossible to contemplate without +sadness and without reverence that noble, futile career; that majestic, +melancholy dream. But it must be owned that an atmosphere of illusion +sheds itself around Mazzini wherever he goes. I believe the man himself +to be the very soul of truth and honor; and yet I protest I would not +take, on any political question, the unsupported testimony of any +devotee of Mazzini to any fact whatsoever. Mazzini's own faith is so +sublimely transcendental, so utterly independent of realities and of +experience, that I sincerely believe the visions of the opium-eater are +hardly less to be relied on than the oracles and opinions of the great +Italian. And yet the force of his character, the commanding nature of +his genius, are such that his followers become more Mazzinian than +Mazzini himself. There is something a good deal provoking about the +manner of the minor followers of Mazzini. I mean in England. I do not +speak of such men as my friend, Mr. Stansfeld, now a Lord of the +Treasury, or my friend, Mr. P. A. Taylor, M. P. These are men of ability +and men of the world, whose enthusiasm and faith, even at their highest, +are under the control of practical experience and the discipline of +public life. But I speak of the minor and less responsible admirers, the +men and women who accept oracle as fact, aspiration as experience, the +dream as the reality. The calm, self-satisfied way in which they deal +with contemporary history, with geography, with statistics, with +possibilities and impossibilities, in the hope of making you believe +what they firmly believe—that Italy could, if only she had proclaimed +herself Republican, have driven the Austrians into the sea in 1859, and +the French across the Alps in 1860, while at the same time quietly +kicking Pope, Bourbon, and Savoy out of throned existence. The confident +and imperturbable assurance with which they can do all this—and I have +never met with any genuine devotee of Mazzini who could not—is +something to make one bewildered rather than merely impatient. For it is +true in politics as in literature or in fashion, the admiring imitator +reproduces only the defects, the weaknesses, the mannerisms and mistakes +of the original. Mazzini himself is, I need hardly say, a singularly +modest and retiring man. While he lived in London, he shrank from all +public notice, and was seen only by his friends and followers. He sought +out nobody. "Sir," said Mr. Gladstone, addressing the Speaker of the +House of Commons, one night, when a fierce and factious attack was made +on Mr. Stansfeld as a follower of the great exile, "I never saw Signor +Mazzini." Yet Gladstone was by far the most prominent and influential of +all the English sympathizers with the cause of Italian liberty. One +would have thought it impossible for such a man as Mazzini to live for +years in the same city with Gladstone without the two ever chancing to +meet. But for the modest seclusion and shrinking way of Mazzini, such a +thing would, indeed, have been impossible.</p> + +<p>Louis Blanc is, perhaps, the only Revolutionary exile who, in my time, +has been everywhere and permanently popular in London society. The fate +of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> political exile in a place like London usually is to be a lion +among one clique and a <i>bête noir</i> in another. But Louis Blanc has been +accepted and welcomed everywhere, although he has never compromised or +concealed one iota of his political opinions. I think one explanation, +and, perhaps, <i>the</i> explanation of this somewhat remarkable phenomenon, +is to be found in the fact that Louis Blanc never for an hour played the +part of a conspirator. He seems to have honorably construed his place in +English society to be that of one to whom a shelter had been given, and +who was bound not to make any use of that shelter which could embarrass +his host. In London he ceased to be an active politician. He refused to +exhibit himself <i>en victime</i>. He appealed to no public pity. He made no +parade of defeat and exile. He went to work steadily as a literary man, +and he had the courage to be poor. When he appeared in public it was +simply as a literary lecturer. He was not very successful in that +capacity. At least, he was not what the secretary of a lyceum would call +a success. He gave a series of lectures on certain phases of society in +Paris before the great Revolution, and they were attended by all the +best literary men in London, who were, I think, unanimous in their +admiration of the power, the eloquence, the brilliancy which these +pictures of a ghastly past displayed. But the general public cared +nothing about the <i>salons</i> where wit, and levity, and wickedness +prepared the way for revolution; and I heard Louis Blanc pour out an +<i>apologia</i> (I don't mean an apology) for Jean Jacques Rousseau in +language of noble eloquence, and with dramatic effect worthy of a great +orator, in a small lecture-room, of which three-fourths of the space was +empty. Since that time he has delivered lectures occasionally at the +request of mechanics' institutions and such societies; but he has not +essayed a course of lectures on his own account. Everyone knows him; +everyone likes him; everyone admires his manly, modest character and his +uncompromising Republicanism. Lately he has lived more in Brighton than +in London; but wherever in England he happens to be, he lives always as +a simple citizen; has never been raved about like Kossuth, or denounced +like Mazzini; and has occupied himself wholly with his historical labors +and his letters to a Paris newspaper.</p> + +<p>Another exile of distinction who lived for years in London apart from +politics and heedless of popular favor was Ferdinand Freiligrath, the +German poet. Freiligrath had to leave Prussia because of his political +poems and writings. He had undergone one prosecution and escaped +conviction, but Prussia was not then (twenty years ago) a country in +which to run such risks too often. So Freiligrath went to Amsterdam and +thence to London. He lived in London for many years, and acted as +manager of a Swiss banking-house. His life was one of entire seclusion +from political schemes or agitations. He did not even, like his +countryman and friend, Gottfried Kinkel, take any part in public +movements among the Germans in London—and he certainly never went about +society and the newspapers blowing his own trumpet, and keeping his name +always prominent, like the egotistical and inflated Karl Blind. Indeed, +so complete was Freiligrath's retirement that many Englishmen living in +London, who delighted in some of his poems—his exquisite, fanciful, +melodious "Sand Songs" his glowing Desert poems, his dreamy, delightful +songs of the sea, and his burning political ballads—were quite amazed +to find that the poet himself had been a resident of their own city for +nearly half a lifetime. Freiligrath has now at last returned to his own +country. His countrymen invited him home, and raised a national tribute +to enable him to give up his London engagement and withdraw altogether +from a life of mere business. In a letter I lately received from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +Freiligrath's daughter (a young lady of great talent and +accomplishments, recently married in London), I find it mentioned that +Freiligrath expected soon to receive a visit from Longfellow in +Germany—the first meeting of these two old friends for a period of some +five-and-twenty years.</p> + +<p>Alexander Herzen, the famous Russian exile, the wittiest of men, endowed +with the sharpest tongue and the best nature, has left us. For many +years he lived in London and published his celebrated <i>Kolokol</i>—"The +Bell," which rang so ominously and jarringly in the ears of Russian +autocracy. He has now set up his staff in Geneva, a little London in its +attractiveness to exiles; and his arrowy, flashing wit gleams no longer +across the foreign world of the English metropolis. I do not know how +long Herzen had lived in London, but I fancy the difficulties of the +English language must have proved insurmountable to him—a strange +phenomenon in the case of a Russian. Certainly he never, so far as I am +aware, either spoke or wrote English.</p> + +<p>The latest exile of great mark whom we had among us in London was +General Prim. When his attempt at revolution in Spain failed some two +years ago, Prim went into Belgium. There some pressure was brought to +bear upon him by the Ministry, in consequence, no doubt, of certain +pressure brought to bear by France, and Prim left Brussels and came to +live in London. He lived very quietly, made no show of himself in any +way, and was no doubt hard at work all the time making preparation for +what has since come to pass. To all appearance he had an easy and +careless sort of life, living out among his private friends, going to +the races and going to the opera. But he was incessantly planning and +preparing; and he told many Englishmen candidly what he was preparing +for. There were many men in London who were looking out for the Spanish +Revolution months before it came, on the faith of Prim's earnest +assurances that it was coming. So much has of late been written about +Prim that his personal appearance and manner must be familiar to most +readers of newspapers and magazines. I need only say that there is in +private much less of the <i>militaire</i> about him than one who had not +actually met him would be inclined to imagine. He is small, neat, and +even elegant in dress, very quiet and perhaps somewhat languid in +manner, looking wonderfully young for his years, and without the +slightest tinge of the Leicester square foreigner about him. He is +rather the foreigner of Regent street and the stalls of the opera +house—any one who knows London will at once understand the difference. +Prim impressed me with a much greater respect for his intellect, even +from a literary man's point of view, than I had had before meeting and +conversing with him. I think those who regard him as a mere <i>sabreur</i>, +the ordinary Spanish leader of a successful military revolution, are +mistaken. His animated and epigrammatic conversation seemed to me to be +inspired and guided by an intellectual depth and a power of observation +and reflection such as I at least was not prepared to find in the +dashing soldier of the Moorish campaign.</p> + +<p>There is one class of the obscure exiles, different from both the +favored and the poorest, whose existence has often puzzled me. A +political question of moment begins to disturb the European continent. +Immediately there turns up in London, and presents himself at your door +(supposing you are a journalist with acknowledged sympathies for this or +that side of the question) a mysterious and generally shabby-looking +personage, who professes to know all about it, and volunteers to supply +you with the most authentic information and the most trustworthy +"appreciation" of any events that may transpire. He wants no money; his +information is given for the sake of "the cause." You ask for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>credentials, and he produces recommendations which quite satisfy you +that his objects are genuine, although, oddly enough, the persons who +recommend him do not seem to have anything whatever to do with the cause +he represents. He comes, for example, to talk about the affairs of +Roumania, and he brings letters and vouchers from literary friends in +Paris. He professes to be an emissary from the Cretans, and his +recommendations are from a Manchester cotton-firm. Anyhow, you are +satisfied; you ask no explanations; you assume that your Paris or +Manchester friends have enlarged the sphere of their sympathies since +you saw them last, and you repose confidence in your new acquaintance. +You are right. He brings you information, the most rapid, the most +surprising, the most accurate. Such a man I knew during the +Schleswig-Holstein agitation, which ended in the Danish war of four +years since. He was a Prussian—a waif of the Berlin rising of 1848. Was +he in the confidence of Von Beust, and Bismarck, and Palmerston, and all +the rest of them? I venture to doubt it; yet if he had been, he could +hardly have been more quick and accurate in all the information he +brought me. Evening after evening he brought a regular minute of the +proceedings of the day at the Conference of London, which was sitting +with closed doors, and pledged to profoundest secrecy. Perhaps this was +only guesswork! Here is one illustration. The Conference was held +because some of the European Great Powers, England and France +especially, desired to save Denmark from a struggle against the +immeasurably superior force of Prussia and Austria. A certain proposal +was to be made to the Conference by England and France on the part of +Denmark. So much we all knew. One evening my friend came to me, and bade +me announce to the world that the proposal had been made that day, and +indignantly rejected—by Denmark! The story seemed preposterous, but I +relied on my friend. Next day I was laughed at; my news was denounced +and repudiated. The day after it was proved to be true—and Denmark went +to war.</p> + +<p>The last time I saw my friend was in the spring of 1866. He came to tell +me that Prussia had resolved—at least that Bismarck had resolved—on +war with Austria. "Stick to that statement," he said, "whatever anybody +may say to the contrary—unless Bismarck resigns." I took his advice. At +this time I am convinced that the English government had not the least +idea that a war was really coming. The war came; but I never saw my +friend any more.</p> + +<p>Another of my mysterious acquaintances was an old, white-haired, grave, +placid man who turned up in London during the early part of the French +occupation of Mexico. He was a passionate Republican and +anti-Bonapartist. He was a friend and apparently a confidant of Juarez, +and was thoroughly identified with the interests of the Republicans in +Mexico, although himself a Frenchman. I doubt whether I have ever met +with a finer specimen of the courtly old gentleman, the class now +beginning to disappear even in France, than this mysterious friend of +the Mexican Republic. He might have been fresh from the Faubourg St. +Germain, such was the grave, dignified, and somewhat melancholy grace of +his courtly bearing. Yet he had evidently lived long in Mexico, and he +was an ardent Republican of the red tinge; there was something of the +old <i>militaire</i> about him, too, which lent a certain strength to his +bland and placid demeanor. I never quite knew what he was doing in +London. He was not what is called an "unofficial representative" of +Juarez (at this time diplomatic relations between England and Mexico +were of course broken off) for he never seemed to go near any of our +ministers or diplomatists, and his only object appeared to be to supply +accurate information to one or two Liberal journals which he believed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +to be honestly inclined toward the right side of every question. His +information was always accurate, his estimate of a critical situation +was always justified by further knowledge and the progress of events, +his predictions always came true. He looked like a poor man, indeed, +like a needy man; yet he never seemed to want for money, and he neither +sought nor would have any compensation for the constant and valuable +information he afforded. His knowledge of European and American politics +was profound; and though he spoke not one word of English he seemed to +understand all the daily details of our English political life. He was a +constant visitor to me (always at night and late) during the progress of +the Mexican struggle. When the Mexican Empire was nearly played out he +came and told me the end was very, very near, and that in the event of +Maximilian's being captured it would be impossible for Juarez to spare +his life. He did not tell me that he was at once returning to Mexico, +but I presume that he did immediately return, for that was the last I +saw or heard of him.</p> + +<p>During the quarrels between the Prussian Representative Chamber and +Count von Bismarck (before the triumph of Sadowa had condoned for the +offences of the great despotic Minister), I had a visit, one night, from +a mysterious, seedy, snuffy old German. He came, he said, to develop a +grand plan for the extinction of the Junker or Feudal party. Why he came +to develop it to me I do not know, as it will presently be seen that I +could hardly render it any practical assistance. It was, like all grand +schemes, remarkably simple in its nature. Indeed, it was literally and +strictly Captain Bobadil's immortal plan; although my German visitor +indignantly repudiated the supposition that he had borrowed it, and +declared, I believe, with perfect truth, that he had never heard of +Captain Bobadil before. The plan was simply that a society should be +formed of young and devoted Germans who should occupy themselves in +challenging and killing off, one by one, the whole Junker party. My +friend made his calculations very calmly, and he did not foolishly or +arrogantly assume that the swordsmanship of his party must needs be +always superior to that of their adversaries. No; he counted that there +would be a certain number of victims among his Liberal heroes, and made, +indeed, a large allowance, left a broad margin for such losses. But +this, in no wise affected the success of his plan. The Liberals, were +many, the Junkers few. It would simply be a matter of time and +calculation. Numbers must tell in the end. A day must come when the last +Junker would fall to earth—and then Astrea would return. Now the man +who talked in this way was no lunatic. He had nothing about him, except +his plan, which denoted mental aberration. His scheme apart, he was as +steady and prosy an old German as you could meet under the lindens of +Berlin or on the Lutherplatz of Königsberg. He was, moreover, as +earnest, argumentative, and profoundly wearisome over his project as if +he were expounding to an admiring class of students the relations of the +Ego and Non-Ego. I need hardly add that one single beam, even the +faintest, of a sense of the ridiculous, never shone in upon him during +his long and eloquent exposition of the patriotic virtue, the +completeness and the mathematical certainty of his ingenious project.</p> + +<p>Let me close my random reminiscences with one recollection of a sadder +nature. Some three or four years ago there came to London from Naples an +Italian of high education and character—a lawyer by profession; a +passionate devotee of Italian unity, and filled naturally with a hatred +of the expelled Bourbons. This gentleman had discovered in one of the +Neapolitan prisons a number of instruments of torture—rusty, hideous +old iron chairs, and racks, and screws, and "cages of silence," and such +other contrivances. He became the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> possessor of these, and he obtained +from the new government a certificate of the genuineness of his +treasure-trove—that is to say, a certificate that the things were +actually found in the place where the owner professed to have found +them. The Italian authorities, of course, could say nothing as to +whether they had or had not been used as instruments of torture in any +modern reign. They may have lain rusting there since hideous old days +when the Inquisition was a fashionable institution; they may have been +used—public opinion and Mr. Gladstone said things as horrible had been +done—in the blessed reign of good King Bomba. The Neapolitan lawyer +firmly believed that they had been so used; and he became inspired with +the idea that to take these instruments, first to London and then to the +United States, and exhibit them, and lecture on them, would arouse such +a tempest of righteous indignation among all peoples, free or enslaved, +as must sweep kingcraft and priestcraft off the earth. This idea became +a faith with him. He brought his treasure of rusty iron to London, and +proposed to take a great hall and begin the work of his mission. I +endeavored to dissuade him (he had brought some introductions to me). I +told him frankly that, just at that time, public opinion in London was +utterly indifferent to the Bourbons. The fervor of interest about the +Neapolitan Revolution had gone by; people were tired of Italy, and +wanted something new; the Polish insurrection was going on; the great +American Civil War was occupying public attention; London audiences +cared no more about the crimes of the Bourbons than about the crimes of +the Borgias. He was not to be dissuaded. He really believed at first +that he could induce some great English orator, Gladstone or Bright, to +deliver lectures on those instruments and the guilt of the system which +employed them. Then he became more moderate, and applied to this and +that professional lecturer—in vain. No one would have anything to do +with a project so obviously doomed to failure—he himself spoke no +English. At last he induced a lady who was somewhat ambitious of a +public career, to lecture for him; and he took a great hall for a series +of nights, and advertised largely, and went to great expense. I believe +he staked all he had in money or credit on the success of the +enterprise; and the making of money was not his object; he would have +cheerfully given all he had to create a flame of public indignation +against despotism. Need I say what a failure the enterprise was? The +London public never manifested the slightest interest in the exhibition. +The lecture-hall was empty. I believe the poor Neapolitan tried again +and again. The public would not come, or look, or listen. He spent his +money in vain; he got into debt in vain. His instruments of torture must +have inflicted on their owner agonies enough to have satisfied +Maniscalco or Carafa. At last he could bear it no longer. He wrote a few +short letters to some friends (I have still that which I received—a +melancholy memorial), simply thanking them for what efforts they had +made to assist him in his object, acknowledging that he had been over +sanguine, and intimating that he had now given up the enterprise. +Nothing more was said or hinted. A day or two after, he locked himself +up in his room. Somebody heard an explosion, but took no particular +notice. The lady who had endeavored to give voice to my poor friend's +scheme came, later in the day, to see him. The door was broken open—and +the poor Neapolitan lay dead, a pistol still in his hand, a pistol +bullet in his brain.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>THE REVEREND CHARLES KINGSLEY.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>I wonder how many of the rising generation in America or in England have +read "Alton Locke"? Many years have passed since I read or even saw it. +I do not care to read it any more, for I fear that it would not now +sustain the effect of the impression it once produced on me, and I do +not desire to destroy or even to weaken that impression. I know the book +is not a great work of art. I know that three-fourths of its value +consists in its blind and earnest feeling; that the story is heavily +constructed, that many of the details are extravagant exaggerations, and +that the author after all was not in the least a democrat or a believer +in human equality. I have not forgotten that even then, when he braved +respectable public opinion by taking a tailor for his hero, he took good +care that the tailor should have genteel relations. Still I retain the +impression which the book once produced, and I do not care to have it +disturbed. Therefore I do not read or criticise "Alton Locke" any more; +I remember it only as it struck me long ago—as a generous protest +against the brutal indifference, literary and political, which left the +London artisan so long to toil and suffer and sicken, to run into debt, +to drink and fight and pine and die, in the darkness. Is it +necessary—perhaps it is—to explain to some of my readers the story of +"Alton Locke"? It is the story of a young London tailor-boy who has +instincts and aspirations far above his class; who yearns to be a poet +and a patriot; who loves and struggles in vain; who is supposed to sum +up in his own weakly body all the best emotions, the vainest pinings, +the wildest wishes, the most righteous protests of his fellows; who +joins with the Chartist movement for lack of a better way to the great +end, and sees its failure, and himself utterly broken down goes out to +America to seek a new life there, and only beholds the shore of the +promised land to die. Here at least was a grand idea. Here was the +motive of a prose epic that ought to have been more thrilling to modern +ears than the song of Tasso. The effect of the work at the time was +strengthened by the fact that the author was a clergyman of the Church +of England, who was believed to be a man of aristocratic family and +connections. The book was undoubtedly a great success in its day. The +strong idea which was in the heart of it carried it along. The Rev. +Charles Kingsley became suddenly famous.</p> + +<p>"Alton Locke" was published more than twenty years ago. Then Charles +Kingsley was to most boys in Great Britain who read books at all a sort +of living embodiment of chivalry, liberty, and a revolt against the +established order of baseness and class-oppression in so many spheres of +our society. The author of "Alton Locke" about the same time delivered a +sermon in the country church where he officiated, so full of warm and +passionate protest against the wrongs done to the poor by existing +systems, that his spiritual chief, the rector or dean or some other +dignitary, arose in the church itself—morally and physically arose, as +Mrs. Gamp did—and denounced the preacher. Need it be said that the +report of so unusual and extraordinary a scene as this excited our +youthful enthusiasm into a perfect flame for the minister of the State +Church who had braved the public censure of his superior in the cause of +human right? For a long time Charles Kingsley was our chosen hero—I am +speaking now of young men with the youthful spirit of revolt in them, +with dreams of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>republics and ideas about the equality of man. If I were +to be asked to describe Charles Kingsley now, having regard to the +tendency of his writings and his public attitude, how should I speak of +him? First, as about the most perverse and wrong-headed supporter of +every political abuse, the most dogmatic champion of every wrong cause +in domestic and foreign politics, that even a State Church has for many +years produced. I hardly remember, in my practical observation of +politics, a great public question but Charles Kingsley was at the wrong +side of it. The vulgar glorification of mere strength and power, such a +disgraceful characteristic of modern public opinion, never had a +louder-tongued votary than he. The apostle of liberty and equality, as +he seemed to me in my early days, has of late only shown himself to my +mind as the champion of slave-systems of oppression and the iron reign +of mere force. Is this a paradox? Has the man undergone a wonderful +change of opinions? It is not a paradox, and I think Charles Kingsley +has not changed his views. Perhaps a short sketch of the man and his +work may reconcile these seeming antagonisms and make the reality +coherent and clear.</p> + +<p>I was present at a meeting not long since where Mr. Kingsley was one of +the principal speakers. The meeting was held in London, the audience was +a peculiarly Cockney audience, and Charles Kingsley is personally little +known to the public of the metropolis. Therefore when he began to speak +there was quite a little thrill of wonder and something like incredulity +through the listening benches. Could that, people near me asked, really +be Charles Kingsley, the novelist, the poet, the scholar, the +aristocrat, the gentleman, the pulpit-orator, the "soldier-priest," the +apostle of muscular Christianity? Yes, that was indeed he. Rather tall, +very angular, surprisingly awkward, with thin, staggering legs, a +hatchet face adorned with scraggy gray whiskers, a faculty for falling +into the most ungainly attitudes, and making the most hideous +contortions of visage and frame; with a rough provincial accent and an +uncouth way of speaking, which would be set down for absurd caricature +on the boards of a comic theatre; such was the appearance which the +author of "Glaucus" and "Hypatia" presented to his startled audience. +Since Brougham's time nothing so ungainly, odd, and ludicrous had been +displayed upon an English platform. Needless to say, Charles Kingsley +has not the eloquence of Brougham. But he has a robust and energetic +plain-speaking which soon struck home to the heart of the meeting. He +conquered his audience. Those who at first could hardly keep from +laughing; those who, not knowing the speaker, wondered whether he was +not mad or in liquor; those who heartily disliked his general principles +and his public attitude, were alike won over, long before he had +finished, by his bluff and blunt earnestness and his transparent +sincerity. The subject was one which concerned the social suffering of +the poor. Mr. Kingsley approached it broadly and boldly, talking with a +grand disregard for logic and political economy, sometimes startling the +more squeamish of his audience by the Biblical frankness of his +descriptions and his language, but, I think, convincing every one that +he was sound at heart, and explaining unconsciously to many how it +happened that one endowed with sympathies so humane and liberal should +so often have distinguished himself as the champion of the stupidest +systems and the harshest oppressions. Anybody could see that the strong +impelling force of the speaker's character was an emotional one; that +sympathy and not reason, feeling rather than logic, instinct rather than +observation, would govern his utterances. There are men in whom, no +matter how robust and masculine their personal character, a +disproportionate amount of the feminine element seems to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> somehow +found a place. These men will usually see things not as they really are, +but as they are reflected through some personal prejudice or emotion. +They will generally spring to conclusions, obey sudden impulses and +instincts, ignore evidence and be very "thorough" and sweeping in all +their judgments. When they are right they are—like the young lady in +the song—very, very good; but like her, too, when they happen to be +wrong they are "horrid." Of these men the author of "Alton Locke" is a +remarkable illustration. It seems odd to describe the expounder of the +creed of Muscular Christianity as one endowed with too much of the +feminine element. But for all his vigor of speech and his rough voice, +Mr. Charles Kingsley is as surely feminine in his way of reasoning, his +likes and dislikes, his impulses and his prejudices, as Harriet +Martineau is masculine in her intellect and George Sand in her emotions.</p> + +<p>Mr. Charles Kingsley is a man of ancient English family, very proud of +his descent, and full of the conviction so ostentatiously paraded by +many Englishmen, that good blood carries with it a warrant for bravery, +justice, and truth. The Kingsleys are a Cheshire family; I believe they +date from before the Conquest—it does not much matter. I shall not +apply to them John Bright's epigram about families which came over with +William the Conqueror and never did anything else; for the Kingsleys +seem to have been always an active race. They took an energetic part in +the civil war during Charles the First's time, and stood by the +Parliament. I am told that the family have still in their possession a +commission to raise a troop of horse, given to a Kingsley and signed by +Oliver Cromwell. One of the family emigrated to the New World with the +Pilgrim Fathers, and I believe the Kingsley line still flourishes there +like a bay-tree. Irrepressible energy, so far as I know, seems to have +always been a characteristic of the household. Charles Kingsley was born +near Dartmouth, in Devonshire; every one who has read his books must +know how he revels in descriptions of the lovely scenery of Devon. He +was for a while a pupil of the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, son of the poet, +and he finally studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Mr. Kingsley was +originally intended for the legal profession, but he changed his mind +and went into the church. He was first curate and soon after rector of +the Hampshire parish of Eversley, the name of which has since been so +constantly kept in association with his own. I may mention that Mr. +Kingsley married one of a trio of sisters—the Misses Grenfell—a second +of whom was afterwards married to Mr. Froude, and is since dead, while +the third became the wife of one of the foremost English journalists. +Passing away from these merely personal facts, barely worth a brief +note, we shall find that Kingsley's real existence, if I may use such a +phrase, began and developed under the guidance of a remarkable man and +under the inspiration of a strange movement. The man to whose leadership +and teaching Mr. Kingsley owed so much was the Rev. Frederick Denison +Maurice, who died in the first week of last April.</p> + +<p>It would not be easy to explain to an American reader the meaning and +the extent of the influence which this eminent man exercised over a +large field of English society. The life of Mr. Maurice contains nothing +worthy of note as to facts and dates; but its spirit infused new soul +and sense into a whole generation. He was not a great speaker or a great +thinker; he was not a bold reformer; he had not a very subtle intellect; +I doubt whether his writings will be much read in coming time. He was +simply a great character, a grand influence. He sent a new life into the +languid and decaying frame of the State Church of England. He quickened +it with a fresh sense of duty. His hope and purpose were to bring that +church into affectionate and living<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> brotherhood with modern thought, +work, and society. An early friend and companion of John Sterling (the +two friends married two sisters), Maurice had all the sweetness and +purity of Carlyle's hero, with a far greater intellectual strength. Mr. +Maurice set himself to make the English Church a practical influence in +modern thought and society. He did not believe in a religion sitting +apart on the cold Olympian heights of dogmatic theology, and looking +down with dignified disdain upon the common life and the vulgar toils of +humanity. He held that a church, if it is good for anything, ought to be +able to meet fair and square the challenge of the skeptic and the +infidel, and that it ought to concern itself about all that concerns men +and women. One of the fruits of his long and valuable labor is the +Workingmen's College in Red Lion Square, London, an institution of which +he became the principal and to which he devoted much of his time and +attention. Only a few weeks before his death he presided at one of the +public meetings of this his favorite institution. He was the parent of +the scheme of "Christian socialism," which sprang into existence more +than twenty years ago and is bearing fruit still—a scheme to set on +foot coöperative associations among working men on sound and progressive +principles; to help the working men by advances of capital, in order +that they might thus be enabled to help themselves. One of Mr. Maurice's +earliest and most ardent pupils was Charles Kingsley; another was Thomas +Hughes. In helping Mr. Maurice to carry out these schemes Kingsley was +brought into frequent intercourse with some of the London Chartists, and +especially with the working tailors, who have nearly all a strong +radical tendency. Kingsley's impulsive sympathies took fire, and flamed +out with the novel "Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet."</p> + +<p>That extraordinary Chartist movement, so long in preparation and so +suddenly extinguished, how completely a thing of the past it seems to +have become! Only twenty-four years have passed since its collapse. Men +under forty can recall, as if it were yesterday, all its incidents and +its principal figures. People in the United States know that my friend +Henry Vincent is still only in his prime; he was one of its earliest and +foremost leaders. But it seems as old and dead as a peasant-war of the +Middle Ages. It was a strange jumble of politics and social complaints. +It was partly the blind, passionate protest of working men who knew that +they had no right to starve and suffer in a prosperous country, but who +hardly knew where the real grievance lay. It was partly the protest of +untaught and eager intelligence against the brutal apathy of government +which would do nothing for national education. Its political demands +were very modest. Some of them have since been quietly carried into law; +some of them have been quietly dismissed into the realm of anachronisms. +Chartism was indeed rather a wild cry, a passionate yearning of lonely +men for combination, than any definite political enterprise. One looks +back now with a positive wonder upon the savage stupidity of the ruling +classes which so nearly converted it into a rebellion. Of course it was +in some instances seized hold of by selfish and scheming politicians, +who played with it for their own purposes. Of course it had its evil +counsellors, its false friends, its cowards, and its traitors. But on +the whole there was a noble spirit of manly honesty pervading the +movement, which to my mind fills it with a romantic interest and ought +to secure for it an honorable memory. It found leaders in many cases +outside its own classes. There was, for example, "Tom Duncombe," a sort +of Alcibiades of English Radicalism; a brilliant talker in Parliament, a +gay man of fashion, steeped deep in reckless debt and sparkling +dissipation; hand and glove with the fast young noblemen of the West End +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>gambling houses, and the ardent Chartist working men of Shoreditch and +Clerkenwell. There was Feargus O'Connor—huge, boistering, fearless—a +burlesque Mirabeau with red hair; a splendid mob-speaker, who could +fight his way by sheer strength of muscle and fist through a hostile +crowd; vain of his half-mythical descent from Irish kings, even when he +delighted in being hail fellow well met with tailors and hod-carriers; +revelling in the fiercest struggles of politics and the wildest freaks +of prolonged debauchery. O'Connor tried to crowd half a dozen lives into +one, and the natural result was that he prematurely broke down. For a +long time before his death he was a mere lunatic. A strange fact was +that as his manners were always eccentric and boisterous, he had become +an actual madman for months before those around him were fully aware of +the change. In the House of Commons the freaks of the poor lunatic were +for a long time supposed to be only more marked eccentricities, or, as +some thought, insolent affectations of eccentricity. He would rise while +Lord Palmerston was addressing the House, walk up to the great minister, +and give him a tremendous slap on the back. One night he actually +assaulted a member of the House, and the Speaker ordered his arrest. +Feargus sauntered coolly out into the lobbies. The sergeant-at-arms was +bidden to go forth and arrest the offender. Lord Charles Russell +(brother of Earl Russell), then and now sergeant-at-arms, is a thin, +little, feeble man. I have been told by some who witnessed it that the +scene in the lobbies became highly amusing. Lord Charles went with +reluctant steps about his awful task. By this time everybody was +beginning to suspect that O'Connor was really a madman. Anyhow, he was a +giant, and at his sanest moments perfectly reckless. Now it is not a +pleasant task for a weak and little man to be sent to arrest even a sane +giant; but only think of laying hands on a giant who appears to be out +of his senses! The dignity of his office, however, had to be upheld, and +Lord Charles trotted quietly after his huge quarry. He cast imploring +looks at member after member, but it was none of their business to +interfere, and they had no inclination to volunteer. Some of them indeed +were deeply engrossed in speculations as to what would happen if Feargus +were suddenly to turn round. Would the sergeant-at-arms put his dignity +in his pocket and actually run? Or, if he stood his ground, what would +be the result? Happily, however, just as Feargus and his unwilling +pursuer reached Westminster Hall, the eager eye of Lord Charles Russell +descried a little knot of policemen; he hailed them; they came up, and +the sergeant-at-arms did his duty and the capture was effected. I can +well remember seeing O'Connor, somewhere about this time, sauntering +through Covent Garden market, with rolling, restless gait; his hair, +that once was fiery red, all snowy white; his eye gleaming with the +peculiar, quick, shallow, ever-changing glitter of madness. The poor +fellow rambled from fruit-stall to fruit-stall, talking all the while to +himself, sometimes taking up a fruit as if he meant to buy it, and then +putting it down with a vacant laugh and walking on. It was a pitiable +spectacle. His light of reason soon flickered out altogether, and death +came to his relief.</p> + +<p>I must not omit to mention, when speaking of the Chartist leaders, the +brave, disinterested, and highly-gifted Ernest Jones, who sacrificed +such bright worldly prospects for the cause of the People's Charter. +Long after the Charter and its agitation were dead, Jones emerged into +public life again, still comparatively a young man, and he seemed about +to enter on a career both brilliant and valuable. An immature and +unexpected death interposed.</p> + +<p>However, I have wandered away from the subject of my paper. Charles +Kingsley came to know the principal working men among the Chartists, +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> his impulsive nature was greatly influenced by their words and +their lives. Most of their leaders drawn from other classes, O'Connor +especially, he distrusted and disliked. But the rank and file of the +movement, the working men, the sufferers, the "prolétaires" as they +would be called nowadays, attracted his kindly heart. Chartism had +fallen. It collapsed suddenly in 1848; died amid Homeric laughter of the +public. It fell mainly because it had come to occupy a false position +altogether. Partly by ignorance, partly by the selfish folly of some of +its leaders, and partly by the severity of the government measures, the +movement had been driven into a dilemma which it never originally +contemplated. It must either go into open rebellion or surrender. It was +jammed up like MacMahon at Sedan. Chartism had no real wish to rebel, +although of course the flame of the recent revolution in Paris had +glared over it and made it wild; and it had no means of carrying on a +revolt for a single day. So it could only surrender; and the surrender +took place under conditions which made it seem utterly ridiculous. +Kingsley was seized with the idea of crystallizing all this into a +romance. He had as a further stimulant and guide the work which Henry +Mayhew was then publishing, "London Labor and the London Poor," a serial +which by its painful and startling revelations was working a profound +impression on England. Mayhew's narratives were often inaccurate, for he +could not conduct the whole enterprise himself, and had sometimes to +call in the aid of careless and untrustworthy associates, who +occasionally found it easier to throw off a bit of sentimental or +sensational romance than to pursue a patient inquiry. But the general +effect of the publication was healthful and practical, and it became the +parent of nearly all the efforts that followed to lay bare and +ameliorate the condition of the London poor. There can be no doubt that +it had a great influence on the impressionable mind of Charles Kingsley. +He wrote "Alton Locke," and the book became a great success. The Tailor +and Poet was the hero of the hour. "Blackwood" at once christened Alton +Locke "Young Remnants;" but Young Remnants survived the joke. The novel +is full of nonsense and extravagance; and with all its sympathy for +tailors, it has a great deal of Kingsley's characteristic affection for +rank and birth. But it had a really great idea at its heart, and struck +out one or two new characters—especially that of the old Scotch +bookseller—and it made its mark. The peculiarity, however, to which I +wish now especially to direct attention is its utter absence of +practical thinking-power. Nowhere can you find any proof that the author +is able to think about anything. An idea strikes him; he seizes it, and, +to use Hawthorne's expression, "wields it like a flail." Then he throws +it down and takes up something else, to employ it in the same wild and +incoherent fashion. This is Kingsley all out, and always. He is not +content with developing his one only gift of any literary value—the +capacity to paint big, striking pictures with a strong glare or glow on +them. He firmly believes himself a profound philosopher and social +reformer, and he will insist on obtruding before the world on all +occasions his absolute incapacity for any manner of reasoning on any +subject whatsoever. Wild with intellectual egotism, and blind to all +teaching from without, Kingsley rushes at great and difficult subjects +head downwards like a bull. Thus he tackled Chartism, and society, and +competition, and political economy, and what not, in his "Alton Locke"; +and thus he has gone on ever since and will to the end of his chapter, +always singling out for the display of his powers the very subjects +whereof he knows least, and is by the whole constitution of his +intellect and temperament least qualified to judge.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p><p>I am writing now rather about Kingsley himself than about his books, +with which the readers of "The Galaxy" are of course well acquainted. I +therefore pass over the many books he produced between "Alton Locke" and +"Westward Ho!"—and I dwell upon the latter only because it illustrates +the next great idea which got hold of the author after the little fever +about Chartism had passed away. I suppose "Westward Ho!" may be regarded +as the first appearance of the school of Muscular Christianity. Mr. +Kingsley started for our benefit the huge British hero who could do +anything in the way of fighting and walking, and propagated the +doctrines of the English Church. To read the Bible and to kill the +Spaniards was the whole duty of the ideal Briton of Elizabeth's time, +according to this authority. The notion was a success. In a moment our +literature became flooded with pious athletes who knocked their enemies +down with texts from the Scriptures and left-handers from the shoulder. +All these heroes were of necessity "gentlemen." One of the principal +articles of the new gospel according to Kingsley was that truth, valor, +muscle, and theological fervor were only possessed in their fulness by +the scions of good old English county families. Other nations seldom had +such qualities at all; never had them to perfection; and even favored +Britain only saw them properly illustrated in country gentlemen of long +descent. Of course this sort of thing, which was for the moment a +sincere idea with Kingsley, became a mere affectation among his +followers and admirers. The fighting-parson pattern of hero was for a +while as great a bore as the rough and ugly hero after Jane Eyre's +"Rochester," or the colossal and corrupt guardsman whom "Guy +Livingstone" sent abroad on the world. Certainly Kingsley's hero was a +better style of man than Guy Livingstone's, for at the worst he was only +an egotistical savage, and not a profligate. But I think he did a good +deal of harm in his day. He helped to encourage and inflate that feeling +of national self-conceit which makes people such nuisances to their +neighbors, and he fostered that odious reverence for mere force and +power which Carlyle had already made fashionable. Kingsley himself +appears to have become "possessed" by his own idea as if by some +unmanageable spirit. It banished all his chartism and democracy and +liberalism, and the rest of it. Under its influence Kingsley +out-Carlyled Carlyle in the worship of strong despotisms and force of +any kind. He went out of his way to excuse slavery in the Southern +States. He became the fervent panegyrist of Governor Eyre of Jamaica. +When two sides were possible to any question of human politics, he was +sure to take the wrong one. Nothing for long years, I think, has been +more repulsive, and in its way more mischievous, than the cant about +"strength" which Kingsley did so much to diffuse and to glorify.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile his irrepressible energy was always driving him into new +fields of work. It never allowed him time to think. The moment any sort +of idea struck him, he rushed at it and crushed it into the shape of a +book or an essay. He wrote historical novels, philosophical novels, and +theological novels. He wrote poetry—yards of poetry—volumes of poetry. +There really is a great deal of the spirit of poetry in him, and he has +done better things with the hexameter verse than better poets have done. +There was for a long time a fervid school of followers who swore by him, +and would have it that he was to be the great English poet of the +century. He published essays, tracts, lectures, and sermons without +number. He seems to have made up his mind to publish in book form +somehow everything that he had spoken or written anywhere. He inundated +the leading newspapers with letters on this, that, and the other +subject. He was appointed professor of modern history at the University +of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>Cambridge on the death of Sir James Stephen, and he launched at once +into a series of lectures, which were almost immediately published in +book form. Why he published them it was hard for even vanity itself to +explain, because with characteristic bluntness he began his course with +the acknowledgment that he really knew nothing in particular about the +subjects whereon he had undertaken to instruct the University and the +world. He made up in courage, however, for anything he may have lacked +in knowledge. He went bravely in for an onslaught on the positive theory +of history—on Comte, Mill, Buckle, Darwin, and everybody else. He made +it perfectly clear very soon that he did not know even what these +authors profess to teach. He flatly denied that there is any such thing +as an inexorable law in nature. He proved that even the supposed law of +gravitation is not by any means the rigid and universal sort of thing +that Newton and such-like persons have supposed. How, it may be asked, +did he prove this? In the following words: "If I choose to catch a +stone, I can hold it in my hands; it has not fallen to the ground, and +will not till I let it. So much for the inevitable action of the laws of +gravity." This way of dealing with the question may seem to many readers +nothing better than downright buffoonery. But Kingsley was as grave as a +church and as earnest as an owl. He fully believed that he was refuting +the pedants who believe in the inevitable action of the law of +gravitation, when he talked of holding a stone in his hand. That an +impulsive, illogical man should on the spur of the moment talk this kind +of nonsense, even from a professor's chair, is not perhaps wonderful; +but it does seem a little surprising that he should see it in print, +revise it, and publish it, without ever becoming aware of its absurdity.</p> + +<p>In the same headlong spirit Mr. Kingsley rushed into his famous +controversy with Dr. John Henry Newman. I have already, when writing of +Dr. Newman, alluded to this controversy, which for a time excited the +greatest interest and indeed the greatest amusement in England. I only +refer to it now as an illustration of the surprising hotheadedness and +lack of thinking power which characterize the author of "Alton Locke." +Dr. Newman preached a sermon on "Wisdom and Innocence." Mr. Kingsley +went out of his way to discourse and comment on this sermon, and +publicly declared that its doctrine was an exhortation to disregard +truth. "Dr. Newman informs us that truth need not and on the whole ought +not to be a virtue for its own sake." Of course this was as grave a +charge as could possibly be made against a great religious teacher. It +was doubly odious and offensive to Dr. Newman because it was the revival +of an old and familiar charge against the church he had lately entered. +It was made by Kingsley in an oft-hand, careless sort of way, as if it +were something acknowledged and indisputable—as if some one were to +say, "Horace Greeley informs us that a protective tariff is often +useful," or "Henry Ward Beecher is in favor of early rising." Newman +wrote with a cold civility to ask in what passage of his writings any +such doctrine was to be found. Of course nothing of the kind was to be +found. If it were possible to conceive of any divine in our days holding +such a doctrine, we may be perfectly certain that he would never put it +into print. Newman was known to all the world as the purest and most +austere devotee of what he believed to be the truth. He had sacrificed +the most brilliant career in the Church of England for his convictions, +and, strange to say, had yet retained the admiration and the affection +of those whose religious fellowship he had renounced. Kingsley had but +one course in fairness and common sense open to him. He ought to have +frankly apologized. He ought to have owned that he had spoken without +thinking; that he had blurted out the words without observing the +gravity of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> the charge they contained; and that he was sorry for it. But +he did not do this. He published a letter, in which he said that Dr. +Newman having denied that his doctrine bore the meaning Mr. Kingsley had +put upon it, he (Kingsley) could only express his regret at having +mistaken him. This was nearly as bad as the first charge. It distinctly +conveyed the idea that but for Dr. Newman's subsequent explanation and +denial, certain words of his might fairly have been understood to bear +the odious meaning ascribed to them. Dr. Newman returned to the charge, +still with a chill urbanity which I cannot help thinking Kingsley +mistook for weakness or fear. He pointed out that he had never denied +anything; that there was nothing for him to deny; that Mr. Kingsley had +charged him with teaching a certain odious doctrine, and he therefore +asked Mr. Kingsley to point to the passage containing the doctrine, or +frankly own that there was no such passage in existence. Kingsley +thereupon took the worst, the most unfair, and as it proved the most +foolish course a man could possibly have pursued. He went to work to +fasten on Newman by a constructive argument, drawn from the general +tendency of his teaching, a belief in the doctrine of which he was +unable to find any specific statement. Then opened out that controversy, +which was quite an event in its time, and set everybody talking. +Newman's was an intellect which must be described as the peer of Stuart +Mill's or Herbert Spencer's. He was a perfect master of polemical +science. He could write, when he thought fit, with a vitriolic keenness +of sarcasm. When he had allowed Kingsley to entangle himself +sufficiently, Newman fairly opened fire, and the rest of the debate was +like a duel between some blundering, wrong-headed cudgel-player from a +village green, and some accomplished professor of the science of the +rapier from Paris or Vienna. Not the least amusing thing about the +controversy was the manner in which it put Kingsley into open antagonism +with his own teaching. He endeavored gratuitously and absurdly to +convict Dr. Newman of a disregard for the truth, because Newman believed +in the miracles of the saints. For, he argued, a man of Newman's +intellect could not believe in such things if he inquired into them. But +he did not inquire into them; he taught that they were not to be +questioned but accepted as orthodox. Thereby he showed that he preferred +orthodoxy to truth—"truth, the capital virtue, the virtue of virtues, +without which all others are rotten." Now, that sounds very well, and we +all agree in what Kingsley says of the truth. But Kingsley had not long +before been assailing Bishop Colenso for his infidelity. Kingsley +declared himself shocked at the publication of a work like Dr. +Colenso's, which claimed and exercised a license of inquiry that seemed +to him "anything but reverent." He distinctly laid it down that the +liberty of religious criticism must be "reverent," and "within the +limits of orthodoxy!" Now, I am not challenging Mr. Kingsley's doctrine +as to the limit of religious inquiry. That forms no part of my purpose. +But it is perfectly obvious that if to limit inquiry within the bounds +of orthodoxy shows a disregard for truth in John Henry Newman, the same +practice must be evidence of a similar disregard in Charles Kingsley. Of +course Kingsley never thought of this—never thought about the matter at +all. He disliked Colenso's teaching on the one hand and Newman's on the +other. He said the first thing that came into his mind against each in +turn, and never heeded the fact that the reproach he employed in the +former case was utterly inconsistent with that which he uttered in the +other. I do not believe, however, that the controversy did Kingsley any +harm. Nobody ever expected consistency or rational argument from him. +People were amused, and laughed, and perhaps wondered why Dr. Newman +should have taken any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> trouble in the matter at all. But Kingsley +remained in popular estimation just the same as before—blundering, +hot-headed, boisterous, but full of brilliant imagination, and +thoroughly sound at heart.</p> + +<p>Thus Charles Kingsley is always at work. Lately he has been describing +some of the scenery of the West Indies, and proclaiming the virtues of +Australian potted meats. He has thrown his whole soul into the +Australian meat question. The papers have run over with letters from him +intended to prove to the world how good and cheap it is to eat the +mutton and beef brought in tin cans from Australia. I believe Mr. +Kingsley acknowledges that all his energy and eloquence have been +unequal to the task of persuading his servants to eat the excellent food +which he is himself willing to have at his table. He has also been +lecturing on temperance, and delivering a philippic against Darwin. He +has also written a paper condemning and deprecating the modern critical +spirit. There is one rule, he insists, "by which we should judge all +human opinions, endeavors, characters." That is, "Are they trying to +lessen the sum of human misery, of human ignorance? Are they trying, +however clumsily, to cure physical suffering, weakness, deformity, +disease, and to make human bodies what God would have them?... If so, +let us judge them no further. Let them pass out of the pale of our +criticism. Let their creed seem to us defective, their opinions +fantastic, their means irrational. God must judge of that, not we. They +are trying to do good; then they are children of the light." This is +not, perhaps, the spirit in which Kingsley himself criticised Newman or +Colenso. But if we judge him according to the principle which he +recommends, he would assuredly take high rank; for I never heard any one +question his sincerity and his honest purpose to do good. Of course he +is often terribly provoking. His feminine and almost hysterical +impulsiveness, and his antiquated, feudal devotion to rank, are +difficult to bear always without strong language. His utter absence of +sympathy with political emancipation is a lamentable weakness. His +self-conceit and egotism often make him a ludicrous object. Still, he +has an honest heart, and he tries to do the work of a man; and he is one +of those who would, if they could, make the English State Church still a +living, an active, and an all-pervading influence. As a preacher and a +pastor he often reminds me of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Of course he +is far below Mr. Beecher in all oratorical gifts as well as in political +enlightenment; but he has the same perfervid and illogical nature, the +same vigorous, self-sufficient temperament, the same tendency to "slop +over," the same generous energy in any cause that seems to him good.</p> + +<p>It will be inferred that I do not rate Mr. Kingsley very highly as an +author. He can describe glowing scenery admirably, and he can vigorously +ring the changes on his one or two ideas—the muscular Englishman, the +glory of the Elizabethan discoverers, and so on. He is a scholar, and he +has written verses which sometimes one is on the point of mistaking for +poetry, so much of the poet's feelings have they about them. He can do a +great many things very cleverly. He belongs to a clever family. His +brother, Henry Kingsley, is a spirited and dashing novelist, whom the +critics sneer at a good deal, but whose books always command a large +circulation, and have made a distinctive mark. Perhaps if Charles +Kingsley had done less he might have done better. Human capacity is +limited. It is not given to mortal to be a great preacher, a great +philosopher, a great scholar, a great poet, a great historian, a great +novelist, an indefatigable country parson, and a successful man in +fashionable society. Mr. Kingsley seems never to have quite made up his +mind for which of these callings to go in especially, and being with all +his versatility not at all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> many-sided, but strictly one-sided, and +almost one-ideaed, the result of course has been that, touching success +at many points, he has absolutely mastered it at none. His place in +letters has been settled this long time. Since "Westward Ho!" at the +latest, he has never added half a cubit to his stature. The "Chartist +Parson" has, on the other hand, been growing more and more aristocratic, +illiberal, and even servile in politics. His discourse on the recovery +of the Prince of Wales was the very hyperbole of the most old-fashioned +loyalty—a discourse worthy of Filmer, and utterly out of place in the +present century. Muscular Christianity has shrunk and withered long +since. The professorship of modern history was a failure, and has been +given up. Darwin is flourishing, and I am not certain about the success +of Australian beef. All this acknowledged, however, it must still be +owned that, failing in this, that, and the other attempt, and never +probably achieving any real and enduring success, Charles Kingsley has +been an influence and a name of mark in the Victorian age. I cannot, +indeed, well imagine that age without him, although his presence is +sometimes only associated with it as that of Malvolio with the court of +the fair lady in "Twelfth Night." Men of far greater intellect have made +their presence less strongly felt, and imprinted their image much less +clearly on the minds of their contemporaries. He is an example of how +much may be done by energetic temper, fearless faith in self, an absence +of all sense of the ridiculous, a passionate sympathy, and a wealth of +half-poetic descriptive power. If ever we have a woman's parliament in +England, Charles Kingsley ought to be its chaplain; for I know of no +clever man whose mind and temper more aptly illustrate the illogical +impulsiveness, the rapid emotional changes, the generous, often +wrong-headed vehemence, the copious flow of fervid words, the vivid +freshness of description without analysis, and the various other +peculiarities which, justly or unjustly, the world has generally agreed +to regard as the special characteristics of woman.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>MR. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>Mr. Froude, I perceive, is about to visit the United States. <i>Reddas +incolumem!</i> He is a man of mark—with whatever faults, a great +Englishman. It will not take the citizens of New York and Boston long to +become quite as familiar with his handsome, thoughtful face as the +people of London. Mr. Froude rarely makes his appearance at any public +meeting or demonstration of any kind. He delivers a series of lectures +now and then to one of the great solemn literary institutions. He is a +member of some of our literary and scientific societies. He used at one +time occasionally to attend the meetings of the Newspaper Press Fund +Committee, where his retiring ways and grave, meditative demeanor +reminded me, I cannot tell why, of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He has many +friends, and mingles freely in private society, but to the average +public he is only a name; to a large proportion of that average public +he is not even so much. I presume he might walk the Strand every day and +no head turn round to look after him. I presume it would not be +difficult to get together a large public meeting of respectable and +intelligent London rate-payers of whom not one could tell who Mr. Froude +was, or would be aroused to the slightest interest by the mention of his +name. Who, indeed, is generally known or cared about in London? I do not +say universally known, for nobody enjoys that proud distinction, not +even the Prince of Wales—nay, not even the Tichborne claimant. But who +is ever generally known? Gladstone and Disraeli are; and Bright is. +Dickens was, and, to a certain extent, Thackeray. Archbishop Manning and +Mr. Spurgeon are, perhaps; and I cannot remember anybody else just now. +Palmerston, in his day, was better known than any of these; and the Duke +of Wellington was by far the most widely known of all. The Duke of +Wellington was the only man who during my time was nearly as well known +in London as Mr. Greeley is in New York. "How can you, you know?" as Mr. +Pecksniff asks. We have four millions of people crowded into one city. +It takes a giant of popularity indeed to be seen and recognized above +that crowd. As for your Brownings and Spencers and Froudes and the rest, +your mere men of genius—well, they have their literary celebrity and +they will doubtless have their fame. But average London knows and cares +no more about them than it does about you or me.</p> + +<p>Therefore, let not any American reader, when I describe Mr. Froude as a +man of mark and a great Englishman, assume that he is a man of mark with +the crowd. Let no American visitor to London be astonished if, finding +him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>self in the neighborhood of Mr. Froude's residence, and stepping +into half a dozen shops in succession to ask for the exact address of +the historian, he should hear that nobody there knew anything about him. +Nobody but scholars and literary people knew anything about the late +George Grote, one of the few great philosophic historians of the modern +world. Compared with the influence of Mr. Grote upon average London, +that of Mr. Froude may almost be described as sensational; for Froude +has stirred up literary and religious controversy, and has been +denounced and has personally defended himself, and in that way must have +attracted some attention. At all events, when New York has seen and +heard Mr. Froude, she will have seen and heard one of the men of our +time in the true sense; one of the men who have toiled out a channel for +a fresh current of literature to run in, and whose name can hereafter be +omitted from no list of celebrities, however select, which pretends to +illustrate the characteristics of the Victorian age in England.</p> + +<p>Mr. Froude is a Devonshire man, son of a Protestant archdeacon. He was +educated in Westminster School, and afterward at the famous Oriel +College, Oxford. He is now some fifty-four or fifty-five years of age, +but seems, and I hope is, only in his prime. Froude is a waif of that +marvellous Oxford movement which began some forty years ago, and of +which the strange, diversely operating influence still radiates through +English thought and society. That movement was a peculiar theological +<i>renaissance</i>, which partly converted itself into a reaction and partly +into a revolt. It began with the saintly and earnest Keble; its master +spirits were John Henry Newman and Dr. Pusey. It proposed to vindicate +for the Protestant Church the true place of spiritual heir to the +apostles and universal teacher of the Christian world. Newman, Pusey, +and others worked in the production of the celebrated "Tracts for the +Times." The results were extraordinary. The impulse of inquiry thus set +going seemed to shake all foundations of agreement. It was an explosion +which blew people various ways, they could hardly tell why or how. It +made one man a ritualist, another an Ultramontane Roman Catholic, a +third a skeptic. Like the two women grinding at the mill in the +Scripture, two devoted companions, brothers perhaps, were seized by that +impulse and flung different ways. Before the wave had subsided it tossed +Mr. Froude, then a young man of five or six and twenty, clear out of his +intended career as a clergyman of the Church of England. He had taken +deacon's orders before the change came on him, which drove him forth as +the two Newmans had been driven; but his course was more like that of +Francis Newman than of John Henry. He seemed, indeed, at one time likely +to pass away altogether into the ranks of the skeptics. Skepticism is in +London attended with no small degree of social disadvantage. To be in +"society," you must believe as people of good position do. Dissent of +any kind is unfashionable. A shrewd friend of mine says a dissenter can +never enter London. Dissent never gets any further than Hackney or +Clapham, a northern and a southern suburb. Allowance being made for a +touch of satirical exaggeration, the saying is very expressive, and even +instructive. Probably, however, the odds are more heavily against mere +dissent than a bold, intellectual skepticism, which may have a piquant +and alluring flavor about it, and make a man a sort of curiosity and +lion, so that "society" would tolerate him as it does a poet. There was, +however, nothing in exclusion from fashionable society to frighten a man +like Froude, who, so far as I know, has never troubled himself about the +favor of the West End. His first work of any note (for I pass over "The +Shadows of the Clouds," a novel, I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>believe, which I have never read nor +seen) was "The Nemesis of Faith." This work was published in 1848, and +is chiefly to be valued now as an illustration of one stage of +development through which the intellect of the author and the tolerance +of his age were passing. "The Nemesis of Faith" was declared a skeptical +and even an infidel book. It was sternly censured and condemned by the +authorities of the university to which Mr. Froude had belonged. He had +won a fellowship in Exeter College, Oxford; the college authorities +punished him for his opinions by depriving him of it. "The Nemesis of +Faith" created a sensation, an excitement and alarm, which surely were +extravagant even then and would be impossible now. Its doubts and +complaints would seem wild enough to-day. Men of any freshness and +originality so commonly begin—or about that time did begin—their +career with a little outburst of skepticism, that the thing seems almost +as natural as it seemed to Major Pendennis for a young peer to start in +public life as a professed republican. Besides, we must remember that +"The Nemesis of Faith" was published in what the late Lord Derby once +called the pre-scientific age. It was the time when skepticism dealt +only in the metaphysical or the emotional, and had not congealed into +the far more enduring and corroding form of physical science. As well as +I can remember, "The Nemesis of Faith"—which I have not seen for +years—was full of life and genius, but not particularly dangerous to +settled beliefs. However, a storm raged around it, and around the +author; and finally Mr. Froude himself seems to have reconsidered his +opinions, for he subsequently withdrew the book from circulation. Its +literary success, however, must have shown him clearly what his career +was to be. He was at this time drifting about the world in search of +occupation; for he found himself cut off from the profession of the +Church, on which he had intended to enter, and yet he had, if I am not +mistaken, passed far enough within its threshold to disqualify him for +admission to one of the other professions. He began to write for the +"Westminster Review," which at that time was in the zenith of its +intellectual celebrity, and for "Fraser's Magazine." His studies led him +especially into the history of the Tudor reigns, and most of his early +contributions to "Fraser" were explorations in that field. Out of these +studies grew the "History of England," on which the fame of the author +is destined to rest. Mr. Froude himself tells us that he began his task +with a strong inclination toward what may be called the conventional and +orthodox opinions of the character of Henry VIII.; but he found as he +studied the actual records and state papers that a different sort of +character began to grow up under his eyes. I can easily imagine how his +emotional and artistic nature gradually bore him away further and +further in the direction thus suddenly opened up, until at last he had +created an entirely new Henry for himself. Of course the old traditional +notion of Henry, the simple idea which set him down as a monster of lust +and cruelty, would soon expose its irrationality to a mind like that of +Froude. But, like the writers who, in revolt against the picture of +Tiberius given by Tacitus, or that of the French Revolution woven by +Burke, have painted the Roman Emperor as an archangel, and the +Revolution as a stainless triumph of liberty, so Mr. Froude seems to +have been driven into a positive affection and veneration for the +subject of his study. In 1856 the first and second volumes appeared of +the "History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of +Elizabeth." There has hardly been in our time so fierce a literary +controversy as that which sprang up around these two volumes. Perhaps +the war of words over Buckle's first volume or Darwin's "Origin of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>Species" could alone be compared with it. Mr. Froude became famous in a +moment. The "Edinburgh Review" came out with a fierce, almost a savage +attack, to which Mr. Froude replied in an article which he published in +"Fraser" and to which he affixed his own signature. Mr. Froude, indeed, +has during his career fought several battles in this open, personal +manner—a thing very uncommon in England. He has had many enemies. The +"Saturday Review" has been unswerving in its passionate hostility to +him, and has even gone so far as to arraign his personal integrity as a +chronicler. Rumor in London ascribes some of the bitterest of the +"Saturday Review" articles to the pen of Mr. Edward A. Freeman, author +of "The History of Federal Government," "The History of the Norman +Conquest of England," and many historical essays—a prolific writer in +reviews and journals. Then as the successive volumes of Froude's work +began to appear, and the historian brought out his famous portraiture of +Elizabeth and Mary, it was but natural that controversy should thicken +and deepen around him. The temper of parties in Great Britain is still +nearly as hot as ever it was on the characters of Mary and Elizabeth. +Not many years ago Thackeray was hissed in Edinburgh, because in one of +his lectures he said something which was supposed to be disparaging to +the moral character of Mary of Scotland. Then the whole question of +Saxon against Celt comes up again in Mr. Froude's account of English +rule in Ireland. Everybody knows what a storm of controversy broke +around the historian's head. He was accused not merely of setting up his +own personal prejudices as law and history, but even of misrepresenting +facts and actually misquoting documents in order to suit his purpose. I +do not mean to enter into the discussion, for I am not writing a +criticism of Mr. Froude's history, but only a chapter about Mr. Froude +himself. But I confess I can quite understand why so many readers, not +blind partisans of any cause, become impatient with some of the passages +of his works. He coolly and deliberately commends as virtue in one +person or one race the very qualities, the very deeds which he +stigmatizes as the blackest and basest guilt in others. "Show me the +man, and I will show you the law," used to be an old English proverb, +illustrating the depth which judicial partisanship and corruption had +reached. "Show me the person, and I will show you the moral law," might +well be the motto of Mr. Froude's history. But I believe Mr. Froude to +be utterly incapable of any misrepresentation or distortion of facts, +any conscious coloring of the truth. Indeed, I am rather impressed by +the extraordinary boldness with which he often gives the naked facts, +and still calmly upholds a theory which to ordinary minds would seem +absolutely incompatible with their existence. It appears to be enough if +he once makes up his mind to dislike a personage or a race. Let the +facts be as they may, Mr. Froude will still explain them to the +discredit of the object of his antipathy. His mode of dealing with the +characters and actions of those he detests, might remind one of the +manner in which the discontented subjects of the perplexed prince in +"Rabagas" explain every act of their good-natured ruler: "Je donne un +bal—luxe effréné! Pas de bal—quelle avarice! Je passe une +revue—intimidation militaire! Je n'en passe pas—je crains l'esprit des +troupes! Des pétards à ma fête—l'argent du peuple en fumée! Pas de +pétards—rien pour les plaisirs du peuple! Je me porte bien—l'oisivite! +Je me porte mal—la débauche! Je bâtis—gaspillage! Je ne bâtis pas—et +le prolétaire?"</p> + +<p>However that may be, it is certain that the "History" placed Mr. Froude +in the very front rank of English authors. He had made a path for +himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> He refused to accept the thought of what is commonly called a +science of history, although his own method of evolving his narrative is +very often in faithful conformity with the principles of that science. +He had written about political economy, in the very opening of his first +volume, in a manner which, if it did not imply an actual contempt for +the doctrines of that science, yet certainly showed an impatience of its +rule which aroused the anger of the economists. He claimed a reversal of +the universal decision of modern history as to the character of Henry +VIII. He assailed one of the English Protestant's articles of faith when +he denied the virtue of Anne Boleyn. He made mistakes and confessed +them, and went to work again. The opening of the Spanish archives in the +castle of Simancas flooded him with new lights and required a +reconstruction of much that he had done. The progress of his work became +one of the literary phenomena of the age. All eyes were on it. The rich +romantic splendor of the style, the singular power and impressiveness of +the historical portraits, fascinated everybody. Orthodox Protestants +looked on him as a sort of infidel or pagan, despite his admiration for +Queen Bess, because, with all his admiration, he exposed her meannesses +and her falsehoods with unsparing hand. Catholics insisted on regarding +him as a mere bigot of Protestantism, although he condemned Anne Boleyn. +Mr. Froude has always shown a remarkable freedom from prejudice and +bigotry. Some of his closest friends are Catholics and Irishmen. I +remember a little personal instance of liberality on his part which is +perhaps worth mentioning. There was an official in the Record or State +Paper Office of England who had become a Roman Catholic, and was, like +most English Catholics, especially if converts, rather bigoted and +zealous. This gentleman, Mr. Turnbull, happened to be employed some +years ago in arranging, copying, and calendaring the Elizabethan State +papers. The Evangelical Alliance Society got up a cry against him. They +insisted that to employ a Roman Catholic in such a task was only to +place in his hands the means of falsifying a most important period of +English history, and they argued that the temptation would be too strong +for any man like Mr. Turnbull to resist. There sprang up one of those +painful and ignoble disputations which are even still only too common in +England when religious bigotry gets a chance of raising an alarm. I am +sorry to say that so influential a journal as the "Athenæum" joined in +the clamor for the dismissal of Mr. Turnbull, who was not accused of +having done anything wrong, but only of being placed in a position which +might perhaps tempt some base creatures to do wrong. Mr. Turnbull was a +gentleman of the highest honor, and, unfortunately for himself, an +enthusiast in the very work which then occupied him. Mr. Froude was then +engaged in studying the period of history which employed Mr. Turnbull's +labors. The opinions of the two men were utterly at variance. Mr. +Turnbull must have thought Froude's work in the rehabilitation of Henry +VIII., and the glorification of Elizabeth positively detestable. But Mr. +Froude bore public testimony to the honor and integrity of Mr. Turnbull. +"Mr. Turnbull," Froude wrote, "could have felt no sympathy with the work +in which I was engaged; but he spared no pains to be of use to me, and +in admitting me to a share of his private room enabled me to witness the +ability and integrity with which he discharged his own duties." Bigotry +prevailed, however. Mr. Turnbull was removed from his place, and died +soon after, disappointed and embittered. But Froude the man is not +Froude the author. The man is free from dislikes and prejudices; the +author can hardly take a pen in his hand without being suffused by +prejudices and dislikes. Take for example his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> way of dealing with Irish +questions, not merely in his history, but in his miscellaneous writings. +Mr. Froude has some little property in the west of Ireland, and resides +there for a short time every year. He has occasionally detailed his +experiences, and commented on them, in the pages of "Fraser." I shall +not give my own view of his apparent sentiments toward Ireland, because +I am obviously not an impartial judge; but I shall take the opinion of +the London "Spectator," which is. The "Spectator" declares that "it may +be not unfairly said that Mr. Froude simply loathes the Irish people; +not consciously perhaps, for he professes the reverse. But a certain +bitter grudge breaks out despite his will now and then. It colors all +his tropes. It adds a sting to the casual allusions of his language. +When he wants a figure of speech to express the relation between the two +islands, he compares the Irish to a kennel of fox-hounds, and the +English to their master, and declares that what the Irish want is a +master who knows that he is a master and means to continue master." In +his occasional studies of contemporary Ireland from the window of his +shooting lodge in Kerry, Mr. Froude exhibits the same strange mixture of +candor as to fact and blind prejudice as to conclusion which so oddly +characterizes his history. He recounts deliberately the most detestable +projects—he himself calls them "detestable;" the word is his, not +mine—avowed to him by the agents of great Irish landlords, and yet his +sympathy is wholly with the agents and against the occupiers. He tells +in one instance, with perfect delight, of a mean and vulgar exhibition +of triumphant malice which he says an agent, a friend of his, paraded +for the humiliation of an evicted and contumacious tenant. The +"Spectator" asks in wonder whether it can be possible that "Mr. Froude, +an English gentleman by birth and education, an Oxford fellow, is not +ashamed to relate this act as an heroic feat?" Indeed, Mr. Froude seems +to associate in Ireland only with the "agent" class, and to take all his +views of things from them. His testimony is therefore about as valuable +as that of a foreigner who twelve or fifteen years ago should have taken +his opinions as to slavery in the South from the judgment and +conversation of the plantation overseers. The "Spectator" observed, with +calm severity, that Mr. Fronde's unlucky accounts of his Irish +experiences were "a comical example of the way in which an acute and +profound mind can become dull to the sense of what is manly, just, and +generous, by the mere atmosphere of association." Let me say that I am +convinced, however, that all this blind and unmanly prejudice is purely +literary; that it is taken up and laid aside with the pen. As I have +already said, some of Mr. Froude's closest friends are Irishmen—men who +are incapable of associating with any one, however eminent, who really +felt the coarse and bitter hatred to their country which Mr. Froude in +his wilder moments allows his too fluent pen to express. In fact Mr. +Froude is nothing of a philosopher. He settles every question easily and +off hand by reference to what Stuart Mill well calls the resource of the +lazy—the theory of race. Celts are all wrong and Anglo-Saxons are all +right, and there is an end of it. If he has any philosophy and science +of history, it is this. It explains everything and reconciles all +seeming contradictions. Nothing can be at once more comprehensive and +more simple. But there is still something to be added to this story of +Mr. Froude's Irish experiences; and I mention the whole thing only to +illustrate the peculiar character of Mr. Froude's emotional temperament, +which so often renders him untrustworthy as a historian. In the +particular instance on which the "Spectator" commented, it turned out +that Mr. Froude was entirely mistaken. He had misunderstood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> from +beginning to end what his friend the agent told him. The agent, the +landlord (a peer of the realm), and others hastened to contradict the +historian. There never had been any such eviction or any such offensive +display. Mr. Froude himself wrote to acknowledge publicly that he had +been entirely mistaken. He seemed indeed to have always had some doubt +of the story he was publishing; for he sent a proof of the page to the +agent "to be corrected in case I had misunderstood him." But the agent's +alterations, "unluckily, did not reach me in time;" and as Mr. Froude +could not wait for the truth, he published the error. Thus indeed is +history written! This was Mr. Froude's published version of a statement +made <i>viva voce</i> to himself; and his version was wrong in every +particular—in fact, in substance, in detail, in purport, in everything! +I venture to think that this little incident is eminently +characteristic, and throws a strong light on some of the errors of the +"History of England."</p> + +<p>Mr. Froude has taken little or no active part in English politics. I do +not remember his having made any sign of personal sympathy one way or +the other with any of the great domestic movements which have stirred +England in my time. I presume that he is what would be generally called +a Liberal; at least it is simply impossible that he could be a Tory. But +I doubt if he could very distinctly "place himself," as the American +phrase is, with regard to most of the political contentions of the time. +I cannot call Mr. Froude a philosophical Radical; for the idea which +that suggests is of a school of thought and a system of training quite +different from his, even if his tendencies could possibly be called +Radical. It is rather a pity that so much of the best and clearest +literary intellect of England should be so entirely withdrawn from the +practical study of contemporary politics. No sensible person could ask a +man like Mr. Froude to neglect his special work, that for which he has a +vocation and genius, for the business of political life. But perhaps a +better attempt might be made by him and others of our leading authors to +fulfil the conditions of the German proverb which recommends that the +one thing shall be done and the other not left undone. Mr. Froude has +taken a more marked interest in the quasi-political question lately +raised touching the connection between England and her colonies. Of +recent years a party has been growing up in England who advocate +emphatically the doctrine that the business of this country is to +educate her colonies for emancipation. These men believe that as time +goes on it will become more and more difficult to retain even a nominal +connection between distant colonies and the parent country. The Dominion +of Canada and the Australian colonies, both separated by oceans from +England, are now practically independent. They have their own +parliaments, and make their own laws; but England sends out a governor, +and the governor has still a nominal control indeed, which in some rare +cases he still exercises. Now what is to be the tendency of the future? +Will this practical independence tend to bind the colonial system more +strongly up into that of the central empire, as the practical +independence of the American or the Swiss States keeps them together? Or +is the time inevitable when the slight bond must be severed altogether +and the great colonies at last declare their independence? Would it, for +example, be possible always to maintain the American Union if several +thousand miles of ocean divided California in one direction from +Washington, and several thousand miles of another ocean lay between +Washington and the South? This is the sort of question political parties +in England have lately been asking themselves. One party, mainly under +an impulse once given by a chance alliance between the Manchester school +and Goldwin Smith, affirm boldly that ultimate separation is inevitable, +and that we ought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> to begin to prepare ourselves and the colonies for +it. This party made great way for awhile. They said loudly, they +announced as a principle, that which had been growing vaguely up in many +minds, and which one or two statesmen had long before put into actual +form. More than twelve years ago Mr. Gladstone delivered a lecture on +our colonial system which plainly pointed to this ultimate severance and +bade us prepare for it. Mr. Lowe, the present Chancellor of the +Exchequer, himself an old colonist, had talked somewhat cynically in the +same way. Mr. Bright was well known to favor the idea; so was Mr. Mill. +With the sudden and direct impulse given by Mr. Goldwin Smith, the +thought seemed to be catching fire. England had voluntarily given up the +Ionian Islands to Greece; there was talk of her restoring Gibraltar to +Spain. Mr. Lowe had spoken in the House of Commons with utter contempt +of those who thought it would be possible to hold Canada in the event of +a war with the United States. Governors of colonies actually began to +warn their population that the preparation for independence had better +begin. Suddenly a reaction set in. A class of writers and speakers came +up to the front who argued that the colonies were part of England's very +life system; that they were her friends, and might be her strength; that +it was only her fault if she had neglected them; and that the natural +tendency was to cohesion rather than dissolution. This party roused at +once the sympathy of that large class of people who, knowing and caring +nothing about the political and philosophical aspects of the question, +thought it somehow a degradation to England, a token of decay, a +confession of decrepitude, that there should be any talk of the +severance of her colonies. Between the two, the tide of separatist +feeling has decidedly been rolled back for the present. The humor of the +present day is to devise means—schemes of federation or federative +representation for example—whereby the colonies may still be kept in +cohesion with England. Now, among the men of intellect who have +stimulated and fostered this reactionary movement, if it be so—at all +events, this movement toward the retention of the colonies—Mr. Froude +has been a leading influence. He has advocated such a policy himself, +and he has instilled it into the minds of others. He has formed silently +a little school who take their doctrines from him and expand them. The +colonial question has become popular and powerful. We have every now and +then colonial conferences held in London, at which everybody who has any +manner of suggestion to make, or crotchet to air, touching the +improvement or development of our colonial system, goes and delivers his +speech independently of everybody else. In the House of Commons the +party is not yet very strong; but if it had a leader there, it would +undoubtedly be powerful. There is even already a visible anxiety on the +part of cabinet ministers to drop all allusion to the fact that they +once talked of preparing the colonies for independence. We now find that +it is regarded as unpatriotic, un-English, ungrateful, and I know not +what, to say a word about a possible severance, at any time, between the +parent country and her colonies. In one of Mr. Disraeli's novels a +political party, hard up for a captivating and popular watchword, is +thrown into ecstasies when somebody invents the cry of "Our young Queen +and our old Constitution." I think the cry of "Our young colonies and +our old Constitution" would be almost as taking now. It is curious, +however, to note how both the movement and the reaction came from +scholars and literary men—not from politicians or journalists. Many +eminent men had talked of gradually preparing the colonies for +independence; but the talk never became an impulse and a political +movement until it came from Mr. Goldwin Smith. On the other hand, +countless vociferous persons had always been bawling out that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> England +must never part with a rock on which her flag had waved; but all this +sort of thing had no effect until Mr. Froude and his school inaugurated +the definite movement of reaction. Mr. Goldwin Smith sent the ball +flying so far in one direction, that it seemed almost certain to reach +the limit of the field. Mr. Froude suddenly caught it and sent it flying +back the way it had come, and beyond the hand which had originally +driven it forth. It is not often that the ideas of "literary" men have +so much of positive influence over practical controversy in England.</p> + +<p>For a long time Mr. Froude has been the editor of "Fraser's Magazine," a +periodical which I need not say holds a high position, and to which the +editor has contributed some of the finest of his shorter writings. He is +assisted in the work of editing by Mr. William Allingham, who is best +known as a young poet of great promise, and who is probably the closest +personal friend of Alfred Tennyson. "Fraser's" is always ready to open +its columns to merit of any kind, and is willing to put before the +public bold and original views of many political questions which other +periodicals would shrink from admitting. As a rule English magazines, +even when they acknowledge a dash of the philosophic in them, are very +reluctant to give a place to opinions, however honestly entertained, +which differ in any marked degree from those of society at large. The +"Fortnightly Review" may be almost regarded as unique in its principle +of admitting any expression of opinion which has genuineness and value +in it, without regard to its accordance with public sentiment, or even +to its inherent soundness. "Fraser," of course, makes no pretension to +such deliberate boldness. But "Fraser" will now and then venture to put +in an article, even from an uninfluential hand, which goes directly in +the teeth of accepted and orthodox political opinion. For example, it is +not many months since it published an article written by an English +working man ("The Journeyman Engineer," a sort of celebrity in his way) +to prove that republicanism is becoming the creed of the English +artisan. Now, in any English magazine which professes to be respectable, +it is almost as hazardous a thing to speak of republicanism in England +as to speak of something indecent or blasphemous. "Fraser" also made +itself conspicuous some years ago as a bold and persevering advocate of +army reform, and ventured to press certain schemes of change which then +seemed either revolutionary or impossible, but which since then have +been quietly realized.</p> + +<p>I think I have given a tolerably accurate estimate of Mr. Froude's +public work in England. I have never heard him make a speech or deliver +a lecture, and therefore cannot conjecture how far he is likely to +impress an audience with the manner of his discourse; but the matter can +hardly fail to be suggestive, original, and striking. I can foresee +sharp controversy and broad differences of opinion arising out of his +lectures in the United States. I cannot imagine their being received +with indifference, or failing to hold the attention of the public. Mr. +Froude is a great literary man, if not strictly a great historian. Of +course every one must rate Froude's intellect very highly. He has +imagination; he has that sympathetic and dramatic instinct which enables +a man to enter into the emotions and motives, the likings and dislikings +of the people of a past age. His style is penetrating and thrilling; his +language often rises to the dignity of a poetic eloquence. The figures +he conjures up are always the semblances of real men and women. They are +never wax-work, or lay figures, or skeletons clothed in words, or purple +rags of description stuffed out with straw into an awkward likeness to +the human form. The one distinct impression we carry away from Froude's +history is that of the living reality of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> his figures. In Marlowe's +"Faustus" the Doctor conjures up for the amusement of the Emperor a +procession of stately and beautiful shadows to represent the great ones +of the past. When the shadows of Alexander the Great and his favorite +pass by, the Emperor can hardly restrain himself from rushing to clasp +the hero in his arms, and has to be reminded by the wizard that "these +are but shadows not substantial." Even then the Emperor can scarcely get +over his impression of their reality, for he cries:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div class="i9">I have heard it said</div> +<div>That this fair lady, whilst she lived on earth,</div> +<div>Had on her neck a little wart or mole;</div> +</div></div> + +<p>and lo! there is the mark on the neck of the beautiful form which floats +across his field of vision. Mr. Froude's shadows are like this: so +deceptive, so seemingly vital and real; with the beauty and the blot +alike conspicuous; with the pride and passion of the hero, and the +heroine's white neck and the wart on it. Mr. Froude's whole soul, in +fact, is in the human beings whom he meets as he unfolds his narrative. +He is not an historical romancist, as some of his critics have called +him. He is a romantic or heroic portrait painter. He has painted +pictures on his pages which may almost compare with those of Titian. +Their glances follow you and haunt you like the wonderful eyes of Cæsar +Borgia or the soul-piercing resignation of Beatrice Cenci. But is Mr. +Froude a great historian? Despite this splendid faculty, nay, perhaps +because of this, he wants the one great and essential quality of the +true historian, accuracy. He wants altogether the cold, patient, stern +quality which clings to facts—the scientific faculty. His narrative +never stands out in that "dry light" which Bacon so commends, the light +of undistorted and clear Truth. The temptations to the man with a gift +of heroic portrait-painting are too great for Mr. Froude's resistance. +His genius carries him away and becomes his master. When Titian was +painting his Cæsar Borgia, is it not conceivable that his imagination +may have been positively inflamed by the contrast between the physical +beauty and the moral guilt of the man, and have unconsciously heightened +the contrast by making the pride and passion lower more darkly, the +superb brilliancy of the eyes burn more radiantly than might have been +seen in real life? The world would take little account even if it were +to know that some of the portraits it admires were thus idealized by the +genius of the painter; but the historian who is thus led away is open to +a graver charge. It seems to me impossible to doubt that Mr. Froude has +more than once been thus ensnared by his own special gift. What is there +in literature more powerful, more picturesque, more complete and +dramatic than Froude's portrait of Mary Queen of Scots? It stands out +and glows and darkens with all the glare and gloom of a living form, +that now appears in sun and now in shadow. It is almost as perfect and +as impressive as any Titian. But can any reasonable person doubt that +the picture on the whole is a dramatic and not an historical study? +Without going into any controversy as to disputed facts—nay, admitting +for the sake of argument that Mary was as guilty as Mr. Froude would +make her—as guilty, I mean, in act and deed—yet it is impossible to +contend with any show of reason that the being he has painted for us is +the Mary of history and of life. To us his Mary now is a reality. We are +distinctly acquainted with her; we see her and can follow her movements. +But she is a fable and might be an impossibility for all that. The poets +have made many physical impossibilities real for us and familiar to us. +The form and being of a mermaid are not one whit less clear and distinct +to us than the form and being of a living woman. If any of us were to +see a painting of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> mermaid with scales upon her neck, or with feet, he +would resent it or laugh at it as an inaccuracy, just as if he saw some +gross anatomical blunder in a picture of an ordinary man or woman. Mr. +Froude has created a Mary Queen of Scots as the poets and painters have +created a mermaid. He has made her one of the most imposing figures in +our modern literature, to which indeed she is an important addition. So +of his Queen Elizabeth; so, to a lesser extent, of his Henry VIII., +because, although there he may have gone even further away from history, +yet I think he was misled rather by his anxiety to prove a theory than +by the fascination of a picture growing under his own hands. Everything +becomes for the hour subordinate to this passion for the picturesque in +good or evil. Mr. Froude's personal integrity and candor are constantly +coming into contradiction with this artistic temptation; but the +portrait goes on all the same. He is too honest and candid to conceal or +pervert any fact that he knows. He tells everything frankly, but +continues his portrait. It may be that the very vices which constitute +the gloom and horror of this portrait suddenly prove their existence in +the character of the person who was chosen to illustrate the brightness +and glory of human nature. Mr. Froude is not abashed. He frankly states +the facts; shows how, in this or that instance, Truth did tell shocking +lies, Mercy ordered several massacres, and Virtue fell into the ways of +Messalina. But the portraits of Truth, Mercy, and Virtue remain as +radiant as ever. A lover of art, according to a story in the memoirs of +Canova, was so struck with admiration of that sculptor's Venus that he +begged to be allowed to see the model. The artist gratified him; but so +far from beholding a very goddess of beauty in the flesh, he only saw a +well-made, rather coarse-looking woman. The sculptor, seeing his +disappointment, explained to him that the hand and eye of the artist, as +they work, can gradually and almost imperceptibly change the model from +that which it is in the flesh to that which it ought to be in the +marble. This is the process which is always going on with Mr. Froude +whenever he is at work upon some model in which for love or hate he +takes unusual interest. Therefore the historian is constantly involving +himself in a welter of inconsistencies and errors which affect the +artist in nowise. Henry is a hero on one page, although he does the very +thing which somebody else on the next page is a villain for even +attempting. Elizabeth remains a prodigy of wisdom and honesty, Mary a +marvel of genius, lust, cruelty, and falsehood, although in every other +chapter the author frankly accumulates instances which show that now and +then the parts seem to have been exchanged; and it often becomes as hard +to know, by any tangible evidence, which is truth and which falsehood, +which patriotism and which selfishness, as it was to distinguish the +true Florimel from the magical counterfeit in Spenser's "Faery Queen."</p> + +<p>This is a grave and a great fault; and unhappily it is one with which +Mr. Froude seems to have been thoroughly inoculated. It goes far to +justify the dull and literal old historians of the school of Dryasdust, +who, if they never quickened an event into life, never on the other hand +deluded the mind with phantoms. The chroniclers of mere facts and dates, +the old almanac-makers, are weary creatures; but one finds it hard to +condemn them to mere contempt when he sees how the vivid genius of a man +like Froude can lead him astray. Mr. Froude's finest gift is his +greatest defect for the special work he undertakes to do. A scholar, a +thinker, a man of high imagination, a man likewise of patient labor, he +is above all things a romantic portrait painter; and the spell by which +his works allure us is therefore the spell of the magician, not the +power of the calm and sober teacher.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>SCIENCE AND ORTHODOXY IN ENGLAND.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"The old God is dead above, and the old Devil is dead below!"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>So sang Heinrich Heine in one of his peculiarly cheerful moods; and I do +not know that any words could paint a more complete picture of the utter +collapse and ruin of old theologies and time-honored faiths and +superstitions. Irreverent and even impious as the words will perhaps +appear to most minds, it is probable that not a few of those who would +be most likely to shudder at their audacity are beginning to think with +horror that the condition of things described by the cynical poet is +being rapidly brought about by the doings of modern science. Many an +English country clergyman, many an earnest and pious Dissenter, must +have felt that a new and awful era had arrived—that a modern war of +Titans against Heaven was going on, when such discourses as Professor +Huxley's famous Protoplasm lecture could be delivered by a man of the +highest reputation, and could be received by nearly all the world with, +at least, a respectful consideration. In fact, the delivery of such +discourses does indicate a quite new ordeal for old-fashioned orthodoxy, +and an ordeal which seems to me far severer than any through which it +has yet passed. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of +the struggle which is now openly carried on between Science and Orthodox +Theology. I need hardly say perhaps that I utterly repudiate the use of +any such absurd and unmeaning language as that which speaks of a +controversy between science and religion. One might as well talk of a +conflict between fact and truth; or between truth and virtue. But +orthodox theology in England, whether it be right or wrong, is certainly +a very different thing from religion. Were it wholly and eternally true +it could still only bear the same relation to religion that geography +bears to the earth, astronomy to the sidereal system, the words +describing to the thing described. I may therefore hope not to be at +once set down as an irreligious person, merely because I venture to +describe the war indirectly waged against orthodox theology, by a new +school of English scientific men, as the severest trial that system has +ever yet had to encounter, and one through which it can hardly by any +possibility pass wholly unscathed.</p> + +<p>In describing briefly and generally this new school of English science, +and some of its leading scholars, I should say that I do so merely from +the outside. I am not a scientific man professionally; and, even as an +amateur, can only pretend to very slight attainment. But I have been on +the scene of controversy, have looked over the field, and studied the +bearing of the leading combatants. When Cressida had seen the chiefs of +the Trojan army pass before her and had each pointed out to her and +described, she could probably have told a stranger something worth his +listening to, although she knew nothing of the great art of war. Only on +something of the same ground do I venture to ask for any attention from +American readers, when I say something about the class of scientific men +who have recently sprung up in England, and of whom one of the most +distinguished and one of the most aggressive has just been elected +President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.</p> + +<p>This school is peculiarly English. So far as I know, it owes nothing +directly and distinctly to the intellectual initiative of any other +country. Both in metaphysical and in practical science there has been a +sudden and powerful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>awakening, or perhaps I should say <i>renaissance</i>, +in England lately. Three or four years ago Stuart Mill wrote that the +sceptre of psychology had again passed over to England; and it seems to +me not too much to say that England now likewise holds the sceptre of +natural science. It is evident to every one that the leaders of this new +school stand in antagonism which is decided, if not direct, to the +teachings of orthodox theology.</p> + +<p>The recent election of Professor Huxley as President of the British +Association was accepted universally as a triumph over the orthodox +party. Professor Owen, who undoubtedly possesses one of the broadest and +keenest scientific intellects of the age, has lately been pushed aside +and has fallen into something like comparative obscurity because he +could not, or would not, see his way into the dangerous fields opened up +by his younger and bolder rivals. Professor Owen held on as long as ever +he could to orthodoxy. He made heavy intellectual sacrifices at its +altar. I do not quite know whether in the end it was he who first gave +the cold shoulder to orthodoxy, or orthodoxy which first repudiated him. +But it is certain that he no longer stands out conspicuous and ardent as +the great opponent of Darwin and Huxley. He has, in fact, receded so +much from his old ground that one finds it difficult now to know where +to place him; and perhaps it will be better to regard him as out of the +controversy altogether. If he had done less for orthodoxy, where his +labors were vain, he might have done much more for science, where his +toil would always have been fruitful. Undoubtedly, he is one of the +greatest naturalists since Cuvier; his contributions toward the facts +and data of science have been valuable beyond all estimation; his +practical labors in the British Museum would alone earn for him the +gratitude of all students. Owen is, or was, to my mind, the very +perfection of a scientific lecturer. The easy flow of simple, expressive +language, the luminous arrangement and style which made the profoundest +exposition intelligible, the captivating variety of illustration, the +clear, well-modulated voice, the self-possessed and graceful manner—all +these were attributes which made Owen a delightful lecturer, although he +put forward no pretensions to rhetorical skill or to eloquence of any +very high order. But while there can hardly have been any recent falling +off in Owen's intellectual powers, yet it is certain that he was more +thought of, that he occupied a higher place in the public esteem, some +half dozen years ago than he now does. I think there has been a general +impression of late years that in the controversy between theology and +science, Owen was not to be relied upon implicitly. People thought that +he was trying to sit on the two stools; to run with the theological +hare, and hold with the scientific hounds. Indeed, Owen is eminently a +respectable, a courtly <i>savant</i>. He does not love to run tilt against +the prevailing opinion of the influential classes, or to forfeit the +confidence and esteem of "society." He loves—so people say—the company +of the titled and the great, and prefers, perhaps, to walk with Sir Duke +than with humble Sir Scholar. All things considered, we may regard him +as out of the present controversy, and, perhaps, as left behind by it +and by the opinions which have created it. The orthodox do not seem much +beholden to him. Only two or three years ago an orthodox association for +which Owen had delivered a scientific lecture, refused on theological +grounds to print the discourse in their regular volume. On the other +hand, the younger and more ardent <i>savans</i> and scholars sneer at him, +and refuse to give him credit for sincerity at the expense of his +intelligence. They believe that if he chose to speak out, if he had the +courage of his opinions, he would say as they do. He has ceased to be +their opponent, but he is not upon their side; he is no longer the +champion of pure orthodoxy, but he has never pronounced openly against +it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> Flippant people allude to him as an old fogy; let us say more +decently that Richard Owen already belongs to the past.</p> + +<p>"Free-thinking" has never been in England a very formidable rival of +orthodox theology. Perhaps there is something in the practical nature of +the average English mind which makes it indifferent and apathetic to +mere speculation. The ordinary Englishmen understands being a Churchman +or a Dissenter, a Roman Catholic or a no-Popery man; but he hardly +understands how people can be got to concern themselves with mere +sceptical speculation. Writings like those of Rousseau, for example, +never could have produced in England anything like the effect they +wrought in France. Of late years the effects of "free-thinking" (I am +using the phrase merely in the vulgar sense) have been poor, feeble and +uninfluential—wholly indeed without influence over the educated classes +of society. A certain limited and transient influence was once +maintained over a small surface of society by the speeches and the +writings of George Jacob Holyoake. Holyoake avowed himself an Atheist, +conducted a paper called (I think) "The Reasoner," was prosecuted under +the terms of a foolish and discreditable act of Parliament, and had for +a time something of notoriety and popular power. But Holyoake, a man of +pure character and gentle manners, is devoid of anything like commanding +ability, has no gleam of oratorical power, and is intellectually +unreliable and vacillating. Under no conceivable circumstances could he +exercise any strong or permanent control over the mind or the heart of +an age: and he has of late somewhat modified his opinions, and has +greatly altered his sphere of action, preferring to be a political and +social reformer in a small and modest way to the barren task of +endeavoring to uproot religious belief by arguments evolved from the +depth of the moral consciousness. Holyoake, the Atheist, may therefore +be said to have faded away.</p> + +<p>His old place has lately been taken by a noisier, more egotistic and +robust sort of person, a young man named Bradlaugh, who at one time +dubbed himself "Iconoclast," and, bearing that ambitious title, used to +harangue knots of working men in the North of England with the most +audacious of free-thinking rhetoric. Bradlaugh has a certain kind of +brassy, stentorian eloquence and a degree of reckless self conceit which +almost amount to a conquering quality. But he has no intellectual +capacity sufficient to make a deep mark on the mind of any section of +society and he never attempts, so far as I know, any other than the old, +time-worn arguments against orthodoxy with which the world has been +wearily familiar since the days of Voltaire. Indeed, a man who gravely +undertakes to prove by argument that there is no God, places himself at +once in so anomalous, paradoxical and ridiculous a position that it is a +marvel the absurdity of the situation does not strike his own mind. A +man who starts with the reasonable assumption that belief is a matter of +evidence and then goes on to argue that a Being does not exist of whose +non-existence he can upon his own ground and pleading know absolutely +nothing, is not likely to be very formidable to any of his antagonists. +Orthodox theologians, therefore, are little concerned about men like +Bradlaugh—very often perhaps are ignorant of the existence of any such.</p> + +<p>I only mention Holyoake and Bradlaugh at all because they are the only +prominent agitators of this kind who have appeared in England during my +time. I do not mean to speak disparagingly of either man. Both have +considerable abilities; both are, I am sure, sincere and honest. I have +never heard anything to the disparagement of Bradlaugh's character. +Holyoake I know personally, and esteem highly. But their influence has +been insignificant, and cannot have any long duration. I only speak of +it here to show how feeble has been the head made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> against orthodoxy in +England by professed infidelity in our time. There was, indeed, a book +written some years ago by a man of higher culture than Holyoake or +Bradlaugh, and which made a bubble or two of sensation at the time. I +mean "The Creed of Christendom," by William Rathbone Greg, a well-known +political and philosophical essayist, who wrote largely for the +"Edinburgh Review" and the "Westminster Review" and more lately for the +"Pall Mall Gazette," and has now a comfortable place under government. +But the "Creed of Christendom," though a clever book in its way, made no +abiding mark. It was read and liked by those whose opinions it +expressed, but I question if it ever made one single convert or +suggested a doubt to a truly orthodox mind. I mention it because it was +the only work of what is called a directly infidel character, not +pretending to a scientific basis, which was contributed to the +literature of English philosophy by a man of high culture and literary +reputation during my memory. It will be understood that I am speaking +now of works modeled after the old fashion of sceptical controversy, in +which the authors make it their avowed and main purpose to assail the +logical coherence and reasonableness of the Christian faith by arguments +which, sound or unsound, can be brought to no practical test and settled +by no possible decision. Such works may be influential among nations +which are addicted to or tolerant of mere religious speculation; it is +only a calling aloud to solitude to address them to the English public. +Even books of a very high intellectual class, such for example as +Strauss's "Life of Jesus," are translated into English in vain. They are +read and admired by those already prepared to admire and eager to read +them—the general public takes no heed of them.</p> + +<p>I have ventured into this digression in order to show the more clearly +how important must be the influence of that new school of science which +has aroused such a commotion among the devotees of English orthodoxy. +There is not, so far as I know, among the leading scientific men of the +new school one single professed infidel in the old fashioned sense. The +fundamental difference between them and the orthodox is that they insist +upon regarding all subjects coming within the scope of human knowledge +as open to inquiry and to be settled only upon evidence. I suppose a day +will come when people will wonder that a scientific man, living in the +England of the nineteenth century, could have been denounced from +pulpits because he claimed the right and the duty to follow out his +scientific investigations whithersoever they should lead him. Yet I am +not aware that anything more desperately infidel than this has ever been +urged by our modern English <i>savans</i>.</p> + +<p>Michel Chevalier tells a story of a French iconoclast of our own time +who devoted himself to a perpetual war against what he considered the +two worst superstitions of the age—belief in God and dislike of +spiders. This aggressive sage always carried about with him a golden box +filled with the pretty and favorite insects I have mentioned; and +whenever he happened to be introduced to any new acquaintance he +invariably plunged at once into the questions—"Do you believe in a God, +and are you afraid of spiders?"—and without waiting for an answer, he +instantly demonstrated his own superiority to at least one conventional +weakness by opening his box, taking out a spider, and swallowing it. I +think a good deal of the old-fashioned warfare against orthodoxy had +something of this spider-bolting aggressiveness about it. It assailed +men's dearest beliefs in the coarsest manner, and it had commonly only +horror and disgust for its reward. There is nothing of this spirit among +the leaders of English scientific philosophy to-day. Not merely are the +practically scientific men free from it, but even the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> men who are +called in a sort of a contemptuous tone "philosophers" are not to be +accused of it. Mill and Herbert Spencer have as little of it as Huxley +and Grove. Indeed the scientific men are nothing more or less than +earnest, patient, devoted inquirers, seeking out the truth fearlessly, +and resolute to follow wherever she invites. Whenever they have come +into open conflict with orthodoxy, it may be safely assumed that +orthodoxy threw the first stone. For orthodoxy, with a keen and just +instinct, detests these scientific men. The Low Church party, the great +mass of the Dissenting body (excluding, of course, Unitarians) have been +their uncompromising opponents. The High Church party, which, with all +its mediæval weaknesses and its spiritual reaction, does assuredly boast +among its leaders some high and noble intellects, and among all its +classes earnest, courageous minds, has, on the contrary, given, for the +most part, its confidence and its attention to the teachings of the +<i>savans</i>. We have the testimony of Professor Huxley himself to the fact +that the leading minds of the Roman Catholic Church do at least take +care that the teachings of the <i>savans</i> shall be understood, and that +they shall be combated, if at all, on scientific and not on theological +grounds.</p> + +<p>No man is more disliked and dreaded by the orthodox than Thomas Huxley. +Darwin, who is really the <i>fons et origo</i> of the present agitation, is +hardly more than a name to the outer world. He has written a book, and +that is all the public know about him. He never descends into the arena +of open controversy; we never read of him in the newspapers. I know of +no instance of a book so famous with an author so little known. Even +curiosity does not seem to concern itself about the individuality of +Darwin, whose book opened up a new era of controversy, spreading all +over the world, and was the sensation in England of many successive +seasons. Herbert Spencer, indeed, has lived for a long time hardly +noticed or known by the average English public. But then none of +Spencer's books ever created the slightest sensation among that public, +and three out of every four Englishmen never heard of the man or the +books. Herbert Spencer is infinitely better known in the United States +than he is in England, although I am far from admitting that he is +better appreciated even here than by those of his countrymen who are at +all acquainted with his masterly, his unsurpassed, contributions to the +philosophy of the world. The singular fact about Darwin is that his book +was absolutely the rage in England; everybody was bound to read it or at +least to talk about it and pretend to have understood it. More +excitement was aroused by it than even by Buckle's "History of +Civilization;" it fluttered the petticoats in the drawing-room as much +as the surplices in the pulpit; it occupied alike the attention of the +scholar and the fribble, the divine and the schoolgirl. Yet the author +kept himself in complete seclusion, and, for some mysterious reason or +other, public curiosity never seemed disposed to persecute him. +Therefore the theologians seem to have regarded him as the poet does the +cuckoo, rather as a voice in the air than as a living creature; and they +have not poured out much of their anger upon him personally. But Huxley +comes down into the arena of public controversy and is a familiar and +formidable figure there. Wherever there is strife there is Huxley. Years +ago he came into the field almost unknown like the Disinherited Knight +in Scott's immortal romance; and, while the good-natured spectators were +urging him to turn the blunt end of the lance against the shield of the +least formidable opponent, he dashed with splendid recklessness, and +with spearpoint forward, against the buckler of Richard Owen himself, +the most renowned of the naturalists of England. Indeed Huxley has the +soul and spirit of a gallant controversialist. He has many times warned +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> orthodox champions that if they play at bowls they must expect +rubbers; and once in the fight he never spares. He has a happy gift of +shrewd sense and sarcasm combined; and, indeed, I know no man who can +exhibit a sophism as a sophism and hold it up to contempt and laughter +more clearly and effectively in a single sentence of exhaustive satire.</p> + +<p>It would be wrong to regard Huxley merely as a scientific man. He is +likewise a literary man, a writer. What he writes would be worth reading +for its style and its expression alone, were it of no scientific +authority; whereas we all know perfectly well that scientific men +generally are read only for the sake of what they teach, and not at all +because of their manner of teaching it—rather indeed despite of their +manner of teaching it. Huxley is a fascinating writer, and has a happy +way of pressing continually into the service of strictly scientific +exposition illustrations caught from literature and art—even from +popular and light literature. He has a gift in this way which somewhat +resembles that possessed by a very different man belonging to a very +different class—I mean Robert Lowe, the present English Chancellor of +the Exchequer, who owes the greater part of his rhetorical success to +the prodigality of varied illustration with which he illumines his +speeches, and which catches, at this point or that, the attention of +every kind of listener. Huxley seems to understand clearly that you can +never make scientific doctrines really powerful while you are content +with the ear of strictly scientific men. He cultivates, therefore, +sedulously and successfully, the literary art of expression. A London +friend of mine, who has had long experience in the editing of high-class +periodicals, is in the habit of affirming humorously that the teachers +of the public are divided into two classes: those who know something and +cannot write, and those who know nothing and can write. Every literary +man, especially every editor, will cordially agree with me that at the +heart of this humorous extravagance is a solid kernel of truth. Now, +scientific men very often belong to the class of those who know +something, but cannot write. No one, however, could possibly confound +Thomas Huxley with the band of those to whom the gift of expression is +denied. He is a vivid, forcible, fascinating writer. His style as a +lecturer is one which, for me at least, has a special charm. It is, +indeed, devoid of any effort at rhetorical eloquence; but it has all the +eloquence which is born of the union of profound thought with simple +expression and luminous diction. There is not much of the poetic, +certainly, about him; only the occasional dramatic vividness of his +illustrations suggests the existence in him of any of the higher +imaginative qualities. I think there was something like a gleam of the +poetic in the half melancholy half humorous introduction of Balzac's +famous "Peau de Chagrin," into the Protoplasm lecture. But Huxley as a +rule treads only the firm earth, and deliberately, perhaps scornfully, +rejects any attempts and aspirings after the clouds. His mind is in this +way far more rigidly practical than that even of Richard Owen. He is +never eloquent in the sense in which Humboldt for example was so often +eloquent. Being a politician, I may be excused for borrowing an +illustration from the political arena, and saying that Huxley's +eloquence is like that of Cobden; it is eloquence only because it is so +simply and tersely truthful. The whole tone of his mind, the whole +tendency of his philosophy, may be observed to have this character of +quiet, fearless, and practical truthfulness. No seeker after truth could +be more earnest, more patient, more disinterested. "Dry light," as Bacon +calls it—light uncolored by prejudice, undimmed by illusion, +undistorted by interposing obstacle—is all that Huxley desires to have. +He puts no bound to the range of human inquiry. Wherever man may look, +there let him look earnestly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> and without fear. Truth is always naked +and not ashamed. The modest, self-denying profession of Lessing that he +wanted not the whole truth, and only asked to be allowed the pleasing +toil of investigation, must be almost unintelligible to a student like +Huxley; and indeed is only to be understood by any active inquirer, on +condition that he bears in mind the healthy and racy delight which the +mere labor of intellectual research gave to Lessing's vigorous and +elastic mind. No subject is sacred to Huxley; because with him truth is +more sacred than any sphere of inquiry. I suppose the true and pure +knight would have fearlessly penetrated any shrine in his quest of the +Holy Grail.</p> + +<p>Professor Huxley's nature seems to me to have been cast in a finer mould +than that of Professor Tyndall, for example. Decidedly, Tyndall is a man +of great ability and earnestness. He has done, perhaps, more practical +work in science than Huxley has; he has written more; he sometimes +writes more eloquently. But he wants, to my thinking, that pure and +colorless impartiality of inquiry and judgment which is Huxley's +distinguishing characteristic. There is a certain coarseness of +materialism about Tyndall; there is a vehement and almost an arrogant +aggressiveness in him which must interfere with the clearness of his +views. He assails the orthodox with the temper of a Hot Gospeller. +Perhaps his Irish nature is partly accountable for this warm and eager +combativeness: perhaps his having sat so devotedly at the feet of his +friend, the great apostle of force, Thomas Carlyle, may help to explain +the unsparing vigor of his controversial style. However that may be, +Tyndall is assuredly one of the most impatient of sages, one of the most +intolerant of philosophers. If I have compared Huxley to the pure +devoted knight riding patiently in search of the Holy Grail, I may, +perhaps, liken Tyndall to the ardent champion who ranges the world, +fiercely defying to mortal combat any and every one who will not +instantly admit that the warrior's lady-love is the most beautiful and +perfect of created beings. His temper does unquestionably tend to weaken +Tyndall's authority. You may trust him implicitly where it is only a +question of a glacial theory or an atmospheric condition; but you must +follow the Carlylean philosopher very cautiously indeed where he +undertakes to instruct you on the subject of races. The negro, for +example, conquers Tyndall altogether. The philosopher loses his temper +and forgets his science the moment he comes to examine poor black +Sambo's woolly skull, and remembers that there are sane and educated +white people who maintain that the owner of the skull is a man and a +brother. In debates which cannot be settled by dry science, Huxley's +sympathies almost invariably guide him right: Tyndall's almost +invariably set him wrong. During the American Civil war, Huxley, like +Sir Charles Lyell and some other eminent scientific men, sympathized +with the cause of the North: Tyndall, on the other hand, was an eager +partisan of the South. A still more decisive test severed the two men +more widely apart. The story of the Jamaica massacre divided all England +into two fierce and hostile camps. I am not going to weary my readers +with any repetition of this often-told and horrible story. Enough to say +that the whole question at issue in England in relation to the Jamaica +tragedies was whether the belief that a negro insurrection is impending +justifies white residents in flogging and hanging as many negro men and +women, unarmed and unresisting, as they can find time to flog and hang, +without any ceremony of trial, evidence, or even inquiry. I do not +exaggerate or misstate. The ground taken by the advocates of the Jamaica +military measures was that although no insurrection was going on yet +there was reasonable ground to believe an insurrection impending; and +that therefore the white residents were justified in anticipating and +crushing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> movement by the putting to death of every person, man or +woman, who could be supposed likely to have any part in it. Of course I +need hardly tell the student of history that this is exactly the ground +which was taken up, and with far greater plausibility and better excuse, +by the promoters of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. They said: "We +have evidence, and are convinced, that these Huguenots are plotting +against us. If we do not put them down, they will put us down. Let us be +first at the work and crush them." The Jamaica question then raised a +bitter controversy in England. Naturally, John Bright and Stuart Mill +and Goldwin Smith took one side of it: Thomas Carlyle and Charles +Kingsley and John Ruskin the other. That was to be expected: any one +could have told it beforehand. But the occasion brought out men who had +never taken part in political controversy before: and then you saw at +once what kind of hearts and sympathies these new agitators had. Herbert +Spencer emerged for the first time in his life, so far as I know, from +the rigid seclusion of a silent student's career, and appeared in public +as an active, hard-working member of a political organization. The +American Civil War had drawn Mill for the first time into the public +arena of politics; the Jamaica massacre made a political agitator of +Herbert Spencer. The noble human sympathies of Spencer, his austere and +uncompromising love of justice, his instinctive detestation of brute, +blind, despotic force, compelled him to come out from his seclusion and +join those who protested against the lawless and senseless massacre of +the wretched blacks of Jamaica. So, too, with Huxley, who, if he did not +take part in a political organization, yet lent the weight of his +influence and the vigor of his pen to add to the force of the protest. +During the whole of that prolonged season of incessant and active +controversy, with the keenest intellects and the sharpest tongues in +England employing themselves eagerly on either side, I can recall to +mind nothing which, for justice, sound sense, high principle, and +exquisite briefness of pungent sarcasm, equaled one of Huxley's letters +on the subject to the "Pall Mall Gazette." The mind which was not +touched by the force of that incomparable mixture of satire and sense +would surely have remained untouched though one rose from the dead. The +delicious gravity with which Huxley accepted all the positions of his +opponents, assumed the propositions about the high character of the +Jamaica governor and the white residents, and the immorality of poor +Gordon and the negroes, and then reduced the case of the advocates of +the massacre to "the right of all virtuous persons, as such, to put to +death all vicious persons, as such," was almost worthy of Swift himself.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, Professor Tyndall plunged eagerly into the +controversy as a defender of the policy and the people by whose +authority the massacre was carried on. I do not suppose he made any +inquiry into the facts—nothing of his that I read or heard of led me to +suppose that he had; but he went off on his Carlylean theory about +governing minds, and superior races, and the right of strong men, and +all the rest of the nonsense which Carlyle once made fascinating, and +his imitators have lately made vulgar. I think I am not doing Tyndall an +injustice when I regard him as a less austere and trustworthy follower +of the pure truth than Huxley. In fact Tyndall is a born +controversialist. Some orthodox person once extracted from Huxley, or +from some of his writings, the admission that "the truth of the miracles +was all a question of evidence," and seemed to think he had got hold of +a great concession therein. Possibly the admission was made in the +spirit of sarcasm, but it none the less expressed a belief and +illustrated a temper profoundly characteristic of Thomas Huxley. With +him everything is a question of evidence; nothing is to be settled by +faith or by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> preliminary assumption. I am convinced that if you could +prove by sufficient evidence the truth of every miracle recorded in +Butler's "Lives of the Saints," Professor Huxley would bow resignedly, +and accept the truth—wanting only the truth, whatever it might be. But +I think Tyndall would rage and chafe a great deal, and I suspect that he +would use a good many hard words against his opponents before he +submitted to acknowledge aloud the defeat which his inner consciousness +already admitted. And yet I think it would be at least as difficult to +convince Huxley as it would be to convince Tyndall that Saint Denis +walked with his head under his arm, or that Saint Januarius (was it not +he?) crossed the sea on his cloak for a raft.</p> + +<p>I do not know whether it comes strictly within the scope of this essay +to say much about Herbert Spencer, who is rather what people call a +philosopher than a professionally scientific man. But assuredly no +living thinker has done more to undermine orthodoxy than the author of +"First Principles." I have already said that Spencer is much more widely +known in this country than in England. During the first few weeks of my +sojourn in the United States I heard more inquiries and more talk about +Spencer than about almost any other Englishman living. Spencer's whole +life, his pure, rigorous, anchorite-like devotion to knowledge, is +indeed a wonderful phenomenon in an age like the present. He has labored +for the love of labor and for the good it does to the world, almost +absolutely without reward. I presume that as paying speculations Herbert +Spencer's works would be hopeless failures; and yet they have influenced +the thought of the whole thinking world, and will probably grow and grow +in power as the years go on. It is, I suppose, no new or unseemly +revelation to say that Spencer has lived for the most part a life of +poverty as well as of seclusion. He is a sensitive, silent, self-reliant +man, endowed with a pure passion for knowledge, and the quickest, +keenest love of justice and right. There is something indeed quite +Quixotic, in the better sense, about the utterly disinterested and +self-forgetting eagerness with which Herbert Spencer will set himself to +see right done, even in the most trivial of cases. Little, commonplace, +trifling instances of unfairness or injustice, such as most of us may +observe every day, and which even the most benevolent of us will think +himself warranted in passing by, on his way to his own work, without +interference, will summon into activity—into positively unresting +eagerness—all the sympathies and energies of Herbert Spencer, nor will +the great student of life's ultimate principles return to his own high +pursuits until he has obtained for the poor sempstress restitution of +the over-fare exacted by the extortionate omnibus-conductor, or seen +that the policeman on duty is not too rough in his entreatment of the +little captured pickpocket. As one man has an unappeasable passion for +pictures, and another for horses, so Herbert Spencer has a passion for +justice. All this does not appear on first, or casual, acquaintance; but +I have heard many striking, and some very whimsical, illustrations of it +given by friends who know Spencer far better than I do. Indeed I should +say that there are few men of great intellect and character who reveal +themselves so little to the ordinary observer as Herbert Spencer does. +His face is, above all things, commonplace. There is nothing whatever +remarkable, nothing attractive, nothing repelling, nothing particularly +unattractive, about him. Honest, homespun, prosaic respectability seems +to be his principal characteristic. In casual and ordinary conversation +he does not impress one in the least. Almost all men of well-earned +distinction seem to have, above all things, a strongly-marked +individuality. You meet a man of this class casually; you have no idea +who he is; perhaps you do not even discover, have not an opportunity of +discovering,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> that he is a man of genius or intellect; but you do almost +invariably find yourself impressed with a strong individual +influence—the man seems to be somebody—he is not just like any other +man. To take illustrations familiar to most of us—observe what a +strongly-marked individuality Charles Dickens, John Bright, Disraeli, +Carlyle, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Salisbury have; what a strongly-marked +individuality Nathaniel Hawthorne had, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, +William Cullen Bryant, Horace Greeley have. Now, Herbert Spencer is the +very opposite of all this. All that Dr. Johnson said of Burke might be +conveniently reversed in the case of Spencer. The person sheltering +under the hedge, the ostler in the yard, might talk long enough with him +and never feel tempted to say when he had gone, "There has been a +remarkable man here." A London <i>litterateur</i>, who had long been a +devotee of Herbert Spencer, was induced some year or two back to go to a +large dinner-party by the assurance that Spencer was to be there and was +actually to have the chair next to his own at table. Our friend went, +was a little late, and found himself disappointed. Next to him on one +side was a man whom he knew and did not care about; on the other side, a +humdrum, elderly, respectable, commonplace personage. With this latter, +for want of a better, he talked. It was dull, commonplace, conventional +talk, good for nothing, meaning nothing. The dinner was nearly over when +our friend heard some one address his right-hand neighbor as "Spencer." +Amazed out of all decorum, he turned to the commonplace, dull-looking +individual, and broke out with the words "Why, you don't mean to say +that you are Herbert Spencer?" "Oh, yes," the other replied, as quietly +as ever, "I am Herbert Spencer."</p> + +<p>I have wandered a little from my path; let me return to it. My object is +to illustrate the remarkable and fundamental difference between the +nature of the antagonism which old-fashioned orthodoxy has to encounter +to-day, and that which used to be its principal assailant. The sceptic, +the metaphysician, the "infidel" have given way to the professional +<i>savant</i>. Nobody now-a-days would trouble himself to read Tom Paine; +hardly could even the scepticism of Hume or Gibbon attract much public +attention. Auguste Comte has been an influence because he endeavored to +construct as well as to destroy. I cannot speak of Comte without saying +that Professor Huxley seems to me grievously, and almost perversely, to +underrate the value of what Comte has done. Huxley has not, I fancy, +given much attention to historical study, and is therefore not so well +qualified to appreciate Comte as a much inferior man of a different +school might be. Moreover, Huxley appears to have a certain +professional, and I had almost said pedantic, contempt for anything +calling itself science which cannot be rated and registered in the +regular and practical way. To me Comte's one grand theory or discovery, +call it what you will, seems, whether true or untrue, as strictly a +question of science as anything coming under Huxley's own professional +cognizance. But I have already intimated that the character of Huxley's +intellect seems to me acute and penetrating, rather than broad and +comprehensive. Perhaps he is all the better fitted for the work he and +his compeers have undertaken to do. They have taken, in this regard, the +place of the Rousseaus and Diderots; of the much smaller Paines and +Carliles (please don't suppose I am alluding to Thomas Carlyle); of the +yet smaller Holyoakes and Bradlaughs. Those only attempted to destroy: +these seek to construct. Huxley and his brethren follow the advice which +is the moral and the sum of Goethe's "Faust"—they "grasp into the +present," and refuse to "send their thoughts wandering over eternities." +They honestly and fearlessly seek the pure truth, which surely must be +always saving. Let me say something more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> This advance-guard of +scientific scholars alone express the common opinion of the educated and +free Englishmen of to-day. The English journals, I wish distinctly to +say, do not express it. They do not venture to express it. There is a +tacit understanding that although it would be too much to expect an +intelligent journalist to write up old-fashioned orthodoxy, yet at least +he is never to be allowed to write it down. It is not very long since +one of the most popular, successful and influential of London journals +sneered at the Parliamentary candidature of my friend, Professor +Fawcett, M. P., on the ground that he was a man who, as an advocate of +the Darwinian theory, admitted that his great-grandfather was a frog. +Yet I know that the journal which indulged in this vapid and vulgar +buffoonery is written for by scholars and men of ability. Now, this is +indeed an extreme and unusual instance of journalism, well cognizant of +better things, condescending to pander to the lowest and stupidest +prejudices. But the same kind of thing, although not the same thing, is +done by London journals every day. You cannot hope to get at the +religious views of cultivated and liberal-minded Englishmen through the +London papers. "The right sort of thing to say," is what the journalists +commit to print, whatever they may think, or know, or say as individuals +and in private. But the scientific men speak out. They, and I might +almost say they alone, have the courage of their opinions. What educated +people venture to believe, they venture to express. Nor do they keep +themselves to audiences of <i>savans</i> and professors and the British +Association. Huxley delivers lectures to the working men of Southwark; +Carpenter undertook Sunday evening discourses in Bloomsbury; Tyndall, +with all the pugnacity of his country, is ready for a controversy +anywhere. Sometimes the duty and honor of maintaining the right of free +speech have been claimed by the journalists alone; sometimes, when even +the journals were silent, by the pulpit, by the bar, or by the stage. In +England to-day all men say aloud what they think on all great subjects +save one—and on that neither pulpit, press, bar nor stage cares to +speak the whole truth. The scientific men alone are bold enough to +declare it, as they are resolute to seek it. I think history will +hereafter contemplate this moral triumph as no less admirable, and no +less remarkable, than any of their mere material conquests.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Modern Leaders: Being a Series of +Biographical Sketches, by Justin McCarthy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN LEADERS *** + +***** This file should be named 39298-h.htm or 39298-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/2/9/39298/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Martin +Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned +images of public domain material from the Google Print +project.) + + +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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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/license + + +Title: Modern Leaders: Being a Series of Biographical Sketches + +Author: Justin McCarthy + +Release Date: March 30, 2012 [EBook #39298] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN LEADERS *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Martin +Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned +images of public domain material from the Google Print +project.) + + + + + + +MODERN LEADERS: + +_BEING A SERIES OF_ + +BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. + +BY JUSTIN McCARTHY, +_Author of "Lady Judith: A Tale of Two Continents," etc._ + +NEW YORK: +SHELDON & COMPANY, +677 BROADWAY and 214 and 216 MERCER STREET. +1872. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +QUEEN VICTORIA AND HER SUBJECTS. 7 + +THE REAL LOUIS NAPOLEON. 18 + +EUGENIE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH. 25 + +THE PRINCE OF WALES. 35 + +THE KING OF PRUSSIA. 45 + +VICTOR EMANUEL, KING OF ITALY. 55 + +LOUIS ADOLPH THIERS. 66 + +PRINCE NAPOLEON. 77 + +THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. 85 + +BRIGHAM YOUNG. 96 + +THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND. 106 + +ENGLISH POSITIVISTS. 116 + +ENGLISH TORYISM AND ITS LEADERS. 126 + +"GEORGE ELIOT" AND GEORGE LEWES. 136 + +GEORGE SAND. 145 + +EDWARD BULWER AND LORD LYTTON. 156 + +"PAR NOBILE FRATRUM--THE TWO NEWMANS." 167 + +ARCHBISHOP MANNING. 175 + +JOHN RUSKIN. 183 + +CHARLES READE. 192 + +EXILE-WORLD OF LONDON. 202 + +THE REVEREND CHARLES KINGSLEY. 211 + +MR. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 223 + +SCIENCE AND ORTHODOXY IN ENGLAND. 234 + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +The sketches which make up this volume are neither purely critical nor +merely biographical. They endeavor to give the American reader a clear +and just idea of each individual in his intellect, his character, his +place in politics, letters, and society. In some instances I have +written of friends whom I know personally and well; in others of men +with whom I have but slight acquaintance; in others still of persons +whom I have only seen. But in every instance those whom I describe are +persons whom I have been able to study on the spot, whose character and +doings I have heard commonly discussed by those who actually knew them. +In no case whatever are the opinions I have given drawn merely from +books and newspapers. This value, therefore, these essays may have to an +American, that they are not such descriptions as any of us might be +enabled to put into print by the mere help of study and reading; +descriptions for example such as one might make of Henry VIII. or +Voltaire. They are in every instance, even when intimate and direct +personal acquaintance least assist them, the result of close observation +and that appreciation of the originals which comes from habitual +intercourse with those who know them and submit them to constant +criticism. + +I have not made any alteration in the essays which were written some +years ago. Let them stand as portraits bearing that date. If 1872 has in +any instance changed the features and the fortunes of 1869 and 1870, it +cannot make untrue what then was true. What I wrote in 1869 of the +Prince of Wales, for example, will probably not wholly apply to the +Prince of Wales to-day. We all believe that he has lately changed for +the better. But what I wrote then I still believe was true then; and it +is a fair contribution to history, which does not consent to rub out +yesterday because of to-day. I wrote of a "Liberal Triumvirate" of +England when the phrase was an accurate expression. It would hardly be +accurate now. To-day Mr. Mill does not appear in political life and Mr. +Bright has been an exile, owing to his health, for nearly two years from +the scenes of parliamentary debate and triumph. But the portraits of the +men do not on that account need any change. Even where some reason has +been shown me for a modification of my own judgment I have still +preferred to leave the written letter as it is. A distinguished Italian +friend has impressed on me that King Victor Emanuel is personally a much +more ambitious man than I have painted him. My friend has had far better +opportunities of judging than I ever could have had; but I gave the best +opinion I could, and still holding to it prefer to let it stand, to be +taken for what it is worth. + +I think I may fairly claim to have anticipated in some of the political +sketches, that of Louis Napoleon, for instance, the judgment of events +and history, and the real strength of certain characters and +institutions. + +These sketches had a gratifying welcome from the American public as they +appeared in the "Galaxy." I hope they may be thought worth reading over +again and keeping in their collected form. + +JUSTIN MCCARTHY. +48 GOWER STREET, BEDFORD SQUARE, LONDON, July 31, 1872. + + + + +QUEEN VICTORIA AND HER SUBJECTS. + + +"And when you hear historians tell of thrones, and those who sat upon +them, let it be as men now gaze upon the mammoth's bones, and wonder +what old world such things could see." + +So sang Byron half a century ago, and great critics condemned his verse, +and called him a "surly Democrat" because he ventured to put such +sentiments and hopes into rhyme. The thrones of Europe have not +diminished in number since Byron's day, although they have changed and +rechanged their occupants; and the one only grand effort at the +establishment of a new Republic--that of France in 1848--went down into +dust and ashes. Naturally, therefore, the tendency in Europe is to +regard the monarchical principle as having received a new lease and +charter of life, and to talk of the republican principle as an exotic +forced for a moment into a premature and morbid blossom upon European +soil, but as completely unsuited to the climate and the people as the +banyan or the cocoa tree. + +I do not, for myself, quite agree in this view of the aspect of affairs. +Of course, if one were inclined to discuss the question fairly, he must +begin by asking what people mean when they talk of the republican +principle. What is the republican principle? When you talk of a +Republic, do you mean an aggressive, conquering, domineering State, +ruled by faction and living on war, like the Commonwealth of Rome? or a +Republic like that planned by Washington, which should repudiate all +concern in foreign politics or foreign conquest? Do you mean a Federal +Republic, like that of the United States, or one with a centralized +power, like the French Republic of 1848? Do you mean a Republic like +that of Florence, in which the people were omnipotent, or a Republic +like that of Venice, in which the people had no power at all? Do you +mean a Republic like that of Switzerland, in which the President is next +to nobody, or a Republic like that of Poland, which was ornamented by a +King? In truth, the phrase "republican principle" has no set meaning. It +means just what the man who uses it wishes to express. If, however, we +understand it to mean, in this instance, the principle of popular +self-government, then it is obvious that Europe has made immense +progress in that direction since Byron raged against the crimes of +Kings. If it means the opposite to the principle of Divine Right or +Legitimacy, or even personal loyalty--loyalty of the old-time, +chivalric, enthusiastic fashion--then it must be owned that it shows all +over Europe the mark of equal progress. The ancient, romantic, +sentimental loyalty; the loyalty which reverenced the Sovereign and was +proud to abase itself before him; the loyalty of the Cavaliers; the +loyalty which went wild over "Oh, Richard! Oh, mon Roi!" is dead and +gone--its relics a thing to be stared at, and wondered over, and +preserved for a landmark in the progress of the world--just like the +mammoth's bones. + +The model Monarchy of Europe is, beyond dispute, that of Great Britain. +In England there is an almost absolute self-government; the English +people can have anything whatever which they may want by insisting on it +and agitating a little for it. The Sovereign has long ceased to +interfere in the progress of national affairs. I can only recollect one +instance, during my observation, in which Queen Victoria put her veto on +a bill passed by Parliament, and that was on an occasion when it was +discovered, at the last moment, that the Lords and Commons had passed a +bill which had a dreadful technical blunder in it, and the only way out +of the difficulty was to beg of the Queen to refuse it her sanction, +which her Majesty did accordingly, and the blunder was set right in the +following session. If a Prime Minister were to announce to the House of +Commons, to-morrow, that the Queen had boxed his ears, it would not +create a whit more amazement than if he were to say, no matter in what +graceful and diplomatic periphrasis, that her Majesty was unwilling to +agree to some measure which her faithful Commons desired to see passed +into law. + +Nothing did Mr. Disraeli more harm, nothing brought greater contempt on +him than his silly attempts last session to induce the Commons to +believe, by vague insinuations and covert allusions, that the Queen had +a personal leaning toward his policy and himself. So long ago as the +time of the free trade struggle, the Tories, for all their hereditary +loyalty, complained of and protested against the silent presence of +Prince Albert in the Peers' gallery of the House of Commons, on the +ground that it was an attempt to influence the Parliament improperly, +and to interfere with the freedom of debate. No one has anything to say +against the Queen which carries any weight or is worth listening to. She +is undoubtedly a woman of virtue and good sense. So good a woman, I +venture to think, never before reigned over any people, and that she is +not a great woman, an Elizabeth, a Catherine of Russia, or even an +Isabella of Castile, is surely rather to the advantage than otherwise of +the monarchical institution in its present stage of existence. Here, +then, one might think, if anywhere and ever, the principle of personal +loyalty has a fair chance and a full justification. A man might +vindicate his loyalty to Queen Victoria in the name of liberty itself; +nay, he might justify it by an appeal to the very principle of +democracy. Yet one must be blind, who, living in England and willing to +observe, does not see that the old, devoted spirit of personal loyalty +is dead and buried. It is gone! it is a memory! You may sing a poetic +lament for it if you will, as Schiller did for the gods of Hellas; you +may break into passionate rhetoric, if you can, over its extinction, as +Burke did for the death of the age of Chivalry. It is gone, and I firmly +believe it can never be revived or restored. + +I do not mean to say that there are many persons in England who feel any +strong objection to the Monarchy, or warmly desire to see a Republic +substituted for it. I know in England several theoretical +republicans--they are to be met with in almost any company. I have never +met with any one Englishman living in England, who showed any anxious, +active interest in the abolition of the Monarchy. I do not know any one +who objects to drink the usual loyal toasts at a public dinner, or +betrays any conscientious reluctance to listen to the unmeaning eulogy +which it is the stereotyped fashion for the chairman of every such +banquet to heap on "Her Majesty and the rest of the Royal Family." But +this sort of thing, if it ever had any practical meaning, has now none. +It has reached that stage at which profession and practice are always +understood to be quite different things. Every one says at church that +he is a miserable sinner; no one is supposed really to believe anything +of the sort. Every one has some time or other likened women to angels, +but we are not therefore supposed seriously to ignore the fact that +women wear flannel petticoats, and have their faults, and are mortal. So +of loyal professions in England now. They are understood to be phrases, +like "Your obedient servant," at the bottom of a letter. They do not +suggest hypocrisy or pretence of any kind. There is apparently no more +inconsistency now in a man's loyally drinking the health of the Queen, +and proceeding immediately after (in private conversation) to abuse or +ridicule her and her family, than there would be in the same man +beginning with "Dear Sir," a missive to one whom he notoriously +dislikes. Every one who has been lately in London must have heard an +immense amount of scandal, or at all events of flippant joking at the +expense of the Queen herself; and of more serious complaint and distrust +as regards the Prince of Wales. Yet the virtues of the Queen, and the +noble qualities of the Prince of Wales are panegyrized and toasted, and +hurrah'd at every public dinner where Englishmen gather together. + +The very virtues of Queen Victoria have contributed materially toward +the extinction of the old-fashioned sentiment of living, active loyalty. +The English people had from the time at least of Anne to our own day a +succession of bad princes. Only a race patient as Issachar could have +endured such a line of sovereigns as George II., George III., and George +IV. Then came William IV., who being a little less stupidly obstinate +than George III., and not so grossly corrupt as George IV., was hailed +for a while as the Patriot King by a people who were only too anxious +not to lose all their hereditary and traditional veneration. Do what +they would, however, the English nation could not get into any sincere +transports of admiration about the Patriot King; and they soon found +that any popular reform worth having was to be got rather in spite of +the Patriot King, than by virtue of any wisdom or patriotism in the +monarch. Great popular demonstrations and tumults, and threats of +marching on London; and O'Connell meetings at Charing Cross, with +significant allusion by the great demagogue to the King who lost his +head at Whitehall hard by; the hanging out of the black flag at +Manchester, and a general movement of brickbats everywhere--these seem +to have been justly regarded as the persuasive influences which +converted a Sovereign into the Patriot King and a Reformer. Loyalty did +not gain much by the reforms of that reign. Then followed the young +Victoria; and enthusiasm for a while wakened up fresh and genuine over +the ascension of the comely and simple-hearted girl, who was so frank +and winning; who ran down stairs in her night-dress, rather than keep +her venerable councillors waiting when they sought her out at midnight; +who openly acknowledged her true love for her cousin, and offered him +her hand; who was at once queenly and maidenly, innocent and fearless. + +But this sort of thing did not last very long. Prince Albert was never +popular. He was cold; people said he was stingy; his very virtues, and +they were genuine, were not such as anybody, except his wife and family, +warmly admires in a man; he was indeed misunderstood, or at all events +misprized in England, up to the close of his life. Then the gates of the +convent, so to speak, closed over the Queen, and royalty ceased to be an +animating presence in England. + +The young men and women of to-day--persons who have not passed the age +of twenty-one--can hardly remember to have ever seen the Sovereign. She +is to them what the Mikado is to his people. Seven years of absolute +seclusion on the part of a monarch must in any case be a sad trial to +personal loyalty, at least in the royal capital. A considerable and an +influential section of Queen Victoria's subjects in the metropolis have +long been very angry with their Sovereign. The tailors, the milliners, +the dressmakers, the jewellers, the perfumers, all the shopkeepers of +the West End who make profit out of court dinners and balls and +presentations, are furious at the royal seclusion which they believe has +injured their business. So, too, are the aristocratic residents of the +West End, who do not care much about a court which no longer contributes +to their season's gayety. So, too, are all the flunkey class generally. +Now, I am sure there are no three sections of the population of London +more influential in the spreading of scandal and the nursing of this +discontent than the shopkeepers, the aristocrats, and the flunkeys of +the West End. These are actively and demonstratively dissatisfied with +the Queen. These it is who spread dirty scandals about her, and laugh +over vile lampoons and caricatures of which she is the object. + +Every one knows that there is a low, mean scandal afloat about the +Queen--and it is spread by the clubs, the drawing-rooms, the shops, and +the servants'-halls of the West End. I am convinced that not one of +those who spread the scandal really believes it; but they like to spread +it because they dislike the Queen. There can be no doubt, however, that +much dissatisfaction at the Queen's long seclusion is felt by persons +who are incapable of harboring any motives so mean or spreading any +calumnies so unworthy. Most of the London papers have always found fault +rather sharply and not over decently with the royal retirement. Mr. +Ayrton, representative of the Tower Hamlets--the largest constituency in +England--openly expressed this sentiment at a public meeting; and though +his remarks were at once replied to and condemned by Mr. Bright, they +met with a more or less cordial response from most of his audience. + +There is or was in the House of Commons (the general election has got +happily rid of him), a foolish person named Reardon, a Piccadilly +auctioneer, who became, by what we call in England "a fluke," a member +of the House of Commons. This person moved last session a resolution, or +something of the kind, calling on the Queen to abdicate. The thing was +laughed down--poor Mr. Reardon's previous career had been so absurd that +anything coming from him would have been hooted; and the House of +Commons is fiercely intolerant of "bores" and men with crotchets. But I +have reason to believe that Mr. Reardon's luckless project was concocted +by a delegation of London tradesmen, and had the sympathy of the whole +class; and I know that many members of the House which hooted and +laughed him down had in private over and over again grumbled at the +Queen's retirement, and declared that she ought to abdicate. + +"What on earth does it matter," I asked of a member of Parliament--one +of the most accomplished scholars and sharp logicians in the +House--"What on earth does it matter whether or not the Queen gives a +few balls to a few thousand West End people in the season? How can +rational people care, one way or the other?" "My dear fellow," was the +answer, "_I_ don't care; but all that sort of thing is her business, and +she is paid to do it, and she ought to do it. If she were a washerwoman +with a family, she would have to do her work, no matter what her grief." +Now this gentleman--who is utterly above any sympathy with scandal or +with the lackey-like grumblings of the West End--did, undoubtedly, +express fairly enough a growing mood of the public dissatisfaction. + +Beyond all this, however, is the fact that people--the working-class +especially--are beginning to ask whether we really want a Sovereign at +all, seeing that we get on just as well during the eclipse of royalty as +in its brightest meridian splendor. This question is being very often +put; and it is probably more often thought over than put into words. Now +I think nothing worse could possibly happen to royalty in England than +that people should begin quietly to ask whether there really is any use +in it. If there is a bad King or Queen, people can get or look for, or +hope and pray for a good one; and the abuse of the throne will not be +accounted a sufficient argument against the use of it. But how will it +be when the subjects begin to find that during the reign of one of the +best sovereigns possible to have, they can get on perfectly well +although the monarch is in absolute seclusion? + +George IV. was an argument against bad kings only--Queen Victoria may +come to be accepted as an illustration of the uselessness of the very +best kind of Sovereign. I think King Log was much better calculated to +do harm to the institution of royalty than King Stork, although the +frogs might have regretted the placid reign of the former when the +latter was gobbling up their best and fattest. + +Decidedly the people of England are learning of the Queen how to do +without royalty. A small section of her subjects are angry with her and +bitter of heart against her; a much larger number find they can do +perfectly well without her; a larger number still have forgotten her. On +a memorable occasion Prince Albert declared that constitutional +government was on its trial in England. The phrase, like many that came +from the same well-meaning lips, was unlucky. Constitutional government +was not upon its trial then; but Monarchy is upon its trial now. + +Do I mean to say that Great Britain is on the verge of a revolution; +that the dynasty is about to be overthrown; that a new Cromwell is to +make his appearance? By no means. It does not follow that even if the +English people were to be convinced to-morrow of the absolute +uselessness of a throne, and a sovereignty, they would therefore proceed +to establish a republic. No people under the sun are more strongly +governed by tradition and "the majesty of custom" than the English. +Cobden used to say that they had a Chinese objection to change of any +kind. The Lord Mayor's show, long threatened, and for a while partially +obscured, has come out again in full gingerbread. There is a functionary +who appears every night at the door of the House of Commons just at the +moment when the sitting is formally declared to be over, and bawls out +to the emptying benches the resonant question, "Who's for home?" I +believe the practice originated at a time when Westminster was +unpeopled, and midnight roads were dangerous, and members were glad to +make up parties to travel home together; and, so a functionary was +appointed to issue stentorian appeal to all who were thus willing to +combine their strength and journey safely in company. The need of such +an arrangement has, I need hardly say, passed away these many +generations; but the usage exists. It oppresses no one to have the +formal call thundered out; the thing has got to be a regular +performance; it is part of the whole business and system; nobody wants +it, but nobody heeds it or objects to it, and the functionary appears +every night of every session and shouts his invitation to companionship +as regularly as if the Mohocks were in possession of Charing Cross, and +Claude Duval were coming full trot along Piccadilly. + +Now, this may be taken as a sort of illustration of the manner in which +the English people are naturally inclined to deal with any institutions +which are merely useless, and have the recommendation of old age and +long descent. The ordinary Englishman to-day would find it hard to bring +up before his mind's eye a picture of an England without a Sovereign. If +it were made fully plain to him, and thoroughly impressed upon his mind +that he could do just as well without a Sovereign as with, and even that +Monarchy never could possibly be of use to him any more, I think he +would endure it and pay its cost, and drink its health loyally for all +time, providing Monarchy did nothing outrageously wrong; or +provided--which is more to my present purpose--that no other changes of +a remarkable nature occurred in the meantime to remove ancient +landmarks, to disturb the basis of his old institutions and to prepare +him for a new order of things. This is indeed the point I wish to +discuss just now. I have explained what I believe to be the depth and +strength and meaning of the average Englishman's loyal feelings to his +Sovereign at the present moment. I should like to consider next how that +feeling will, in all probability, be affected by the changes in the +English political system, which seem inevitable, and by the accession, +or expected accession, of a new Sovereign to the throne. + +England has, just now, something very nearly approaching to manhood +suffrage; and to manhood suffrage it will probably come before long. The +ballot will, doubtless, be introduced. The Irish Church is as good as +dead. I cannot doubt that the English State Church will, ultimately, and +before very long, succumb to the same fate. Not that this logically or +politically follows as a matter of necessity; and nothing could be more +unwise in the interest of their own cause than the persistency with +which the Tories keep insisting that the doom of the one is involved in +the doom of the other. The Irish Church is the foreign church of a +miserably small minority; the English Establishment is the Church of the +majority, and is an institution belonging to the soil. The very +principle which maintains the English Church ought of right to condemn +the Irish Church. But it is the fact that an agitation more influential +than it seemed to the careless spectator, has long been going on in +England for the abolition of the State Church system altogether; and +there can be no doubt that the fate of the Irish Establishment will lend +immense courage and force to that agitation. Revolutionary movements are +always contagious in their nature, and the movement against the Irish +Church is in the strictest sense revolutionary. The Dutch or the Scotch +would have carried such a movement to triumph across rivers of blood if +it were needful; and no man of spirit could say that the end would not +be worth the cost. I assume, then, that the overthrow of the Irish +Church will inflame to iconoclastic fervor the movement of the English +Dissenters against all Church establishments. I do not stop just now to +inquire whether the movement is likely to be successful or how long it +may take to accomplish the object. To me, it seems beyond doubt that it +must succeed; but I do not care to assume even that for the purpose of +my present argument. I only ask my readers to consider the condition of +things which will exist in England when a movement resting on a suffrage +which is almost universal, a movement which will have already overthrown +one State Church within Great Britain, proceeds openly and exultingly to +attack the English Church itself, within its own dominions. I ask +whether it is likely that the institution which is supposed to be bound +up inseparably with that Church, the Monarchy which is based upon, and +exists by virtue of religious ascendency, is likely to escape all +question during such a struggle, and after it? The State Church and the +Aristocracy, if they cannot always be called bulwarks of the throne, are +yet so completely associated with it in the public mind that it is hard +even to think of the one without the others, and yet harder to think of +the one as existing serene and uninjured after the decay or demolition +of the others. + +Now, the Aristocracy have, as Mr. Bright put it so truly and so +effectively the other day, already capitulated. They have given up all +notion of any longer making the laws of the country in the interest of +their own class. One of the first things the Reformed Parliament will +do, when it has breathing-time to think about such matters, will be to +abolish the purchase system in the army, and throw open promotion to +merit, without reference to class. The diplomatic service, that other +great stronghold of the Aristocracy, will be thoroughly reorganized and +made a real, useful department, doing solid work, and open to talent of +whatever caste; or it will be abolished altogether. Something will have +to be done with the House of Lords. It, too, must be made a reality, or +dismissed into the land of shadows and the past. Efforts at reforming +it, while it stands on its present basis, are futile. Its existence is, +in its present form, the one great objection to it. + +The good-natured, officious Lord Shaftesbury went to work, a few months +ago, to prepare a scheme of reform for the House of Lords, in order to +anticipate and conciliate the popular movement which he expected. He +could think of nothing better than a recommendation that the House +should meet an hour earlier every evening, in order, by throwing more +time on their hands, to induce the younger Peers to get up debates and +take part in them. This, however, is not precisely the kind of reform +the country will ask for when it has leisure to turn its attention to +the subject. It will ask for some reorganization which shall either +abolish or reduce to a comparative nothing the hereditary legislating +principle on which the House of Lords now rests. A set of law-makers or +law-marrers intrusted with power only because they are born to titles, +is an absurd anomaly, which never could exist in company with popular +suffrage. "Hereditary law-makers!" exclaimed Franklin. "You might as +well talk of hereditary mathematicians!" Franklin expressed exactly what +the feeling of the common sense of England is likely to be when the +question comes to be raised. I expect then, not that the House of Lords +will be abolished, but that the rule of the hereditary principle will be +brought to an end--that the Aristocracy there, too, will have to +capitulate. + +Now, I doubt whether an American reader can have any accurate idea, +unless he has specially studied the matter and watched its practical +operation in England, of the manner in which the influence of the Peers +makes itself felt through the political life of Great Britain. Americans +often have some kind of notion that the Aristocracy govern the country +directly and despotically, with the high hand of imperious feudalism. +There is nothing of the kind in reality. The House of Lords is, as a +piece of political machinery, almost inoperative--as nearly as possible +harmless. No English Peer, Lord Derby alone excepted, has anything like +the political authority and direct influence of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. +Disraeli, or Mr. Bright. There are very few Peers, indeed, about whose +political utterances anybody in the country cares three straws. But, on +the other hand, the traditional _prestige_ of the Peers, the tacit, +time-honored, generally-conceded doctrine that a Peer has first right to +everything--the mediaeval superstition tolerated largely in our own time, +which allows a sort of divinity to hedge a Peer--all this has an +indirect, immense, pervading, almost universal influence in the +practical working of English politics. The Peers have, in fact, a +political _droit du seigneur_ in England. They have first taste of every +privilege, first choice of every appointment. Political office is their +pasture, where they are privileged to feed at will. There does not now +exist a man in England likely to receive high office, who would be bold +enough to suggest the forming of a Cabinet without Peers in it, even +though there were no Peers to be had who possessed the slightest +qualification for any ministerial position. The Peers must have a +certain number of places, because they are Peers. The House of Commons +swarms with the sons and nephews of Peers. The household appointments, +the ministerial offices, the good places in the army and the church are +theirs when they choose--and they generally do choose--to have them. The +son of a Peer, if in the House of Commons, may be raised at one step +from his place in the back benches to a seat in the Cabinet, simply +because of his rank. When Earl Russell, two or three years ago, raised +Mr. Goschen, one of the representatives of the city of London and a +partner in a great London banking-house, to a place in the Cabinet, the +whole country wondered: a very few, who were not frightened out of their +propriety, admired; some thought the world must be coming to an end. But +when the Marquis of Hartington was suddenly picked out of West End +dissipation and made War Secretary, nobody expressed the least wonder, +for he was the heir of the House of Devonshire. Indeed, it was perfectly +notorious that the young Marquis was presented to office, in the first +instance, because it was hoped by his friends that official duties might +wean him from the follies and frivolities of a more than ordinarily +heedless youth. Sir Robert Peel the present, the _magni nominis umbra_, +is not, of course, in the strict sense, an aristocrat; but he is mixed +up with aristocrats, and is the son of a Peer-maker, and may be regarded +as claiming and having the privileges of the class. Sir Robert Peel was +presented with the First Secretaryship as something to play with, +because his aristocratic friends, the ladies especially, thought he +would be more likely to sow his wild oats if he were beguiled by the +semblance of official business. A commoner must, in fact, be supposed to +have some qualification for office before he is invited to fill a +ministerial place. No qualification is believed necessary for the near +relative or connection of a Peer. Even in the most favorable examples of +Peers who are regular occupants of office, no special fitness is assumed +or pretended. No one supposes or says that Lord Clarendon, or Lord +Granville, or Lord Malmesbury has any particular qualification which +entitles him, above all other men, to this or that ministerial place. +Yet it must be a man of bold imagination indeed, who could now conceive +the possibility of a British Cabinet without one of these noblemen +having a place in it. + +All this comes, as I have said, out of a lingering superstition--the +faith in the divine right of Peers. Now, a reform in the constitution of +the Upper House, which should purge it of the hereditary principle, +would be the first great blow to this superstition. Julius Caesar, in one +of his voyages of conquest, was much perplexed by the priests, who +insisted that he had better go back because the sacred chickens would +not eat. At last he thought the time had come to prove his independence +of the sacred chickens, "If they will not eat," he said, "then let them +drink"--and he flung the consecrated fowls into the sea; and the +expedition went on triumphantly, and the Roman soldiers learned that +they could do without the sacred chickens. I think a somewhat similar +sensation will come over all classes of the English people when they +find that the hereditary right to make laws is taken from the English +Peerage. I do not doubt that the whole fabric of superstition will +presently collapse, and that the privilege of the Peer will cease to be +anything more than that degree of superior influence which wealth and +social rank can generally command, even in the most democratic +communities. The law which gives impulse and support to the custom of +primogeniture is certain to go, and with it another prop of the mediaeval +superstition. The Peerage capitulates, in fact--no more expressive word +can be found to describe the situation. + +Now, in all this, I have been foreshadowing no scheme of wild, vague, +far-distant reform. I appeal to any one, Liberal or Tory, who is +practically acquainted with English politics, to say whether these are +not changes he confidently or timidly looks to see accomplished before +long in England. I have not spoken of any reform which is not part of +the actual accepted programme of the Radical party. To the reform of +the House of Lords, of the military and diplomatic service; to abolition +of the law of primogeniture, the whole body of the Liberals stands +pledged; and Mr. Bright very recently renewed the pledges in a manner +and with an emphasis which showed that change of circumstances has made +no change in his opinions, brought no faltering in his resolution. The +abolition of the English Church is not, indeed, thus openly sought by so +powerful a party; but it is ostentatiously aimed at by that solid, +compact, pertinacious body of Dissenters who, after so long a struggle, +succeeded at last in getting rid of Church rates; and the movement will +go on with a rush after the fall of the Irish establishment. Here then +we have, in the not distant future, a prospect of an England without a +privileged Aristocracy, and with the State Church principle called into +final question. I return to my first consideration--the consideration +which is the subject of this paper--how will this affect the great +aristocratic, feudal and hierarchical institution of England, the Throne +of the Monarch? + +The Throne then will stand naked and alone, stripped of its old-time and +traditional surroundings and associations. It cannot be like that of +France, the throne of a Caesar, a despotic institution claiming to +exercise its despotism over the people by virtue of the will and +delegated power of the people. The English Crown never can be an active +governing power. It will be the last idol in the invaded sanctuary. It +will stand alone, among the pedestals from which popular reform has +swept the embodied superstitions which were its long companions. It must +live, if at all, on the old affection or the toleration which springs +out of custom and habit. This affection, or at least this toleration, +may always be looked upon as a powerful influence in England. One can +hardly imagine, for instance, anything occurring in our day to dethrone +the Queen. However one class may grumble and another class may gibe, the +force of habit and old affection would, in this instance, prove +omnipotent. But, suppose the Prince of Wales should turn out an +unpopular and ill-conditioned ruler? Suppose he should prove to be a man +of low tastes, of vulgar and spendthrift habits, a maladroit and +intermeddling king? He is not very popular in England, even now, and he +is either one of the most unjustly entreated men living, or he has +defects which even the excuse of youth can scarcely gloss over. + +An illustrated weekly paper in London forced itself lately into a sudden +notoriety by publishing a finely-drawn cartoon, in which the Prince of +Wales, dressed as Hamlet, was represented as breaking away from the +restraining arms of John Bull as Horatio, and public opinion as +Marcellus, and rushing after a ghost which bore the form and features of +George IV., while underneath were inscribed the words, "Lead on; I'll +follow thee!" This was a bold and bitter lampoon; I am far from saying +that it was not unjust, but I believe it can hardly be doubted that the +Prince of Wales has, as yet, shown little inclination to imitate the +example or cultivate the tastes of his pure-minded and intellectual +father. Now suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Prince of Wales +should turn out a George IV., or suppose, and which would be far worse +from a national point of view, he or his son should turn out a George +III. And suppose further that, about the same time any great crisis +should arise in England--suppose the country entangled in a great +foreign war, or disturbed by some momentous domestic agitation--can any +one doubt that the Crown, in its then isolated condition, would be +really in danger? + +We must remember, when the strength of English institutions is boasted, +that they have not, since 1815, stood any strain which could fairly be +called critical. England has never had her national strength, her +political position, or even her _prestige_ seriously imperilled since +that time. Even the Indian war could not be called a great supreme +trial, such as other nations have lately had to bear. No one, even for a +moment, could have doubted how that struggle would end. It was bitter, +it was bloody; but the life of the nation was not staked upon it, even +had its issue been uncertain; and its issue never was uncertain. It +would be superfluous to say that England has passed through no ordeal +like that to which the United States were lately subjected. She has not +even had to confront anything like the crisis which Prussia voluntarily +invited, which Austria had to meet, in 1866. It will be time to consider +English feudal institutions, or what may remain of them, safe and +firmly-rooted, when they have stood the worst result of such a crisis as +that, and not been shaken down. + +What I contend is that there is nothing in the present condition of the +English public mind, and nothing in the prospect of the immediate future +to warrant the almost universal assumption that the throne of England is +founded on a rock. The stupidity of loyalty, the devotion as of the +spaniel to his master, of the idolator to his god, is gone. I doubt if +there exists one man in England who feels the sentiment of loyalty as +his grandfather would have felt it. The mass of the people have learned +satisfactorily that a sovereign is not a part of the necessary machinery +of the government. The great problem which the Duke of Wellington used +to present for solution--"How is the Queen's Government to be carried +on?" has been solved in one and an unexpected sense. It can be carried +on without a queen. Here then we have the institution proving itself +superfluous, and falling into public indifference at the very same +moment that some other institutions which seemed always involved with it +as its natural and necessary companions, are about to be broken to +pieces and thrown away. He must, indeed, be full of a verily +transcendental faith in the destinies and divinity of royalty who does +not admit that at least there is a time of ordeal awaiting it in +England, such as it has not encountered before during this century. + +To me it seems that the royal principle in England is threatened, not +with sudden and violent extinction, but with death by decay. I do not +expect any change of any kind to-morrow or the day after, or even the +week after next. I do not care to dogmatize, or predict, or make guesses +of any kind. I quite agree with my friend Professor Thorold Rogers, that +an uninspired prophet is a fool. But I contend that as the evident signs +of the times now show themselves, the monarchical principle in England +does seem to be decaying; that the national faith which bore it up is +sorely shaken and almost gone, and that some of the political props +which most nearly supported it are already being cut away. There may, +indeed, be some hidden virtue in the principle, which shall develop +itself unexpectedly in the hour of danger, and give to the institution +that seemed moribund a new and splendid vitality. Such a phenomenon has +been manifested in the case of more than one institution that seemed on +the verge of ruin--it may be the fortunate destiny of British royalty. +But unless in the sudden and timely development of some such occult and +unlooked-for virtue, I do not see what is to preserve the monarchical +principle in England through the trials of the future. + +Let it be remembered, too, that the one great plea hitherto always made +in England for monarchy, is that it alone will work on a large scale. +"We admit," it was said, "that your republican theory looks better and +admits of more logical argument in its favor. But we are practical men, +and we find that our system, with all its theoretical disadvantages, +will work and stand a strain; and your republican theory, with all its +apparent advantages in logic, is not suited for this rough world. Our +machinery will stand the hardest trial; yours never did and never will. +Don't tell us about Switzerland. Switzerland is a little country. Kept +out of the stress and danger of European commotions, and protected by a +guarantee of the great powers, any constitution ought to work under such +advantages. But a great independent republic never did last; never did +stand a sudden strain, and never will." So people thought and argued in +England--even very intelligent people, until at last it became one of +the British Philistine's articles of faith, that the republican +principle never will work on a large scale. When Sir John Ramsden +declared in the House of Commons at the beginning of the American civil +war, that the republican bubble had burst, and all Philistinism in +Britain applauded the declaration, the plaudits were given not so much +because of any settled dislike Philistinism had to the United States, as +because Philistinism beheld what it believed to be a providential +testimony to its own wisdom and foresight. Since then Philistinism has +found that after all republicanism is able to bear a strain as great as +monarchy has ever yet borne, and can come out of the trial unharmed and +victorious. + +The lesson has sunk deeply. The mind of something better than +Philistinism has learned that republics can be made to work on a large +scale. I believe Mr. Gladstone is one of the eminent Englishmen who now +openly admit that they have learned from the American war something +which they did not know before, of the cohesiveness and durability of +the republican system. Up to the time of that war in fact, most +Englishmen, when they talked of republican principles, thought only of +French republicanism, and honestly regarded such a system as a brilliant +empty bubble, doomed to soar a little, and float, and dazzle, and then +to burst. + +That idea, it is quite safe to say, no longer exists in the English +mind. The fundamental, radical objection to republicanism--the objection +which, partly out of mere reaction and partly for more substantial +reasons, followed the brief and romantic enthusiasm of the days of +Fox--is gone. The practical Englishman admits that a republic is +practicable. Only those who know England can know what a change in +public opinion this is. It is, in fact, something like a revolution. I +think the most devoted monarchist will hardly deny that if some +extraordinary combination of chances (after all, even the British Throne +is but a human institution) were to disturb the succession of the house +of Brunswick, Englishmen would be more likely to try the republican +system than to hunt about for a new royal family, or endeavor to invent +a new scheme of monarchy. Here, then, I leave the subject. Take all this +into account, in considering the probabilities of the future, and then +say whether, even in the case of England, it is quite certain that +Byron's prediction is only the dream of a cynical poet, destined never +to be fulfilled among human realities. + + + + +THE REAL LOUIS NAPOLEON. + + +"How will it be with him," said Richard Cobden to a friend, one night, +as they spoke of a great and successful adventurer whom the friend was +striving to defend--"how will it be with him when life becomes all +retrospect?" The adventurer they spoke of was not Louis Napoleon; but +the inquiry might well apply just now to the Emperor of the French. Life +has reached that point with him when little more than retrospect can be +left. In the natural course of events, there can be no great triumphs +for Louis Napoleon still to achieve. Great blunders are possible, though +hardly probable; but the greatest of blunders would scarcely efface the +memory of the substantial triumphs. "Not heaven itself," exclaimed an +ambitious and profane statesman, "can undo the fact that I have been +three times Prime Minister." Well, the Fates--let them do their +best--can hardly undo the fact that the despised outcast of Constance, +and Augsburg, and London, and New York, whom Lord Palmerston excused +himself to Guizot for tolerating, on the ground that really nobody +minded the dull, harmless poor fellow; the Fates cannot undo the fact +that this man has elected himself Emperor of the French, has defeated +the Russians and the Austrians, and made a friend and ally of England. + +So much of the past, then, is secure; but there are hardly any triumphs +to be won in the future. If one may venture to predict anything, he may +venture to predict that the Emperor of the French will not live to be a +very old man. He has already led many lives--fast, hard, exhausting +lives, "that murder the youth in a man ere ever his heart has its will." +Exile, conspiracy, imprisonment, hard thinking, hard working, wild and +reckless dissipation, prolonged to the very outer verge of middle life, +the brain, the nerves, the muscles, the whole physical and mental +constitution always strained to the utmost--these are not the ways that +secure a long life. Louis Napoleon is already an "_abgelebter mann_"--an +outworn, used-up, played-out man. The friends and familiars with whom he +started in life are nearly all gone. Long since laid in earth is the +stout form of the wild Marquis of Waterford, who was a wonder to our +fathers (his successor to the title ran away with somebody's wife the +other day; and I thought Time had turned back by thirty years when I +read of the _escapade_, with the name, once so famous, of the principal +performer), and who rode by Louis Napoleon's side at the celebrated, +forgotten Eglintoun Tournament, and was, like Louis Napoleon, one of the +Knights Challengers in that piece of splendid foolery. Dead, lang syne, +is Eglintoun himself, the chivalrous Earl of the generous instincts and +the florid, rotund eloquence, reminding one of Bulwer Lytton diluted. I +do not know whether the Queen of Beauty of that grand joust is yet +living and looking on the earth; but if she be, she must be an embodied +sermon on the perishableness of earthly charms. De Morny is dead, the +devoted half-brother, son of Louis Napoleon's mother, the chaste +Hortense, and the Count de Flahault--De Morny, the brilliant, genial, +witty, reckless gambler in politics and finance, the man than whom +nobody ever, perhaps, was more faithful to friendship and false to +morality, more good-natured and unprincipled. I have seen tears in men's +eyes when De Morny died--in the eyes of men who owned all the time, +smiling through their tears like Andromache, that the lost patron and +friend was the most consummate of _roues_ and blacklegs. Walewski is +dead--Walewski of romantic origin, born of the sudden episode of love +between the great Napoleon and the Polish lady--Walewski, who, like +Prince Napoleon-Jerome, carried his pedigree stamped upon his +face--Walewski, the lover of Rachel, and, to do him justice, the steady +friend of Poland. Old Mocquard is gone, the faithful scribe and +confidant: he is dead, and the dramas he would persist in writing are +dead with him, nay, died even before him. I do not know whether the +faithful, devoted woman who worked for Louis Napoleon, and believed in +him when nobody else did; the woman to whose inspirings, exertions, and +ready money he owes, in great measure, the fact that he is now Emperor +of the French--I do not know whether this woman is alive or dead. I +think she is dead. Anyhow, I suppose the dignity of history, as the +phrase is, can hardly take account of her. She helped to make an +Emperor, and the Emperor, in return, made her a Countess; but then he +had to marry--and so we take leave of the woman who made the Emperor, +and do our homage to the woman who married him. All those are gone; and +St. Arnaud, of the stormy youth, and Pelissier, the bland, +sweet-tempered chevalier, who, getting into a dispute (on his way to be +governor of Algeria) with the principal official of a Spanish port, +invited that dignitary to salute a portion of the Pelissier person which +assuredly the foes of France were never allowed to see--all these are +gone, and many more, and only a very few, fast fading, of the old +friends and followers remain. Life to Louis Napoleon must now, indeed, +be nearly all retrospect. His career, his Imperial reign may be judged +even now as fairly and securely as as if his body had just been laid +beside that of his uncle, under the dome of the Invalides. + +Recent events seem specially to invite and authorize that judgment. +Within the past twelve months, the genuine character of Louis Napoleon +has displayed itself, strikingly, nakedly, in his policy. He has tried, +in succession, mild liberalism, severe despotism, reactionary +conservatism, antique Caesarism, and then, in an apologetic, contrite +sort of way, a liberalism of a rather pronounced character. Every time +that he tried any new policy he was secretly intriguing with some other, +and making ready for the possible necessity of having to abandon the +former and take up with the latter. He was like the lady in "Le Diable +Boiteux," who, while openly coquetting with the young lover, slily gives +her hand behind her back to the old admirer. So far as the public could +judge, Louis Napoleon has, for many months back, been absolutely without +any settled policy whatever. He has been waiting for a wind. Such a +course is probably the safest a man in his position can take; but one +who, at a great crisis, cannot originate and initiate a policy, will not +be remembered among the grand rulers of the world. I do not remember any +greater evidence given in our time of absolute incapacity to seize a +plan of action and decide upon it, than was shown by the Emperor of the +French during the crisis of June and July. So feeble, so vague, halting, +vacillating was the whole course of the government, that many who detest +Louis Napoleon, but make it an article of faith that he is a sort of +all-seeing, omnipotent spirit of darkness, were forced to adopt a theory +that the riots in Paris and the provinces were deliberately got up by +the police agents of the Empire, for the purpose of frightening the +_bourgeois_ class out of any possible hankering after democracy. No +doubt this idea was widely spread and eagerly accepted in Paris; and +there were many circumstances which seemed to justify it. But I do not +believe in any such Imperial stage-play. I fancy the riots surprised the +Government, first, by their sudden outburst, and next, by their sudden +collapse. Probably the Imperial authorities were very glad when the +disturbances began. They gave an excuse for harsh conduct, and they +seemed, for the time, to put the Government in the right. They restored +Louis Napoleon at that moment, in the eyes of timid people, to that +position, as a supreme maintainer of order, which for some years he had +not had an opportunity effectively to occupy. But the obvious want of +stamina in the disturbing force soon took away from the Imperial +authorities this opportune _prestige_, and very little political capital +was secured for Imperialism out of the abortive barricades, and +incoherent brickbats, and effusive chantings of the "Marseillaise." In +truth, no one had anything else to offer just then in place of the +Empire. The little crisis was no test whatever of the Emperor's hold +over his people, or of his power to deal with a popular revolution. To +me it seems doubtful whether the elections brought out for certain any +fact with which the world might not already have been well acquainted, +except the bare fact that Orleanism has hardly any more of vitality in +it than Legitimacy. Rochefort, and not Prevost Paradol, is the typical +figure of the situation. + +The popularity and the success of Rochefort and his paper are remarkable +phenomena, but only remarkable in the old-fashioned manner of the straws +which show how the wind blows. Rochefort's success is due to the fact +that he had the good-fortune to begin ridiculing the Empire just at the +time when a general notion was spreading over France that the Empire of +late had been making itself ridiculous. Louis Napoleon had reached the +turning-point of his career--had reached and passed it. The country saw +now all that he could do. The bag of tricks was played out. The +anticlimax was reached at last. + +The culmen, the crisis, the turning-point of Louis Napoleon's career +seems to me to have been attained when, just before the outbreak of the +Schleswig-Holstein war--so small a war in itself, so fateful and +gigantic in its results--he appealed to the Emperors and Kings of +Europe, and proposed that the nations should hold a Congress, to settle, +once and forever, all pending disputes. I think the attitude of Louis +Napoleon at that moment was dignified, commanding, imperial. His +peculiar style, forcible, weighty, measured--I have heard it well +described as a "monumental" style--came out with great effect in the +language of the appeal. There was dignity, and grace, there was what +Edmund Burke so appropriately terms "a proud humility," in Louis +Napoleon's allusion to his own personal experience in the school of +exile and adversity as an excuse for his presuming to offer advice to +the sovereigns of Europe. One was reminded of Henry of Navarre's +allusion to the wind of adversity which, blowing so long upon his face, +had prematurely blanched his hair. I do not wonder that the proposed +Congress never met. I do not wonder that the European governments put it +aside--some with courteous phrase and feigned willingness to accept the +scheme, like Russia and Austria; some with cold and brusque rejection, +like England. Nothing worth trying for could have come of the Congress. +Events were brooding of which France and England knew nothing, and which +could not have been exorcised away by any resolutions of a conclave of +diplomatists. But that was, I think, the last occasion when Louis +Napoleon held anything like a commanding, overruling position in +European affairs, and even then it was but a semblance. After that, came +only humiliations and reverses. In a diplomatic sense, nothing could be +more complete than the checkmate which the Emperor of the French drew +upon himself by the sheer blundering of his conduct with regard to +Prussia. He succeeded in placing himself before the world in the +distinct attitude of an enemy to Prussia; and no sooner had he, by +assuming this attitude, forced Prussia to take a defiant tone, than he +suddenly sank down into quietude. He had bullied to no purpose; he had +to undergo the humiliation of seeing Prussia rise in public estimation, +by means of the triumph which his unnecessary and uncalled-for hostility +had enabled her to win. In fact, he was outgeneralled by his pupil, +Bismarck, even more signally than he had previously been outgeneralled +by his former pupil, Cavour. More disastrous and ghastly, by far, was +the failure of his Mexican policy. That policy began in falsehood and +treachery, and ended as it deserved. Poetic and dramatic justice was +fearfully rendered. Never did Philip II., of Spain, never did his +father, never did Napoleon I., never did Mendez Pinto, or any other +celebrated liar, exceed the deliberate monstrosity of the falsehoods +which were told by Louis Napoleon or Louis Napoleon's Ministers at his +order, to conceal, during the earlier stages of the Mexican +intervention, the fact that the French Emperor had a _protege_ in the +background, who was to be seated on a Mexican throne. The world is not +much affected by perfidy in sovereigns. It laughs at the perjuries of +princes as Jove does at those of lovers. But it could not overlook the +appalling significance of Louis Napoleon's defeat in that disastrous +chapter of his history. Wisdom after the event is easy work; but many, +many voices had told Louis Napoleon beforehand what would come of his +Mexican policy. Not to speak of the hints and advice he received from +the United States, he was again and again assured by the late Marshal +O'Donnell, then Prime Minister of Spain; by General Prim, who commanded +the allied forces during the earlier part of the Mexican expedition; by +Prince Napoleon, by many others--that neither the character of the +Mexican people nor the proximity of the United States would allow a +French proconsulate to be established in Mexico under the name of an +Empire. It is a certain fact that Louis Napoleon frequently declared +that the foundation of that Empire would be the great event of his +reign. This extraordinary delusion maintained a hold over his mind long +after it had become apparent to all the world that the wretched bubble +was actually bursting. The catastrophe was very near when Louis +Napoleon, in conversation with an English political adventurer, who then +was a Member of Parliament, assured him that, however the situation +might then look dark, history would yet have to record that he, Louis +Napoleon, had established a Mexican Empire. The English member of +Parliament, although ordinarily a very shrewd and sceptical sort of +person, was actually so impressed with the earnestness of his Imperial +interlocutor that he returned to London and wrote a pamphlet, in which, +to the utter amazement of his acquaintances, he backed the Empire of +Mexico for a secure existence, and said to it _esto perpetua_. The +pamphlet was hardly in circulation when the collapse came. If Louis +Napoleon ever believed in anything, he believed in the Mexican Empire. +He believed, too, in the certain success of the Southern Confederation. +No Belgravian Dundreary, no _exaltee_ Georgian girl, could have been +more completely taken by surprise when the collapse of that enterprise +came than was the Emperor Napoleon III., whose boundless foresight and +profound sagacity we had all for years been applauding to the echo. +"That which is called firmness in a King," said Erskine, "is called +obstinacy in a donkey." That which is called foresight and sagacity in +an Emperor, is often what we call blindness and blundering in a +newspaper correspondent. The question is whether we can point to any +great event, any political enterprise, subsequent to his successful +assumption of the Imperial crown, in regard to which Napoleon III., if +called upon to act or to judge, did not show the same aptitude for rash +judgments and unwise actions? Certainly no great thing with which he has +had to do came out in the result with anything like the shape he meant +it to have. The Italian Confederation, with the Pope at the head of it; +the Germany irrevocably divided by the line of the Main; the Mexican +Empire; the "rectification" of frontier on the Rhine; the acquisition +of Luxembourg; these are some of the great Napoleonic ideas, by the +success or failure of which we may fairly judge of the wisdom of their +author. At home he has simply had a new plan of government every year. +How many different ways of dealing with the press, how many different +schemes for adjusting the powers of the several branches of legislation, +have been magniloquently announced and floated during the last few +years, each in turn to fail rather more dismally than its predecessor? +Now, it seems, we are to have at last something like that ministerial +responsibility which the Imperial lips themselves have so often +described as utterly opposed to the genius of France. Assuredly it shows +great mental flexibility to be able thus quickly to change one's policy +in obedience to a warning from without. It is a far better quality than +the persistent treachery of a Charles I., or the stupid doggedness of a +George III. But unless it be a characteristic of great statesmanship to +be almost always out in one's calculations, wrong in one's predictions, +and mistaken in one's men, the Emperor has for years been in the habit +of doing things which are directly incompatible with the character of a +great statesman. + +Contrasting the Louis Napoleon of action and reality with the Louis +Napoleon of the journals, I am reminded of a declaration once made by a +brilliant, audacious, eccentric Italian journalist and politician, +Petruccelli della Gattina. Petruccelli was, and perhaps still is, a +member of the Italian Parliament, and he had occasion to find fault with +some office or dignity, or something of the kind, conferred by Count +Cavour on the Neapolitan, Baron Poerio, whose imprisonment and chains, +during the reign of the beloved Bomba, aroused the eloquent anger of Mr. +Gladstone, and through Gladstone's efforts and appeals became the wonder +and the horror of the world. Petruccelli insisted that Poerio's +undeserved sufferings were his only political claim. "You know perfectly +well," he said, in effect, to Cavour, "that there is no such man as the +Poerio of the journals. It suited us to invest the poor victim with the +attributes of greatness, and therefore, we, the journalists, created a +Poerio of our own. This imposed upon the world, but it did not impose +upon you, and you have no right to take our Poerio _au serieux_." I do +not know whether the journals created an imaginary Poerio, but I am +convinced that they have created an imaginary Louis Napoleon. The world +in general now so much prefers the imaginary to the real Louis, that it +would for the present be as difficult to dethrone the unreal and set up +the real, as it would be to induce the average reader to accept Lane's +genuine translation of the "Arabian Nights" instead of the familiar +translation from a sprightly, flippant, flashy French version, which +hardly bears the slightest resemblance to the original. English +journalism has certainly created a Disraeli of its own--a dark, subtle, +impenetrable, sphinx-like being, who never smiles, or betrays outward +emotion, or is taken by surprise, or makes a mistake. This Disraeli is +an immense success with the public, and is not in the least like the +real Disraeli, who is as good-natured and genial in manner as he is bold +and blundering in speech and policy. So, on a wider scale, of Louis +Napoleon. We are all more or less responsible for the fraud on the +public; and, indeed, are to be excused on the ground that, enamored of +our own creation, we have often got the length of believing in it. We +have thus created a mysterious being, a sphinx of far greater than even +Disraelian proportions, an embodiment of silence and sagacity, a dark +creature endowed with super-human self-control and patience and +foresight; one who can bend all things, and all men, and destiny itself +to his own calm, inexorable will. + +I do not believe there is anything of the sphinx about Louis Napoleon. I +do not believe in his profound sagacity, or his foresight, or his +stupendous self-control. I have grown so heretical that I do not even +believe him to be a particularly taciturn man. I am well satisfied that +Louis Napoleon is personally a good-natured, good-tempered, undignified, +awkward sort of man, ungainly of gesture, not impressive in speech, a +man quite as remarkable for occasional outbursts of unexpected and +misplaced confidence as for a silence that often is, if I may use such +an expression, purely mechanical and unmeaning. I calmly ask my +_confreres_ of the press, is it not a fact that Louis Napoleon is +commonly made the dupe of shallow charlatans, that he has several times +received and admitted to confidential counsel and conference, and +treated as influential statesmen and unaccredited ambassadors, utterly +obscure American or English busybodies who could hardly get to speech of +the Mayor of a town at home; that he has entered into signed and sealed +engagements with impudent adventurers from divers countries, under the +impression that they could render him vast political service; that he +has paid down considerable sums of money to subsidize the most obscure +and contemptible foreign journals, and never seemed able for a moment to +comprehend that in England and the United States no journal that can be +bought for any price, however high, is worth buying at any price, +however low; that his personal inclinations are much more toward quacks +and pretenders than toward men of real genius and influence; that Cobden +was one of the very few great men Louis Napoleon ever appreciated, while +impostors, and knaves, and blockheads, of all kinds, could readily find +access to his confidence? Of course, a man might possibly be a great +sovereign although he had these weaknesses; but the Louis Napoleon of +journalism is not endowed with these, or indeed with any other +weaknesses. + +Those who know Paris well, know that there is yet another Louis Napoleon +there, equally I trust a fiction with him of the journals. I speak of +the Louis Napoleon of private gossip, the hero of unnumbered _amours_ +such as De Grammont or Casanova might wonder at. I have heard stories +poured into my patient but sceptical ears which ascribed to Louis +Napoleon of to-day, adventures illustrating a happy and brilliant +combination of Haroun Al Raschid and Lauzun--the disguises of the Caliph +employed for the purposes of Don Juan. Now, Louis Napoleon certainly +had, and perhaps even still has, his frailties of this class, but I +reject the Lauzun or Don Juan theory quite as resolutely as the sphinx +theory. + +What we all do really know of Louis Napoleon is, that having the +advantage of a name of surpassing prestige, and at a moment of +unexampled chances not created by him, he succeeded in raising himself +to the throne made by his uncle; that when there, he held his place +firmly, and by maintaining severe order in a country already weary of +disturbance and barren revolution, he favored and stimulated the +development of the material resources of France; that he entered on +several enterprises in foreign politics, not one of which brought about +the end for which it was undertaken, and some of which were ludicrous, +disastrous failures; that he strove to compensate France for the loss of +her civil liberty, by audaciously attempting to make her the dictator of +Europe, and that he utterly failed in both objects; for here toward the +close of his rule, France seems far more eager for domestic freedom than +ever she was since the _coup d'etat_, while her influence over the +nations of Europe is considerably less than it was at any period since +the fall of Sebastopol. Now, if this be success, I want to know what is +failure? If these results argue the existence of profound sagacity, I +want to know what would show a lack of sagacity? Was Louis Napoleon +sagacious when he entered Lombardy, to set Italy free from the Alps to +the sea, and sagacious also when, after a campaign of a few weeks, he +suddenly abandoned the enterprise never to resume it? Was he wise when +he told Cavour he would never permit the annexation of Naples, and wise +also when, immediately after, he permitted it? Was he a great statesman +when he entered on the Mexican expedition, and also a great statesman +when he abandoned it and his unfortunate pupil, puppet, and victim +together? Did it show a statesmanlike judgment to bully Prussia until he +had gone near to making her an irreconcilable enemy, and also a +statesmanlike judgment then to "cave in," and declare that he never +meant anything offensive? Was it judicious to demand a rectification of +frontier on the Rhine, and judicious also to abandon the demand in a +hurry, when it was received as anybody might have known that a proud, +brave nation, flushed with a splendid success, would surely have +received it? Did it display great foresight to count with certainty that +the Southern Confederation would succeed, and that Austria would win an +easy victory over Prussia? Was it judicious to instruct an official +spokesman to declare that France had taken steps to assure herself +against any spread of Prussian influence beyond the Main, and to have to +stand next day, amazed and confounded, before an amazed and amused +Europe, when Bismarck made practical answer by contemptuously unrolling +the treaties of alliance actually concluded between France and the +principal States of South Germany? Was it a proof of a great ruling mind +to declare that France could never endure a system of ministerial +responsibility, and also a proof of a great ruling mind to declare that +this is the one thing needful to her contentment? All this bundle of +paradoxes one will have to sustain, if he is content to accept as a +genuine being that monstrous paradox, the Louis Napoleon of the press. +Of course, I do not deny to Louis Napoleon certain qualities of +greatness. But I believe the public was not a whit more gravely mistaken +when it regarded the King street exile as a dreamy dunce, than it is +now, when it regards Napoleon III. as a ruler of consummate wisdom. + +There was much of sound sense as well as wit in the saying ascribed to +Thiers, that the second Empire had developed two great statesmen--Cavour +and Bismarck. I do not know of any one great idea, worthy of being +called a contribution to the science of government, which Louis Napoleon +has yet embodied, either in words or actions. The recent elections, and +the events succeeding them, only demonstrate the failure of Imperialism +or Caesarism, after a trial and after opportunities such as it probably +will never have again in Europe. I certainly do not expect any complete +collapse during the present reign. Doubtless the machine will outlast +the third Emperor's time. He has sense and dexterity enough to trim his +sails to each breeze that passes, and he will, probably, hold the helm +till his right hand loses its cunning with its vital power. But I see no +evidence whatever which induces me to believe that he has founded a +dynasty or created an enduring system of any kind. Some day France will +shake off the whole thing like a nightmare. Meantime, however, I am +anxious to help in dethroning the Louis Napoleon of the journals rather +than him of the Tuileries. The latter has many good qualities which the +former is never allowed to exhibit. I believe the true Louis Napoleon +has a remarkably kind and generous heart; that he is very liberal and +charitable; that he has much affection in him, and is very faithful to +his old friends and old servants; that people who come near him love him +much; that he is free and kindly of speech; that his personal defects +are rather those of a warm and rash, than of a cold and stern nature. +But I think it is high time that we were done with the melodramatic, +dime-romance, darkly mysterious Louis Napoleon of the journals. He +belongs to the race of William Tell, of the Wandering Jew, the Flying +Dutchman, the Sphinx to whom he is so often compared, the mermaid, the +sea-serpent, Byron's Corsair, and Thaddeus of Warsaw. + + + + +EUGENIE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH. + + +There are certain men and women in history who seem to have a +peculiarity, independent of their merits or demerits, greatness or +littleness, virtues or crimes--a peculiarity which distinguishes them +from others as great or as little, as virtuous or as criminal. They are, +first and above all things, interesting. It is not easy to describe what +the elements are which make up this attribute. Certainly genius or +goodness, wit or wisdom, splendid public services, great beauty, or even +great suffering, will not always be enough to create it. The greatest +English king since the First Edward was assuredly William the Third; the +greatest military commanders England has ever had were Marlborough and +Wellington; but these three will hardly be called by any one interesting +personages in the sense in which I now use the word. Why Nelson should +be interesting and Wellington not so, Byron interesting and Wordsworth +not so, is perhaps easy enough to explain; but it is not quite easy to +see why Rousseau should be so much more interesting than Voltaire, +Goethe than Schiller, Mozart than Handel, and so on through a number of +illustrations, the accuracy of which nearly all persons would probably +acknowledge. Where history and public opinion and sentiment have to deal +with the lives and characters of women, the peculiarity becomes still +more deeply emphasized. What gifts, what graces, what rank, what +misfortunes have ever surrounded any queens or princesses known to +history with the interest which attaches to Mary Stuart and Marie +Antoinette? Lady Jane Grey was an incomparably nobler woman than either, +and suffered to the full as deeply as either; yet what place has she in +men's feelings and interest compared with theirs? Who cares about Anna +Boleyn, though she too shared a throne and mounted a scaffold? + +_Absit omen!_ I am about to speak of an illustrious living lady, who has +in common with Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette two things at least: she +has a French sovereign for a husband, and she has the fame of beauty. +But she has likewise that other peculiarity of which I spoke: she is +interesting. It is only speaking by the card to say that by far the most +interesting of all the imperial and royal ladies now living is Eugenie, +Empress of the French. I think there are princesses in Europe more +beautiful and even more graceful than she is, or than she ever could +have been; I fancy there are some much more highly gifted with +intellect; but there is no woman living in any European palace in whom +the general world feels half so much interest. There is not the +slightest reason to believe that she is a woman of really penetrating or +commanding intellect, and should she be happy enough to live out her +life in the Tuileries and die peacefully in her bed, history will find +but little to say about her, good or bad. Yet so long as her memory +remains in men's minds, it will be as that of a princess who had above +all things the gift of being interesting--the power of attracting toward +herself the eyes, the admiration, the curiosity, the wonder of all the +civilized world. + +"We count time by heart-throbs, not by figures on a dial," says a poet +who once nearly secured immortality, Philip James Bailey. There +certainly are people whose age seems to defy counting by figures on a +dial. Ask anybody what two pictures are called up in his mind when he +hears the names of Queen Victoria and the Empress of the French, no +matter whether he has ever seen the two illustrious ladies or not. In +the case of the former I may safely venture to answer for him that he +sees the face and figure of a motherly, homely body; a woman who has got +quite beyond the age when people observe how she dresses; to whom +personal appearance is no longer of any importance or interest. In the +case of the latter he sees a dazzling court beauty; a woman who, though +not indeed in her youth, is still in a glorious prime; a woman to +captivate hearts, and inspire poets, and set scandal going, and adorn a +ball-room or a throne. The first instinctive idea would be, I think, +that the Empress of the French belonged positively to a later generation +than the good, unattractive, dowdyish Queen of England. Yet I believe +the difference in actual years is very slight. To be sure, you will find +in any almanac that Queen Victoria was born on the 24th of May, 1819, +and is consequently very near to fifty-one years of age; while the fair +Eugenie is set down as having been born on May 5th, 1826, and +consequently would now appear to be only in her forty-fourth year. But +then Queen Victoria was born in the purple, and cannot, poor thing, make +any attempt at reducing by one single year the full figure of her age. +History has taken an inexorable, ineffaceable note of the day and hour +of her birth; and even court flattery cannot affect to ignore the +record. Now Eugenie was born in happy obscurity; even the place of her +birth is not known by the public with that certainty which alone +satisfies sceptics; and I have heard that the date recorded as that of +her natal hour is only a graceful fiction, a pretty bit of polite +biography. Certainly I have heard it stoutly maintained that if any +historian or critic were now to be as ungallant in his researches as +John Wilson Croker was in the case of Lady Morgan (was it not Lady +Morgan?), he would find that the birth of the brilliant Empress of the +French would have to be dated back a few years, and that after all the +difference between her and the elderly Queen Victoria is less an affair +of time than of looks and of heart-throbs. + +About a dozen years, I suppose, have passed away since I saw the Empress +Eugenie and Queen Victoria sitting side by side. Assuredly the +difference even then might well have been called a contrast, although +the Queen was in her happiest time, and has worn out terribly fast since +that period. But the quality which above all others Queen Victoria +wanted was just that in which the Empress of the French is supreme--the +quality of imperial, womanly grace. I have never been a rapturous +admirer of the beauty of the Empress; a certain narrowness of contour in +the face, the eyes too closely set together, and an appearance of +artificiality in every movement of the features, seem to me to detract +very much from the charms of her countenance. But her queenly grace of +gesture, of attitude, of form, of motion, must be admitted to be beyond +cavil, and superb. She looks just the woman on whom any sort of garment +would hang with grace and attractiveness; a blanket would become like a +regal mantle if it fell round her shoulders; I verily believe she would +actually look graceful in Mary Walker's costume, which I consider +decidedly the most detestable, in an artistic sense, ever yet indued by +mortal woman. Poor Queen Victoria looked awkward and homely indeed by +the side of this graceful, noble form; this figure that expressed so +well the combination of suppleness and affluence, of imperial dignity +and charming womanhood. Time has not of late spared the face of the +Empress of the French. Lines and hollows are growing fast there; the +bright eyes are sinking deeper into their places; the complexion is +fading and clouding; malicious people now say that, like that of the +lady in the "School for Scandal," it comes in the morning and goes in +the night; and the hair is apparently fast growing thin. But the grace +of form and movement is still there, unimpaired and unsurpassed. The +whitest and finest shoulders still surmount a noble bust, which, but +that its amplitude somewhat exceeds the severe proportions of antique +Grecian beauty, might be reproduced in marble to illustrate the contour +of a Venus or a Juno. I have seldom looked at the Empress of the French +or at any picture or bust of her without thinking how Mary Wortley +Montagu would have gone into bold and eloquent raptures over the superb +womanhood of that splendid form. + +Well, the face always disappointed me at least. It seems to me cold, +artificial, narrow, insincere. It wants nobleness. It does not impress +me as being the face of a frivolous woman, a coquette, a court +butterfly; but rather that of one who is always playing a part which +sometimes wearies. If I were to form my own impressions of the Empress +of the French merely from her face, I should set her down as a keen, +politic woman, with brains enough to be crafty, not enough to be great. +I should set her down as a woman who needs and loves the stimulus of +incessant excitement, just as much as a certain class of actress does. +Indeed, I think I have seen in the face of more than one actress just +such an habitual expression, off the stage, as one may see in the +countenance of the French Empress. I fear that sweet and gracious smile, +which is said to be so captivating to those for whose immediate and +special homage it is put on, changes into sudden blankness or weariness +when its momentary business has been done. Sam Slick tells us of a lady +whose smile dropped from her face the moment the gazer's eyes were +withdrawn "like a petticoat when the strings break;" and if I might +apply this irreverent comparison to the smile of an Empress, I would say +that I think I have noted just such a change in the expression of the +brilliant Eugenie. Indeed, it must be a tiresome part, that which she +has had to play through all these resplendent years; a part thrilling +with danger, made thorny by many sharp vexations. Were the Empress of +the French the mere _belle_ of a court, she might doubtless have +joyfully swallowed all the bitternesses for the sake of the brightness +and splendor of her lot; were she a woman of high, imperial genius, a +Maria Theresa, an Anne of Austria, she might have found in the mere +enjoyment of power, or in the nobler aspirings of patriotism, abundant +compensation for her individual vexations. But being neither a mere +coquette nor a woman of genius, being neither great enough to rise +wholly above her personal troubles, nor small enough to creep under them +untouched, she must have suffered enough to render her life very often a +weary trial; and the traces of that weariness can be seen on her face +when the court look is dropped for a moment. + +The Empress seems to have passed through three phases of character, or +at least to have made on the public opinion of France three successive +and different impressions. For a long time she was set down as a mere +coquette, a creature whose soul soared no higher than the aspiration +after a bonnet or a bracelet, whose utmost genius exhausted itself in +the invention of a crinoline. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any +invention known to modern Europe had so sudden and wonderful a success +or made the inventor so talked about as Eugenie's famous _jupon +d'acier_. A sour and cynical Republican of my acquaintance once declared +that anybody might have known the Empress to be a _parvenue_ by the mere +fact that she could and did invent a petticoat; for he maintained that +no born emperor or empress ever was known to have done even so much in +the way of invention. Decidedly, the Empress did a great deal of harm in +those her earlier and more brilliant days. To her influence and example +may be ascribed the passion for mere extravagance and variety of dress +which has spread of late years among all the fashionable and would-be +fashionable women of Europe and America. It is not too much to say that +the Empress of the French demoralized, in this sense, the womanhood of +two generations. How literally debauching her influence was to the +women immediately under its control, the women of the fashionable world +of Paris, I need not stop to tell. Graceful, gracious, and elegant as +she is, she did undoubtedly succeed in branding with a stamp of +vulgarity the brilliant court of the Second Empire. It is not wonderful +if scandal said coarse and bitter things about the goddess of +prodigality who presided over the revels of the Tuileries. The most +absurd stories used to be told of the amusements which went on in the +private gardens of the palace and in its inner circles; and the levity +and occasional flightiness of a vivacious young woman thirsting for +fresh gayeties and new excitements were perverted and magnified into +reckless and wanton extravagances. Of course it was inevitable that +there should be scandal over the birth of the Prince Imperial. Were the +Empress Eugenie chaste as ice, pure as unsunned snow, she could not, +under the circumstances, escape that calumny. + +About the time of her sudden and mysterious escapade to London, the +Empress began to emerge a little from the character of a mere woman of +fashion, and to become known and felt as a politician. People say that +some at least of the influence and control which she began to obtain +over her husband was owing to her knowledge of his many infidelities and +his reluctance to provoke her into open quarrel. Unless Eugenie was +wholly free from the jealousy which is supposed to lie in the heart of +every other woman, she must have suffered cruelly in this way for many +years. In her own court circles, at her own side, were ladies whom +universal report designated as successive _maitresses en titre_ of the +Emperor Napoleon. Stories, too, of his indulgence in low and gross +amours were told everywhere, and, true or false (charity itself could +not well doubt that some of them were true), must have reached the +Empress's ears. She suffered severely, and she took to politics--perhaps +as a harassed man sometimes takes to drinking. Her political influence +was, in its day, simply disastrous. She was always on the wrong side, +and she was always impetuous, unreasoning, and pertinacious, as cynical +people say is the way of women. She became a devotee of the narrowest +kind; and just as Madame de Maintenon's religious bigotry did infinitely +more harm to France than the vilest profligacy of a Pompadour or a +Dubarry could have done, so the religious fervor of the Empress Eugenie +threatened at one time to prove a worse thing for the State and for +Europe than if she had really carried on during all her lifetime the +palace orgies which her enemies ascribed to her. Reaction, +Ultramontanism, illiberalism, superstition, found a patroness and leader +in her. She fought for the continued occupation of Rome; she battled +against the unity of Italy; she recommended and urged the Mexican +expedition. Louis Napoleon is personally a good-natured, easy-going sort +of man, averse to domestic disputes, fully conscious, no doubt, of his +frequent liability to domestic censure. What wonder if European politics +sometimes had to suffer heavily for the tolerated presence of this or +that too notorious lady in the inner circles of the French court? "Who +is the Countess de ----?" I once asked of a Parisian friend who was +attached to the Imperial household--I was speaking of a lady whose +beauty and whose audacities of dress were then much talked of in the +French capital. "The latest favorite," was the reply. "I shouldn't +wonder if her presence at court cost another ten years of the occupation +of Rome." + +With the Empress's introduction to politics and political intrigue, the +era of scandal seems to have closed for her. She dressed as brilliantly +and extravagantly as ever, and she would take as much pains about her +toilet for the benefit of Persigny and Baroche and Billault at a Council +of State as for a ball in the Tuileries. She received the same sort of +company, was surrounded by the same ladies and the same cavaliers as +ever. But she ceased to be herself a subject of scandal--a fact which is +not a little remarkable when one remembers how many bitter enemies she +made for herself at this period of her career. She seems to have +seriously contemplated the assumption of a great political and religious +part--the part of the patroness and protectress of the Papacy. I believe +she studied hard to educate herself for this part, and indeed for the +work in politics generally which devolved upon her. The position of +Vicegerent, assigned to her by the Emperor during his absence in the +Lombardy campaign, stirred up political ambition within her, and she +seems to have shown a remarkable aptitude for political work. She +certainly sustained the opinion expressed by John Stuart Mill in his +"Subjection of Women," that the business of politics, from which laws in +general shut women out, is just the one intellectual occupation in +which, whenever they have had a chance, they have proved themselves the +equals of men. When Eugenie was raised to the Imperial throne, she +appears to have had no better education than any young Spanish woman of +her class, and that certainly is not much. A lady once assured me that +she was one of a group who were presented to the Empress at the +Tuileries, and that there being in the group two beautiful girls from +America, to whom Eugenie desired to be particularly gracious, her +Imperial Majesty began to ask them several questions about their native +land, and astonished them almost beyond the capacity to reply by kindly +inquiring whether they had come from New York "over the sea, or over the +land." But the Empress has read up a good deal, and mastered much other +knowledge besides that of geography, since those salad days. Meanwhile, +she became more and more the divinity of the Ultramontanes; and the +French court presented the interesting spectacle of having two rival and +extreme parties, one led by the Emperor's wife, and the other by his +cousin, Prince Napoleon, between whom the Emperor himself maintained an +attitude something like that of the central figure in a game of seesaw. +I presume there can be little doubt that the Empress regarded her +husband's portly cousin with a cordial detestation. She is not a woman +endowed with a keen sense of humor, nor in any case would she be quite +likely to enjoy anything which was humorous at her own expense; and +Prince Napoleon is credited broadly with having said things concerning +her which doubtless made his friends and followers and boon companions +laugh, but which, reported to her, as they assuredly would be, must have +made her cheek flame and her lips quiver. Moreover, the Red Prince was +notoriously in the habit of turning into jest some things more sacred in +the eyes of the Imperial devotee than even her own reputation. She +feared his tongue, his reckless wit, his smouldering ambition. She +feared him for her boy, whose rival and enemy he might come to be; and +Prince Napoleon had more sons than one. Therefore the rivalry was keen +and bitter. She was for the Pope; he was for Italy and the Revolution. +She sympathized with the South in the American civil war; Prince +Napoleon was true to his principles and stood by the North. She favored +the Mexican enterprise; he opposed it. She was for all manner of +repressive action as regarded political speaking and writing; he was for +a free platform and free press. Her triumph came when, during the +Emperor's visit to Algeria, Prince Napoleon delivered his famous Ajaccio +speech--a speech terribly true and shockingly indiscreet--and was +punished by an Imperial rebuke, which led him to resign all his +political offices and withdraw absolutely from public life for several +successive years. + +But just when the Empress seemed to have the field all to herself, her +political influence began somehow to wane. Perhaps she grew a little +weary of the work of statecraft; perhaps she had not been so successful +in some of her favorite projects as she had expected to be. The Mexican +expedition turned out a dismal, ghastly failure, and that enterprise had +always been regarded as the joint work of the two influences which +cynical people say have usually been most disastrous in politics--the +priest and the petticoat. Then the idea of working out the scheme of +European politics from the central point of the Tuileries was suddenly +exploded by the unexpected intrusion of Prussia, and the dazzling +victory in which the Bonaparte as well as the Hapsburg was overthrown +and humbled. The old framework of things was disjointed by this +surprising event. A new political centre of gravity had to be sought for +Europe. France was rudely pushed aside. The fair Empress, who had been +training herself for quite a different condition of things, found +herself now confronted by new, strange, and bewildering combinations. +One thing is highly to her credit. I have been assured by people who +claim to know something of the matter, that her earnest influence was +used to induce the French Government to accept, without remonstrance, +the new situation. While Louis Napoleon was committing the inexcusable +blunder of feeling his way towards a war with Prussia, and thereby +subjecting himself to the ignominy of having to draw hastily back, the +voice of the Empress, I am assured, was always raised for peace. But I +think the new situation was too much for her. She had made up for a game +of politics between the Pope and Italy; when other players and other +stakes appeared, the Empress was disinclined to undertake a new course +of education. She thereupon passed into the third phase--that of +philanthropic devotee, Lady Bountiful, and mother of her people; and +since then, if she cannot be said to have grown universally popular, she +may fairly be described as having got rid of nearly all her former +unpopularity. Her good deeds began to be magnified everywhere, and even +ancient enemies were content to sing her praises, or, at least, to hear +them sung. + +Undoubtedly she has a kindly, charitable heart, and can do heroic as +well as graceful things. Her famous visitation of the cholera hospitals +may doubtless have been done partly for effect, but even in this sense +it showed a lofty appreciation of the duties of an Empress, and could +not have been conceived or carried out by an ignoble nature. When the +cholera appeared in Madrid, the fat, licentious woman who then cumbered +and disgraced the throne of Spain, fled in dismay from her capital; and +this act of peculiarly unwomanlike cowardice told heavily against her +and hurried her deeply down into that public contempt which is so fatal +to sovereigns. The Empress Eugenie, on the other hand, dignified and +served herself and her husband by her fearless exposure of her own life +in the cause of humanity and charity. Kindly and generous deeds of hers +are constantly reported in Paris, and these things go far in keeping up +the superstition of loyalty. Every one knows how gracious and winning +the Empress can be in her personal relations with those who approach +her. Sometimes her demeanor and actions come into sharp contrast with +those of other sovereigns in matters less momentous than the visiting of +death-charged hospital wards. I have heard of an American lady who once +made some rich and complete collections of specimens of American +foliage, collected them at immense labor, arranged them with exquisite +taste in two large and beautiful volumes, and sent one as an offering to +Queen Victoria, the other to the Empress of the French. From the British +court came back the volume itself, with a formal reply from an official +intimating that Her Majesty the Queen made it a rule not to accept such +gifts. From Paris came a letter of genial, graceful acceptance, written +by the Empress Eugenie herself, full of good taste, good feeling, and +courteous, ladylike expression. These are small things, but womanly tact +and grace seldom have much opportunity of expressing themselves save in +just such small things. + +The Empress then has of late years faded a little out of political +life. I think it may be taken for granted that although she is a quick, +clever woman, with talents far beyond the mere inventing of bonnets and +petticoats, she is not gifted with any political genius, not qualified +to see quickly into the heart of a difficult question, not endowed with +the capacity to surmount a great crisis. I have never heard anything +which induces me to think that Eugenie's intellect and power would count +for much in the chances of the dynasty should Louis Napoleon die while +his son is yet a boy. Like Louis Napoleon himself, she was twice +misjudged: first when people set her down as an empty-headed coquette, +and next when they cried her up as a woman with a genius for government. +So far as one may venture to predict, I think she would not prove strong +enough for the place, if evil fortune should throw upon her the task of +preserving the throne for her boy. + +Recent events seem to me to prove that the imperial system is less +strong and more shaky than most of us would have supposed six months +ago. I for one do fully believe that the recent disturbances are the +genuine indications of a profound and bitter popular discontent. I beg +the readers of THE GALAXY to be very cautious how they form an estimate +of the situation from the correspondence and editorial articles of the +London press. If the "Times" believes Bonapartism safe and strong in +Paris, I have only to remark that the "Times" believed the same, almost +up to the bitter end, of Bonapartism in Mexico. There are very few +London journals which can be trusted where the politics of France are +concerned. Not that the journals are bribed; everybody knowing anything +of the London press knows how absurd the idea of such bribery is; but +that all London Philistinism (and Philistinism does a good deal of the +writing for the London papers) considers it genteel and respectable, and +the right sort of thing generally, to go in for the Empire and sneer at +revolution. I have read with no little wonder many of the comments of +the London, and indeed some of the New York journals, on Henri Rochefort +and his colleagues. One would think that in order to prove a certain +revolutionary movement powerless and contemptible, you had only to show +that its leaders were themselves contemptible and disreputable persons. +Some of the journals here and in London write as if the Empire must be +safe because the satire of the "Lanterne" and the "Marseillaise" seems +to them coarse and witless, and because they have heard that Henri +Rochefort is an insincere man, of doubtful courage and tainted moral +character. One longs to ask whether the "Pere Duchesne" and the "Vieux +Cordelier" were publications fit to be read in the drawing-rooms of +virtuous families; whether Mirabeau's private character was quite +blameless; whether Marat and Hebert had led reputable lives; whether +Camille Desmoulins was habitually received into the highest circles; +whether Theroigne de Mericourt was the sort of young woman one's wife +would like to invite to tea. The imbecility with which certain +journalists go on day after day trying to assure themselves and the +world that imperialism has nothing to fear at the hands of a movement +led by scurrilous and disreputable men, has something in it at once +amusing and provoking. The strength of a revolutionary movement is not +exactly to be estimated by the claims of its leaders to carry off the +_prix Monthyon_ or the Holy Grail. Perhaps if it were to be so +estimated, it would be hard to say where the victory should go in the +present instance. For the worst of Rochefort's colleagues have never +been accused of any profligacies and basenesses so bad as those which +universal public opinion ascribes to the leading Bonapartes and some of +their most influential supporters. Undoubtedly there is a great deal of +scurrility and even worse in the papers conducted by Rochefort. It is +not in good taste to go on asking who was the mother of De Morny, who +was the father of Walewski; how the present Walewski, Walewski _fils_, +comes to be called a count, and who was his mother, and so on; and the +direct and libellous attacks on the Empress are utterly indefensible. If +one were making up a memoir of Henri Rochefort, or engaged in a debating +society's controversy on his character, one would have to admit that he +is by no means a model demagogue, a pattern patriot. But one might at +the same time hint that, judging by historical precedent, he is probably +all the more formidable as a revolutionary leader for that very reason. +His literary attacks on the Government are by no means all vulgar, or +scurrilous, or contemptible. There was fresh and genuine humor as well +as telling satire in the "Lanterne's" early declaration of allegiance to +the Napoleons, the purport of which was that, feeling bound to express +his devotion to a Napoleon, Rochefort had selected as the object of his +loyal homage Napoleon the Second, the sovereign who never coerced the +press, or corrupted the Senate, or robbed the nation of its liberty, or +exiled its patriots, or carried on a Mexican expedition, or impoverished +the country to maintain a gigantic army. But there is one thing +certain--that whether Rochefort is witty or not, wise or not, he has +waked an echo throughout France and Europe in general which even very +wise and undeniably witty enemies of the Empire did not succeed in +creating. Nothing he has written will compare in artistic strength of +satire or invective with Victor Hugo's "Chatimens" or "Napoleon le +Petit." Eugene Pelletan's "Nouvelle Babylone" was a prolonged outpouring +of indignant eloquence by a gentleman, a scholar, and a thinker. +Rogeard's "Propos de Labienus" was a piece of really fine sarcasm. But +not the most celebrated of these attacks on the Empire created anything +like the sensation which Rochefort has succeeded in creating by the +constant "pegging away" of his bitter, envenomed, and unscrupulous pen. +Indeed, the reason is obvious--at least to those who, like me, believe +that the great mass of the Parisian population (the army, the officials, +and the priests not counted) are heartily sick of Bonapartism, and would +get rid of it if they could. Rochefort assails the Empire and the +Emperor in a style which they can understand. He is a master of a +certain kind of coarse, rasping ridicule, which delights the disaffected +_ouvrier_; and he has no scruple about assailing any weak place he can +find in his enemy, even though in doing so the heart of a woman has +likewise to be wounded. An angry and disaffected populace delights in +this kind of thing. The fact that Rochefort has created such a sensation +is the best proof in the world that the Parisian populace is angry and +disaffected. Rochefort has a happy gift of epithets, which goes a long +way with admirers and followers such as his. I doubt whether a whole +chapter could have described more accurately and vividly the person, +character, and career of Prince Pierre Bonaparte than Rochefort did when +he branded him as "a social bandit." Personally, Rochefort is not +qualified to be a demagogue in the sense that Danton was a demagogue, +and he can make no pretension to be a revolutionary leader of a high +class. But he can incite a populace, madden the hearts of disaffected +crowds, as the bitter tongue of a shrill woman might do, and as the +tongue of a great orator might perhaps fail to do. Doubtless Rochefort +and his literary sword-and-buckler men are not strong enough to create a +serious disturbance of themselves alone. But if a moment of general +uncertainty and unsettlement came, they might prove a dangerous +disturbing force. If, for example, there should come a crisis which of +itself rendered change of some kind necessary, when all the chances of +the future might depend upon a single hour or perhaps a single decisive +command, and when it was not certain who had the right, who would assume +the responsibility to give the command, then indeed the bitter screams, +and jeers, and invectives of these reckless literary bravos might have +much to do with the ordering of the situation. If, for example, the +Emperor were to die just now, who shall venture to say how much the +chances of the Empress and her son might not be affected at that moment +of terrible crisis by the pens and the tongues of Rochefort and his +followers? + +Some time, in the natural course of things, the Empress may expect to +have to face such a crisis. It is highly probable that the time will +come while yet her boy is young and dependent upon her guardianship and +care. Has she won for herself the affection, confidence, and loyalty of +France, to such an extent that she could count upon national support? I +am convinced that she has not. She is much liked and even loved by those +who know her. They have countless anecdotes to tell of her affectionate +ways as a mother, of her generosity and kindness as a woman. But +although she has outlived many of the early prejudices against her, she +is still regarded with distrust and dislike by the older families of +France; and I am confident that a large proportion of the working +classes in Paris and the large towns delight to believe the worst things +that malice and slander can say to her detriment. The priests and the +shopkeepers are probably her best friends; but I am not aware that +priests and shopkeepers have ever proved themselves very powerful +bulwarks against sudden popular revolution. The generals and the army +might of course remain perfectly loyal to her; probably would if they +had no time to consider the situation, and there were no favorite rival +in the way (if Prince Napoleon, for example, were a brilliant soldier, +she would not have a ghost of a chance against him); but it must be +remembered that the loyalty of an army is something like the +epigrammatic description of the honor of a woman: when there is any +deliberation, it is likely to be lost; and the claims of the Empress are +certainly not such as absolutely to forbid deliberation and render it +impossible. Much of course would depend on the woman herself. There was +a moment when Catharine of Russia's unfortunate husband might have +carried all before him if he had only seized the chance; and he did not +seize it, and so lost all. There was a moment when Catharine might have +utterly failed if she had not risen to the height of the crisis, and +seized the opportunity with both hands; and she did rise to the height +of the crisis, did seize the opportunity, and so won all. Place Eugenie +in such a position, and is she a woman to win? Is she in fact a woman of +genius? I think not. Nothing that I have ever heard of her--and I have +known many who were her intimate friends--has led me to believe her +endowed with a quick, strong, commanding intellect. Mentally she seems +to be narrow and shallow; in temper she is quick, capricious, full of +warm personal affections and almost groundless personal dislikes. I have +a strong idea that no matter what the urgency of the crisis, she would +stay to make herself picturesque before taking any public action; and I +venture to think she would be guided by counsel only where she happened +to have a personal liking for the counsellor. She cannot, I fancy, be +trusted at a great crisis to make the fortune of her son. Enough if she +do not mar it at such a time. + +Political considerations apart, one can only wish her well. Her face is +one which ought to smile sweetly and gracefully through history. If fate +and France will endure the Bonapartes for another generation or so, +there will be some consolation to gallant and romantic souls in the +thought that thereby this gracious, queenly woman will be allowed to +make a happy end of her brilliant, not untroubled life. Thus far we may, +in summing up her career, describe her, first, as a bright, vivacious +young coquette, with a dash of the adventuress about her, ranging the +world in search of a husband; then a woman suddenly and surprisingly +raised to the dazzling rank of an Empress, and a little bewildered by +the change; then a splendid leader of the world's fashion, magnificently +frivolous and heedless; then a political _intrigante_, the supreme +patroness of Ultramontanism; and now a quiet, queenly mother, verging +toward that kind of devoteeism in which some satirical person declares +that coquetry in France is sure to end. She is not a woman to make any +deep impression on history. She has neither gifts enough nor faults +enough. As a politician she has been a failure, and perhaps worse than a +failure; but she has been fortunate enough to escape from all public +responsibility for her mistakes, and may get quietly into history as +merely an intelligent, good-natured, and beautiful woman. Posterity will +probably see her and appreciate her sufficiently in her portrait by +Winterhalter: a name, a vague memory, and a smooth fair picture with +bright complexion, shining hair, and noble shoulders, alone carrying +down to other times the history of the Third Napoleon's wife. Only great +misfortunes could redeem her from this destiny of half oblivion; and +history has names enough that are burnt by misfortune into eternal +memory, and may well spare hers. One great claim she has to a liberal +construction of her character: her personal enemies are those who do not +know her well; her intimates seem to be always her friends. She has one +good quality, which her husband with all his faults likewise possesses: +she has never in her imperial splendor forgotten or neglected or been +ashamed of old acquaintances and friends. I have heard scores of +anecdotes from people who know her well--I have heard one such anecdote +since I began writing this article--which prove her to be entirely above +the mean and vulgar weakness of the _parvenu_, who shrinks in her +magnificence from any acquaintanceship or association likely to remind +her of less brilliant days. Taken on the whole, the Empress Eugenie is +better than her fortunes and her surroundings might have made her. She +is, I think, a woman much more deserving of respect than Josephine +Beauharnais, whose misfortunes, joined with the quiet pathetic dignity +of her retirement and her later years, have made the world forget the +levities, frivolities, and follies of her earlier life. She has shown a +quicker and better appreciation of the duties and difficulties of her +station, and the temper of the people among whom she had to live, than +was at any time shown by Marie Antoinette. Whether she could ever under +the most favorable conditions prove an Anne of Austria may well be +doubted; and we must all hope for her own sake that she may never be put +to the proof. She has at least made it clear that she is no mere Reine +Crinoline; she has shown that she possesses some heart, some courage, +and some brains; she has had sense enough to retrieve blunders, and +merit enough to live down calumny. The best thing one can hope for her +is that she may never again be placed in a position which would tempt +and allow her to make political influence the instrument of religious +bigotry. The greatest woman her native country ever produced, Isabella +of Castile, became with all her virtues and genius a curse to Spain, +because of her bigotry and her power; and there was a time when it +seemed as if the Empress Eugenie was likely to make for herself an +odious fame as the chief patroness of a conspiracy against the religious +and political liberties of the south of Europe. Let us hope that in her +future career she may be saved from any such temptation, and that she +may be kept as much as possible out of all political complications where +religion interferes; and if she be thus graced by fortune, it is all but +certain that whatever her future years may bring, she will deserve and +receive a genial record in the history of France. + + + + +THE PRINCE OF WALES. + + +"It is now sixteen or seventeen years," says Edmund Burke, in that +famous passage to which one is almost ashamed to allude any more, so +hackneyed has it been, "since first I saw the Queen of France, then the +Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which +she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision." That glowing, +impassioned apostrophe did more to make partisans and admirers for poor +Marie Antoinette among all English-speaking peoples, probably for all +time, than any charms, or virtues, or misfortunes of the Queen and the +woman could have done. I can never of late read or recall to mind the +burning words of Burke, without thinking of a certain day in March some +seven years ago, when I stood on a platform in Trafalgar Square, London, +and saw a bright, beautiful young face smiling and bending to a vast +enthusiastic crowd on either side, and I, like everybody else, was +literally stricken with admiration of the beauty, the sweetness, and the +grace of the Princess Alexandra of Denmark. In truth, I am not in +general an enthusiast about princes or princesses; I do not believe that +the king's face usually gives grace. In this instance the beauty of the +Princess Alexandra had been so noisily trumpeted by literary lacqueys +already, that one's natural instinct was to feel disappointed, and to +say so, when the Princess herself came in sight. But it was impossible +to feel disappointment, or anything but admiration, at the sight of that +bright, fair face, so transparent in the clearness of its complexion, so +delicate and refined in its outlines, so sweet and gracious in its +expression. I think something like the old-fashioned, chivalric, +chimerical feeling of personal loyalty must have flamed up for the +moment that day in the hearts of many men, who perhaps would have been +ashamed to confess that their first experience of such an emotion was +due to a passing glimpse of the face of a pretty, tremulous girl. + +If ours were days of augury, men might have shuddered at the omens which +accompanied the wedding ceremonies of the Prince and Princess of Wales. +When Goethe, then a youth, surveyed the preparations for the reception +of Marie Antoinette at Strasbourg, on her way to Paris, he observed +significantly on the inauspicious fact that in the grand chamber adorned +for her coming, the tapestry represented the wedding of Jason and Medea. +The civil authorities of London certainly did not greet the fair +stranger with any such grisly and ghastly emblazonings; but there were +other and even more inauspicious omens offered by chance and the hour. +The sky darkened, a dreary wind whistled; presently the rain came down +in drenching streams that would not abate. There was a mourning-garb at +the wedding--the black dress of the Queen, who would not lay aside her +widow's-weeds even for that hour; and the night of the wedding, when the +streets of London were illuminated, the crowd was so great that, as on a +memorable occasion in the early married life of Marie Antoinette, people +were crushed and trampled to death amid the universal jubilation. + +Well, we defy augury, with Hamlet. But I think some at least in the +crowd who welcomed Alexandra felt a kind of doubt and pity as to her +future, which needed no inspiration from omens and superstition. No +foreign princess has ever been so popular in England as Alexandra; and +assuredly some at least of the affection felt for her springs from a +pity which, whether called for or not, is genuine and universal. The +last time I saw the Princess of Wales was within a very few days of my +leaving England to visit the United States. It was in Drury Lane +Theatre, then fitted up as an opera house in consequence of the recent +burning of Her Majesty's Theatre. The Prince of Wales, his wife, and one +of his sisters were in their box. I had not seen the Princess for some +time, and I was painfully impressed with the change which had come over +her. Remembering, as it was easy to do, the brightness of her beauty +during the early days of her marriage, there was something almost +shocking in the altered appearance of her face. It looked wasted and +haggard; the complexion, which used to be so dazzlingly fair, had grown +dull, and, if I may say so, discolored; and I must be ungracious enough +to declare bluntly that, to my eyes at least, there seemed little trace +indeed of the beauty of a few years before left in that dimmed and worn +countenance. "Only the eyes remained--they would not go." Of course, it +must be remembered that the Princess was then only just recovering from +a long, painful, and exhausting illness; and she may have--I truly hope +she has--since then regained all her brightness and beauty. In any case, +it would be unjust indeed to assume that the wasted look of the Princess +was to be attributed to domestic unhappiness. But even a very +matter-of-fact and unsentimental person, looking at her then, and +remembering what she so lately was, might be excused if he fancied that +some of the unpropitious omens which surrounded the Princess's marriage +had already begun to justify themselves in practical fulfilment. + +For even at the time of the marriage of the Prince and Princess there +were not wanting prophets of evil who predicted that this royal union +would not prove much happier than state-made marriages commonly are. +Even then there were stories and reports afloat which ascribed to the +Prince habits and tendencies not likely to promote the domestic +happiness of a delicate and refined young wife, hardly more than a mere +child in years. Indeed, there was already considerable doubt in the +public mind as to the personal character of the Prince of Wales. He +certainly did not look a very intellectual or refined sort of person +even then, and some at least were inclined to think him, as Steerforth +says of little Em'ly's lover, "rather a chuckle-headed kind of fellow," +to get such a girl. There was, certainly, a breath of serious distrust +abroad. On the Prince's coming of age, and again, I think, on the +announcement of his approaching marriage, the London daily papers had +set themselves to preaching sermons at him; and a very foolish chorus of +sermons that was which broke out from all those tongues together. The +only marked effect of this outburst of lay-preaching was, I fancy, to +impress the public mind with the idea that the Prince was really a very +much more dreadful young man than there was any good reason to believe +him. People naturally imagined that the writers who poured forth such +eloquent, wise, and suggestive admonitions must know a great deal more +than they felt disposed to hint at; whereas, I venture to think that, in +truth, the majority of the writers were disposed to hint at a great deal +more than they knew. For, indeed, almost all that is generally and +substantially known of the Prince of Wales has been learned and observed +since his marriage. + +Still, even before, and long before the marriage, there were ominous +rumors. Those that I mention I give simply as rumors--not, indeed, the +mere babble of the streets, but as the kind of thing which people told +you who professed to know--the talk of the House of Commons, and the +clubs, and the fashionable drawing-rooms and smoking-rooms. People told +you that the Prince and his father had had many quarrels arising out of +the extravagance, dissipation, and wrong-headedness of the former; and +there was even a painful and cruel report thus whispered about that the +death of Prince Albert was the result of a cold he had taken from +walking incautiously in a heavy rain during excitement caused by a +quarrel with his son. Stories were told of this and that _amour_ and +_liaison_ in Ireland when the Prince of Wales was with the camp on the +Curragh of Kildare; of his excesses when he was a student at the +University; of his escapades at many other times and places. Certain +actresses of a low class, and other women of a still lower class, were +pointed out in London as special favorites of the Prince of Wales. Of +course every man of sense knew, first, that stories of this kind must be +taken with a large amount of allowance for exaggeration; and, next, that +the public must not expect all the virtues of a saint to belong to the +early years of a prince of the family of Guelph. In England public +opinion, although it has grown much more exacting of late years on the +score of decorum than it used to be, is still disposed to look over +without censure a good deal of extravagance and dissipation in young and +unmarried men, especially if they be men of rank. Therefore, if the +rumors which attended the early career of the Prince of Wales had not +followed him into his married years, the world would soon have forgotten +all about his youthful indiscretions. But it became a serious question +for the whole nation when it began to be whispered everywhere that the +Prince was growing worse instead of better during his married life, and +when to the suspicion that he was wasting his own youth and his own +credit came to be added the belief that he was neglecting and injuring +the young and beautiful woman whom state reasons had assigned to him as +a wife. In good truth, it is really a question of public and historical +interest whether the Queen of England is likely to be succeeded by an +Albert the Good or another George the Fourth; and I am not therefore +inviting the readers of THE GALAXY to descend to the useless discussion +of a mere piece of idle court scandal when I ask them to consider with +me the probabilities of the future from such survey as we can take of +the aspects of the present. + +Those who saw the Prince of Wales when he visited this country, would +surely fail to recognize the slender, fair-haired, rather graceful youth +of that day in the heavy, fat, stolid, prematurely bald, +elderly-young-man of this. It would not be easy to see in any assembly a +more stupid-looking man than the Prince of Wales is now. On horseback he +shows to best advantage. He rides well, and the pleasure he takes in +riding lends something of animation to his usually inexpressive face. +But when his eyes and features lapse into their habitual condition of +indolent, good-natured, stolid repose, all light of intellect seems to +have been banished. The outline of the head and face, and the general +expression, seemed to me of late to be growing every day more and more +like the head and face of George the Third. Anybody who may happen to +have a shilling or half-crown of George the Third's time, can see on the +coin a very fair presentment of the countenance of the present +heir-apparent of the English throne. Whether the Prince of Wales +resembles George the Fourth in character and tastes or not, he certainly +does not resemble him in face. Even a court sycophant could not pretend +to see beauty or grace in our present Prince. + +I think that to the eye of the cynic or the satirist the Prince of Wales +shows to greatest advantage when he sits in his box at an advanced hour +of some rather heavy classic opera, or has to endure a long succession +of speeches at a formal public dinner. The heavy head droops, the heavy +jaws hang, the languid eyes close, the heir-apparent sinks into a doze. +Loyalty itself can see nothing dignified or kingly in him then. I have +watched him thus as he sat in his box during some high-class, and to +him, doubtless, very heavy performance at the Italian opera, and have +thought that at times he might remind irreverent and disloyal observers +of Pickwick's immortal fat boy. I have sometimes observed that his +little dozes appeared to afford innocent amusement to his sisters, if +any of them happened to be in the box; and occasionally one of the +Princesses would playfully poke her slumbering brother in the princely +ribs, and the Heir of all the Ages would open his eyes and smile +languidly, and try to look at the stage and listen to the music; and +then, after a while, the heavy head would sink once more on the vast +expanse of shirt-front in which the Prince seems to delight, and the fat +boy would go to sleep again. But this would only happen at certain +performances. There were times when the Prince had eyes and ears open +and attentive, even in the opera house. His tastes in general, however, +are not for high art in music or the drama. He is very fond of the +little theatres where the vivacious blondes display their unconcealed +attractions. There are, as everybody knows, several minor theatres in +London where the audience, or, I should say more properly, the +spectators, will be found to consist chiefly of men, while, on the other +hand, the performers are chiefly women. These are the temples of the leg +drama. "_Piece aux jambes? Piece aux cuisses!_" indignantly exclaims +Eugene Pelletan, denouncing such performances in his "Nouvelle +Babylone"; and he goes on to add some cumulative illustrations which I +omit. Well, the Prince of Wales loves the _piece aux jambes_, and the +theatres where it flourishes. He constantly visits theatres at which his +wife and sisters are never seen, and in which it would be idle to deny +that there are actresses who have made themselves conspicuous objects of +popular scandal. + +Now, I am far from saying that this necessarily implies anything worse +than a low taste on the part of the Prince of Wales. But there are +stations in life which render private bad taste a public sin. In London, +of late, there has been a just outcry against a certain kind of +theatrical performance. It is held to be demoralizing and degrading that +the stage should be made simply a show-place for the exhibition of +half-naked women, for the audacious display of legs and bosoms. Now, I +beg to say for myself that I have entire faith in the dramatic as in +every other art; that I believe it always when truthfully pursued +vindicates itself, and that I think any costume which the true and +legitimate needs of the drama require is fitting, proper, and modest. I +regard the ballet, in its place, as a graceful and delightful +entertainment; and I do not believe that any healthy and pure mind ought +to be offended by the kind of costume which the dance requires. But +artists and moralists in London alike objected, and justly objected, to +performances the whole purpose, and business, and attraction of which +was the exhibition of a crowd of girls as nearly naked as they could +venture to show themselves in public. + +Now this was undoubtedly the kind of exhibition which the Prince of +Wales especially favored and patronized. Night after night, even during +the long and lamentable illness of his young wife, he visited such +theatres, and gazed upon "those prodigies of myriad nakednesses." +Likewise did he much delight in the performances of Schneider--that high +priestess of the obscene, rich with the spoils of princes. I say +emphatically that there were actions, gestures, _bouffonneries_ +performed amid peals of laughter and thunders of applause by this fat +Faustina in the St. James's Theatre, London, which were only fit to have +gladdened the revels of Sodom and Gomorrah. And this woman was, +artistically at least, the prime favorite of the Prince of Wales; and +when his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, reached England for the first +time after his escape from the Fenian bullet in Sydney, the _par nobile +fratrum_ celebrated the auspicious event by hastening to the theatre +where Schneider kicked and wriggled and helped out the point of +lascivious songs by a running accompaniment of obscene gestures. + +So much at least has to be said against the Prince of Wales, and cannot +be gainsaid. All that he could do by countenance and patronage to +encourage a debauching and degrading style of theatric entertainment, he +has done. He is said to be fond of the singing of the vulgar and low +buffoons of the music-halls, and to have had such persons brought +specially to his residence, Marlborough House, to sing for him. I have +been assured of this often by persons who professed to know; but I do +not know anything of it myself, nor is it indeed a matter of any +importance. The other facts are known to everybody who reads the London +papers. The manager or manageress of a theatre takes good care to +announce in the journals when a visit from the Prince of Wales has taken +place, and we all thus come to know how many times a week the little +theatric temples of nakedness have been honored by his presence. + +Am I attaching too much importance to such matters as this? I think not. +The social influence and moral example of a royal personage in England +are now almost the only agencies by which the royal personage can affect +us for good or evil. I hold that no man thoughtful or prudent enough, no +matter what his morals, to be fit to occupy the position assigned to the +Prince of Wales, would be guilty of lending his public and constant +patronage to such exhibitions and amusements as those which he +especially patronizes. Moreover, the Prince has often shown a disregard, +either cynical or stupid--probably the latter--for public opinion, a +heedlessness of public scandal, in other matters as well. He has made +companionship for himself among young noblemen conspicuous for their +debauchery. At a time, not very long ago, when the Divorce Court was +occupied with the hearing of a scandalous cause, in which a certain +young duke figured most prominently and disgracefully, this young duke +was daily and nightly to be seen the close companion of the Prince of +Wales. + +Let me touch upon another subject, of a somewhat delicate nature. I have +said that there were times when our Prince was always wide awake at the +opera house. There is a certain brilliant and capricious little singer +whom all England and Germany much admire, and who in certain operatic +parts has, I think, no rival. Now, public scandal said that the Prince +of Wales greatly admired this lady, and paid her the most marked +attentions. Public scandal, indeed, said a great deal more. I hasten to +record my conviction that, so far as the fair artiste was concerned, the +scandal was wholly unfounded, and that she is a woman of pure character +and honor. But the Prince was credited with a special admiration for +her; and I am sure the Prince's father under such circumstances would +have taken good care to lend no foundation, afford no excuse, for +scandal to rest upon. Now, I speak of what I have myself observed when I +say that the Prince of Wales, whenever he had an opportunity, always +demeaned himself as if he really desired to give the public good reason +for believing the scandal, or as if he was too far gone in infatuation +to be able to govern his actions. For he was always at the opera when +this lady sang; and he always conducted himself as if he wished to +blazon to the world his ostentatious and demonstrative admiration. When +the prima donna went off the stage, the Prince disappeared from his box; +when she came on the stage again, he returned to his seat; he lingered +behind all his party at the end, that he might give the last note of +applause to the disappearing singer; he made a more pertinacious show of +his enthusiasm than even the military admirer of Miss Snevellicci was +accustomed to do. Now, all this may have been only stolidity or +silliness, and may not have denoted anything like cynicism or coarse +disdain of public opinion; but whatever it indicated, it certainly did +not, I think, testify to the existence of qualities likely to be found +admirable or desirable in the heir to a throne. + +Of the truth or falsehood of the private scandals in general circulation +concerning the Prince of Wales I know nothing whatever. But everybody in +England is aware that such stories are told, and can name and point out +this or that titled lady as the heroine of each particular story. It +need hardly be said that when a man acquires the sort of reputation +which attaches to the Prince of Wales, nothing could be more unjust or +unreasonable than to accept, without some very strong ground of belief, +any story which couples his name with that of any woman belonging to the +society in which he moves. Obviously, it would be enough, in the eyes of +an English crowd, that the Prince should now pay any friendly attention +to any handsome duchess or countess in order to convert her into an +object of scandal. I am myself morally convinced that some of the titled +ladies who are broadly and persistently set down by British gossip as +mistresses of the Prince of Wales are as innocent of such a charge as if +they had never been within a thousand miles of a court. But the Prince +is a little unlucky wherever he goes, for scandal appears to pursue him +as Horace's black care follows the horseman. When the Prince of Wales +happens to be in Paris, he seems to be surrounded at once by the same +atmosphere of suspicion and evil report. Some two years ago I chanced to +be in Paris at the time the Prince was there, and I can answer for it +that observers who had never heard or read of the common gossip of +London formed the same impression of his general character that the +public of London had already adopted. The Prince was then paying special +attention to a brilliant and beautiful lady moving in the court circles +of the French capital, a lady who had but very recently distinguished +herself by appearing at one of the fancy balls of the Tuileries in the +character of the Archangel Michael or Raphael--it does not much matter +which--and attired in a costume which left the company no possibility of +doubting the symmetry of her limbs and the general shapeliness of her +person. Malicious satirists circulated thereupon an announcement that +the lady was to appear at the next fancy ball as "La Source," the +beautiful naked nymph so exquisitely painted by Ingres. This lady +received the special attentions of the Prince of Wales. He followed her, +people said, like her shadow; and a smart pun was soon in circulation, +which I refrain from giving because it contrives ingeniously to blend +with his name the name of the lady in question, and I am not writing a +scandalous chronicle. This was the time when the Prince made his royal +mother so very angry by attending the Chantilly races on a Sunday. When +he came back to London he had to take part in some public ceremonial--I +forget now what it was--at which the Queen had consented to be present. +Her Majesty was present, and I have been assured by a friend who stood +quite near that a sort of little scene was enacted which much +embarrassed those who had to take part in the official pageantry of the +occasion. Up came the Prince, who had travelled in hot haste from Paris, +and with a somewhat abashed and sheepish air approached his royal +mother. She looked at him angrily, and turned away. The Duke of +Cambridge, her cousin, made an awkward effort to mend matters by +bringing up the Prince again, and with the action of a friendly and +deprecating intercessor presenting the delinquent. This time, I am +assured, the Queen, with determined and angry gestures, and some words +spoken in a low tone, repelled intercessor and offender at once; and the +Prince of Wales retired before the threatened storm. The Duke of +Edinburgh, who had been lingering a little in the background--he, too, +had just come from Paris, and he had been to Chantilly--anxious to see +what kind of reception would be accorded to his brother, thought, +apparently, that he had seen enough to warrant him in keeping himself at +a modest distance on that occasion, and not encountering the terrors of +what Thackeray, in "The Rose and the Ring," describes as "the royal +eye." + +I have little doubt that Queen Victoria is a somewhat rigorous and +exacting mother, and I should be far from accepting her frown as +decisive with regard to the delinquencies of one of her sons. +Cigar-smoking alone would probably be accounted by the Queen a sin +hardly allowing of pardon. Her husband, Prince Albert, was a man so pure +of life, so free from nearly all the positive errors of manhood, so +remarkably endowed with at least all the negative virtues, that his +companionship might easily have spoiled her for the toleration of +natures less calm and orderly. I suspect that the Queen is one of that +class of thoroughly good women who, from mere lack of wide sympathies +and genial toleration, are not qualified to deal to the best advantage +with children who show a little inclination for irregularity and +self-indulgence. Nor do I believe that the Prince of Wales is the wicked +and brutal profligate that common libel makes him out. The shocking +story which one sees so often alluded to in the London correspondence of +certain American papers, and which attributes the long illness of the +Princess of Wales to the misconduct of her husband, I believe to be +utterly unfounded and unjustifiable. One of the London medical journals, +the "Lancet" I think it was, had the courage to refer directly to this +monstrous statement, and to give it an emphatic and authoritative +refutation. If the worst things said of the Prince of Wales with any +appearance of foundation were true, it is certain that he would still +not be any worse than many other European princes and sovereigns. I have +never heard anything said of the Prince of Wales half so bad as the +stories which are believed everywhere in Paris of the enormous +profligacies of Prince Napoleon; and it would be hardly possible for +charity itself to doubt that up to a very recent period the private life +of the Emperor of the French himself was stained with frequent and +reckless dissipation. Those who were in Vienna anywhere about the autumn +of 1866, will remember the stories which were told about the fatal +results of the exalted military command given by the imperial will to +certain favored generals, and the kind of influence by which those +generals had acquired imperial favor. Common report certainly describes +the Empress of Austria as being no happier in her domestic relations +than the Princess of Wales. Everybody knows what Victor Emanuel's +private character is, and what sort of hopeful youth is his eldest son, +Umberto. Therefore, the Prince of Wales could doubtless plead that he is +no worse than his neighbors; and even in his own family he might point +to other members no better than himself. The Duke of Cambridge, for +instance, has often been accused of profligacy and profligate +favoritism. I wish I could venture to repeat here, for the sake of the +genuine wit and keen satire of it, a certain epigram in Latin, composed +by an English military officer, to describe the influence which brought +about the sudden and remarkable promotion of another officer who was not +believed to be personally quite deserving of the rank conferred on him +by the Duke of Cambridge, commander-in-chief of the British army. But +the position of the Prince of Wales is very different from that of the +Duke of Cambridge, and he has to face a public opinion quite unlike that +which surrounds Prince Napoleon or the Emperor of the French. People in +France are not inclined to make any very serious complaint about the +amours of a prince, or even of an emperor. I do not venture to say that +there is much more of actual immorality in Paris than in London; but, +assuredly, a man may, without harm to his public and political +influence, acknowledge an amount of immorality in Paris which would be +utterly fatal to his credit and reputation in London. Moreover, some of +the illustrious profligates I have mentioned are distinguished by other +qualities as well as profligacy; but I cannot say that I have ever heard +any positively good quality, either of heart or intellect, ascribed to +the Prince of Wales. + +Unless his face, his head, his manners in public, and the tastes he so +conspicuously manifests wholly belie him, the heir to the British throne +is a remarkably dull young man. He cannot even deliver with any decent +imitation of intelligence the little speeches which Arthur Helps or +somebody else usually gets up for him when the exigencies of the +situation compel the Prince to make a speech in public. He is reputed to +be parsimonious even in his pleasures, and has managed to get himself +deeply into debt without being supposed to have wasted any of his +substance in obedience to a generous impulse. The Prince inherited a +splendid property. His prudent father had looked well after the revenues +of the duchy of Cornwall, which is the appanage of the Prince of Wales +(even in some very dingy parts of London you may if you hire a house +find that you have the Prince of Wales for a landlord), and the property +of the heir must have been raised to its very highest value. Yet it is +notorious that a very few years after he had attained his majority, +Albert Edward had contrived to get deeply immersed in debt. There was +for some time a scheme in contemplation to apply to Parliament for an +addition to the huge allowance made to the Prince of Wales; and the +"Times" and other newspapers were always urging the fact that the Queen +left the Prince to perform nearly all her social duties for her, as a +reason why the nation ought to award him an augmented income. It puzzles +people in London, who read the papers and who study, as most Britons do, +the occupations and pastimes of royalty, to know where the lavish and +regal hospitalities take place which the Prince of Wales is supposed to +dispense on behalf of his mother. However, the project for appealing to +the generosity of Parliament seems to have been put aside or to have +fallen through--I have read somewhere that the Queen herself has agreed +to increase her son's allowance out of her own ample and well-hoarded +purse--and the English public are not likely to be treated to any +Parliamentary debate on the subject just yet. But this much is certain, +that the same almost universal rumor which attributes coarse and +dissipated habits to the Prince of Wales attributes to him likewise a +mean and stingy parsimony where aught save his own pleasure is +concerned; and even there, if by any possibility the pleasure can be +obtained without superfluous cost. + +This then is the character which the son of the Queen of England bears, +in the estimation of the vast majority of his mother's subjects. Almost +any and every one you meet in London will tell you, as something beyond +doubt, that the Prince of Wales is dull, stingy, coarse, and profligate. +As for the anecdotes which are told of his habits and tastes by the +artists and officials of the theatres which he frequents, I might fairly +leave them out of the question, because most of them that I have heard +seem to me obvious improbabilities and exaggerations. They have +nevertheless a certain value in helping us to a sort of historical +estimate of the Prince's character. Half the stories told of the humors +and debaucheries of Sheridan and Fox are doubtless inventions or +exaggerations; but we are quite safe in assuming that the persons of +whom such stories abound were not frugal, temperate, and orderly men. If +the Prince of Wales is not a young man of dissipated habits, then a +phenomenon is exhibited in his case which is, I fancy, without any +parallel in history--the phenomenon of a whole watchful nation, +studying the character and habits of one whose position compels him to +live as in a house of glass, and coming, after years of observation, to +a conclusion at once unanimous and erroneous. But were it proved beyond +the remotest possibility of doubt that the Prince is personally chaste +as a Joseph, temperate as Father Mathew, tender to his wife as the elder +Hamlet, attached to his mother as Hamlet the younger, it would still +remain a fact indisputable to all of us in London, who have eyes to see +and ears to hear, that the Prince is addicted to vulgar amusements; that +he patronizes indecent exhibitions; that he is given to the +companionship of profligate men, and lends his helping hand to the +success and the popularity of immoral and lascivious women. + +What is to be the effect upon England of the reign of the Prince of +Wales? Will England and her statesmen endure the rule of a profligate +sovereign? No country can have undergone in equal time a greater +revolution in public taste and sentiment at least, if not in morals, +than England has since the time of George the Fourth. No genius, no +eloquence, no political wisdom or merits could now induce the English +people to put up with the open and undisguised excesses of a Fox; nor +could any English statesman of the rank of Fox be found now who would +condescend to pander to the vices of a George the Fourth. Thirty years +of decorum in the Court, the Parliament, and the press have created a +public feeling in England which will not long bear to be too openly +offended by any one. But, although I may seem at first to be enunciating +a paradox, I must say that all this is rather in favor of the chances of +the Prince of Wales than against them. It will take so small a sacrifice +on his part to satisfy everybody, that only the very extravagance of +folly could lead him long astray on any unsatisfactory course, when once +he has become directly responsible to the nation. We are not exacting in +England as regards the private conduct of our great people. We only ask +them to be publicly decorous. Everywhere in English society there is a +quite unconscious, naive sort of Pharisaism, the unavowed but actual +principle of which is that it matters very little if a man does the +wrong thing, provided he publicly acts and says the right thing. I am +perfectly satisfied that the great bulk of respectable and Philistine +society in England would regard Robert Dale Owen, with his pure life and +his views on the question of divorce, as a far more objectionable person +than the veriest profligate who did evil stealthily, and professed to +maintain the theory of a rigid marriage bond. The Prince of Wales will +therefore need very little actual improvement in his way of life, in +order to be all that his future subjects will expect, or care to ask. No +one wants the Prince to be a man of ability; no one wishes him to be a +good speaker. If Albert Edward were to rise in the House of Lords some +night, and deliver a powerful and eloquent speech, as Prince Napoleon +has often done in the French Senate, the English public would be not +only surprised but shocked. Such a feat performed by a Prince would seem +almost as much out of place, as if he were to follow the example of +Caligula or Nero and exhibit himself in the arena as a gladiator. Of +course the idea of the Prince of Wales fulminating against the policy of +the Crown and the Government, after the fashion of Prince Napoleon, +would be simply intolerable to the British mind of to-day--a thing so +outrageous as indeed to be practically inconceivable. The Prince of +Wales's part during the coming years, whether as first subject or as +ruler, is as easy as could well be assigned to man. It is the very +reverse of Bottom's; it is to avoid all roaring. He must be decorous, +and we will put up with any degree of dulness; he must be decent, and we +will all agree to know nothing of any private compensations wherewith he +may repay himself for public propriety. All the influences of English +statesmanship, rank, religion, journalism, patriotism, Philistinism, and +flunkeyism, will instinctively combine to screen the throne against +scandal, if only the throne will consent to allow of the possibility of +such a protection. I have hardly ever known an Englishman whose +hostility to monarchical institutions went so far that he would not be +ready to say, "We have got a monarchy; let us try to make the best we +can of it." Therefore the Prince of Wales must be the very Marplot or +L'Etourdi of princes, if he cannot contrive to make himself endurable to +a people who will bear so much rather than be at the trouble of a +change. Of course it is possible that his faults may become grosser and +more unmanageable with years (indeed, he is quite old enough already to +have sown his wild oats long since); and it would be a hard trial upon +decorous English statesmen and the English public to endure an openly +profligate King. Yet even that nuisance I think would be endured for one +lifetime at all events, rather than encounter the danger and trouble of +any organic change. + +So long as the Prince of Wales keeps out of politics, he may hold his +place well enough; the England of to-day could far better endure even a +George the Fourth than a George the Third. I have little doubt that the +Prince of Wales, when he comes to be King, will be discreet in this +matter at least. He has never indeed shown any particular interest in +political affairs, so far as I have heard. He seems to care little or +nothing about the contests of parties. Some three or four years ago, at +the time of the celebrated Adullamite secession from the Liberal party, +there was some grumbling among Radicals because it was reported that the +Prince of Wales had expressed a wish to make the acquaintance of Robert +Lowe, the brilliant, eccentric chief of the secession, and had had Lowe +brought to him and spent a long time talking with him; and it was urged +that this was done by the Prince to mark his approval of the Adullamites +and his dislike of radicalism. But just about the very same time the +Prince took some trouble to make the acquaintance of John Bright, and +paid what might have been considered very flattering attentions to the +great popular tribune. The Prince has more than once visited the Pope, +and he has likewise more than once visited Garibaldi. Indeed, he seems +to have a harmless liking for knowing personally all people who are +talked about; and I fancy he hunted up the Pope, and Garibaldi, and John +Bright, and Robert Lowe, just as he sends for Mr. Toole the comic actor, +or Blondin, or Chang the giant. Nothing can be safer and better for the +Prince in the future than to keep to this wholesome indifference to +politics. In England we could stand any length of the reign of King Log. +I shall not venture to conjecture what might happen if the Prince of +Wales were to develop a perverse inclination to "meddle and muddle" in +politics, because I think such a thing highly improbable. My impression +is, on the whole, that things will go on under the reign of the next +sovereign in England very much as they have been going on under the +present; that the Prince of Wales will be induced to pay a little more +attention to decorum and public propriety than he has hitherto done; and +that the people of England will laugh at him and cheer for him, talk +scandal about him and sing God save him, and finally endure him, on +somewhat the same principle as that which induces the New York public to +endure overcrowded street-cars and miserable postal arrangements--just +because it is less trouble to each individual to put up with his share +of a defective institution, than to go out of his way for the purpose of +endeavoring to organize any combination to get rid of it. + + + + +THE KING OF PRUSSIA. + + +Ronsard, in one of his songs addressed to his mistress, tells her that +in her declining years she will be able to boast that "When I was young +a poet sang of me." In a less romantic spirit the writer of this article +may boast in old age, should he attain to such blest condition, that +"When I was young a king spoke to me." That was the only king or +sovereign of any kind with whom I ever exchanged a word, and therefore I +may perhaps be allowed to be proud of the occasion and reluctant to let +it sleep in oblivion. The king was William, King of Prussia, and the +occasion of my being spoken to by a sovereign was when I, with some +other journalists, was formally presented to King William after his +coronation, and listened to a word or two of commonplace, good-humored +courtesy. + +The coronation of King William took place, as many readers of THE GALAXY +are probably aware, in the old historic town of Koenigsberg, on the +extreme northeastern frontier of Prussia, a town standing on one of the +inlets of the Baltic Sea, where once the Teutonic Knights, mentioned by +Chaucer, were powerful. Carlyle's "Frederick the Great" had brought +Koenigsberg prominently before the eyes and minds of English-speaking +readers, just previously to the ceremony in which King William was the +most conspicuous performer. It is the city where Immanuel Kant passed +his long and fruitful life, and which he never quitted. It is a +picturesque city in its way, although not to be compared with its +neighbor Dantzic. It is a city of canals and streams, and many bridges, +and quaint, narrow, crooked streets, wherein are frequent long-bearded +and gabardined Jews, and where Hebrew inscriptions are seen over many +shop-windows and on various door-plates. In its centre the city is +domineered over by a Schloss, or castle-palace, and it was in the chapel +of this palace that the ceremony of coronation took place, which +provoked at the time so many sharp criticisms and so much of popular +ridicule. + +The first time I saw the King was when he rode in procession through the +ancient city, some two or three days before the performance of the +coronation. He seemed a fine, dignified, handsome, somewhat bluff old +man--he was then sixty-four or sixty-five years of age--with gray hair +and gray moustache, and an expression which, if it did not denote +intellectual power, had much of cheerful strength and the charm of a +certain kind of frank manhood about it. He rode well--riding is one of +the accomplishments in which kings almost always excel--and his military +costume became him. Certainly no one was just then disposed to be very +enthusiastic about him, but every one was inclined to make the best of +the sovereign and the situation; to forget the past and look hopefully +into the future. The manner in which the coronation ceremony was +conducted, and the speech which the King delivered soon after it, +produced a terrible shock of disappointment; for in each the King +manifested that he understood the crown to be a gift not from his +people, but from heaven. To me the ceremonies in the chapel, splendid +and picturesque as was the _mise en scene_, appeared absurd and even +ridiculous. The King, bedizened in a regal costume which suggested Drury +Lane or Niblo's Garden, lifting a crown from off the altar (was it, by +the way, an altar?) and, without intervention of human aid other than +his own hands, placing it upon his head, to signify that he had his +crown from heaven, not from man; then putting another crown upon the +head of his wife, to show that _she_ derived her dignities from him; and +then turning round and brandishing a gigantic sword, as symbolical of +his readiness to defend his State and people--all this seemed to me too +suggestive of the _opera comique_ to suit the simple dignity of the +handsome old soldier. Far better and nobler did he look in his military +uniform and with his spiked helmet, as he sat on his horse in the +streets, than when, arrayed in crimson velvet cloak and other such stage +paraphernalia of conventional royalty, he stood in the castle chapel, +the central figure in a ceremonial of mediaeval splendor and worse than +mediaeval tediousness. + +But the King's face, bearing, and manner, as I saw him in Koenigsberg, +and immediately afterwards in Berlin, agreeably disappointed me. It was +one of the best faces to be seen among all the throng at banquet and +ball and pageant during those days of gorgeous and heavy ceremonial. At +the coronation performances there were two other personages who may be +said to have divided public curiosity and interest with the King. One +was the illustrious Meyerbeer, who composed and conducted the coronation +ode, which thus became almost his swan-song, his latest notes before +death. The other was a man whose name has lately again divided attention +with that of the King of Prussia--Marshal MacMahon, Duke of Magenta. +MacMahon was sent to represent the Emperor of the French at the +coronation, and he was then almost fresh from the glory of his Lombardy +battles. There was great curiosity among the Koenigsberg public to get a +glimpse of this military hero; and although even Prussians could hardly +be supposed to take delight in a fame acquired at the expense of other +Germans, I remember being much struck by the quiet, candid good-humor +with which people acknowledged that he had beaten their countrymen. +There was, indeed, a little vexation and anger felt when some of the +representatives of Posen, the Prussian Poland, cheered somewhat too +significantly for MacMahon as he drove in his carriage from the palace. +The Prussians generally felt annoyed that the Poles should have thus +publicly and ostentatiously demonstrated their sympathy with France and +their admiration of the French general who had defeated a German army. +But except for this little ebullition of feeling, natural enough on both +sides, MacMahon was a popular figure at the King's coronation; and +before the ceremonies were over, the King himself had become anything +but popular. The foreigners liked him for the most part because his +manners were plain, frank, hearty, and agreeable, and to the foreigners +it was a matter of little consequence what he said or did in the +accepting of his crown. But the Germans winced under his blunt +repudiation of the principle of popular sovereignty, and in the minds of +some alarmists painful and odious memories began to revive and to +transform themselves into terrible omens for the future. + +For this pleasant, genial, gray-haired man, whose smile had so much of +honest frankness and even a certain simple sweetness about it, had a +grim and bloodstained history behind him. Not Napoleon the Third himself +bore a more ominous record when he ascended the throne. The blood of the +Berliners was purple on those hands which now gave so kindly and cheery +a welcome to all comers. The revolutionists of Baden held in bitter hate +the stern prince who was so unscrupulous in his mode of crushing out +popular agitation. From Cologne to Koenigsberg, from Hamburg to Trieste, +all Germans had for years had reason only too strong to regard William +Prince of Prussia as the most resolute and relentless enemy of popular +liberty. When the Pope was inspiring the hearts of freemen and patriots +everywhere in Europe with sudden and splendid hopes doomed to speedy +disappointment, the Prince of Prussia was execrated with the Hapsburgs, +the Bourbons, and the Romanoffs. The one only thing commonly said in his +favor was that he was honest and would keep his word. The late Earl of +Clarendon, one of the most incautious and blundering of diplomatists +(whom after his death the English newspapers have been eulogizing as a +very sage and prince of statesmen), embodied this opinion sharply in a +few words which he spoke to a friend of mine in Koenigsberg. Clarendon +represented Queen Victoria at the coronation ceremonies, and my friend +happened in conversation with him to be expressing a highly disparaging +opinion of the King of Prussia. "There is just this to be said of him," +the British Envoy remarked aloud in the centre of a somewhat +miscellaneous group of listeners--"he is an honest man and a man of his +word; he is not a Corsican conspirator." + +Yes, this was and is the character of the King of Prussia. In good and +evil he kept his word. You might trust him to do as he had said. During +the greater part of his life the things he promised to do and did were +not such as free men could approve. He set out in life with a genuine +detestation of liberal principles and of anything that suggested popular +revolution. William of Prussia is certainly not a man of intellect or +broad intelligence or flexibility of mind. He would be in private life a +respectable, steady, rather dull sort of man, honest as the sun, just as +likely to go wrong as right in his opinions, perhaps indeed a shade more +likely to go wrong than right, and sure to be doggedly obstinate in any +opinion which he conceived to be founded on a principle. Horror of +revolution was naturally his earliest public sentiment. He was one of +the princes who entered Paris in 1815 with the allied sovereigns when +they came to stamp out Bonapartism; and he seemed to have gone on to +late manhood with the conviction that the mission of honest kings was to +prevent popular agitation from threatening the divine right of the +throne. Naturally enough, a man of such a character, whose chief merits +were steadfastness and honesty, was much disgusted by the vacillation, +the weakness, the half-unconscious deceitfulness of his brother, the +late Frederick William. Poor Frederick William! well-meaning, ill-doing +dreamer, "wind-changing" as Warwick, a sort of Rene of Anjou placed in a +responsible position and cast into a stormy age. What blighted hopes and +bloody streets were justly laid to his charge--to the charge of him who +asked nothing better than to be able to oblige everybody and make all +his people happy! Frederick William loved poetry and poets in a feeble, +_dilettante_ sort of way. He liked, one might say, to be thought to like +the Muses and the Graces. He used to insist upon Tieck the poet reading +aloud his new compositions to the royal circle of evenings; and when the +bard began to read the King would immediately fall asleep, and nod until +he nodded himself into wakefulness again; and then he would start up and +say, "Bravo, Tieck! Delightful, Tieck! Go on reading, Tieck!" and then +to sleep again. He liked in this sort of fashion the poetic and +sentimental aspects of revolution, and he dandled popular movements on +his royal knee until they became too demonstrative and frightened him, +and then he shook them off and shrieked for the aid of his strong-nerved +brother. One day Frederick William would be all for popular government +and representative monarchy, and what not; the next day he became +alarmed and receded, and was eager to crush the hopes he had himself +awakened. He was always breaking his word to his people and his country, +and yet he was not personally an untruthful man like English Charles the +First. In private life he would have been amiable, respectable, gently +aesthetical and sentimental; placed in a position of responsibility amid +the seething passions and conflicting political currents of 1848, he +proved himself a very dastard and caitiff. Germany could hardly have +had upon the throne of Prussia a worse man for such a crisis. He was +unlucky in every way; for his vacillation drew on him the repute of +hypocrisy, and his whimsical excitable manners procured for him the +reproach of intemperance. A sincerely pious man in his way, he was +almost universally set down as a hypocrite; a sober man who only drank +wine medicinally on the order of his physicians, he was favored +throughout Europe with the nickname of "King Clicquot." His utter +imbecility before and after the massacre of those whom he called his +"beloved Berliners," made him more detestable to Berlin than was his +blunt and stern brother, the present King, who gave with his own lips +the orders which opened fire on the population. A more unkingly figure +than that of poor, weak, well-intentioned, sentimental, lachrymose +Frederick William, never in our days at least has been seen under a +royal canopy. + +It was but natural that such a character or no-character as this should +disgust his brother and successor, the present King. Frederick William, +as everybody knows, had no son to succeed him. The stout-hearted William +would have liked his brother and sovereign to be one thing or the other; +a despot of course he would have preferred, but he desired consistency +and steadfastness on whatever side. William, it must be owned, was for +many years a downright stupid, despotic old feudalist. At one of his +brother's councils he flung his sword upon the table and vowed that he +would rather appeal to that weapon than consent to rule over a people +who dared to claim the right of voting their own taxes. He appears to +have had the sincere stupid faith that Heaven directly tells or teaches +kings how to rule, and that a king fails in his religious duty who takes +counsel of aught save his own convictions. Perhaps a good many people in +lowlier life are like William of Prussia in this respect. He certainly +was not the only person in our time who habitually accepted his own +likings and dislikings as the appointed ordinances of Heaven. In my own +circle of acquaintance I think I have known such individuals. + +Thus William of Prussia strode through life sword in hand menacing and, +where he could, suppressing popular movement. Yet he was saved from +utter detestation by the admitted integrity of his character--a virtue +so dear to Germans, that for its sake they will pardon harshness and +sometimes even stupidity. People disliked or dreaded him, but they +despised his brother. There was a certain simplicity, too, always seen +in William's mode of living which pleased the country. There was no +affectation about him; he was almost as much of a plain, unpretending +soldier as General Grant himself. Since he became King, anybody passing +along the famous Unter den Linden might see the white-haired, simple old +man writing or reading at the window of his palace. He was in this +respect a sort of military Louis Philippe; a Louis Philippe with a +strong purpose and without any craft. Therefore, when the death of his +brother in 1861 called him to the throne, he found a people anxious to +give him credit for every good quality and good purpose, willing to +forget the past and look hopefully into the coming time. They only +smiled at his renewal of the coronation ceremonies at Koenigsberg, +believing that the old soldier thought there was something of a +religious principle somehow mixed up in them, and that it was the +imaginary piety, not the substantial pomp, which commended to his mind +so gorgeous and costly an anachronism. After the coronation ceremonies, +however, came back the old unpopularity. The King, people said, has +learned nothing and forgotten nothing since he was Prince of Prussia. +Every act he did after his accession to the crown seemed only more and +more to confirm this impression. It was, I think, about this time that +the celebrated "Diary" of Varnhagen von Ense was published by the niece +of the deceased diplomatist; a diary full in itself of the most piquant +interest, but made yet more piquant and interesting by the bitter and +foolish persecution with which the King's officials endeavored to +suppress the work and punish its publishers. I have not read or even +seen the book for years, but the impression it made on me is almost as +distinct just now as it was when I laid down the last of its many and +vivacious volumes. + +Varnhagen von Ense was a bitter creature, and the pen with which he +wrote his diary seems to have been dipped in gall of special acridity. +The diary goes over many years of Berlin court life, and the present +King of Prussia is one of its central figures. The author does not seem +to have had much respect for anybody; and King William was evidently an +object of his particular detestation. All the doings of the days of 1848 +are recorded or commented on, and the pages are interspersed with +notices of the sharp ungenial things said by one royal personage of +another. If the late Frederick William chose to say an ill-natured thing +of Queen Victoria of England, down goes the remark in Varnhagen's pages, +and it is chronicled for the perusal of all the world. We learn from the +book that the present King of Prussia does not live on the most genial +terms with his wife Augusta; that Augusta has rather a marked +inclination towards Liberalism, and would find nothing more pleasant +than a little coquetry with Revolution. Varnhagen intimates that the +illustrious lady loved lions and novelties of any kind, and that at the +time he writes she would have been particularly glad to make the +acquaintance of Louis Blanc; and he more than hints at a decided +inclination on her part to _porter le pantalon_--an inclination which +her husband was not at all likely to gratify, consciously at least. Of +the progressive wife Varnhagen speaks with no whit more respect than of +the reactionary husband; and indeed he seems to look with irreverent and +cynical eyes on everything royal that comes under his observation. +Throughout the whole of the diary, the figure of the present King comes +out consistently and distinctly. William is always the blunt, dull, +wrong-headed, I might almost say pig-headed soldier-fanatic, who will do +and suffer and make others do and suffer anything, in a cause which he +believes to be right. With all Varnhagen von Ense's bitterness and +scorn, he gives us no worse idea of King William than just this. But +judging from the expression of the King's face, from his manner, and +from what I have heard of him in Berlin and elsewhere, I should say +there was a good deal of individual kindness and bonhomie in him for +which the critic did not give him credit. I think he is, on the whole, +better than Varnhagen von Ense chose to paint him or see him. + +From Alexander Humboldt, as well as from Varnhagen von Ense, we learn a +good deal of the inner life of kings and queens and princes in Berlin. +There is something almost painful in reflecting on the kind of life +which Humboldt must have led among these people, whom he so cordially +despised, and whom in his private chroniclings he so held up to scorn. +The great philosopher assuredly had a huge treasure of hatred locked up +in his heart. He detested and scorned these royal personages, who so +blandly patronized him, or were sometimes so rough in their +condescending familiarity. Nothing takes the gilt off the life of courts +so much as a perusal of what Humboldt has written about it. One hardly +cares to think of so great, and on the whole so noble a man, living a +life of what seems so like perpetual dissimulation; of his enduring +these royal dullards and pert princesses, and doubtless seeming +profoundly reverential, and then going home of nights to put down on +paper his record of their vulgarity, and selfishness, and impertinence. +Sometimes Humboldt was not able to contain himself within the limits of +court politeness. The late King of Hanover (father of the now dethroned +King George) was a rough brutal trooper, who had made himself odious in +England as the Duke of Cumberland, and was accused by popular rumors of +the darkest crimes--unjustly accused certainly, in the case where he was +charged with the murder of his valet. The Duke did not make a very bad +sort of King, as kings then went; but he retained all his roughness and +coarseness of manner. He once accosted Humboldt in the palace of the +late King of Prussia, and in his pleasant graceful way asked why it was +that the Prussian court was always full of philosophers and loose +women--describing the latter class of visitors by a very direct and +expressive word. "Perhaps," replied Humboldt blandly, "the King invites +the philosophers to meet me, and the other persons to please your +Majesty!" Humboldt seems to have had little liking for any of the +illustrious personages he met under the roof of the King of Prussia. A +brief record he made of a conversation with the late Prince Albert (for +whom he expressed a great contempt) went far when it was published to +render the husband of Queen Victoria more unpopular and even detested in +Ireland than another George the Fourth would have been. The Irish people +will probably never forget that, according to the statement of Humboldt, +the Prince spoke contemptuously of Irish national aspirations, declared +he had no sympathy with the Irish, and that they were as restless, idle, +and unmanageable as the Poles--a pretty speech, the philosopher remarks, +to be made by the husband of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. +Some attempt was made when this record of Humboldt's came to light to +dispute the truth of it; but Humboldt was certainly not a liar--and +anyhow the Irish people believed the story and it did no little +mischief; and Humboldt in his grave might have had the consolation of +knowing that he had injured one prince at least. + +What we learn of the King of Prussia through Humboldt is to the same +effect as the teaching of Varnhagen's cynical spirit; and I think, if +these keen irreverent critics did not do him wrong, his Majesty must +have softened and improved with the responsibilities of royalty. In many +respects one might be inclined to compare him with the English George +the Third. Both were indeed dull, decent, and fanatical. But there are +some wide differences. George the Third was obstinate in the worst +sense; his was the obstinacy of a stupid, self-conceited man who +believes himself wise and right in everything. Now, I fancy the King of +Prussia is only obstinate in what he conceives, rightly or wrongly, to +be questions of duty and of principle; and that there are many subjects, +political and otherwise, of which he does not believe himself to be the +most competent judge, and which therefore he is quite willing to leave +to the consideration and decision of others. For instance, it was made +evident that in the beginning of the transactions which were followed by +(although they cannot be said to have caused) the present war, the King +more than once expressed himself willing to do certain things, of which, +however, Count von Bismarck subsequently disapproved; and the King +quietly gave way. "You know better than I do; act as you think best," +is, I believe, a quite common sentence on the lips of King William, when +he is talking with this or that trusted minister. Then again it has been +placed beyond all doubt that George the Third could be, when he thought +fit, the most unabashed and unscrupulous of liars; and not even hatred +itself will charge King William with any act or word of falsehood or +duplicity. + +Steadily did the King grow more and more unpopular after his coronation. +All the old work of prosecuting newspapers and snubbing, or if possible +punishing, free-spoken politicians, came into play again. The King +quarrelled fiercely with his Parliament about the scheme of army +reorganization. I think he was right as to the scheme, although terribly +wrong-headed and high-handed in his way of forcing it down the throats +of the people, and, aided by his House of Peers, he waged a sort of war +upon the nation's representatives. Then first came to the front that +extraordinary political figure, which before very long had cast into the +shade every other in Europe, even including that of the Emperor +Napoleon; that marvellous compound of audacity and craft, candor and +cunning, the profound sagacity of a Richelieu, the levity of a +Palmerston; imperturbably good-humored, illimitably unscrupulous; a +patriot without lofty emotion of any kind, a statesman who could +sometimes condescend to be a juggler; part bully, part buffoon, but +always a man of supreme courage, inexhaustible resources of brain and +tongue--always in short a man of genius. I need hardly add that I am +speaking of the Count von Bismarck. + +At the time of the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, there was probably no +public man in Europe so generally unpopular as the King of Prussia, +except perhaps his Minister, the Count von Bismarck. In England it was +something like an article of faith to believe that the King was a +bloodthirsty old tyrant, his Prime Minister a combination of Strafford +and Sejanus, and his subjects generally a set of beer-bemuddled and +servile blockheads. The dislike felt toward the King was extended to the +members of his family, and the popular conviction in England was that +the Princess Victoria, wife of the King's son, had a dull coarse +drunkard for a husband. It is perfectly wonderful how soon an absurdly +erroneous idea, if there is anything about it which jumps with the +popular humor, takes hold of the public mind of England. The English +people regarded the Prussians with utter detestation and contempt. Not +only that, but they regarded it as quite a possible and even likely +thing that poor brave little Denmark, with a population hardly larger +than that of the city of New York, could hold her own, alone, against +the combined forces of Austria and Prussia. One might have thought that +there never was a Frederick the Great or an Archduke Charles; that the +only part ever played in history by Germans was that of impotent +braggarts and stupid cowards. When there seemed some prospect of +England's drawing the sword for Denmark, "Punch" published a cartoon +which was very popular and successful. It represented an English sailor +and soldier of the conventional dramatic style, looking with utter +contempt at two awkward shambling boobies with long hair and huge +meerschaums--one booby supposed to represent Prussia, the other Austria; +and Jack Tar says to his friend the redcoat: "They can't expect us to +_fight_ fellows like those, but we'll kick them, of course, with +pleasure." This so fairly represented the average public opinion of +England that there was positively some surprise felt in London when it +was found that the Prussians really could fight at all. Towards the +Austrians there was nothing like the same ill-feeling; and when +Bismarck's war against Austria (I cannot better describe it) broke out +shortly after, the sympathy of England went almost unanimously with the +enemy of Prussia. Ninety-nine men out of every hundred firmly believed +that Austria would clutch Italy with one hand and Prussia with the +other, and easily choke the life out of both. About the merits of the +quarrel nobody in England outside the range of a very few politicians +and journalists troubled himself at all. It was settled that Austria had +somehow come to represent the cause of human freedom and progress; that +the King of Prussia was a stupid and brutal old trooper, hurried to his +ruin by the evil counsels of a drunken Mephistopheles; and that the +Austrian forces would simply walk over the Prussians into Berlin. There +was but one newspaper in London (and it has since died) which ventured +to suggest, first, that perhaps the Prussians had the right side of the +quarrel, and next, that perhaps they would have the better in the fight. + +With the success of Prussia at Sadowa ended King William's personal +unpopularity in Europe. Those who were prepared to take anything like a +rational view of the situation began to see that there must be some +manner of great cause behind such risks, sacrifices, and success. Those +who disliked Prussia more than ever, as many in France did, were +disposed to put the King out of their consideration altogether, and to +turn their detestation wholly on the King's Minister. In fact, Bismarck +so entirely eclipsed or occulted the King, that the latter may be said +to have disappeared from the horizon of European politics. His good +qualities or bad qualities no longer counted for aught in the estimation +of foreigners. Bismarck was everything, the King was nothing. Now I wish +the readers of THE GALAXY not to take this view of the matter. In +everything which has been done by Prussia since his accession to the +throne, King William has counted for something. His stern uncompromising +truthfulness, seen as clearly in the despatches he sent from recent +battle-fields as in any other deeds of his life, has always counted for +much. So too has his narrow-minded dread of anything which he believes +to savor of the revolution. So has his thorough and devoted Germanism. I +am convinced that it would have been far more easy of late to induce +Bismarck to make compromises with seemingly powerful enemies at the +expense of German soil, than it would have been to persuade Bismarck's +master to consent to such proposals. The King's is far more of a typical +German character (except for its lack of intellect) than that of +Bismarck, in whom there is so much of French audacity as well as of +French humor. On the other hand, I would ask my readers not to rush into +wild admiration of the King of Prussia, or to suppose that liberty owes +him personally any direct thanks. King William's subjects know too well +that they have little to thank him for on that score. Strange as the +comparison may seem at first, it is not less true that the enthusiasm +now felt by Germans for the King is derived from just the same source as +the early enthusiasm of Frenchmen for the first Napoleon. In each man +his people see the champion who has repelled the aggression of the +insolent foreigner, and has been strong enough to pursue the foreigner +into his own home and there chastise him for his aggression. The blind +stupidity of Austria and the crimes of Bonapartism have made King +William a patriot King. When Thiers wittily and bitterly said that the +Second Empire had made two great statesmen, Cavour and Bismarck, he +might have said with still closer accuracy that it had made one great +sovereign, William of Prussia. Never man attained such a position as +that lately won by King William with less of original "outfit" to +qualify him for the place. Five or six years ago the King of Prussia was +as much disliked and distrusted by his own subjects as ever the Emperor +of the French was by the followers of the Left. Look back to the famous +days when "Bockum-Dolff's hat" seemed likely to become a symbol of civil +revolution in Germany. Look back to the time when the King's own son and +heir apparent, the warrior Crown Prince who since has flamed across so +many a field of blood, felt called upon to make formal protest in a +public speech against the illiberal, repressive, and despotic policy of +his father! Think of these things, and say whether any change could be +more surprising than that which has converted King William into the +typical champion and patriot of Germany; and when you seek the +explanation of the change, you will simply find that the worst enemies +of Prussia have been unwittingly the kindest friends and the best +patrons of Prussia's honest and despotic old sovereign. + +I think the King of Prussia's subjects were not wrong when they disliked +and dreaded him, and I also think they are now not wrong when they trust +and applaud him. It has been his great good fortune to reign during a +period when the foreign policy of the State was of infinitely greater +importance than its domestic management. It became the business of the +King of Prussia to help his country to assert and to maintain a national +existence. Nothing better was needed in the sovereign for this purpose +than the qualities of a military dictator, and the King, in this case, +was saved all trouble of thinking and planning. He had but to accept and +agree to a certain line of policy--a certain set of national +principles--and to put his foot down on these and see that they were +carried through. For this object the really manly and sturdy nature of +the King proved admirably adapted. He upheld manfully and firmly the +standard of the nation. His defective qualities were rendered inactive, +and had indeed no occasion or chance to display themselves, while all +that was good of him came into full activity and bold relief. But I do +not believe that the character of the King in any wise changed. He was a +dull, honest, fanatical martinet when he turned his cannon against +German liberals in 1848; he was a dull, honest, fanatical martinet when +he unfurled the flag of Prussia against the Austrians in 1866 and +against the French in 1870. The brave old man is only happy when doing +what he thinks right; but he wants alike the intellect and the +susceptibilities which enable people to distinguish right from wrong, +despotism from justice, necessary firmness from stolid obstinacy. But +for the wars and the great national issues which rose to claim instant +decision, King William would have gone on dissolving Parliaments and +punishing newspapers, levying taxes without the consent of +representatives, and making the police-officer the master of Berlin. The +vigor which was so popular when employed in resisting the French, would +assuredly otherwise have found occupation in repressing the Prussians. I +see nothing to admire in King William but his courage and his honesty. +People who know him personally speak delightedly of his sweet and genial +manners in private life; and I have observed that, like many another old +_moustache_, he has the art of making himself highly popular with the +ladies. There is a celebrated little _prima donna_ as well known in +London as in Berlin, who can only speak of the bluff monarch as _der +suesse Koenig_--"the sweet King." Indeed, there are not wanting people who +hint that Queen Augusta is not always quite pleased at the manner in +which the venerable soldier makes himself agreeable to dames and +demoiselles. Certainly the ladies seem to be generally very enthusiastic +about his Majesty when they come into acquaintanceship with him, and to +the _prima donna_ I have mentioned his kindness and courtesy have been +only such as are well worthy of a gentleman and of a king. Still we all +know that it does not take a great effort on the part of a sovereign to +make people, especially women, think him very delightful. I do not, +therefore, make much account of King William's courtesy and _bonhomie_ +in estimating his character. For all the service he has done to Germany +let him have full thanks; but I cannot bring myself to any warmth of +personal admiration for him. It is indeed hard to look at him without +feeling for the moment some sentiment of genuine respect. The fine head +and face, with its noble outlines and its frank pleasant smile, the +stately, dignified form, which some seventy-five years have neither +bowed nor enfeebled, make the King look like some splendid old paladin +of the court of Charlemagne. He is, indeed, despite his years, the +finest physical specimen of a sovereign Europe just now can show. +Compare him with the Emperor Napoleon, so many years his junior--compare +his soldierly presence, his manly bearing, his clear frank eyes, his +simple and sincere expression, with the prematurely wasted and crippled +frame, the face blotched and haggard, the lack-lustre eyes which seem +always striving to avoid direct encounter with any other glance, the +shambling gait, the sinister look of the nephew of the great Bonaparte, +and you will say that the Prussians have at least had from the beginning +of their antagonism an immense advantage over their rivals in the +figurehead which their State was enabled to exhibit. But I cannot make a +hero out of stout King William, although he has bravery enough of the +common, military kind, to suit any of the heroes of the "Nibelungen +Lied." He never would, if he could, render any service to liberty; he +cannot understand the elements and first principles of popular freedom; +to him the people is always, as a child, to be kept in leading strings +and guided, and, if at all boisterous or naughty, smartly birched and +put in a dark corner. There is nothing cruel about King William; that is +to say, he would not willingly hurt any human creature, and is, indeed, +rather kind-hearted and humane than otherwise. He is as utterly +incapable of the mean spites and shabby cruelties of the great +Frederick, whose statue stands so near his palace, as he is incapable of +the savage brutalities and indecencies of Frederick's father. He is, in +fact, simply a dull old disciplinarian, saturated through and through +with the traditions of the feudal party of Germany, his highest merit +being the fact that he keeps his word--that he is "a still strong man" +who "cannot lie;" his noblest fortune being the happy chance which +called on him to lead his country's battles, instead of leaving him free +to contend against, and perhaps for the time to crush, his country's +aspirations after domestic freedom. Kind Heaven has allowed him to +become the champion and the representative of German unity--that unity +which is Germany's immediate and supreme need, calling for the +postponement of every other claim and desire; and this part he has +played like a man, a soldier, and a king. But one can hardly be expected +to forget all the past, to forget what Humboldt and Varnhagen von Ense +wrote, what Jacobi and Waldeck spoke, what King William did in 1848, and +what he said in 1861; and unless we forget all this and a great deal +more to the same effect, we can hardly help acknowledging that but for +the fortunate conditions which allowed him to prove himself the best +friend of German unity, he would probably have proved himself the worst +enemy of German liberty. + + + + +VICTOR EMANUEL, KING OF ITALY. + + +I have before me just now a little silver coin picked up in Savoy very +soon after Italy had become a kingdom, and Savoy had ceased to be part +of it. That was in truth the only thing that made the coin in any way +specially interesting--the fact that it happened to be in chance +circulation through Savoy when Savoy had no longer any claim to it. So, +for that little scrap of melancholy interest I have since kept the coin +in my purse, and it has made many journeys with me in Europe and +America; and I suppose I can never be utterly destitute while it remains +in my possession. Now, the head which is displayed upon that coin is not +of kingly mould. The mint has flattered its royal master much less than +is usual with such portrait painters. An English silver or gold coin of +this year's mintage will still represent Her Majesty Queen Victoria as a +beautiful young woman of twenty, with features worthy of a Greek statue +and a bust shapely enough for Dryden's Iphigenia. But the coin of King +Victor Emanuel has little flattery in it. There is the coarse, bulldog +cast of face; there are the heavy eye-brows, the unshapely nose, the +hideous moustache, the receding forehead, and all the other beauties and +graces of the "bloat King's" countenance. Certainly the face on the coin +is not bloated enough, and there is too little animalism displayed in +the back of the head, to do justice to the first King of Italy. +Moreover, the coin gives somehow the idea of a small man, and the King +of Italy finds it not easy to get a horse strong enough to bear the load +of Antony. But for a coin it is a wonderfully honest and truthful piece +of work, quite a model to other mints, and it gave when it was issued as +fair an idea as a little piece of silver could well give of the head and +face of Europe's most ill-favored sovereign. + +What a chance Victor Emanuel had of being a hero of romance! No king +perhaps ever had such a chance before, and missed it so persistently. +Europe seemed at one time determined, whether he would or no, to make a +hero, a knight, a _preux chevalier_, out of the son of Charles Albert. +Not Charles Edward, the brilliant, unfortunate Stuart himself, not +Gustavus Adolphus even seemed to have been surrounded by such a romantic +rainbow of romance and of hope. When, after the crowning disaster of +Novara, Victor Emanuel's weak, vacillating, unlucky, and not very +trustworthy father abdicated the crown of Sardinia in favor of his son, +the latter seemed in the eyes of liberal Europe to represent not merely +the hopes of all true Italians, but the best hopes of liberty and +progress all over the world. There was even then a vague idea afloat +through Europe--although Europe did not know how Cavour had already +accepted the idea as a principle of action--that with her tremendous +defeats Piedmont had won the right to hoist the standard of one Italy. +This then was the cause which the young King was taken to represent. He +had been baptized in blood to that cause. He represented Italy united +and free--free from Austrian and Pope, from political and religious +despotism. He was at all events no carpet knight. He had fought bravely +on more than one fearful field of battle; he had looked on death closely +and undismayed; he had been wounded in fighting for Italy against the +Austrian. It was said of the young sovereign--who was only Duke of Savoy +then--that on the night of Novara, when all was over save retreat and +humiliation, he shook his dripping sword at the ranks of the conquering +Austrians and exclaimed, "Italy shall make herself for all that!" +Probably the story is substantially true, although Victor Emanuel may +perhaps have used stronger expressions if he spoke at all; for no one +ever doubted his courage and coolness in the hour of danger. But true or +not, the anecdote exactly illustrated the light in which the world was +prepared to regard the young sovereign of Sardinia--as the hope of Italy +and of freedom, the representative of a defeat which he was determined +and destined to convert into a victory. + +Not many years after this, and while the lustre of his misfortunes and +the brilliancy of his hopes still surrounded him, King Victor Emanuel +visited England. He was welcomed everywhere with a cordiality of +personal interest and admiration not often accorded by any people to a +foreign king. Decidedly it was a hard thing to look at him and yet +retain the thought of a hero of romance. He was not then nearly so +bloated and burly as he is now; and he was at least some dozen or +fourteen years younger. But even then how marvellously ill-favored he +was; how rough and coarse-looking; how unattractive in manner; how +brusque and uncouth in gesture and bearing; how liable to fits of an +apparently stolid silence; how utterly devoid of grace and dignity! His +huge straw-colored moustache, projecting about half a foot on each side +of his face, was as unsightly a piece of manly decoration as ever royal +countenance displayed. Yet the public tried to forget all those external +defects and still regard him as a hero of romance somehow, anyhow. So +fully was he believed to be a representative of civil and religious +freedom in Italy, that one English religious society of some kind--I +forget which it was--actually went the length of presenting an address +to him, in which they flourished about the errors of Popery as freely as +if they were appealing to an Oliver Cromwell or Frederick the Great. +Cavour gave them very neatly and tersely the snub that their ignorance +and presumption so well deserved; and their address did not obtain an +honored place among Victor Emanuel's memorials of his visit to England. + +He was very hospitably entertained by Queen Victoria, who is said to +have suffered agonies of martyrdom from her guest's everlasting +cigar--the good soul detests tobacco as much as King James himself +did--and even more from his occasional outbursts of roystering +compliment and canteen love-making toward the ladies of her staid and +modest court. One of the household edicts, I think, of Queen Elizabeth's +court was that no gallant must "toy with the maids, under pain of +fourpence." Poor Victor Emanuel's slender purse would have had to bear a +good many deductions of fourpence, people used to hint, if this penal +decree had prevailed in his time at Windsor or Osborne. But Queen +Victoria was very patient and friendly. Cavour has left some pleasant +descriptions of her easy, unaffected friendliness toward himself. +Guizot, it will be remembered, has described her as the stiffest of the +stiff, freezing into petrifaction a whole silent circle by her +invincible coldness and formality. I cannot pretend to reconcile the +conflicting accounts of these two eminent visitors, but certainly Cavour +has drawn some animated and very attractive pictures of Queen Victoria's +almost girlish good-humor and winning familiarity. However that may be, +the whole heart of free England warmed to Victor Emanuel, and was ready +to dub him in advance the chosen knight of liberty, the St. George of +Italy, before whose resistless sword every dragon of despotism and +superstition was to grovel in the dust. + +So the King went his way, and the next thing the world heard of him was +that he was in league with Louis Napoleon against the Austrian, and that +the child his daughter was to be married to the obese and elderly Prince +Napoleon, whose eccentric genius, varied accomplishments, and thrilling +eloquence were then unrecognized and unknown. Then came the triumphs of +Magenta and Solferino, and it was made plain once more to the world +that Victor Emanuel had the courage of a true soldier. He actually took +a personal share of the fighting when the Italians were in action. He +did not sit on his horse, far away from the bullets, like his imperial +ally, and direct the movements of the army by muttering "_C'est bien_," +when an aide-de-camp galloped up to announce to him as a piece of solemn +farce that this or that general had already accomplished this or that +operation. No; Victor Emanuel took his share of the fighting like a +king. In the affair of San Martino he led an attack himself, and +encouraged his soldiers by bellowing in stentorian voice quite a clever +joke for a king, just as he was about to charge. A crack regiment of +French Zouaves (the French Zouaves were soldiers in those days) was so +delighted with the Sardinian King that it elected him a corporal of the +regiment on the field of battle--a quite wonderful piece of compliment +from a Zouave regiment to a foreign sovereign. Not so long before had +Lamoriciere declared that "Italians don't fight," and here was a crack +Zouave regiment enthusiastic about the fighting capacity of an Italian +King. The irony of fate, it will be remembered, decreed soon after that +Lamoriciere should himself lay down his arms before an Italian general +and Italian soldiers. + +Out of that war, then, Victor Emanuel emerged still a hero. But the +world soon began to think that he was only a hero in the field. The sale +of Savoy and Nice much shocked the public sentiment of Europe. The house +of Savoy, as an English orator observed, had sprung from the womb of the +mountains which the unworthy heir of Savoy sold to a stranger. As the +world had given to Victor Emanuel the credit of virtues which he never +possessed, it was now ready to lay on him all the burden of deeds which +were not his. Whether the cession of Savoy was right or wrong, Victor +Emanuel was not to blame, under the hard circumstances, for withdrawing, +according to the first Napoleon's phrase, "_sous les draps d'un roi +constitutionnel_," and allowing his ministers to do the best they could. +In fact, the thing was a necessity of the situation. Napoleon the Third +had to make the demand to satisfy his own people, who never quite +"seemed to see" the war for Italy. The Sardinian ministers had to yield +to the demand to satisfy Napoleon the Third. Had Prussia been a raw, +weak power in September, 1866, she must have ceded some territory to +France. Sardinia or Italy was raw and weak in 1860, and had no choice +but to submit. There were two things to be said for the bargain. First, +Italy got good value for it. Next, the Savoyards and Nizzards never were +good Italians. They rather piqued themselves on not being Italians. The +Savoy delegates would not speak Italian in the old Turin Parliament. The +ministers had to answer their French "interpellations" in French. + +Still all this business did an immense harm to the reputation of King +Victor Emanuel. He had acted like a quiet, sensible man--not in any way +like a hero of romance, and Europe desired to see in him a hero of +romance. Then he did not show himself, people said, very grateful to +Garibaldi when the latter opened the way for the expulsion of the +Bourbons from Naples, and did so much to crown Victor Emanuel King of +Italy. Now I am a warm admirer of Garibaldi. I think his very weaknesses +are noble and heroic. There is carefully preserved among the best +household treasures of my family a vine leaf which Garibaldi once +plucked and gave me as a _souvenir_ for my wife. But I confess I should +not like to be king of a new monarchy partly made by Garibaldi and with +Garibaldi for a subject. The whole policy of Garibaldi proceeded on the +gallant and generous assumption that Italy alone ought to be able to +conquer all her enemies. We have since seen how little Italy availed +against a mere fragment of the military power of Austria--that power +which Prussia crushed like a nutshell. Events, I think, have vindicated +the slower and less assuming policy of Victor Emanuel, or, I should say, +the policy which Victor Emanuel consented to adopt at the bidding of +Cavour. + +But all the same the _prestige_ of Victor Emanuel was gone. Then Europe +began to look at the man coolly, and estimate him without glamour and +without romance. Then it began to listen to the very many stories +against him which his enemies could tell. Alas! these stories were not +all untrue. Of course there were grotesque and hideous exaggerations. +There are in Europe some three or four personages of the highest rank +whom scandal delights to assail, and of whom it tells stories which +common sense and common feeling alike compel us to reject. It would be +wholly impossible even to hint at some of the charges which scandal in +Europe persistently heaped on Victor Emanuel, the Emperor Napoleon III., +Prince Napoleon, and the reigning King of the Netherlands. If one-half +the stories told of these four men were true, then Europe would hold at +present four personages of the highest rank who might have tutored +Caligula in the arts of recondite debauchery, and have looked down on +Alexander the Sixth as a prudish milksop. But I think no reasonable +person will have much difficulty in sifting the probable truth out of +the monstrous exaggerations. No one can doubt that Victor Emanuel is a +man of gross habits and tastes, and is, or was, addicted to coarse and +ignoble immoralities. "The manners of a mosstrooper and the morality of +a he goat," was the description which my friend John Francis Maguire, +the distinguished Roman Catholic member of the House of Commons, gave, +in one of his Parliamentary speeches, of King Victor Emanuel. This was +strong language, and it was the language of a prejudiced though honest +political and religious partisan; but it was not, all things considered, +a very bad description. Moreover, it was mildness, it was +compliment--nay, it was base flattery--when compared with the hideous +accusations publicly and distinctly made against Victor Emanuel by one +of Garibaldi's sons, not to speak of other accusers, and privately +whispered by slanderous gossip all over Europe. One peculiarity about +Victor Emanuel worthy of notice is that he has no luxury in his tastes. +He is, I believe, abstemious in eating and drinking, caring only for the +homeliest fare. He has sat many times at the head of a grand state +banquet, where the rarest viands, the most superb wines were abundant, +and never removed the napkin from his plate, never tasted a morsel or +emptied a glass. He had had his plain fare at an earlier hour, and cared +nothing for the triumphs of cookery or the choicest products of the +vine. He has thus sat, in good-humored silence, his hand leaning on the +hilt of his sword, through a long, long banquet of seemingly endless +courses, which to him was a pageant, a ceremonial duty, and nothing +more. He delights in chamois-hunting--in hunting of almost any kind--in +horses, in dogs, and in women of a certain coarse and gross description. +There is nothing of the Richelieu or Lauzun, or even the Francis the +First, about the dull, I had almost said harmless, immoralities of the +King of Italy. Men in private and public station have done far greater +harm, caused far more misery than ever he did, and yet escaped almost +unwhipt of justice. The man has (or had, for people say he is reformed +now) the coarse, easily-gratified tastes of a sailor turned ashore after +a long cruise--and such tastes are not kingly; and that is about all +that one feels fairly warranted in saying either to condemn or to +palliate the vices of Victor Emanuel. He absolutely wants all element of +greatness. He is not even a great soldier. He has boisterous animal +courage, and finds the same excitement in leading a charge as in +hunting the chamois. But he has nothing even of the very moderate degree +of military capacity possessed by a dashing _sabreur_ like Murat. It +seems beyond doubt that it was the infatuation he displayed in +attempting the personal direction of affairs which led to the breakdown +at Custozza. The man is, in fact, like one of the rough jagers described +in Schiller's "Wallenstein's Camp"--just this, and nothing more. When +Garibaldi was in the zenith of his fortunes and fame in 1860, Victor +Emanuel declared privately to a friend that the height of his ambition +would be to follow the gallant guerilla leader as a mere soldier in the +field. Certainly, when the two men entered Naples together, every one +must have felt that their places ought to have been reversed. How like a +king, an ideal king--a king of poetry and painting and romance--looked +Garibaldi in the superb serenity of his untaught grace and sweetness and +majesty. How rude, uncouth, clownish, even vulgar, looked the big, +brawny, ungainly trooper whom people had to salute as King. When +Garibaldi went to visit the hospitals where the wounded of the short +struggle were lying, how womanlike he was in his sympathetic tenderness; +how light and noiseless was his step; how gentle his every gesture; what +a sweet word of genial compassion or encouragement he had for every +sufferer. The burly King strode and clattered along like a dragoon +swaggering through the crowd at a country fair. Not that Victor Emanuel +wanted good nature, but that his rude _physique_ had so little in it of +the sympathetic or the tender. + +Was there ever known such a whimsical, harmless, odd saturnalia as +Naples presented during those extraordinary days? I am thinking now +chiefly of the men who, mostly uncalled-for, "rallied round" the +Revolution, and came from all manner of holes and corners to offer their +services to Garibaldi, and to exhibit themselves in the capacity of +freedom's friends, soldiers, and scholars. Hardly a hero, or crackbrain, +or rantipole in Europe, one would think, but must have been then on +exhibition somewhere in Naples. Father Gavazzi harangued from one +position; Alexandre Dumas, accompanied by his faithful "Admiral Emile," +directed affairs from another. Edwin James, then a British criminal +lawyer and popular member of Parliament, was to be seen tearing round in +a sort of semi-military costume, with pistols stuck in his belt. The +worn, thoughtful, melancholy face of Mazzini was, for a short time at +least, to be seen in juxtaposition with the cockney visage of an +ambitious and restless common councilman from the city of London, who +has lived all his life since on the glorious memories and honors of that +good time. The House of Lords, the House of Commons, and the Guildhall +of London were lavishly represented there. Men like Tuerr, the dashing +Hungarian and Mieroslawski, the "Red" leader of Polish revolution--men +to whom battle and danger were as the breath of their nostrils--were +buttonholed and advised by heavy British vestrymen and pert Parisian +journalists. Hardly any man or woman entered Naples from a foreign +country at that astonishing time who did not believe that he or she had +some special counsel to give, which Victor Emanuel or Garibaldi or some +one of their immediate staff was bound to listen to and accept. Woman's +Rights were pretty well represented in that pellmell. There was a +Countess something or other--French, they said--who wore short +petticoats and trousers, had silver-mounted pistols in her belt and +silver spurs on her heels, and was generally believed to have done +wonders in "the field"--what field no one would stop to ask. There was +Jessie Mario White, modest, pleasant, fair-haired woman, wife of a +gallant gentleman and soldier--Jessie White, who made no exhibition of +herself, but did then and since faithful and valuable work for Italian +wounded, such as Italy ought not soon to forget. There was Mrs. +Chambers--Mrs. Colonel Chambers--the Mrs. "Putney Giles" of Disraeli's +"Lothair"--very prominent everywhere, sounding the special eulogies of +Garibaldi with tireless tongue, and utterly overshadowing her quiet +husband, who (the husband I mean) afterwards stood by Garibaldi's side +at Aspromonte. Exeter Hall had sent out powerful delegations, in the +firm faith apparently that Garibaldi would at their request order Naples +forthwith to break up its shrines and images of saints and become +Protestant; and that Naples would at once obey. Never was such a time of +dreams and madness and fussiness, of splendid aspirations and silly +self-seeking vanity, of chivalry and daring, and true wisdom and +nonsense. It was a time naturally of many disappointments; and one +disappointment to almost everybody was His Majesty King Victor Emanuel. +His Majesty seemed at least not much to care about the whole affair from +the beginning. He went through it as if he didn't quite understand what +it was all about, and didn't think it worth the trouble of trying. +People who saw him at that splendid moment when, the forces of Garibaldi +joining with the regular Sardinian troops after all had been won, +Garibaldi and the King met for the first time in that crisis, and the +soldier hailed the sovereign as "King of Italy!"--people who saw and +studied that picturesque historic meeting have told me that there was no +more emotion of any kind on Victor Emanuel's face than if he were +receiving a formal address from the mayor of a country town. "I thank +you," were his only words of reply; and I am assured that it was not "I +thank _you_," with emphasis on the last word to indicate that the King +acknowledged how much he owed to his great soldier; but simply "I thank +you," as he might have thanked a groom who opened a stable door for him. +Perhaps the very depth and grandeur of the King's emotions rendered him +incapable of finding any expression for them. Let us hope so. But I have +had the positive assurances of some who saw the scene, that if any such +emotions were felt the royal countenance concealed them as completely as +though they never had been. + +In truth, I presume that the whole thing really was a terrible bore to +the royal Rawdon Crawley, who found himself compelled by cursed spite to +play the part of a patriot king. The Pope, the ultramontane bishops, and +the ultramontane press have always been ringing fierce changes on the +inordinate and wicked ambition of Victor Emanuel. I am convinced the +poor man has no more ambition than his horse. If he could have chalked +out his own career for himself, he would probably have asked nothing +better than to be allowed to devote his life to chamois-hunting, with a +hunter's homely fare, and the companionship of a few friends (some fat +ladies among the number) with whom he could talk and make jokes in the +_patois_ of Piedmont. This, and perhaps a battle-field and a dashing +charge every now and then, would probably have realized his dreams of +the _summum bonum_. But some implacable destiny, embodied in the form of +a Cavour or a Garibaldi, was always driving on the stout King and +bidding him get up and attempt great things--be a patriot and a hero. +Fancy Rawdon Crawley impelled, or rather compelled by the inexorable +command of Becky his wife, to go forth in quest of the Holy Grail, and +one may perhaps be able to guess what Victor Emanuel's perplexity and +reluctance were when he was bidden to set out for the accomplishment of +the regeneration of Italy. "Honor to those to whom honor is due; honor +to old Mother Baubo," says some one in "Faust." Honor on that principle, +then, to King Victor Emanuel. He did get up and go forth and undertake +to bear his part in the adventure. And here seriously let me speak of +the one high merit of Victor Emanuel's career. He is not a hero; he is +not a statesman or even a politician; he is not a patriot in any grand, +exalted sense. He would like to be idle, and perhaps to be despotic. But +he has proved that he understands the true responsibilities and duties +of a constitutional King better than many sovereigns of higher intellect +and better character. He always did go, or at least endeavor to go, +where the promptings of his ministers, the commands of his one imperious +minister, or the voice of the country directed. There must be a great +struggle in the mind of Victor Emanuel between his duty as a king and +his duty as a Roman Catholic, when he enters into antagonism with the +Pope. Beyond doubt Victor Emanuel is a superstitious Catholic. Of late +years his constitution has once or twice threatened to give way, and he +is probably all the more anxious to be reconciled with the Church. +Perhaps he would be glad enough to lay down the load of royalty +altogether and become again an accepted and devoted Catholic, and hunt +his chamois with a quieted conscience. But still, impelled by what must +be some sort of patriotism and sense of duty, he accepts his uncongenial +part of constitutional King, and strives to do all that the voice of his +people demands. It is probable that at no time was the King personally +much attached to his illustrious minister Cavour. The genius and soul of +Cavour were too oppressively imperial, high-reaching, and energetic for +the homely, plodding King. With all his external levity Count Cavour was +terribly in earnest, and he must often have seemed a dreadful bore to +his sovereign. Cavour knew himself the master, and did not always take +pains to conceal his knowledge. He would sometimes adopt the most direct +and vigorous language in remonstrating with the King if the latter did +not act on valuable advice at the right moment. Sometimes, when things +went decidedly against Cavour's wishes, the minister would take the +monarch to task more roundly than even the most good-natured monarchs +are likely to approve. When Napoleon the Third disappointed Cavour and +all Italy by the sudden peace of Villafranca, I have heard that Cavour +literally denounced Victor Emanuel for consenting to the arrangement. +Count Arrivabene, an able writer, has given a very vivid and interesting +description of Cavour's demeanor when he reached the Sardinian +headquarters on his way to an interview with the King and learned what +had been done. He was literally in a "tearing rage." He tore off his hat +and dashed it down, he clenched his hands, he stamped wildly, +gesticulated furiously, became red and purple, foamed at the mouth, and +grew inarticulate for very passion. He believed that he and Italy were +sold--as indeed they were; and it was while this temper was yet on him +that he went to see the King, and denounced him, as I have said. Now +this sort of thing certainly could not have been agreeable to Victor +Emanuel; and yet he patiently accepted Cavour as a kind of glorious +necessity. He never sought, as many another king in such _duresse_ would +have done, to weaken his minister's influence and authority by showing +open sullenness and dissatisfaction. Ratazzi, with his pliable ways and +his entire freedom from any wearisome earnestness or devotion to any +particular cause, was naturally a far more companionable and agreeable +minister for the King than the untiring and imperious Cavour. +Accordingly, it was well known that Ratazzi was more of a personal +favorite; but the King never seems to have acted otherwise than loyally +and honestly toward Cavour. Ricasoli was all but intolerable to the +King. Ricasoli was proud and stern; and he was, moreover, a somewhat +rigid moralist, which Cavour hardly professed to be. The King writhed +under the government of Ricasoli, and yet, despite all that was at the +time whispered, he cannot, I think, be fairly accused of having done +anything personally to rid himself of an obnoxious minister. Indeed, +the single merit of Victor Emanuel's character, if we put aside the +element of personal courage, is its rough integrity. He is a +_galantuomo_, an honest man--in that sense, a man of his word. He gave +his word to constitutional government and to Italy, and he appears to +have kept the word in each case according to his lights. + +But his popularity among his subjects, the interest felt in him by the +world, have long been steadily on the wane. Years and years ago he +ceased to retain the faintest gleam of the halo of romance that once +was, despite of himself, thrown around him. His people care little or +nothing for him. Why, indeed, should they care anything? The military +_prestige_ which he had won, such as it was, vanished at Custozza, and +it was his evil destiny, hardly his fault, to be almost always placed in +a position of antagonism to the one only Italian who since Cavour's +death had an enthusiastic following in Italy. Aspromonte was a calamity +for Victor Emanuel. One can hardly blame him; one can hardly see how he +could have done otherwise. The greatest citizen or soldier in America or +England, if he attempted to levy an army of his own, and make war from +American or English territory upon a neighboring State, would surely +have seen his bands dispersed and found himself arrested by order of his +government; and it would never have occurred to any one to think that +the government was doing a harsh, ungrateful, or improper thing. It +would be the necessary, rightful execution of a disagreeable duty, and +that is all. But the conditions of Garibaldi's case, like the one +splendid service he had rendered, were so entirely abnormal and without +precedent, the whole thing was from first to last so much more a matter +of national sentiment than of political law, that national sentiment +insisted on judging Garibaldi and the King in this case too, and at +least a powerful, passionate minority declared Victor Emanuel an ingrate +and a traitor. Mentana was almost as bad for the King as Custozza. The +voice of the country, so far as one could understand its import, seemed +to declare that when the King had once ordered the Italian troops to +cross the frontier, he should have ordered them to go on; that if they +had actually occupied Rome, France would have recognized accomplished +facts; that as it was, Italy offended France and the Pope by stepping +over the barrier of the convention of September, only to humiliate +herself by stepping back again without having accomplished anything. +Certainly the policy of the Italian Government at such a crisis was +weak, miserable, even contemptible. Then indeed Italy might well have +exclaimed, "Oh for one hour of Cavour!" One hour of the man of genius +and courage, who, if he had moved forward, would not have darted back +again! Perhaps it was unfair to hold the King responsible for the +mistakes of his ministers. But when a once popular King has to be +pleaded for on that sole ground, it is pretty clear that there is an end +to his popularity. So with Victor Emanuel. The world began to forget +him; his subjects began to despise him. Even the thrilling events that +have lately taken place in Italy, the sudden crowning of the national +edifice--the realization of that hope which so long appeared but a +dream--which Cavour himself declared would be the most slow and +difficult to realize of all Italy's hopes--even the possession of Rome +hardly seems to have brought back one ray of the old popularity on the +heavy head of King Victor Emanuel. Again the wonderful combination of +good luck and bad--the good fortune which brought to the very door of +the house of Savoy the sudden realization of its highest dreams--the +misfortune which allowed that house no share in the true credit of +having accomplished its destiny. What had Victor Emanuel to do with the +sudden juncture of events which enabled Italy to take possession of her +capital? Nothing whatever. His people have no more reason to thank him +for Rome than they have to thank him for the rain or the sunshine, the +olive and the vine. The King seems to have felt all this. His short +visit to Rome, and the formal act of taking possession, may perhaps have +been made so short because Victor Emanuel knew that he had little right +to claim any honors or expect any popular enthusiasm. He entered Rome +one day and went away the next. I confess, however, that I should not +wonder if the visit was made so short merely because the whole thing was +a bore to the honest King, and he could only make up his mind to endure +a very few hours of it. + +Victor Emanuel, King of United Italy, and welcomed by popular +acclamation in Rome--his second son almost at the same moment proclaimed +King of the Spaniards--his second daughter Queen of Portugal. How +fortune seems to have delighted in honoring this house of Savoy. I only +say "seems to have." I do not venture yet to regard the accession of +King Amadeus to the crown of Spain as necessarily an honorable or a +fortunate thing. Every one must wish the poor young prince well in such +a situation; perhaps we should rather wish him well out of it. Never +king assumed a crown with such ghastly omens to welcome him. Here is the +King putting on his diadem; and yonder, lying dead by the hand of an +assassin, is the man who gave him the diadem and made him King! But for +Juan Prim there would be no Amadeus, King of the Spaniards; and for that +reason Juan Prim lies dead. The young King must have needed all his +hereditary courage to enable him to face calmly and bravely, as he seems +to have done, so terrible a situation. Macaulay justly says that no +danger is so trying to the nerves of a brave man as the danger of +assassination. Men utterly reckless in battle--like "bonny Dundee" for +example--have owned that the knowledge of the assassin's purpose and +haunting presence was more than they could endure. The young Italian +prince seems to have shown no sign of flinching. So far as anything +indeed is known of him, he is favorably known to the world. He bore +himself like a brave soldier at Custozza, and obtained the special +commendation of the Austrian victor, the gallant old Archduke Albrecht. +He married for love a lady of station decidedly inferior to that of a +royal prince; the lady had the honor of being sneered at even in her +honeymoon for the modest, inexpensive simplicity of her toilet, as she +appeared with her young husband at one of the watering-places; he had +not made himself before marriage the subject of as much scandal as used +to follow and float around the bachelor reputation of his elder brother +Humbert. He is believed to be honestly and manfully liberal in his +views. He ought to make a good King as kings go--if the murderers of +General Prim only give him the chance. + +As I have mentioned the name of the man whose varied, brilliant, daring, +and turbulent career has been so suddenly cut short, I may perhaps be +excused for wandering a little out of the path of my subject to say that +I think many of the American newspapers have hardly done justice to +Prim. Some of them have written of him, even in announcing his death, as +if it were not possible for a man to be honest and yet not to be a +republican. In more than one instance the murder of Prim was treated as +a sort of thing which, however painful to read of, was yet quite natural +and even excusable in the case of a man who endeavored to give his +country a King. There was a good deal too much of the "Sic semper +tyrannis" tone and temper about some of the journals. Now, I do not +believe that Prim was a patriot of that unselfish and lofty group to +which William the Silent, and George Washington, and Daniel Manin +belong. His was a very mixed character, and ambition had a large place +in it. But I believe that he sincerely loved and tried to serve Spain; +and I believe that in giving her a King he honestly thought he was doing +for her the thing most suited to her tendencies and her interests. If +Prim could have made Spain a republic, he could have made himself her +President, even perhaps for life; while he could not venture, she being +a kingdom, to constitute himself her King. Many times did Prim himself +say to me, before the outbreak of his successful revolt, that he +believed the republican to be the ultimate form of government +everywhere, and that he would gladly see it in Spain; but that he did +not believe Spain was yet suited for it, or numbered republicans enough. +"To have a republic you must first have republicans," was a common +saying of his. New England is a very different sort of place from Old +Castile. At all events, Prim is not to be condemned as a traitor to his +country and to liberty, even if it were true that he could have created +a Spanish republic. We have to show first that he knew the thing was +possible and refused to do it, for selfish or ignoble motives. This I am +satisfied is not true. I think Prim believed a republic impossible in +the Spain of to-day, and simply acted in accordance with his +convictions. He came very near to being a great man; he wanted not much +of being a great patriot. He was, I think, better than his fame. As +Spain has decreed, he "deserved well of his country." It seems hardly +reasonable or just to decry him or condemn him because he did not +deserve better. Such as he was, he proved himself original. "He walked," +as Carlyle says, "his own wild road, whither that led him." In an age +very prolific of great political men, he made a distinct name and place +for himself. "Name thou the best of German singers," exclaims Heine with +pardonable pride, "and my name must be spoken among them." Name the +half-dozen really great, originating characters in European politics +during our time, and the name of Prim must come in among them. + +But I was speaking of Victor Emanuel and his children. All I have heard +then of the Duke of Aosta leads me to believe that he is qualified to +make a respectable and loyal constitutional sovereign. High intellectual +capacity no one expects from the house of Savoy, but there will probably +be good sense, manly feeling, and no small share of political +discretion. In the Duke of Aosta, too, Spain will have a King who can +have no possible sympathy with slave systems and their products of +whatever kind, and who can hardly have much inclination for the coercing +and dragooning of reluctant populations. If Spain in his day and through +his influence can get decently and honorably rid of Cuba, she will have +entered upon a new chapter of her national existence, as important for +her as that grand new volume which opens upon France when defeat has +purged her of her thrice-accursed "militaryism." The dependencies have +been a miserable misfortune to Spain. They have entangled her in all +manner of complications; they have filled her with false principles; +they have created whole corrupt classes among her soldiers and +politicians. General Prim himself once assured me that the real revenues +of Spain were in no wise the richer for her colonial possessions. +Proconsuls made fortunes and spread corruption round them, and that was +all. If her new King could only contrive to relieve Spain of this source +of corruption and danger, he would be worth all the cost and labor of +the revolution which gives him now a Spanish throne. + +Why did fate decree that the very best of all the children of Victor +Emanuel should have apparently the worst fortune? The Princess Clotilde +is an exile from the country and the palace of her husband; and if the +sweetness and virtue of one woman might have saved a court, the court of +the Tuileries might have been saved by Victor Emanuel's eldest daughter. +I have heard the Princess Clotilde talked of by Ultramontanes, +Legitimists, Orleanists, Republicans, Red Republicans (by some among the +latter who firmly believed that the poor Empress Eugenie was wickeder +than Messalina), and I never heard a word spoken of her that was not in +her praise. Every one admitted that she was a pure and noble woman, a +patient wife, a devoted mother; full of that unpretending simplicity +which, let us own it frankly, is one of the graces which very high birth +and old blood do sometimes bring. The Princess must in her secret soul +have looked down on some of the odd _coteries_ who were brought around +her at the court of the Tuileries. She comes of a house in whose +genealogy, to quote Disraeli's humorous words, "Chaos was a novel," and +she found herself forced into companionship with ladies and gentlemen +whose fathers and mothers, good lack! sometimes seemed to have omitted +any baptismal registration whatever. I presume she was not ignorant of +the parentage of De Morny, or Walewski, or Walewski's son, or the Jerome +David class of people. I presume she heard what every one said of the +Countess this and the Marchioness that, and so on. Of course the +Princess Clotilde did not like these people--how could any decent woman +like them?--but she accepted the necessities of her position with a +self-possession and dignity which, offending no one, marked the line +distinctly and honorably between her and them. Her joy was in her +children. She loved to show them to friends, and to visitors even whom +she felt that she could treat as friends. Perhaps she is not less happy +now that the ill-omened, fateful splendors of the Palais Royal no longer +help to make a gilded cage for the darlings of her nursery. Of the whole +family, hers may be called the only career which has been doomed to what +the world describes and pities as failure. It may well be that she is +now happiest of all the children of the house of Savoy. + +Meanwhile, Victor Emanuel has been welcomed at the Quirinal, and is +indeed, at last, King of Italy. We may well say to him, as Banquo says +of Macbeth, "Thou hast it all!" Lombardy, Tuscany, Parma, Modena, the +Two Sicilies, Venetia, and Rome--what gathering within less than a fifth +of an ordinary lifetime! And on the Quirinal Victor Emanuel may be said +to have stood alone. Of all the men who mainly wrought to bring about +that grand consummation, not one stood by his side. Daniel Manin, the +pure, patient, fearless, patriot hero; Cavour, the consummate statesman; +Massimo d'Azeglio, the Bayard or Lafayette of Italy's later days, the +soldier, scholar, and lover of his country--these are dead, and rest +with Dante. Mazzini is still a sort of exile--homeless, unshaken, seeing +his prophecies fulfil themselves and his ideas come to light, while he +abides in the gloom and shadow, and the world calls him a dreamer. +Garibaldi is lending the aid of his restless sword to a cause which he +cannot serve, and a people who never understood him; and he is getting +sadly mixed up somehow in ordinary minds with General Cluseret and +George Francis Train. Louis Napoleon, who, whatever his crimes, did +something for the unity of Italy, is a broken man in captivity. Only +Victor Emanuel, least gifted of all, utterly unworthy almost to be named +in the same breath with any of them (save Louis Napoleon alone)--only he +comes forward to receive the glories and stand up as the representative +of one Italy! Let us do him the justice to acknowledge that he never +sought the position or the glory. He accepted both as a necessity of his +birth and his place, a formal duty and a bore. His was not the character +which goes in quest of greatness. As Falstaff says of rebellion and the +revolted English lord, greatness "lay in his way, and he found it." + + + + +LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS. + + +Guizot quietly at work in the preparation of a history of France for the +instruction of children--Thiers taking his place in a balloon to fly +from one seat of government in France to another! Such were the +occupations, at a given time in last November, of the two distinguished +men whose rivalries and contentions disturbed the politics of France for +so many years. + +An ill-natured person might feel inclined to say that the adventures in +the balloon were a proper crowning of the edifice of M. Thiers's fitful +career. Was not his whole political life (_non meus hic sermo_, please +to understand--it is the ill-natured person who says this) an enterprise +in a balloon, high out of all the regions where common sense, +consistency, and statesmanship are ruling elements? Did he not overleap +with aeronautic flight when it so suited him, from liberalism to +conservatism, from advocating freedom of thought to enforcing the +harshest repression? Was not his literary reputation floated into high +air by that most inflated and gaseous of all balloons, the "History of +the Consulate and the Empire"? Thiers in a balloon is just where he +ought to be, and where he ever has been. Condense into one meagre little +person all the egotism, all the self-conceit, all the vainglory, all the +incapacity for looking at anything whatever from the right point of +view, which belong to the typical Frenchman of fiction and satire, and +you have a pretty portrait of M. Thiers. + +Doubtless, the ill-natured person who should say all this would be able +to urge a good many plausible reasons in justification of his +assertions. Still, one may be allowed to admire--one cannot help +admiring--the astonishing energy and buoyancy which made M. Thiers, +despite his seventy-three years, the most active emissary of the French +Republic during the past autumn, the aeronautic rival of the vigorous +young Corsican Gambetta, who was probably hardly grown enough for a +merry-go-round in the Champs Elysees when Thiers was beginning to be +regarded as an old fogy by the ardent revolutionists of 1848. About the +middle of last September, a few days after the sudden creation of the +French Republic, M. Thiers precipitated himself on London. An account in +the newspapers described him as "accompanied by five ladies." Thus +gracefully escorted, he marched on the English capital. He had +interviews with Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville, the French Ambassador, +and divers other great personages. He was always rushing from diplomatic +office to office. He "interviewed" everybody in London who could by any +possibility be supposed capable of influencing in the slightest degree +the fortunes of France. He never for a moment stopped talking. Great men +excel each other in various qualities; but there never was a great man +who could talk against M. Thiers. He could have shut up the late Lord +Macaulay in no time; and I doubt whether Mr. Seward could have contrived +to edge in a word while Thiers was in the same room. M. Thiers stayed in +London little more than two days. He arrived, I think, on a Wednesday +night, and left on the following Saturday. During that time he managed +to do all the interviewing, and was likewise able to take his family to +see the paintings in the National Gallery, where he was to be observed +keenly eyeing the pictures, and eloquently laying down critical law and +gospel on their merits, as if he had come over on a little autumnal +holiday from a settled and peaceful country, which no longer needed +looking after. Then he started from London in a steam-yacht, cruised +about the North Sea and the Baltic, dropped in upon the King of +Denmark, sounded the views of Sweden, collected the general opinion of +Finland, visited the Emperor of Russia and talked him into +semi-bewilderment, and then travelled down by land to Vienna, where he +used all his powers of persuasion on the Emperor Francis Joseph, and to +Florence, where by the sheer force of argument and fluency he drove +Victor Emanuel nearly out of his senses. Since that time, he all but +concluded an armistice with Bismarck, and when last I heard of him +(previous to this writing) he was, as I have said, going on a mission +somewhere in a balloon. + +During his recent diplomatic flights, M. Thiers constantly offered to +encounter much greater fatigues and responsibilities if needful. He was +ready to go anywhere and talk to anybody. He would have hunted up the +Emperor of China or the Mikado of Japan, if either sovereign seemed in +the remotest degree likely to intervene on the side of France. I believe +I can say with confidence, that at the outset of his expedition he had +no official authority or mission whatever from the Provisional +Government. He told Jules Favre and the rest that he was about to start +on a tour of inspection round the European cabinets, and that they had +better let him try what he could do; and they did not refuse to let him +try, and it would not have mattered in the least whether they refused or +not. He came, in the first instance, altogether "on his own hook." +Perhaps, at first, the Republican Government was not very anxious to +accept the services of M. Thiers as a messenger of peace. No living +Frenchman had done half so much to bring about the state of national +feeling which enabled Louis Napoleon to precipitate the nation into a +war against Prussia. Perhaps they thought the man whose bitterest +complaint against the Emperor was that he failed to take advantage of +the chance of crushing Prussia in 1866, was not the most likely emissary +to conciliate victorious Prussia in 1870. But Thiers was determined to +make himself useful, and the Republican Government had to give in at +last, and concede some sort of official authority to him. Like the young +lady who said she married the importunate suitor to get rid of him, +Jules Favre and his colleagues probably accepted M. Thiers for their +spokesman as the only way of escaping from his eloquence. His mission +was heroic and patriotic, or egotistical and fussy, just as you are +pleased to regard it. In certain lights Cardinal Richelieu looks +wonderfully like Bottom the weaver. But it is impossible not to admire +the energy and courage of the irrepressible, inexhaustible, +fragile-looking, shabby old Orleanist. Thiers does not seem a personage +capable of enduring fatigue. He appears a sapless, withered, wasted old +creature. But the restless, fiery, exuberant, egotistical energy which +carried him along so far and so fast in life, has apparently gained +rather than lost in strength and resource during the forty years which +have elapsed since the subject of this sketch, then editor of the +"National," drew up in Paris the famous protest against the five +infamous _ordonnances_ of Charles the Tenth, and thus sounded the +prelude to the Revolution of July. + +It must have been no common stock of self-possession and +self-complacency which enabled M. Thiers to present himself before the +great Prussian Chancellor as a messenger of peace. Bismarck, who has a +happy knack of apt Shakespearian quotation, might have accosted him in +the words of Beatrice and said, "This is a man's office, but not yours." +For M. Thiers, throughout his whole career, devoted his brilliant gifts +to the promotion of that spirit of narrow national vainglory which of +late years has made France dreaded and detested in Germany. M. Thiers is +like AEsop's trumpeter--guilty not of making war himself, but of blowing +the blasts which set other men fighting. The very speech in which he +protested last summer against the war initiated by the Imperial +Government, was inspired by a principle more immoral, and more +calculated to inflame Germany with resentment, than the very declaration +of war itself. For Thiers only condemned the war on the ground that +France was not properly prepared to crush Germany; that she had lost her +opportunity by not falling on Prussia while the latter was in the +death-grapple with Austria in 1866; and that as France had not done the +thing at the right time, she had better not run the risk of doing it +incompletely, by making the effort at an inopportune moment. + +These considerations, however, did not trouble M. Thiers. He advanced to +meet Count von Bismarck with the easy confidence of one who feels that +he has a right to be treated as the best of friends and most appropriate +of envoys. If, immediately after the conclusion of the American war, +John Bright had been sent to Washington by England to endeavor to settle +the Alabama dispute, he probably would not have approached the President +with anything like the confident assurance of a genial welcome which +inspired M. Thiers when he offered himself as a messenger to the +Prussian statesman. This very sublimity of egotism is, and always was, +one of the sources of the success of M. Thiers. No man could with more +perfect composure and self-satisfaction dare to be inconsistent. His was +the very audacity and Quixotism of inconsistency. In office to-day, he +could advocate and enforce the very measures of repression which +yesterday, out of office, he was the foremost to denounce--nay, which he +obtained office by opposing and denouncing. He whose energetic action in +protesting against the celebrated five _ordonnances_ of Charles the +Tenth did so much to bring about the Revolution of July, was himself the +chief official author of the equally celebrated "laws of September," +introduced in Louis Philippe's reign, which might have suited the +administration of a Peter the Great, or any other uncompromising despot. +In practical politics, of course, almost every minister is occasionally +compelled by the force of circumstances to do things which bear a +considerable resemblance to acts warmly condemned by him while he sat in +opposition. But M. Thiers invariably, when in power, exhibited himself +as the author and champion of principles and policy which he had +denounced with all the force of his eloquent tongue when he was the +opponent of the Government. He seemed in fact to be two men rather than +one, so entirely did Thiers in office contrast with Thiers in +opposition. But Thiers himself never appeared conscious of +inconsistency. Indeed, he was always consistent with his one grand +essential principle and creed--faith in the inspiration and the destiny +of M. Thiers. + +To one other principle too let it be said in justice that this brilliant +politician has always been faithful--the principle which maintains the +right of France to throw her sword into the scale where every or any +foreign question is to be weighed. When, after a long absence from the +parliamentary arena, he entered the Imperial Corps Legislatif as one of +the deputies for Paris, he soon proved himself to be "old Cassius +still." Age, study, experience, retirement, reflection, had in no wise +dimmed the fire of his ardent nationalism. Eagerly as ever he contended +for the sacred right of France to dragoon all Europe into obedience, to +chop up the Continent into such symmetrical sections as might seem +suitable to the taste and the convenience of French statesmen. +Undoubtedly he was a sharp, tormenting thorn in the side of the Imperial +Government when he returned to active political life. Louis Napoleon had +no minister who could pretend to compare with Thiers in debate. He was +an aggravating and exasperating enemy, against whom fluent and shallow +men like Billault and Baroche, or even speakers of heavier calibre like +Rouher, had no chance whatever. But there were times when to any +impartial mind the invectives of Thiers made the Imperial policy look +noble and enlightened in comparison with the canons of detestable +egotism which he propounded as the true principles of government. I +remember thinking more than once that if Louis Napoleon's Ministers +could only have risen to the real height of the situation and appealed +to whatever there was of lofty unselfish feeling in France, they might +have overwhelmed their remorseless and envenomed critic. In 1866 and +1867, for example, Thiers made it a cardinal point of complaint and +invective against the French Government that it had not prevented by +force of arms the progress of Germany's unity. Nothing could be more +pungent, brilliant, bitter, than the eloquence with which he proclaimed +and advocated his doctrines of ignoble and unscrupulous selfishness. Why +did not the Imperial spokesmen assume a virtue if they had it not, and +boldly declare that the Government of France scorned the shallow and +envious policy which sees calamity and danger in the union and growing +strength of a neighboring people? Such a chord bravely struck would have +awakened an echo in every true and generous heart. But the Imperial +Ministers feebly tried to fight M. Thiers upon his own ground, to accept +his principles as the conditions of contest. They endeavored in a +paltering and limping way to show that the French Government had been +selfish and only selfish, and had taken every care to keep Germany +properly weak and divided. It was during one of these debates, thus +provoked by M. Thiers, that occasion was given to Count von Bismarck for +one of his most striking _coups de theatre_. The French Minister (if I +remember rightly, it was M. Rouher), tortured and baited by M. Thiers, +stood at bay at last, and boldly declared that the Government of France +had taken measures to render impossible any political cohesion of North +and South Germany. A day or two after, Count von Bismarck effectively +and contemptuously replied to this declaration by unfolding in the +Prussian Chamber the treaties of alliance already concluded between his +Government and the South German States. + +It has always been a matter of surprise to me that Thiers did not prove +a success at the bar, to which at first he applied his abilities. He +seems to have the very gifts which would naturally have made a great +pleader. All through his political career he displayed a wonderful +capacity for making the worse appear the better cause. The adroitness +which contends skilfully that black is white to-day, having argued with +equal force and fluency that white was green yesterday, would have been +highly appropriate and respectable in a legal advocate. But M. Thiers +did not somehow get on at the bar, and having no influential friends (he +was, I think, the son of a locksmith), but plenty of ambition, courage, +and confidence, he strove to enter political life by the avenue of +journalism. Much of Thiers's subsequent success as a debater was +probably due to that skill which a practised journalist naturally +acquires--the dexterity of arraying facts and arguments so as not to +bear too long on any one part of the subject, and not to offer to the +mind of the reader more than his patience and interest are willing to +accept. Most of the events of his political career, up to his +reappearance in public life in 1863, belong wholly to history and the +past. His long rivalry with Guizot, his intrigues out of office, and his +conduct as a Minister of Louis Philippe, have hardly a more direct and +vital connection with the affairs of to-day than the statecraft of +Mazarin or the political vicissitudes of Bolingbroke. One indeed of the +projects of M. Thiers has now come rather unexpectedly into active +operation. The fortifications of Paris were the offspring of the +apprehension M. Thiers entertained, thirty years ago, that the Eastern +question of that day might provoke another great European war. Since +that time many critics sneered and laughed a good deal at M. Thiers's +system of fortifications; but the whirligig of time has brought the +statesman his revenge. No one could mistake the meaning of the smile of +self-satisfaction which used last autumn to light up the unattractive +features of the veteran Orleanist, as he made tour after tour of +inspection around the defences of Paris. This chain of fortifications +alone, one might almost say, connects the Thiers of the present +generation with the Thiers of the past. There were malignant persons who +did not scruple to say that the author of the scheme of defences was not +altogether sorry for the national calamity which had brought them into +use, and apparently justified their construction. It is very hard to be +altogether sorry for even a domestic misfortune which gives one who is +especially proud of his foresight and sagacity an opportunity of +pointing out that the precautions which he recommended, and other +members of the family scorned, are now eagerly adopted by unanimous +concurrence. There certainly was something of the pardonable pride of +the author of a long misprized invention visible in the face of M. +Thiers as he used to gaze upon his beloved system of fortifications any +time in last September. Little did even he himself think when, after +Sadowa, he accused the Emperor's Government of having left itself no +blunder more to commit, that it had yet to perpetrate one crowning and +gigantic mistake, and that one effect at least of this stupendous error +would be to compel Paris to treat _au serieux_, and as a supreme +necessity, that system of defences so long regarded as good for little +else than to remind the present generation that Louis Adolphe Thiers was +once Prime Minister of France. + +Thiers was not far short of seventy years old when, in 1863, he entered +upon a new chapter of his public life as one of the deputies for Paris +in the Imperial Corps Legislatif. A new generation had meantime arisen. +Men were growing into fame as orators and politicians who were boys when +Thiers was last heard as a parliamentary debater. He returned to +political life at an eventful time and accompanied by some notable +compeers. The elections which sent Thiers to represent the department of +the Seine made the venerable and illustrious Berryer one of the +delegates from Marseilles. I doubt whether the political life of any +country has ever produced a purer, grander figure than that of Berryer; +I am sure that an obsolete and hopeless cause never had a nobler +advocate. The genius and the virtues of Berryer are indeed the loftiest +claims modern French legitimacy can offer to the respect of posterity. I +look back with a feeling of something like veneration to that grand and +kingly form, to the sweet, serene, unaffected dignity of that august +nature. Berryer belonged to a totally different political order from +that of Thiers. As John Bright is to Disraeli, as John Henry Newman is +to Monsignore Capel, as Montalembert was to Louis Veuillot, as Charles +Sumner is to Seward, so was Berryer to Thiers. Of the oratorical merits +of the two men I shall speak hereafter; now I refer to the relative +value of their political characters. With Thiers and Berryer there came +back to political life some men of mark and worth. Garnier-Pages was +one, the impulsive, true-hearted, not very strong-headed Republican; a +man who might be a great leader if fine phrases and good intentions +could rule the world. Carnot was another, not much perhaps in himself, +but great as the son of the illustrious organizer of victory (oh, if +France had lately had one hour of Carnot!), and personally very popular +just then because of his scornful rejection of Louis Napoleon's offer to +bring back the ashes of his father from Magdeburg in Prussia to France. +Eugene Pelletan, who had been suffering savage persecution because of +his fierce attack on the Empire in his book, "The New Babylon"; Jules +Simon, a superior sort of French Tom Hughes--Tom Hughes with republican +convictions and strong backbone--and several other men of name and +fibre, were now companions in the Corps Legislatif. All these, differing +widely in personal opinions, and indeed representing every kind of +political view, from the chivalrous and romantic legitimacy of Berryer +to the republican religion or fetichism of Garnier-Pages, combined to +make up an opposition to the Imperial Government. Up to that time the +opposition had consisted simply of five men. For years those five had +fought a persevering and apparently hopeless fight against the strength +of Imperial arms, Imperial gold, and the lungs of Imperial hirelings. Of +the five the leader was Jules Favre. The second in command was Emile +Ollivier, whose treason to liberty, truth, and peace has since been so +sternly avenged by destiny. The other three were Picard, a member of the +Republican Government of September, and MM. Darimon and Henon. +Numerically the opposition, now strengthened by the new accessions, +became quite respectable; morally and politically it wholly changed the +situation. It was no longer a Leonidas or Horatius Cocles desperately +holding a pass; it was an army encountering an army. The Imperialists of +course still far outnumbered their opponents; but there were no men +among the devotees of Imperialism who could even pretend to compare as +orators with Berryer, Thiers, or Favre. Of these three men, it seems to +me that Berryer was by far the greatest orator, but Thiers left him +nowhere as a partisan leader. Thiers undoubtedly pushed Jules Favre +aside and made him quite a secondary figure. Thiers delighted in +worrying a ministry. He never needed, as Berryer did, the impulse of a +great principle and a great purpose. He felt all the joy of the strife +which distinguishes the born gladiator. He soon proved that his years +had in no degree impaired his oratorical capacity. It became one of the +grand events of Paris when Thiers was to speak. Owing to the peculiar +regulations of the French Chamber, which required that those who meant +to take part in a debate should inscribe their names beforehand in the +book, and speak according to their turn--an odious usage, fatal to all +genuine debate--it was always known in advance through Paris that +to-morrow or the day after Thiers was to speak. Then came a struggle for +places in what an Englishman would call the strangers' gallery. The +Palais Bourbon, where the Corps Legislatif held its sittings, opposite +the Place de la Concorde, has the noble distinction of providing the +least and worst accommodation for the public of any House of Assembly in +the civilized world. The English House of Commons is miserably defective +and niggardly in this respect, but it is liberal and lavish when +compared with the French Corps Legislatif. Therefore, when M. Thiers was +about to speak, there was as much intriguing, clamoring, beseeching, +wrangling, storming for seats in the public _tribunes_ as would have +sufficed to carry an English county election. The trouble had its +reward. Nobody could be disappointed in M. Thiers who merely desired an +intellectual exercise and treat. Thiers never was heavy or dull. He is, +I think, the most interesting of all the great European debaters. I do +not know whether I convey exactly the meaning I wish to express when I +used the word "interesting." What I mean is that there is in M. Thiers +an inexhaustible vivacity, freshness, and variety which never allows the +attention to wander or flag. He never dwells too long on any one part of +his subject; or if he has to dwell long anywhere, he enlivens the theme +by a lavish copiousness of novel argument, application, and +illustration, which is irresistibly piquant and fascinating. Reentering +public life in his old age, M. Thiers had physically something like the +advantage which I have known to be possessed by certain mature +actresses, who, never having had any claim to personal beauty in their +youth, were visited with hardly any penalty of time when they began to +descend into age. Thiers always had an insignificant presence, a +dreadfully bad voice, and an unpleasant delivery. Time added nothing, +and probably could add nothing, to these disadvantages. Already John +Bright has lost, already Gladstone is losing, those magnificent +qualities of voice and intonation which till lately distinguished both +from all other living English orators. One of the only fine passages in +Disraeli's "Life of Lord George Bentinck" is that in which he describes +the melancholy sensation created in the House of Commons when Daniel +O'Connell, feeble and broken down, tried vainly to raise above a +mumbling murmur those accents which once could thrill and vibrate to the +furthest corner of the most capacious hall. But the voice and delivery +of Thiers at seventy were no whit worse than those of Thiers at forty; +and in energy, vivacity, and variety, I think the opposition leader of +1866 had rather gained upon the Minister of 1836. In everything that +makes a great orator he was far beneath Berryer. The latter had as +commanding a presence as he had a superb voice, and a manner at once +graceful and dignified. Berryer, too, had the sustaining strength of a +profound conviction, pure and lofty as a faith. If Berryer was a +political Don Quixote, Thiers was a political Gil Blas. Thiers was all +sparkle, antithesis, audacity, sophistry. His _tours de force_ were +perfect masterpieces of fearless adroitness. He darted from point to +point, from paradox to paradox, with the bewildering agility of a +squirrel. He flashed through the heavy atmosphere of a dull debate with +the scintillating radiancy of a firefly. He propounded sentiments of +freedom which would positively have captivated you if you had not known +a little of the antecedents of the orator. He threw off concise and +luminous maxims of government which would have been precious guides if +human politics could only be ruled by epigram. His long experience as a +partisan leader, in and out of office, had made him master of a vast +array of facts and dates, which he was expert to marshal in such a +manner as often to bewilder his opponents. His knowledge of the +mechanism and regulations of diplomatic and parliamentary practice was +consummate. He was singularly clear and attractive in statement; his +mode of putting a case had something in it that was positively +fascinating. He was sharp and severe in retort, and there was a cold, +self-complacent _hauteur_ in his way of putting down an adversary, which +occasionally reminded one of a peculiarity of Earl Russell's style when +the latter was still a good parliamentary debater. M. Thiers had the +great merit of never talking over the heads, above the understandings of +his audience. His style of language was of the same character perhaps as +that of Mr. Wendell Phillips. Of course no two men could possibly be +more unlike in the manner of speaking, but the rhetorical vernacular of +both has a considerable resemblance. The diction in each case is clear, +incisive, penetrating--never, or hardly ever, rising to anything of +exalted oratorical grandeur, never involved in mist or haze of any kind, +and with the same habitual acidity and sharpness in it. I presume M. +Thiers wrote the greater part of his speeches beforehand, but he +evidently had the happy faculty, rare even among accomplished orators, +which enables a speaker to blend the elaborately prepared portions of +his discourse with the extemporaneous passages originated by the +impulses and the incidents of the debate. Some of the cleverest +arguments, and especially some of the cleverest sarcastic hits in M. +Thiers's recent speeches, were provoked by questions and interruptions +which must have been quite unexpected. But a strange peculiarity about +the whole body of the speeches, the written parts as well as the +extemporaneous, was that they bore no resemblance whatever to the +glittering and gorgeous style which is so common and so objectionable in +the pages of the author's history of the French Revolution, and of the +Consulate and the Empire. I must say that I think M. Thiers's historical +works are decidedly heavy reading. I think his speeches are more +interesting and attractive to read than those of any political speaker +of our day. As an orator I set him below Berryer, below Gladstone and +Bright, below Wendell Phillips, and not above Disraeli. But as an +interesting speaker--I can think of no better qualification for him--I +place M. Thiers above any of those masters of the art of eloquence. + +I have not compared M. Thiers with Jules Favre. Any juxtaposition of the +two ought rather perhaps to be in the way of contrast than of +comparison. Jules Favre is probably the most exquisite and perfect +rhetorician practising in the public debates of our time. No one else +can lend so brilliant an effect, so delightful an emphasis to words and +phrases by the mere modulations of his tone. I once heard a French +workingman say that Jules Favre _parlait comme un ange_--talked like an +angel; and there was a simple appropriateness in the expression. An +angel, if he had to address so unsympathetic and uncongenial an audience +as the Imperial Corps Legislatif, could hardly lend more musical effect +to the meaning of his words than was given by Jules Favre's consummate +rhetorical skill. But I must acknowledge that to me at least there never +seemed to be much in what Jules Favre said. It seemed to me too often to +want marrow and backbone. It was an eloquence of fine phrases and +splendid vague generalities. "Flow on, thou shining river," one felt +sometimes inclined to say as the bright, broad, shallow stream glided +away. If Thiers spoke for half a day, and the discourse covered a dozen +columns of the closely-printed "Moniteur," yet the listener or reader +came away with the impression that the orator had crammed quite a +surprising quantity of matter into his speech, and could have found ever +so much more to say on the same subject. The impression produced on me +at least by the speeches of Jules Favre was always of the very opposite +character. They seemed to be all rhetoric and modulation; they were +without depth and without fibre. The essentially declamatory character +of Jules Favre's eloquence received its most complete illustration in +that remarkable document--so painful and pathetic because of its obvious +earnestness, so ludicrous and almost contemptible because of its turgid +and extravagant outbursts--the report of his recent interviews with +Count von Bismarck at the Prussian headquarters near Versailles. One +must keep constantly in mind the awful seriousness of the situation, and +the genuine suffering which it must have imposed upon Jules Favre, not +to laugh outright or feel disgusted at the inflated, hyperbolical, and +melodramatic style in which the Republican Minister describes his +interview with the Prussian Chancellor. Now, whatever faults of style M. +Thiers might commit, he never could thus make himself ridiculous. He +never allows himself to be out of tune with the occasion and the +audience. You may differ utterly from him, you may distrust and dislike +him; but Thiers, the parliamentary orator, will not permit you to laugh +at him. + +Thiers was always very happy in his replies and retorts, and he never +allowed if he could an interruption to one of his speeches in the Corps +Legislatif to pass without seizing its meaning and at once dissecting +and demolishing it. He rejoiced in the light sword-play of such +exercises. He would never have been contented with the superb quietness +of contempt by which Berryer in one of his latest speeches crushed +Granier de Cassagnac, the abject serf and hireling of Imperialism. While +Berryer was speaking, Granier de Cassagnac suddenly expressed his coarse +dissent from one of the orator's statements by crying out, "That is not +true." Berryer was not certain as to the source of this insolent +interruption. He gazed all round the assembly, and demanded in accents +of subdued and noble indignation who had dared thus to challenge the +truth of his statement. There was a dead pause. Even enemies looked up +with reverence to the grand old orator, and were ashamed of the rude +insult flung at him. De Cassagnac quailed, but every eye was on him, and +he was compelled to declare himself. "It was I who spoke," said the +Imperial servant. Berryer looked at him for a moment, and then said, +"Oh, it was _you_!--then it is of no consequence," and calmly resumed +the thread of his discourse. Nothing could have been finer, nothing more +demolishing than the cold, grand contempt which branded De Cassagnac as +a creature incapable of meriting, even by insult, the notice of a man of +honor. But Thiers would never have been satisfied with such a mode of +crushing an adversary; and indeed it needed all the majesty of Berryer's +presence and the moral grandeur of his character to give it full force +and emphasis. Thiers would have showered upon the head of the Imperial +lacquey a whole fiery cornucopia of sarcasm and sharp invective, and De +Cassagnac would have gone home rather proud of having drawn down upon +his head the angry eloquence of the great Orleanist orator. + +Thiers threw his whole soul into his speeches--not merely as to their +preparation, but as to their revision and publication. According to the +Imperial system, no independent reports of speeches in the Chambers were +allowed to appear in print. The official stenographers noted down in +full each day's debate, and the whole was published next day in the +"Moniteur Universel." These reports professed to give every word and +syllable of the speeches--every whisper of interruption. Sometimes, +therefore, the "Moniteur" came out with twenty of its columns filled up +with the dull maunderings of some provincial blockhead, for whom +servility and money had secured an official candidature. Besides these +stupendous reports, the Government furnished a somewhat condensed +version, in which the twenty-column speech was reduced say to a dozen +columns. Either of these reports the public journals might take, but +none other; and no journal must alter or condense by the omission of a +line or the substitution of a word the text thus officially furnished. +When Thiers had spent the whole day in delivering a speech, he was +accustomed to spend the whole night in reading over and correcting the +proof-sheets of the official report. The venerable orator would hurry +home when the sitting was over, change his clothes, get into his +arm-chair before his desk, and set to work at the proof-sheets according +as they came. Over these he would toil with the minute and patient +inspection of a watchmaker or a lapidary, reading this or that passage +many times, until he had satisfied himself that no error remained and +that no turn of expression could well be improved. Before this task was +done, the night had probably long faded and the early sun was already +lighting Paris; but when the Corps Legislatif came to assemble at noon, +the inexhaustible septuagenarian was at his post again. That evening he +would be found, the central figure of a group, in some salon, scattering +his brilliant sayings and acrid sarcasms around him, and in all +probability exercising his humor at the expense of the Imperial +Ministers, the Empire, and even the Emperor himself. After 1866 he was +exuberant in his _bons mots_ about the humiliation of the Imperial +Cabinet by Prussia. "Bismarck," he once declared, "is the best supporter +of the French Government. He keeps it always in its place by first +boxing it on one ear and then maintaining the equilibrium by boxing it +on the other." + +If one could have been present at the recent interviews between Count +Bismarck and M. Thiers, he would doubtless have enjoyed a curious and +edifying intellectual treat. Bismarck is a man of imperturbable good +humor; Thiers a man of imperturbable self-conceit. Thiers has a tongue +which never lacks a word, and that the most expressive word. Bismarck +has a rare gift of shrewd satirical humor, and of phrases that stick to +public memory. Each man would have regarded the other as a worthy +antagonist in a duel of words. Neither would care to waste much time in +lofty sentiment and grandiose appeals. Each would thoroughly understand +that his best motto would be, "_A corsaire, corsaire et demi_." Bismarck +would find in Thiers no feather-headed Benedetti; assuredly, Thiers +would favor Bismarck with none of Jules Favre's sighs and tears, and +bravado and choking emotions. Thiers would have the greater part of the +talk, that is certain; but Bismarck would probably contrive to compress +a good deal of meaning and significance into his curt interjected +sentences. Thiers assuredly must have long since worn out any freshness +of surprise or thrilling emotion of any kind at the political +convulsions of France. To him even the spectacle of the standard of +Prussia hoisted on the pinnacles of Versailles could hardly have been an +overpowering wonder. He had seen the soldiers of Prussia picketed in +Paris; he could remember when a fickle Parisian populace, weary of war, +had thronged into the streets to applaud the entrance of the conquering +Czar of Russia. He had seen the Bourbon restored, and had helped to +overthrow him. He had been twice the chief Minister of that Louis +Philippe of Orleans, who in his youth had had to save the Princess his +sister by carrying her off in her night-gown, without time to throw a +shawl around her, and whose long years of exile had led him, in +fulfilment of the prophecy of Danton, to the throne of France at last. +He had helped towards the downfall of that same King his master, and had +striven vainly at the end to stand between him and his fate. He had seen +a second Republic rise and sink; he had now become the envoy of a third +Republic. He had refused to serve an Imperial Napoleon, although his own +teaching and preaching had been among the most effective agencies in +debauching the mind and heart of the nation, and thus rendering a second +Empire possible. People say M. Thiers has no feelings, and I shall not +venture to contradict them--I have often heard the statement from those +who know better than I can pretend to do. It would have been personally +unfortunate for him in his interview with Count von Bismarck if he had +been burthened with feelings. For he must surely in such a case have +felt bitterly the consciousness that the misfortunes which had fallen on +his country were in great measure the fruit of his own doctrines and his +own labors. If the public conscience of France had not been seared and +hardened against all sentiment of obligation to international principle, +where French glory and French aggrandizement were concerned; if France +had not learned to believe that no foreign nation had any rights which +she was bound to respect; if she had not been saturated with the +conviction that every benefit to a neighbor was an injury to herself; if +she had not accepted these views as articles of national faith, and +followed them out wherever she could to their uttermost consequences, +then M. Thiers might be said to have written and spoken and lived in +vain. + +It is probable that a new career presents itself as a possibility to the +indomitable energy, and, as many would say, the insatiable ambition of +M. Thiers. Certainly, there seems not the faintest indication that the +veteran believes himself to lag superfluous on the stage. It is likely +that he rushed into the recent peace negotiations with the hope of +playing over again the part so skilfully played by Talleyrand at the +time of the Congress of Vienna, by virtue of which France obtained so +much advantage which might hardly have been expected, and Germany got so +little of what she might naturally have looked for. I certainly shall +not venture to say whether M. Thiers may not even yet have an important +official career before him. His recent enterprises and expeditions give +evidence enough that he has nerve and physique for any undertaking +likely to attract him, and I see no reason to doubt that his intellect +is as fresh and active as it was thirty years ago. Thiers deserves +nothing but honor for the unconquerable energy and courage which refuse +to yield to years, and will not acknowledge the triumph of time. He +would deserve far greater honor still if we could regard him as a +disinterested patriot; highest honor of all if his principles were as +wise and just as his ambition was unselfish. But charity itself could +hardly hope to reconcile the facts of M. Thiers's long and varied career +with any theory ascribing to the man himself a pure and disinterested +purpose. That a statesman has changed his opinions is often his highest +glory, if, as in the case of Mr. Gladstone, he has thereby grown into +the light and the right. Nor is a change of views necessarily a reproach +to a politician, even though he may have retrograded or gone wrong. But +the man who is invariably a passionate liberal when out of office, and a +severe conservative when in power; who makes it a regular practice to +have one set of opinions while he leads the opposition, and another when +he has succeeded in mounting to the lead of a ministry; such a man +cannot possibly hope to obtain for such systematic alternations the +credit of even a capricious and fantastic sincerity. No one who knows +anything of M. Thiers would consent thus to exalt his heart at the +expense of his head. When the late Lord Cardigan was, rightly or +wrongly, accused of having returned rather too quickly from the famous +charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, his lordship, among other +things, alleged that his horse had run away with him. A bitter critic +thereupon declared that Lord Cardigan could not be allowed thus unfairly +to depreciate his consummate horsemanship, I am afraid we cannot allow +M. Thiers's intelligence and shrewdness to be unjustly depreciated by +the assumption that his political tergiversations were the result of +meaningless caprice. + +M. Thiers is one of the most gifted men of his day. But he is not, in my +judgment, a great man. He wants altogether the grand and stable +qualities of principle and judgment which are needed to constitute +political greatness. His statesmanship is a sort of policy belonging +apparently to the school of the Lower Empire; a Byzantine blending of +intrigue and impudence. He has never had the faculty of reading the +signs of the times, or of understanding that to-day is not necessarily +like yesterday. But for the wonderful gifts of the man, there would seem +to be something positively childish in the egotism which could believe +that it lay in the power of France to maintain, despite of destiny, the +petty princes of Germany and Italy, to arrange the political conditions +of England, and prescribe to the United States how far their principle +of internal cohesion should reach. Victor Hugo is undoubtedly an +egotistic Frenchman. Some of his recent utterances have been foolish and +ridiculous. But the folly has been that of a great soul; the folly has +consisted in appealing, out of all time and place, to sublime and +impracticable sentiments of human brotherhood and love which ought to +influence all human souls, but do not and probably never will. Far +different is the egotism of Thiers. It is the egotism of selfishness, +arrogance, and craft. In a sublime world, Victor Hugo's appeals would +cease to be ridiculous; but the nobler the world, the more ignoble would +seem the doctrines and the policy of Thiers. My own admiration of Thiers +extends only to his skill as a debater and his marvellous intellectual +vitality. The man who, despite the most disheartening disadvantages of +presence, voice, and manner, is yet the most fascinating political +debater of his time, the man who at seventy-three years of age can go up +in a balloon in quest of a new career, must surely command some interest +and admiration, let critical wisdom preach to us never so wisely. But +the best days will have arisen for France when such a political +character and such a literary career as those of M. Thiers shall have +become an anachronism and an impossibility. + + + + +PRINCE NAPOLEON. + + +Some few years ago, seven or eight perhaps, a certain sensation was +created among artists, and journalists, and literary men, and +connoisseurs, and critics, by one of Flandrin's best portraits. +Undoubtedly, the portrait was an admirable likeness; no one who had ever +seen the original could deny or question that; but yet there was an air, +a character, a certain depth of idealized expression about it which +seemed to present the subject in a new light, and threw one into a kind +of doubt as to whether he had ever truly understood the original before. +Either the painter had unduly glorified his sitter, or the sitter had +impressed upon the artist a true idea of his character and intellect +which had never before been revealed to the public at large. The +portrait was that of a man of middle age, with a smooth, broad, +thoughtful brow, a character of command about the finely-formed, +somewhat sensuous lips; chin and nose beautifully moulded, in fact what +ladies who write novels would call "chiselled;" a face degenerating a +little into mere flesh, but still dignified and imposing. Everywhere +over the face there was a tone of dissatisfaction, of disappointment, of +sullenness mingling strangely with the sensuous characteristics, and +conveying somehow the idea of great power and daring ambition unduly +repressed by outward conditions, or rendered barren by inward defects, +or actually frustrated by failure and fate. "A Caesar out of employment!" +exclaimed a celebrated French author and critic. So much there was of +the Caesar in the face that no school-boy, no Miss in her teens could +have even glanced at it without saying, "That is the face of a +Bonaparte!" Were not the features a little too massive, it might have +passed for an admirable likeness of the victor of Austerlitz; or, at all +events, of the Napoleon of Leipzig or the Hundred Days. Probably any +ordinary observer would at once have set it down as a portrait of the +great Napoleon, and never thought there could be any doubt about the +matter. It was, in fact, the likeness of Napoleon-Jerome, son of the +rattle-pate King of Westphalia--Prince Napoleon, as he is ordinarily +called, the Plon-plon whom soldiers jeer at, the "Red Prince" whom +priests and Legitimists denounce, the cousin of the Emperor of the +French, the son-in-law of the King of Italy. + +It was only somewhere about, or a little before the time of the Flandrin +portrait, that Prince Napoleon had the honor of becoming a mystery in +the eyes of the public. Up to 1860, his character was quite settled in +public estimation, just as that of Louis Napoleon had been up to the +time of the _coup d'etat_. Public opinion generally settles the +characters of conspicuous men at first by the intuitive process--the +most delightful and easy method possible, dispensing, as it does, with +any necessity for studying the subject, or even knowing anything at all +about it. When the intuitive process has once adjusted a man's +character, it is not easy to get people to believe in any other +adjustment. Still, there are some remarkable instances of a change in +popular opinion. The case of Louis Napoleon, the Emperor, is one +illustration; that of Prince Napoleon, his cousin, is another, not so +remarkable, certainly, but still quite worthy of some attention. + +Prince Napoleon had been before the world more or less since he appeared +as representative of Corsica, in the Constituent Assembly of 1848. He +was made conspicuous, in a negative sort of way, by having had no hand +in the _coup d'etat_, or having even opposed it, although he did not +scruple to profit by its success and enjoy its golden advantages. He +had a command in the Crimean war; he was sent into Tuscany during the +Italian campaign. All that time public opinion in Europe was unanimous +about him. He was a sensualist, a coward, an imbecile, and a blockhead. +He was a fat, stupid, muddle-headed Heliogabalus. Dulness, cowardice, +and profligacy were his principal, perhaps his only characteristics. +When the young Clotilde, of Savoy, was given to him for a wife, a +positive cry of wonder and disgust went up from every country of Europe. +In good truth, it was a scandalous thing to marry a young and innocent +girl to a man nearly as old as her father; and who, undoubtedly, had +been a _mauvais sujet_, and had led a life of dissipation so far. But +Europe cried aloud as if three out of every four princely alliances were +not made on the same principle and endowed with the same character. Had +the Princess Clotilde been affianced to a hog or a gorilla, there could +hardly have been greater wonder and horror expressed, so clear was the +public mind about the stupidity and brutality of Prince Napoleon. + +Certainly, if one looked a little deeper than mere public opinion, he +would have found, even then, that here and there some men, not quite +incapable of judging, did not accept the popular estimate of the +Emperor's cousin. All through the memorable progress of the Congress of +Paris--out of which sprang Italy--we find, by the documents subsequently +made public, that Cavour was in close and frequent consultation with +Prince Napoleon. Once we find Cavour saying that Prince Napoleon +complains of his slowness, his too great moderation, and thinks he could +serve the cause better by a little more boldness. "Perhaps he is right," +says Cavour, in words to that effect; "but I fear I lack his force of +character, his daringness of purpose." Richard Cobden makes the +acquaintance of Prince Napoleon, and is surprised and delighted with his +advanced opinions on the subject of free trade; and deliberately +describes him (I heard Cobden use the words) as "one of the best +informed, if not the very best informed, of all the public men of +Europe." Kinglake observes the Prince during the Crimean campaign--where +Napoleon-Jerome got his reputation for cowardice and his nick-name of +Plon-plon--and finds in him a genius very like that of his uncle, the +great Napoleon, especially a wonderful power of distinguishing at a +glance between the essentials and the accidentals of any question or +situation--and any one who has ever studied politics and public men will +know how rare a faculty that is--and finally declares that he sees no +reason to believe him inferior in courage to the conqueror of Marengo! +Edmond About, not a very dull personage, and not quite given up to +panegyric, bursts into a strain of almost lyrical enthusiasm about the +wit, the brilliancy, the culture, the daring ambition of Prince +Napoleon, and declares that the Prince is kept as much out of the way as +possible, because a man endowed with a soul of such unresting energy, +and the face of the great Emperor, is too formidable a personage to be +seen hanging about the steps of a throne. To close this string of +illustrations, Prince Napoleon is in somewhat frequent and confidential +intercourse with Michel Chevalier, a man not likely to cultivate the +society of heavy blockheads and dullards, even though these might happen +to wear princely coronets. Clearly, public opinion here was even more +directly at odds than it often is with the opinion of some whom we may +call experts; and the difference was so great that there seemed no +possible way of reconciling the two. A man may be a profligate and yet a +man of genius, and even a patriot; but one cannot be a profligate +blockhead and a man of genius, a Cloten and an Alcibiades, a Caesar and a +Pyrgopolinices at once. + +It was in the early part of 1861 that Prince Napoleon contributed +something of his own spontaneous motion to help in the solution of the +enigma. That was the year when the Emperor removed the restriction which +prevented both Chambers of the Legislature from freely debating the +address, and the press from fully reporting the discussions. There was a +remarkable debate in the Senate, ranging over a great variety of +domestic and foreign questions, and one most memorable event of the +debate was the brilliant, powerful and exhaustive oration delivered, +with splendid energy and rhetorical effect, by Prince Napoleon. _Mon ane +parle et meme il parle bien_, declares the astonished Joan, in +Voltaire's scandalous poem, "La Pucelle." Perhaps there was something of +a similar wonder mingled with the burst of genuine admiration which went +up first from Paris, then from France, and finally from Europe and +America, when that magnificent democratic manifesto came to be read. +Certainly, I remember no single speech which, during my time, created +anything like the same sensation in Europe. For it took the outer world +wholly by surprise. It was not a case like that of the sensation lately +created by the florid and fervid eloquence of the young Spanish orator, +Castellar. In this latter case the public were surprised and delighted +to find that there was a master of thrilling rhetoric alive, and arrayed +on the side of democratic freedom, of whose very existence most persons +had been previously ignorant. But, in the case of Prince Napoleon, the +surprise was, that a man whom the public had long known, and always set +down as a stupid sensualist, should suddenly, and without any previous +warning, turn out a great orator, whose eloquence had in it something so +fresh, and genuine, and forcible that it recalled the memory of the most +glorious days of the French Tribune. I write of this celebrated oration +now only from recollection; and, of course, I did not hear it spoken. I +say "of course," because the rules of the French Senate, unlike those of +the Corps Legislatif, forbid the presence of any strangers during the +debates. But those who heard it spoke enthusiastically of the force and +freedom with which it was delivered; the sudden, impulsive fervor of +occasional outbursts; and the wonderful readiness with which the +speaker, when interrupted, as he was very frequently, passed from one +topic to another in order to dispose of the interruption, and replied to +sudden challenge with even prompter repartee. No one could read the +speech without admiring the extent and variety of the political +knowledge it displayed; the prodigality of illustration it flung over +every argument; the thrilling power of some of its rhetorical "phrases;" +the tone of sustained and passionate eloquence which made itself heard +all throughout; and, perhaps above all, that flexible, spontaneous +readiness of language and resource to which every interruption, every +interjected question only acted like a spur to a generous horse, calling +forth new and greater, and wholly unexpected efforts. In the French +Senate I need, perhaps, hardly tell my readers, it is the habit to allow +the utmost license of interruption, and Prince Napoleon's audacious +onslaught on the reactionists and the _parti pretre_ called out even an +unusual amount of impatient utterance. Those who interrupted took little +by their motion. The energetic Prince tossed off his assailants as a +bull flings the dogs away on the points of his horns. "Our principles +are not yours," scornfully exclaims a Legitimist nobleman--the late +Marquis de la Rochejaquelein, if I remember rightly. "Your principles +are not ours!" vehemently replies the orator. "No, nor are your +antecedents ours. Our pride is that our fathers fell on the battle-field +resisting the foreign invaders whom your fathers brought in for the +subjugation of France!" The speech is studded with sudden replies +equally fervid and telling. Indeed, the whole material of the oration +is rich, strong, and genuine. There seems to be in the eloquence of the +French Chambers, of late, a certain want of freshness and natural power. +I do not speak of Berryer--he had no such want. But Thiers--by far the +ablest living debater who speaks only from preparation--with all his +wonderful science and skill as an artist in debate, appears to be always +somewhat artificial and elaborate. Jules Favre, with his exquisitely +modulated tones, and his unrivalled choice of words, hardly ever appears +to me to rise to that height where the orator, lost in his subject, +compels his hearers to lose themselves also in it. Now, I cannot help +thinking that the two or three really great speeches made by Prince +Napoleon had in them more of the native fibre, force and passion of +oratory than those of almost any Frenchman since the days of Mirabeau. + +However that may be, the effect wrought on the public mind was +unmistakable. Plon-plon had startled Europe. He entered the palace of +the Luxembourg on that memorable day without any repute but that of a +dullard and a sensualist; he came out of it a recognized orator. I have +been told that he lay back in his open carriage and smoked his cigar, as +he drove home from the Senate, to all appearance the same indolent, +sullen, heavy apathetic personage whom all Paris had previously known +and despised. + +One notable effect of this famous speech was the reply which a certain +passage in it drew from Louis Philippe's son, the Duc d'Aumale. Prince +Napoleon had indulged in a bitter sneer or two against former dynasties, +and the Duc d'Aumale, a man of great culture and ability, took up the +quarrel fiercely. The Duke assailed Prince Napoleon in one of the +keenest, most biting pamphlets which the political controversy of our +day has produced. Among other things, the Duke replied to a supposed +imputation on the weakness of Louis Philippe by admitting, frankly, that +the _bourgeois_ King had not dealt with enemies, when in his power, as a +Bonaparte would have done. "_Et tenez_, Prince," wrote the Duke, "the +only time when the word of a Bonaparte may be believed is when he avows +that he will never spare a defenceless enemy." The pamphlet bristled +with points equally sharp and envenomed. But the Duc d'Aumale was not +content with written rejoinder. He sent a challenge to the Prince, and +in serious earnest. The Prince, it need hardly be said, did not accept +the challenge. + + + Yes, like enough, high-battled Caesar will + Unstate his greatness, and be staged to the show + Against a sworder! + + +Our Caesar, though not "high-battled," was by no means likely to consent +to be "staged against a sworder." The Emperor hastened to prevent any +disastrous consequences, by insisting that the Prince must not accept +the challenge--and there was no duel. People winked and sneered a good +deal. It is said that the martial King Victor Emmanuel grumbled and +chafed at his son-in-law; but there was no fight. Let me say, for my own +part, that I think Prince Napoleon was quite right in not accepting the +challenge, and that I do not believe him to be wanting in personal +courage. + +From that moment, Prince Napoleon became a conspicuous figure in +European politics, and when any great question arose, men turned +anxiously toward him, curious to know what he would do or say. In three +or four successive sessions he spoke in the Senate, and even with the +impression of the first surprise still strong on the public mind, the +speeches preserved abundantly the reputation which the earliest of them +had so suddenly created. He might be the _enfant terrible_ of the +Bonaparte family; he might be utterly wanting in statesmanship; he +might be insincere; he might be physically a coward; but all the world +now admitted him to be an orator, and, in his way, a man of genius. + +Then it became known to the public, all at once, that the Prince, +whatever his failings, had some rare gifts besides that of eloquence. He +was undoubtedly a man of exquisite taste in all things artistic; he had +an intelligent and liberal knowledge of practical science; he had a +great faculty of organization; he was a keen humorist and wit. He loved +the society of artists, and journalists, and literary men; he associated +with them _en bon camarade_, and he could talk with each upon his own +subject; his _bon mots_ soon began to circulate far and wide. He was a +patron of Revolution. In the innermost privacy of the Palais Royal men +like Mieroslawski, the Polish Red Revolutionist, men like General Tuerr, +unfolded and discussed their plans. Prince Gortschakoff, in his +despatches at the time of the Polish Rebellion, distinctly pointed to +the palace of Prince Napoleon as the headquarters of the insurrection. +The "Red Prince" grew to be one of the mysterious figures in European +policy. Was he in league with his cousin, the Emperor--or was he his +cousin's enemy? Did he hope, on the strength of that Bonaparte face, and +his secret league with Democracy, to mount one day from the steps of the +throne to the throne itself? Between him and the succession to that +throne intervened only the life of one frail boy. Was Prince Napoleon +preparing for the day when he might play the part of a Gloster (without +the smothering), and, pushing the boy aside, succeed to the crown of the +great Emperor whom in face he so strikingly resembled? + +At last came the celebrated Ajaccio speech. The Emperor had gone to +visit Algeria; the Prince went to deliver an oration at the inauguration +of a monument to Napoleon I., at Ajaccio. The speech was, in brief, a +powerful, passionate denunciation of Austria, and the principles which +Austria represented before Sadowa taught her a lesson of tardy wisdom. +Viewed as the exposition of a professor of history, one might fairly +acknowledge the Prince's speech to have illustrated eloquently some +solid and stern truths, which Europe would have done well even then to +consider deeply. Subsequent events have justified and illuminated many +of what then seemed the most startling utterances of the orator. +Austria, for example, practically admits, by her present policy, the +justice of much that Prince Napoleon pleaded against her. But as the +speech of the Emperor's cousin; of one who stood in near order of +succession to the throne; of one who had only just been raised to an +office in the State so high that in the absence of the sovereign it made +him seem the sovereign's proper representative, it was undoubtedly a +piece of marvellous indiscretion. Europe stood amazed at its outspoken +audacity. The Emperor could not overlook it; and he publicly repudiated +it. Prince Napoleon resigned his public offices--including that of +President of the Commissioners of the International Exhibition, which +undertaking suffered sadly from lack of his organizing capacity and his +admirable taste and judgment--and the Imperial orator of Democracy +disappeared from the public stage as suddenly, and amid as much tumult, +as he had entered upon it. + +Prince Napoleon has, indeed, been taken into favor since by his Imperial +cousin, and has been sent on one or two missions, more or less important +or mysterious; but he has never, from the date of the Ajaccio speech up +to the present moment, played any important part as a public man. He is +not, however, "played out." His energy, his ambition, his ability, will +assuredly bring him prominently before the public again. Let us, +meanwhile, endeavor to set before the readers of THE GALAXY a fair and +true picture of the man, free alike from the exaggerated proportions +which wondering _quid nuncs_ or parasites attribute to him, and from +the distortions of unfriendly painters. Exaggeration of both kinds +apart, Prince Napoleon is really one of the most remarkable figures on +the present stage of French history. He is, at least, a man of great +possibilities. Let us try to ascertain fairly what he is, and what are +his chances for the future. + +Born of a hair-brained, eccentric, adventure-seeking, negligent, selfish +father, Prince Napoleon had little of the advantages of a home +education. His boyhood, his youth, were passed in a vagrant kind of way, +ranging from country to country, from court to court. He started in life +with great natural talents, a strong tendency to something not very +unlike rowdyism, an immense ambition, an almost equally vast indolence, +a deep and genuine love of arts, letters, and luxury, an eccentric, +fitful temper, and a predominant pride in that relationship to the great +Emperor which is so plainly stamped upon his face. Without entering into +any questions of current scandal, everybody must know that Napoleon III. +has nothing of the Bonaparte in his face, a fact on which Prince +Napoleon, in his earlier and wilder days, was not always very slow to +comment. Indolence, love of luxury, and a capricious temper have, +perhaps, been the chief enemies which have hitherto prevented the latter +from fulfilling any high ambition. It would be affectation to ignore the +fact that Prince Napoleon flung many years away in mere dissipation. +Stories are told in Paris which would represent him almost as a +Vitellius or an Egalite in profligacy--stories some of which simply +transcend belief by their very monstrosity. Even to this day, to this +hour, it is the firm conviction of the general public that the Emperor's +cousin is steeped to the lips in sensuality. Now, rejecting, of course, +a huge mass of this scandal, it is certain that Prince Napoleon was, for +a long time, a downright _mauvais sujet_; it is by no means certain that +he has, even at his present mature age, discarded all his evil habits. +His temper is much against him. People habitually contrast the unvarying +courtesy and self-control of the Emperor with the occasional +brusqueness, and even rudeness, of the Prince. True that Prince Napoleon +can be frankly and warmly familiar with his intimates, and even that, +like Prince Hal, he sometimes encourages a degree of familiarity which +hardly tends to mutual respect. But the outer world cannot always rely +on him. He can be undiplomatically rough and hot, and he has a gift of +biting jest which is perhaps one of the most dangerous qualities a +statesman can cultivate. Then there is a personal restlessness about him +which even princes cannot afford safely to indulge. He has hardly ever +had any official position assigned to him which he did not sometime or +other scornfully abandon on the spur of some sudden impulse. The Madrid +embassy in former days, the Algerian administration, the Crimean +command--these and other offices he only accepted to resign. He has +wandered more widely over the face of the earth than any other living +prince--probably than any other prince that ever lived. It used to be +humorously said of him that he was qualifying to become a teacher of +geography, in the event of fortune once more driving the race of +Bonaparte into exile and obscurity. What port is there that has not +sheltered his wandering yacht? He has pleasant dwellings enough to +induce a man to stay at home. His Palais Royal is one of the most +elegant and tasteful abodes belonging to a European prince. The stranger +in Paris who is fortunate enough to obtain admission to it--and, indeed, +admission is easy to procure--must be sadly wanting in taste if he does +not admire the treasures of art and _vertu_ which are laid up there, and +the easy, graceful manner of their arrangement. Nothing of the air of +the show-place is breathed there; no rules, no conditions, no watchful, +dogging lacqueys or sentinels make the visitor uncomfortable. Once +admitted, the stranger goes where he will, and admires and examines what +he pleases. He finds there curiosities and relics, medals and statues, +bronzes and stones from every land in which history or romance takes any +interest; he gazes on the latest artistic successes--Dore's magnificent +lights and shadows, Gerome's audacious nudities; he observes autograph +collections of value inestimable; he notices that on the tables, here +and there, lie the newest triumphs or sensations of literature--the poem +that every one is just talking of, the play that fills the theatres, +George Sand's last novel, Renan's new volume, Taine's freshest +criticism: he is impressed everywhere with the conviction that he is in +the house of a man of high culture and active intellect, who keeps up +with the progress of the world in arts, and letters, and politics. Then +there was, until lately, the famous Pompeiian Palace, in one of the +avenues of the Champs Elysees, which ranked among the curiosities of +Paris, but which Prince Napoleon has at last chosen, or been compelled, +to sell. On the Swiss shore of the lake of Geneva, one of the most +remarkable objects that attract the eye of the tourist who steams from +Geneva to Lausanne, is La Bergerie, the palace of Prince Napoleon. But +the owner of these palaces spends little of his time in them. His wife, +the Princess Clotilde, stays at home and delights in her children, and +shows them with pride to her visitors, while her restless husband is +steaming in and out of the ports of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, or +the Baltic. Prince Napoleon has not found his place yet, say Edmond +About and other admirers--when he does he will settle firmly to it. He +is a restless, unmanageable idler and scamp, say his enemies--unstable +as water, he shall not excel. Meanwhile years go by, and Prince Napoleon +has long left even the latest verge of youth behind him; and he is only +a possibility as yet, and is popular with no political party in France. + +Strange that this avowed and ostentatious Democrat, this eloquent, +powerful spokesman of French Radicalism, is not popular even with +Democrats and Red Republicans. They do not trust him. They cannot +understand how he can honestly extend one hand to Democracy, while in +the other he receives the magnificent revenues assigned to him by +Despotism. One might have thought that nothing would be more easy than +for this man, with his daring, his ambition, his brilliant talents, his +commanding eloquence, his democratic principles, and his Napoleon face, +to make himself the idol of French Democracy. Yet he has utterly failed +to do so. As a politician, he has almost invariably upheld the rightful +cause, and accurately foretold the course of events. He believed in the +possibility of Italy's resurrection long before there was any idea of +his becoming son-in-law to a King of Italy; he has been one of the most +earnest friends of the cause of Poland; he saw long ago what every one +sees now, that the fall of the Austrian system was an absolute necessity +to the progress of Europe; he was a steady supporter of the American +Union, and when it was the fashion in France, as in England, to regard +the independence of the Southern Confederacy as all but an accomplished +fact, he remained firm in the conviction that the North was destined to +triumph. With all his characteristic recklessness and impetuosity, he +has many times shown a cool and penetrating judgment, hardly surpassed +by that of any other European statesman. Yet the undeniable fact +remains, that his opinion carries with it comparatively little weight, +and that no party recognizes him as a leader. + +Is he insincere? Most people say he is. They say that, with all his +professions of democratic faith, he delights in his princely rank and +his princely revenues; that he is selfish, grasping, luxurious, arrogant +and deceitful. The army despises him; the populace do not trust him. +Now, for myself, I do not accept this view of the character of Prince +Napoleon. I think he is a sincere Democrat, a genuine lover of liberty +and progress. But I think, at the same time, that he is cursed with some +of the vices of Alcibiades, and some of the vices of Mirabeau; that he +has the habitual indolence almost of a Vendome, with Vendome's +occasional outbursts of sudden energy; that a love of luxury, and a +restlessness of character, and fretfulness of temper stand in his way, +and are his enemies. I doubt whether he will ever play a great +historical part, whether he ever will do much more than he has done. His +character wants that backbone of earnest, strong simplicity and faith, +without which even the most brilliant talents can hardly achieve +political greatness. He will probably rank in history among the +Might-Have-Beens. Assuredly, he has in him the capacity to play a great +part. In knowledge and culture, he is far, indeed, superior to his +uncle, Napoleon I.; in justice of political conviction, he is a long way +in advance of his cousin, Napoleon III. Taken for all in all, he is the +most lavishly gifted of the race of the Bonapartes--and what a part in +the cause of civilization and liberty might not be played by a Bonaparte +endowed with genius and culture, and faithful to high and true +convictions! But the time seems going by, if not gone by, when even +admirers could expect to see Prince Napoleon play such a part. Probably +the disturbing, distracting vein of unconquerable levity so conspicuous +in the character of his father, is the marplot of the son's career, too. +After all, Prince Napoleon is perhaps more of an Antony than a +Caesar--was not Antony, too, an orator, a wit, a lover of art and +letters, a lover of luxury and free companionship, and woman? Doubtless +Prince Napoleon will emerge again, some time and somehow, from his +present condition of comparative obscurity. Any day, any crisis, any +sudden impulse may bring him up to the front again. But I doubt whether +the dynasty of the Bonapartes, the cause of democratic freedom, the +destinies of France, will be influenced much for good or evil, by this +man of rare and varied gifts--of almost measureless possibilities--the +restless, reckless, eloquent, brilliant Imperial Democrat of the Palais +Royal, and Red Republican of the Empire--the long misunderstood and yet +scarcely comprehended Prince Napoleon. + + + + +THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. + + +There used to be a story current in London, which I dare say is not +true, to the effect that her gracious Majesty Queen Victoria once +demurred to the Prince and Princess of Wales showing themselves too +freely in society, and asked them angrily whether they meant to make +themselves "as common as the Cambridges." + +Certainly the Duke of Cambridge and his sister the Princess Mary, now +Princess of Teck, were for a long time, if not exactly "common," if not +precisely popular, the most social, the most easily approached, and the +most often seen in public pageantry of all members of the royal family. +The Princess Mary might perhaps fairly be called popular. The people +liked her fine, winsome face, her plump and buxom form. If she has not a +kindly, warm, and generous heart, then surely physiognomy is no index of +character. But the Duke of Cambridge, although very commonly seen in +public, and ready to give his presence and his support to almost any +philanthropic meeting and institution which can claim to be fashionable, +never seems to have attained any degree of popularity. Like his father, +who enjoyed the repute of being the worst after-dinner speaker who ever +opened his mouth, the Duke of Cambridge is to be found acting as +chairman of some public banquet once a week on an average during the +London season. He is president or patron of no end of public charities +and other institutions. Yet the people do not seem to care anything +about him, or even to like him. His appearance is not in his favor. He +is handsome in a certain sense, but he is heavy, stolid, +sensual-looking, and even gross in form and face. He has indeed nearly +all the peculiarities of physiognomy which specially belong to the most +typical members of the Guelph family, and there is, moreover, despite +the obesity which usually suggests careless good-humor, something +sinister or secret in his expression not pleasant to look upon. He seems +to be a man of respectable average abilities. He is not a remarkably bad +speaker. I think when he addresses the House of Lords, which he does +rarely, or a public meeting or dinner-party, which he does often, he +acquits himself rather better than the ordinary county member of +Parliament. Judging by his apparent mental capacity and his style as a +speaker, he ought to be rather popular than otherwise in England, for +the English people like respectable mediocrity and not talent in their +princes. "He is so respectable and such an ass," says Thackeray speaking +of somebody, "that I positively wonder he didn't get on in England." The +Duke of Cambridge is so respectable (in intellectual capacity) and so +dull that I positively wonder he has not been popular in England. But +popular he never has been. No such clamorous detestation follows him as +used to pursue the late Duke of Cumberland, subsequently King of +Hanover. No such accusations have been made against him as were +familiarly pressed against the Duke of York. Even against the living +Prince of Wales there are charges made by common scandal more serious +than any that are usually talked of in regard to the Duke of Cambridge. +But the English public likes the Duke as little as it could like any +royal personage. England has lately been growing very jealous of the +manner in which valuable appointments are heaped on members of the +Queen's family. The Duke of Cambridge has long enjoyed some sinecure +places of liberal revenue, and he holds one office of inestimable +influence, for which he has never proved himself qualified, and for +which common report declares him to be utterly disqualified. He is +Commander-in-Chief of the British army; and that I believe to be his +grand offence in the eyes of the British public. Many offences incident +to his position are indeed charged upon him. It is said that he makes an +unfair use, for purposes of favoritism, of the immense patronage which +his office places at his disposal. Some years ago scandal used to charge +him with advancing men out of the same motive which induced the Marquis +of Steyne to obtain an appointment for Colonel Rawdon Crawley. The +private life of the Duke is said to have been immoral, and unluckily for +him it so happened that some of his closest friends and favorites became +now and then involved in scandals of which the law courts had to take +cognizance. But had none of these things been so, or been said, I think +the Duke of Cambridge would have lacked popularity just as much as he +does. The English people are silently angry with him, mainly because he +is an anachronism--a man raised to the most influential public +appointment the sovereign can bestow, for no other reason than because +he is a member of the royal family. The Duke of Cambridge in the office +of Commander-in-Chief is an anachronism at the head of an anomaly. The +system is unfit for the army or the country; the man is incompetent to +manage any military system, good or bad. As the question of army +reorganization, now under debate in England, has a grand political +importance, transcending by far its utmost possible military import, and +as the position of the Duke of Cambridge is one of the peculiar and +typical anomalies about to be abolished, it may surely interest American +readers if I occupy a few pages in describing the man and the system. +Altering slightly the words of Bugeaud to Louis Philippe in 1848, this +reorganization of the army in England is not a reform, but a revolution. +It strikes out the keystone from the arch of the fabric of English +aristocracy. + +The Duke of Cambridge is, as everybody knows, the first cousin of the +Queen of England. He is about the same age as the Queen. When both were +young it used to be said that he cherished hopes of becoming her +husband. He is now himself one of the victims of the odious royal +marriage act, which in England acknowledges as valid no marriage with a +subject contracted by a member of the royal family without the consent +of the sovereign. The Duke of Cambridge, it is well known, is privately +married to a lady of respectable position and of character which has +never been reproached, but whom, nevertheless, he cannot present to the +world as his wife because the royal consent has not ratified the +marriage. Many readers of THE GALAXY may perhaps remember that only four +or five years ago there was some little commotion created in England by +the report, never contradicted, that a princess of the royal house had +set her heart upon marrying a young English nobleman who loved her, and +that the Queen utterly refused to give her consent. Much sympathy was +felt for the princess, because, as she was not a daughter of the Queen +and was not young enough to be reasonably expected to acknowledge the +control of any relative, this rigorous exercise of a merely technical +power seemed particularly unjust and odious. It will be seen, therefore, +that the objections raised against the Duke and his position in England +are not founded on the belief that he is himself as an individual +inordinately favored by the sovereign; but on the obvious fact that +place and power are given to him because he is a member of the reigning +family. The Duke of Cambridge has never shown the slightest military +talent, the faintest capacity for the business of war. In his only +campaign he proved worse than useless, and more than once made a +humiliating exhibition, not of cowardice, but of utter incapacity and +flaccid nervelessness. His warmest admirer never ventured to pretend +that the Duke was personally the best man to take the place of +Commander-in-Chief. While he was constantly accused by rumor and +sometimes by public insinuation of blundering, of obstinacy, of +ignorance, of gross favoritism, no defence ever made for him, no eulogy +ever pronounced upon him, went the length of describing him as a +well-qualified head of the military organization. His upholders and +panegyrists were content with pleading virtually that he was by no means +a bad sort of Commander-in-Chief; that he was not fairly responsible for +this or that blunder or malversation; that on the whole there might have +been men worse fitted than he for the place. The social vindication of +the appointment was that which proved very naturally its worst offence +in the eyes of the public--the fact that the sovereign and her family +desired that the place should be given to the Duke of Cambridge, and +that the ministers then in power either had not the courage or did not +think it worth their while to resist the royal inclination. + +The Duke, if he never proved himself much of a soldier, had at least +opportunity enough to learn all the ordinary business of his profession. +He actually is, and always has been, a professional soldier--not +nominally an officer, as the late Prince Albert was, or as the Prince of +Wales is, or as the Princess Victoria (Crown Princess of Prussia) may be +said for that matter to be, the lady holding, I believe, an appointment +as colonel of some regiment, and being doubtless just as well acquainted +with her regimental duties as her fat and heavy brother. The Duke of +Cambridge was made a colonel at the age of eighteen, and he did the +ordinary barrack and garrison duties of his place. He used when young to +be rather popular in garrison towns. In Dublin, for example, I think +Prince George of Cambridge, as he was then called, was followed with +glances of admiration by many hundred pairs of bright eyes. On the death +of his father (whose after-dinner eloquence used to afford "Punch" a +constant subject for mirth) Prince George became in 1850 Duke of +Cambridge. He holds some appointments which I presume are sinecures to +him; among the rest he is keeper of some of the royal parks (I don't +know the precise title of his office), and the name of "George" may be +seen appended to edicts inscribed on various placards on the trees and +gates near Buckingham Palace. Nothing in particular was known about him +as a soldier until the Crimean war. Indeed, up to that time there had +been for many years as little chance for an English officer to prove his +capacity as there was for a West Point man to show what he was worth in +the period between the Mexican war and the attack on Fort Sumter. When +the Crimean war broke out the Duke was appointed to the command of the +first division of the army sent against the Russians. I believe it is +beyond all doubt that he proved himself unfit for the business of war. +He "lost his head," people say; he could not stand the sights and sounds +of the battle-field. It required on one occasion--at Inkerman, I +believe--the prompt and sharp interference of the late Lord Clyde, then +Sir Colin Campbell, to prevent his Royal Highness from making a sad mess +of his command. It is not likely that he wanted personal courage--few +princes do; but his nerves gave way, and as he could be of no further +use to anybody he was induced to return home. France and England each +sent a fat prince, cousin of the reigning sovereign, to the Crimean war, +and each prince rather suddenly came home again with the invidious +whispers of the malign unpleasantly criticising his retreat from the +field. After the Duke's return the corporation of Liverpool gave him +(why, no man could well say) a grand triumphal entry, and I remember +that an irreverent and cynical member of one of the local boards +suggested that among the devices exhibited in honor of the illustrious +visitor, a white feather would be an appropriate emblem. There the +Duke's active military career began and ended. He had not distinguished +himself. Perhaps he had not disgraced himself; perhaps it was really +only ill-health which prevented him from proving himself as genuine a +warrior as his relative, the Crown Prince of Prussia. But the English +people only saw that the Duke went out to the war and very quickly came +back again. Julius Caesar or the First Napoleon or General Sherman might +have had to do the same thing under the same circumstances; but then +these more lucky soldiers did not have to do it, and therefore were able +to prove their military capacity. One thing very certain is, that +without such good fortune and such proof of capacity neither Caesar, +Napoleon, nor Sherman would ever have been made commander-in-chief, and +therein again they were unlike the Duke of Cambridge. For it was not +long after the Duke's return home that on the death or resignation (I +don't now quite remember which) of Viscount Hardinge, our heavy "George" +was made Commander-in-Chief of the British army. I venture to think +that, taking all the conditions of the time and the appointment into +consideration, no more unreasonable, no more unjustifiable instance of +military promotion was ever seen in England. + +For observe, that the worst thing about the appointment of the Duke of +Cambridge is not that an incompetent person obtains by virtue of his +rank the highest military position in the State. If this were all, there +might be just the same thing said of almost every other European +country--indeed, of almost every other country. The King of Prussia was +Commander-in-Chief of the armies of North Germany, but no one supposed +that he was really competent to discharge all the duties of such a +position. Abraham Lincoln was Commander-in-Chief of the Federal army, by +virtue of his office of President; but no one supposed that his military +knowledge and capacity would ever have recommended him to such a post. +The appointment in each case was only nominal, and as a matter of +political convenience and propriety. It did not seem wise or even safe +that the supreme military authority should be formally intrusted to any +one but the ruler or the President. It was thoroughly understood that +the duties of the office were discharged by some professional expert, +for whose work the King or the President was responsible to the nation. +But the office of Commander-in-Chief of the English army is something +quite different from this. It is understood to be a genuine office, the +occupant actually doing the work and having the authority. In the +lifetime of the Duke of Wellington the country had the services of the +very best Commander-in-Chief England could have selected. The sound and +wise principle which dictated that appointment is really the principle +on which the office is based in England. The Commander-in-Chief is not +regarded, as on the Continent, in the light of an ornamental president +of a great bureau whose duties are done by others, but as the most +efficient military officer, the man best qualified to do the work. +Marlborough was Commander-in-Chief, and so was Schomberg, and so was +General Seymour Conway. When in 1828 the Duke of Wellington became Prime +Minister, and therefore resigned the command of the army, Lord Hill was +placed at the head of military affairs. The Duke of Wellington resumed +the command in 1842 and held it to his death, when it was given to +Viscount Hardinge, a capable man. The title of the office was not, I +believe, actually "Commander-in-Chief," but "General +Commanding-in-Chief." It was, if I remember rightly, owing to the +disasters arising out of military mismanagement in the Crimea, that the +changes were made which created a distinct Secretary of War and gave to +the office of Commander-in-Chief its present title. Therefore it will be +seen that the intrusting the command of the army to the Duke of +Cambridge is not even justifiable on the ground that it follows an old +established custom. It is, on the contrary, an innovation, and one which +illustrates the worst possible principle. There is nothing to be said +for it. No necessity justified or even excused it. When Viscount +Hardinge died, if the principle adopted in his case--that of appointing +the best man to the place--had been still in favor, there were many +military generals in England, any one of whom would have filled the +office with efficiency and credit. But the superstition of rank +prevailed. The Duke of Wellington is believed to have once recommended +that on his death Prince Albert, the Queen's husband, should be created +Commander-in-Chief. Ridiculous as the suggestion may seem, it would +probably have been a far better arrangement than that which was more +recently adopted. Prince Albert could hardly have been called a +professional soldier at all; and this would have been greatly in his +favor. For he would have filled the place merely as the King of Prussia +does; he would have intrusted the actual duties to some qualified man, +and being endowed with remarkable judgment, temper, and discretion, he +would doubtless have found the right man for the work. But the Duke of +Cambridge, as a professional soldier, although a very indifferent one, +is expected to perform and does perform the duties of his office, after +his own fashion. He is too high in rank to be openly rebuked, +contradicted, or called to account; he is not high enough to be accepted +as a mere official ornament or figurehead. He is too much of a +professional general to become willingly the pupil and instrument of a +more skilled subordinate; too little of a professional general to render +his authority of any real value, or to be properly qualified for any +high military position. So the Duke of Cambridge did actually direct the +affairs of the army, interfered in everything, was supreme in +everything, and I think it is not too much to say mismanaged everything. +He stood in the way of all useful reforms; he sheltered old abuses; he +was as dictatorial as though he had the military genius of a Wellington +or a Von Moltke; he was as independent of public opinion as the Mikado +of Japan. The kind of mistakes which were made and abuses which were +committed under his administration were not such as to attract much of +the attention or interest of the newspapers. In England the press, +moreover, is not supposed to be at liberty to criticise princes. Of late +some little efforts at daring innovation are made in this direction; but +as a rule, unless a prince does something very wrong indeed, he is +secure from any censure or even criticism on the part of the newspapers. +There was, besides, one great practical difficulty in the way of any one +inclined to criticise the military administration of the Duke of +Cambridge. The War Department in England had grown to be a kind of +anomalous two-headed institution. There is a Secretary of War, who sits +in the House of Lords or the House of Commons, as the case may be, and +whom every one can challenge, criticise, and censure as he pleases. +There is the Commander-in-Chief. Which of these two functionaries is the +superior? The theory of course is that the Secretary of War is supreme; +that he is responsible to Parliament, and that every official in the +department is responsible to him. But everybody in England knows that +this is not the actual case. There stands in Pall Mall, not far from the +residence of the Prince of Wales, a plain business-like structure, with +a statue of the late Lord Herbert of Lea (the Sidney Herbert of Crimean +days) in front of it; and this is the War Office, where the Secretary of +War is in power. But there is in Whitehall another building far better +known to Londoners and strangers alike; an old-fashioned, unlovely, +shabby-looking sort of barrack, with a clock in its shapeless cupola and +two small arches in its front, in each of which enclosures sits all day +a gigantic horseman in steel cuirass and high jack-boots. The country +visitor comes here to wonder at the size and the accoutrements of the +splendid soldiers; the nursery-maid loves the spot, and gazes with open +mouth and sparkling eyes at the athletic cavaliers, and too often, like +Hylas sent with his urn to the fountain, "_proposito florem praetulit +officio_," prefers looking at the gorgeous military carnation blazing +before her to the duty of watching her infantile charge in the +perambulator. This building is the famous "Horse Guards," where the +Commander-in-Chief is enthroned. I suppose the theory of the thing was, +that while the army system was to be shaped out and directed in the War +Office, the actual details of practical administration were to be +managed at the Horse Guards. But of late years the relations of the two +departments appear to have got into an almost inextricable and hopeless +muddle, so that no one can pretend to say where the responsibility of +the War Office ends or the authority of the Horse Guards begins. The +Duke of Cambridge, it is said, habitually acts upon his own authority +and ignores the War Office altogether. Things are done by him of which +the Secretary for War knows nothing until they are done. The late Sidney +Herbert, a man devoted to the duties of the War Department, over which +he presided for some years, once emphatically refused during a debate in +the House of Commons to evade the responsibility of some step taken at +the Horse Guards, by pleading that it was made without the knowledge of +the War Office. He declared that he considered himself, as War +Secretary, responsible to Parliament for everything done in any office +of the War Department. But it was quite evident from the tone of his +speech that the thing had been done without his knowledge or consent, +and that if anybody but the Queen's cousin had done it there would have +been a "row in the building." Now Sidney Herbert was an aristocrat of +high rank, of splendid fortune, of unsurpassed social dignity and +influence, of great political talents and reputation. If he then could +not attempt to control and rebuke the Queen's cousin, how could such an +attempt be expected from a man like Mr. Cardwell, the present War +Secretary? Mr. Cardwell is a dull, steady-going, respectable man, who +has no pretension to anything like the rank, social influence, or even +popularity of Sidney Herbert. In fact, the War Secretaries stand +sometimes in much the same relation toward the Duke of Cambridge that a +New York judge occasionally holds toward one of the great leaders of the +bar who pleads before him and is formally supposed to acknowledge his +superior authority. The person holding the position nominally superior +feels himself in reality quite "over-crowed," to use a Spenserian +expression, by the influence, importance, and dignity of the other. Let +any stranger in London who happens to be in the gallery of the House of +Lords, observe the astonishing deference with which even a pure-blooded +marquis or earl of antique title will receive the greeting of the Duke +of Cambridge; and then say what chance there is of a War Secretary, who +probably belongs to the middle or manufacturing classes, venturing to +dictate to or rebuke so tremendous a _magnifico_. Lately an audacious +critic of the Duke has started up in the person of a clever, vivacious +young member of Parliament, George Otto Trevelyan, son of one of the +ablest Indian administrators and nephew of Lord Macaulay. Trevelyan once +held, I think, some subordinate place in the War Department, and he has +lately been horrifying the conservatism and veneration of English +society by boldly making speeches in which he attacks the Queen's +cousin, declares that the latter is an injury and nuisance to the army +system, that he stands in the way of all improvement, and that he ought +to be abolished. But although most people do profoundly and potently +believe what this saucy Trevelyan says, yet his words find little echo +in public debate, and his direct motions in the House of Commons have +been unsuccessful. The Duke, I perceive, has lately, however, descended +so far from his position of supreme dignity as to defend himself in a +public speech, and to claim the merit of having always been a +progressive and indeed rather daring army reformer. But I do not believe +the English Government or Parliament would ever have ventured to take +one step to lessen the Duke of Cambridge's power of doing harm to the +military service, were it not for the pressure of events with which +England had nothing directly to do, and which nevertheless have proved +too strong for the resistance even of princes and of vested interests. +The practical dethronement of the Duke of Cambridge I hold to be as +certain as any mortal event still in the future can well be declared. +The anomaly, the inconvenience, the degradation which English +Governments and Parliaments would have endured forever if left to +themselves, may be regarded as destined to be swept away by the same +flood which overwhelmed the military organization of France, and washed +the Bonapartes off the throne of the Tuileries. The Duke of Cambridge +too had to surrender at Sedan. + +For with the overwhelming successes of Prussia and the unparalleled +collapse of France, there arose in England so loud and general a cry for +the reorganization of the decaying old army system that no Government +could possibly attempt to disregard it. Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet had the +sense and spirit to see that no middle course of reform would be worth +anything. _In medio tutissimus ibis_ would never apply to this case. Any +reform must count on the obstinate opposition of vested interests--a +tremendous power in English affairs; and the only way to bear down that +opposition would be by introducing a reform so thorough and grand as to +carry with it the enthusiasm of popular support. Therefore the +Government have undertaken a new work of revolution, certainly not less +bold than that which overthrew the Irish Church, and destined perhaps to +have a still more decisive influence on the political organization of +English society. One of the many changes this measure will +introduce--and it is certain to be carried, first or last--will be the +extinction of the anomaly now represented by the position of the Duke of +Cambridge. I shall not inflict any of the details of the measure upon my +readers in THE GALAXY, and shall even give but slight attention to such +of its main features as are of purely military character and import. But +I shall endeavor briefly to make it clear that some of the changes it +proposes to introduce will have a profound influence on the political +and social condition of England, and are in fact steps in that great +English revolution which is steadily marching on under our very eyes. + +First comes the abolition of the purchase system as regards the +commissions held by military officers. Except in certain regiments, and +certain branches of the service outside England itself, the rule is that +an officer obtains his commission by purchase. Promotion can be bought +in the same way. A commission is a vested interest. The owner has paid +so much for it, and expects to sell it for an equal sum. The regulation +price recognized by law and the Horse Guards is by no means the actual +price of the article. It is worth ever so much more to the holder, and +he must of course have its real, not its regulation value. The pay in +the English army is, for the officers, ridiculously small. The habits of +the army, among officers, are ridiculously expensive. An officer is not +expected to live upon his pay. Whether expected to do so or not, he +could hardly accomplish the feat under any conditions; under the common +conditions of an officers' mess-room the thing would be utterly +impossible. Now let any reader ask himself what becomes of a department +of the public service where you obtain admission by payment, and where +when admitted you receive practically no remuneration? Of course it +becomes a mere club and association for the wealthy and aristocratic; a +brotherhood into which admission is sought for the sake of social +distinction. Every man of rank in England will, as a matter of course, +have one of his sons in the army. It is the right sort of thing to do, +like hunting or going into the House of Commons. Then, on the other +hand, every person who has made money sends one of his sons into the +army, because thereby he acquires a stamp of gentility. Poverty and +merit have no chance and no business there. It certainly is not true, as +is commonly believed here, that promotion from the ranks never takes +place; but speaking of the system as a whole, one may fairly say that +promotion from the ranks is opposed to the ordinary regulation, and +occurs so rarely that it need hardly be taken into our consideration +here. Therefore the English army became an essentially aristocratic +service. To be an officer was the right of the aristocratic, the luxury, +ambition, and ornament of the wealthy. One is almost afraid now to +venture on saying anything in praise of the French military system; but +it had, if I do not greatly mistake, one regulation among others which +honorably distinguished it from the English. I believe it was not +permitted to a wealthy officer to distinguish himself from his fellows +while in barracks by extravagance of expenditure. He had to live as the +others lived. But the English system allowed full scope to wealth, and +the result was that certain regiments prided themselves on luxury and +ostentation, and a poor man, or even a man of moderate means, could not +live in them. Add to all this that while the expenses were great and the +pay next to nothing, there were certain valuable prizes, sinecures, and +monopolies to be had in the army, which favoritism and family influence +could procure, and which therefore rendered it additionally desirable +that the control of the military organization should be retained in the +hands of the aristocracy. John Bright described the military and +diplomatic services of England as "a gigantic system of outdoor relief +for the broken-down members of the British aristocracy." This was +especially true of the military service, which had a large number of +rich and pleasant prizes to be awarded at the uncontrolled discretion of +the authorities. It might be fairly said that every aristocratic family +had at least one scion in the army. Every aristocratic family had +likewise one in the House of Commons; sometimes two, or three, or four +sons and nephews. The mere numerical strength of the military officers +who had seats in the House of Commons was enough to hold up a tremendous +barrier in the way of army reform or political reform. It was as clear +as light that a popular Parliament would among its very first works of +reformation proceed to throw open the army to the competition of merit, +independently of either aristocratic rank or moneyed influence. So the +military men in the House of Commons were, with some few and remarkable +exceptions, steady Tories and firm opponents of all reform either in the +army or the political system. Year after year did gallant old De Lacy +Evans bring forward his motion for the abolition of the purchase system +in vain. He was always met by the supposed practical authority of the +great bulk of the military members and by the dead weight of +aristocratic influence and vested interests. The army, as then +organized, was at once the fortress and the trophy of the English +aristocracy. At last the effort at reform seemed to be given up +altogether. Though humane reformers did at last succeed in getting rid +of the detestable system of flogging in the army, the practice of +trafficking in commissions seemed safer than ever. One difficulty in the +way of its abolition was always pressed with special emphasis by persons +who otherwise were prodigal enough of the public money--the cost such a +measure would entail on the people of England. It would be impossible, +of course, to abolish such a system without compensating those who had +paid money for the commissions which thenceforward could be sold no +more. The amount of money required for such compensation would be some +forty millions of dollars. Moreover, when commissions are given away +among all classes according to merit, the pay of officers will have to +be raised. It would indeed be a cruel mockery to give poor Claude +Melnotte an officer's rank if he does not at the same time get pay +enough to enable him to live. Therefore for once the English aristocrats +and Tories were heard to raise their voices in favor of the saving of +public money; but they were only assuming the attitude of economists for +the sake of upholding their own privileges and defending their vested +interests. There will, of course, be a fierce and long fight made even +still against the change, but the change, I take it, will be +accomplished. The English army will cease to be an army officered +exclusively from among the ranks of the aristocracy and the wealthy. Our +time has seen no step attempted in English political affairs more +distinctly democratic than this. I can hardly realize to my mind what +England will be like when commissions and promotions in its military +service are the recognized prizes of merit in whatever rank of life, and +are won by open competition. + +Next, the English Government, approaching rather delicately the +difficulty about the Commander-in-Chief, propose to unite the two +departments of the service under one roof. The Commander-in-Chief and +his staff and offices will be transferred from the Horse Guards in +Whitehall to the War Office in Pall Mall, and placed more directly under +the control of the Secretary of War. This change must inevitably bring +about the end at which it aims--the abolition of the embarrassing and +injurious dualism of system now prevailing. It must indeed reduce the +General commanding-in-chief to his proper position as the executive +officer of the War Secretary, who is himself the servant of Parliament. +Such a position would entail no restriction whatever on the military +capacity or genius of the Commander-in-Chief were he another +Marlborough; but it would make him responsible to somebody who is +himself responsible to the House of Commons. I think it may be taken for +granted that this will come to mean, sooner or later, the shelving of +the Duke of Cambridge. It may be hoped that he will not consider it +consistent with his dignity as a member of the royal family to remain in +a position thus made virtually that of a subordinate. Some other place +perhaps will be found for the cousin of the Queen. I have already heard +some talk about the possibility and propriety of sending his Royal +Highness as Lord Lieutenant to govern Ireland. Why not? There is a _vile +corpus_ convenient and ready to hand for any experiment. It would be +quite in keeping with all the traditions of English rule, with the +practice which was illustrated only a few years ago when the noisy and +brainless scamp Sir Robert Peel, whom "Punch" christened "The Mountebank +Member," was made Irish Secretary, if the Duke of Cambridge were allowed +to soothe his offended dignity by practising his skilful hand on the +government of Ireland. + +Finally, the Government propose to introduce measures calculated to weld +together as far as possible the regular and irregular forces of the +country. There are in England three classes of soldiery--the regular +army, the militia, and the volunteers. The militia constitute a force as +nearly as possible corresponding with that in whose companionship Sir +John Falstaff declined to march through Coventry. Bombastes Furioso or +the Grande Duchesse hardly ever marshalled such a body of men as may be +seen when a British militia regiment is turned out for exercise. Awkward +country bumpkins and beer-swilling rowdies of the poacher class make up +the bulk of the privates. They are a terror to any small town where they +may happen to be exercising, and where not infrequently they finish up a +day's drill by a general smashing of windows, sacking of shops, and +plundering of inhabitants. The volunteers are a force composed of a +much better class of men, and are capable, I think, of great military +efficiency and service if properly organized. Of late the volunteer +force has, I believe, been growing somewhat demoralized. The Government +never gave it very cordial encouragement, its position was hardly +defined, and the national enthusiasm out of which it sprang naturally +began to languish. We in England have always owed our volunteer force to +some sudden menace or dread of French invasion. It was so in the time of +William Pitt. We all remember the famous sarcasm with which that +statesman replied to the request of some volunteer regiments not to be +sent out on foreign service. Pitt gravely assured them that they never +should be sent out of the country unless in case of England's invasion. +Erskine was a volunteer, and I think it was as an officer of volunteers +that Gibbon said he acquired a practical knowledge of military affairs, +which proved useful to him in describing the decline and fall of the +Roman empire. Our present volunteer service originated in the last of +the "three panics" described by Cobden--the fear of invasion by Louis +Napoleon, the panic which Tennyson endeavored to foment by his weak and +foolish "Form, form! Riflemen, form!" The volunteer force, however, +continued to grow stronger and stronger long after the alarm had died +away; and even though recently the progress of improvement seems to have +been somewhat checked, and the volunteer body to have become lax in its +organization, it appears to me that in its intelligence, its +earnestness, and its physical capacity there exists the material out of +which might be moulded a very valuable arm of the military service. The +War Minister now proposes to take steps which shall render the militia a +decent body, commanded by really qualified and responsible officers, +which shall give better officers to the volunteers, and place these +latter under more effective discipline, and which shall bring militia +and volunteers into closer relationship with the regular army. How far +these objects may be attained by the measures now under consideration I +do not pretend to judge; but I cannot regard the present War Minister as +a man highly qualified for the place he holds. Mr. Cardwell is an +admirable clerk--patient, plodding, untiring; but I doubt whether he has +any of the higher qualities of an administrator or much force of +character. He is perhaps the very dullest speaker holding a marked +position in the House of Commons. He is fluent, not as Gladstone and a +river are fluent, but as the sand in an hour-glass is fluent. That sand +itself is not more dull, colorless, monotonous, and dry, than is the +eloquence of the War Minister. Mr. Cardwell is not always fortunate in +his military prophecies. On the memorable night in last July when the +news reached London that France had declared war against Prussia, Mr. +Cardwell affirmed that that meant the occupation of Berlin by the French +within a month. It must be remembered, however, as an excuse for the War +Minister's unlucky prediction, that an English military commission sent +to examine the two systems had shortly before reported wholly in favor +of the French army organization and dead against that of Prussia. + +The English Government, wisely, I think, decline to attempt the +introduction of any measure for general and compulsory service, except +as a last resource in desperate exigencies. The England of the future is +not likely, I trust, to embroil herself much in Continental quarrels; +and she may be quite expected to hold her own in the improbable event of +any of her neighbors attempting to invade her. For myself, I can +recollect no instance recorded by history of any foreign war wherein +England took part, from which good temper, discretion, judgment, and +justice would not alike have counselled her to hold aloof. + +Such then are in substance the changes which are proposed for the +reconstruction of the English army. The one grand reform or revolution +is the abolition of the purchase system. This change will inevitably +convert the army into a practical and regular profession, to which all +classes will look as a possible means of providing for some of their +children. It will have one advantage over the bar, that admission to the +ranks of the officers will not necessarily involve the preliminary +payment of any sum of money, however small. The profession will cease to +be ornamental and aristocratic. It will no longer constitute one of the +great props, one of the grand privileges, of the system of aristocracy. +Its reorganization will be another and a bold step toward the +establishment of that principle of equality which is of late years +beginning to exercise so powerful a fascination over the popular mind of +England. Caste had in Great Britain no such illustration and no such +bulwark as the army system presented. I should be slow to undertake to +limit the possible depth and extent of the influence which the impulse +given by this reform may exercise over the political condition of +England. I can hardly realize to myself by any effort of imagination the +effect which such a change will work in what is called society in +England, and in the literature, especially the romantic and satirical +literature, of the country. Are we then no longer to have Rawdon +Crawley, and Sir Derby Oaks, and "Captain Gandaw of the Pinks"? Was +Black-Bottle Cardigan really the last of a race? Will people a +generation hence fail to understand what was meant by the intimation +that "the Tenth don't dance"? Is Guy Livingstone to become as utter a +tradition and myth as Guy of Warwick? Is the English military officer to +be henceforward simply a hard-working, well-qualified public servant, +who obtains his place in open competition by virtue of his merits? +Appreciate the full meaning of the change who can, it is too much for +me; I can only wonder, admire, and hope. But it is surely not possible +that the Duke of Cambridge, cousin of the Queen, can continue to preside +over a service wherein the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker +have as good a chance of obtaining commissions for their sons as the +marquis or the earl or the great millionaire. Only think of the flood of +light which will be poured in upon all the details of the military +organization, when once it becomes the direct interest of each of us to +see that the profession is properly managed in which his own son, +however poor in purse and humble in rank, has a chance of obtaining a +commission! I believe the Duke of Cambridge had and has an honest hatred +and contempt for the coarse and noisy interference of public and +unprofessional criticism where the business of the sacred Horse Guards +is concerned. Once, when goaded on to sheer desperation by comments in +the papers, his Royal Highness actually wrote or dictated a letter of +explanation to the "Times," signed with the monosyllabic grandeur of his +name "George," we all held up the hands and eyes of wonder that such +things had come to pass, that royal princes condescended to write to +newspapers, and yet the world rolled on. I cannot think the Duke will +abide the awful changes that are coming. He will probably pass into the +twilight and repose of some dignified office, where blundering has no +occupation and obstinacy can do no harm. Everything considered, I think +we may say of him that he might have been a great deal worse than he +was. My own impression is that he is rather better than his reputation. +If the popular voice of England were to ask in the words of +Shakespeare's "Lucio," "And was the Duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and a +coward, as you then reported him to be?" I might answer, in the language +of the pretended friar, "You must change persons with me ere you make +that my report. You indeed spoke so of him, and much more, much worse." + + + + +BRIGHAM YOUNG. + + +Those among us who are not too young to have had "Evenings at Home" for +a schoolday companion and instructor will remember the story called +"Eyes and No Eyes" and its moral. They will remember that, of the two +little boys who accomplished precisely the same walk at the same time, +one saw all manner of delightful and wonderful things, while the other +saw nothing whatever that was worth recollection or description. The +former had eyes prepared to see, and the other had not; and that made +all the difference. I have to confess that, during a recent visit to +Salt Lake City--a visit lasting nearly as many days as that out of which +my friend, Hepworth Dixon, made the better part of a volume--I must have +been in the condition of the dull little reprobate who had no eyes to +see the wonders which delighted his companion. For, so far as the city +itself, its streets and its structures, are concerned, I really saw +nothing in particular. A muddy little country town, with one or two +tolerably decent streets, wherein a few handsome stores are mixed up +with old shanties, is not much to see in any part of the civilized +world. Other travellers have seen a wondrous sight on the very same +spot. They have seen a large and beautiful city, with spacious, splendid +streets, shaded by majestic trees and watered by silvery currents +flowing in marble channels; they have seen a city combining the +cleanliness and activity of young America with the picturesqueness and +dignity of the Orient; a city which would be beautiful and wonderful +anywhere, but which, raised up here on the bare bosom of the desert, is +a phenomenon of apparently almost magical creation. Naturally, +therefore, they have gone into raptures over the energy, and industry, +and aestheticism of the Mormons; and, even while condemning sternly the +doctrine and practice of polygamy, they have nevertheless been haunted +by an uneasy doubt as to whether, after all, there is not some peculiar +virtue in the having half a dozen wives together which endows a man with +super-human gifts as a builder of cities. Otherwise how comes this +beautiful and perfect city, here on the unfriendly and unsheltering +waste? + +Well, I saw no beautiful and wonderful city, although I spent several +days in the Mormon capital, and tramped every one of its streets, and +lanes, and roads, scores of times over. Where others beheld the glorious +virgin, Dulcinea del Toboso, radiant in beauty and bedight with queenly +apparel, I saw only the homely milkmaid, with her red elbows and her +russet gown. In plain words, the Mormon city appeared to me just a +commonplace little country town, and no more. I saw in it no evidences +of preternatural energy or skill. It has one decent street, wherein may +be found, at most, half a dozen well-built and attractive-looking shops. +It has a good many comfortable residences in the environs. It has two or +three decentish hotels, like the hotels of any other fiftieth-class +country town. It has the huge Tabernacle, a gigantic barn merely, a +simple covering in and over of so much space--a thing in shape "very +like a land turtle," as President George L. Smith, First Councillor of +Brigham Young, observed to me. Salt Lake City has no lighting and no +draining, except such draining as is done by the little runnels of water +to be found in every street, and which remind one faintly and sadly of +dear, quaint old Berne in Switzerland. At night you have to trudge along +in the darkness and the mud, or slush, or dust, and it is a perilous +quest the seeking of your way home, for at every crossing you must look +or feel for the plank which bridges over the artificial brooklets +already described, or you plunge helpless and hopeless into the little +torrent. Decidedly, a "one-horse" place, in my estimation; I don't see +how men endowed with average heads and arms could for twenty years have +been occupied in the building of a city, and produced anything less +creditable than this. I do not wonder at the complacency and +self-conceit with which all the Mormon residents talk of the beauty of +their city and the wonderful things they have accomplished, when Gentile +travellers of credit and distinction have glorified this shabby, swampy, +ricketty, common-place, vulgar, little hamlet into a town of sweetness +and light, of symmetry and beauty. For my part, and for those who were +with me, I can only say that we spent the first day or so in perpetual +wonder as to whether this really could be the Mormon city of which we +had read so many bewildering and glorious descriptions. And the +theatre--oh, Hepworth Dixon, I like you much, and I think you are often +abused and assailed most unjustly; but how could you write so about that +theatre? Or was the beautiful temple of the drama which _you_ saw here +deliberately taken down, and did they raise in its place the big, gaunt, +ugly, dirty, dismal structure which _I_ saw, and in which I and my +companions made part of a dreary dozen or two of audience, and blinked +in the dim, depressing light of mediaeval oil-lamps? I observe that, when +driven to bay by sceptical inquiry, complacent Mormons generally fall +back on the abundance of shade-trees in the streets. Let them have the +full credit of this plantation. They have put trees in the streets, and +the trees have grown; and, when we observe to a Mormon that we have seen +rows of trees similarly growing in even smaller towns of the benighted +European continent, he evidently thinks it is our monogamic perversity +and prejudice which force us to deny the wondrous works of Mormonism. +Making due allowance for every natural difficulty, remembering how +nearly every implement, and utensil, and scrap of raw material had to be +brought from across yonder rampart of mountains, and from hundreds of +miles away, I yet fail to see anything very remarkable about this little +Mormon town. Perhaps no other set of people could have made much more of +the place; I cannot help thinking that no other set of people who were +not Digger Indians could have made much less. + +In fact, to retain the proper and picturesque ideas of Salt Lake City, +one never ought to have entered the town at all. We ought to have +remained on this hillside, from which you can look across that most +lovely of all valleys on earth, cinctured as it is by a perfect girdle +of mountains, the outlines of which are peerless and ineffable in their +symmetry and beauty. The air is as clear, the skies are as blue, the +grass as green as the dream of a poet or painter could show him. There +below, fringed and mantled in the clustering green of its trees, you see +the city, with the long, low, rounded dome or back of the Tabernacle +rising broad and conspicuous. Looking down, you may well believe that +the city thus exquisitely placed, thus deliciously shaded and +surrounded, is itself a wonder of picturesqueness and symmetry. Why go +down into the two or three dirty, irregular, shabby little streets, with +their dust or mud for road pavement, their nozzling pigs trotting along +the sidewalks, their dung-heaps and masses of decaying vegetable matter, +their utterly commonplace, mean and disheartening aspect everywhere? But +then we did go down--and where others had seen a fair and goodly, aye, +and queenly city, we saw a muddy, uninteresting, straggling little +village, disfiguring the lovely plain on which it stood. + +Profound disappointment, then, is my first sensation in Salt Lake City. +The place is so like any other place! Certainly, one receives a bracing +little shock every now and then, which admonishes him that, despite the +small, shabby stores and the pigs, and the dunghills, he is not in the +regions of merely commonplace dirt. For instance, we learn that the +proprietor of the hotel where we are staying has four wives; and it is +something odd to talk with a civil, respectable, burgess-like man, +dressed in ordinary coat and pantaloons, and wearing mutton-chop +whiskers--a sort of man who in England would probably be a +church-warden--and who has more consorts than an average Turk. Then +again it is startling to be asked, "Do you know Mr. ----?" and when I +say "No, I don't," to be told, "Oh, you ought to know him. He came from +England, and he has lately married two such nice English girls!" One +morning, too, we have another kind of shock. There is a pretty little +chambermaid in our hotel, a new-comer apparently, and she happens to +find out that my wife and I had lived for many years in that part of the +North of England from which she comes herself, whereupon she bursts into +a perfect passion and tempest of tears, declares that she would rather +be in her grave than in Salt Lake City, that she was deceived into +coming, that the Mormonism she heard preached by the Mormon propaganda +in England was a quite different thing from the Mormonism practised +here, and that her only longing was to get out of the place, anyhow, +forever. The girl seemed to be perfectly, passionately sincere. What +could be done for her? Apparently nothing. She had spent all her money +in coming out; and she seemed to be strongly under the conviction that, +even if she had money, she could not get away. An influence was +evidently over her which she had not the courage or strength of mind to +attempt to resist, or even to elude. Doubtless, as she was a very pretty +girl, she would be very soon sealed to some ruling elder. She said her +sister had come with her, but the sister was in another part of the +city, and since their arrival--only a few days, however--they had not +met. My wife endeavored to console or encourage her, but the girl could +only sob and protest that she never could learn to endure the place, but +that she could not get away, and that she would rather be in her grave. +We spoke of this case to one of the civil officers of the United States +stationed in the city, and he shook his head and thought nothing could +be done. The influence which enslaved this poor girl was not wholly that +of force, but a power which worked upon her senses and her +superstitions. I should think an underground railway would be a valuable +institution to establish in connection with the Mormon city. + +I well remember that when I lived in Liverpool, some ten or a dozen +years ago, the Mormon propaganda, very active there, always kept the +polygamy institution modestly in the background. Proselytes were courted +and won by descriptions of a new Happy Valley, of a City of the Blest, +where eternal summer shone, where the fruits were always ripe, where the +earth smiled with a perpetual harvest, where labor and reward were +plenty for all, and where the outworn toilers of Western Europe could +renew their youth like the eagles. I remember, too, the remarkable case +of a Liverpool family having a large business establishment in the most +fashionable street of the great town, who were actually beguiled into +selling off all their goods and property and migrating, parents, sons, +and daughters, to the land of promise beyond the American wilderness, +and how, before people had ceased to wonder at their folly, they all +came back, humiliated, disgusted, cured. They had money and something +like education, and they were a whole family, and so they were able, +when they found themselves deceived, to effect a rapid retreat at the +cost of nothing worse than disappointment and pecuniary loss. But for +the poor, pretty serving-lass from Lancashire I do not know that there +is much hope. Poverty and timidity and superstitious weakness will help +to lock the Mormon chains around her. Perhaps she will get used to the +place in time. Ought one to wish that she may--or rather to echo her own +prayer, and petition that she may find an early grave? The graveyards +are densely planted with tombs here in this sacred city of Mormonism. + +The place is unspeakably dreary. Hardly any women are ever seen in the +streets, except on the Sunday, when all the families pour in to service +in the huge Tabernacle. Most of the dwelling houses round the city are +pent in behind walls. Most of the houses, too, have their dismal little +_sucursales_, one or two or more, built on to the sides--and in each of +these additions or wings to the original building a different wife and +family are caged. There are no flower gardens anywhere. Children are +bawling everywhere. Sometimes a wretched, slatternly, dispirited woman +is seen lounging at the door or hanging over the gate of a house with a +baby at her breast. More often, however, the house, or clump of houses, +gives no external sign of life. It stands back gloomy in the sullen +shade of its thick fruit trees, and might seem untenanted if one did not +hear the incessant yelling of the children. We saw the women in +hundreds, probably in thousands, at the Tabernacle on the Sunday--and +what women they were! Such faces, so dispirited, depressed, shapeless, +hopeless, soulless faces! No trace of woman's graceful pride and +neatness in these slatternly, shabby, slouching, listless figures; no +purple light of youth over these cheeks; no sparkle in these +half-extinguished eyes. I protest that only in some of the _cretin_ +villages of the Swiss mountains have I seen creatures in female form so +dull, miserable, moping, hopeless as the vast majority of these Mormon +women. As we leave the Tabernacle, and walk slowly down the street amid +the crowd, we see two prettily-dressed, lively-looking girls, who laugh +with each other and are seemingly happy, and we thank Heaven that there +are at least two merry, spirited girls in Salt Lake City. A few days +after we meet our blithesome pair at Mintah station; and they are +travelling with their father and mother on to San Francisco, whither we +too are going--and we learn that they are not Mormons, but +Gentiles--pleasant lasses from Philadelphia who had come with their +parents to have a passing look at the externals of Mormonism. + +My object, however, in writing this paper was to speak of the chief, +Brigham Young himself, rather than of his city or his system. We saw +Brigham Young, were admitted to prolonged speech of him, and received +his parting benediction. The interview took place in the now famous +house with the white walls and the gilded beehive on the top. We were +received in a kind of office or parlor, hung round with oil paintings of +the kind which in England we regard as "furniture," and which +represented all the great captains and elders of Mormonism. Joseph Smith +is there, and Brigham Young, and George L. Smith, now First Councillor; +and various others whom to enumerate would be long, even if I knew or +remembered their names. President Young was engaged just at the moment +when we came, but his Secretary, a Scotchman, I think, and President +George L. Smith, are very civil and cordial. George L. Smith is a huge, +burly man, with a Friar Tuck joviality of paunch and visage, and a roll +in his bright eye which, in some odd, undefined sort of way, suggests +cakes and ale. He talks well, in a deep rolling voice, and with a dash +of humor in his words and tone--he it is who irreverently but accurately +likens the Tabernacle to a land-turtle. He speaks with immense +admiration and reverence of Brigham Young, and specially commends his +abstemiousness and hermit-like frugality in the matter of eating and +drinking. Presently a door opens, and the oddest, most whimsical figure +I have ever seen off the boards of an English country theatre stands in +the room; and in a moment we are presented formally to Brigham Young. + +There must be something of impressiveness and dignity about the man, +for, odd as is his appearance and make up, one feels no inclination to +laugh. But such a figure! Brigham Young wears a long-tailed, +high-collared coat; the swallow-tails nearly touch the ground; the +collar is about his ears. In shape the garment is like the swallow-tail +coats which negro-melodists sometimes wear, or like the dandy English +dress coat one can still see in prints in some of the shops of St. James +street, London. But the material of Brigham's coat is some kind of +rough, gray frieze, and the garment is adorned with huge brass buttons. +The vest and trowsers are of the same material. Round the neck of the +patriarch is some kind of bright crimson shawl, and on the patriarch's +feet are natty little boots of the shiniest polished leather. I must say +that the gray frieze coat of antique and wonderful construction, the +gaudy crimson shawl, and the dandy boots make up an incongruous whole +which irresistibly reminds one at first of the holiday get-up of some +African King who adds to a great coat, preserved as an heirloom since +Mungo Park's day, a pair of modern top-boots, and a lady's bonnet. The +whole appearance of the patriarch, when one has got over the African +monarch impression, is like that of a Suffolk farmer as presented on the +boards of a Surrey theatre. But there is decidedly an amount of +composure and even of dignity about Brigham Young which soon makes one +forget the mere ludicrousness of the patriarch's external appearance. +Young is a handsome man--much handsomer than his portrait on the wall +would show him. Close upon seventy years of age, he has as clear an eye +and as bright a complexion as if he were a hale English farmer of +fifty-five. But there is something fox-like and cunning lurking under +the superficial good-nature and kindliness of the face. He seems, when +he speaks to you most effusively and plausibly, to be quietly studying +your expression to see whether he is really talking you over or not. The +expression of his face, especially of his eyes, strangely and +provokingly reminds me of Kossuth. I think I have seen Kossuth thus +watch the face of a listener to see whether or not the listener was +conquered by his wonderful power of talk. Kossuth's face, apart from its +intellectual qualities, appeared to me to express a strange blending of +vanity, craft, and weakness; and Brigham Young's countenance now seems +to show just such a mixture of qualities. Great force of character the +man must surely have; great force of character Kossuth, too, had; but +the face of neither man seemed to declare the possession of such a +quality. Brigham Young decidedly does not impress me as a man of great +ability; but rather as a man of great plausibility. I can at once +understand how such a man, with such an eye and tongue, can easily exert +an immense influence over women. Beyond doubt he is a man of genius; but +his genius does not reveal itself, to me at least, in his face or his +words. He speaks in a thin, clear, almost shrill tone, and with much +apparent _bonhomie_. After a little commonplace conversation about the +city, its improvements, approaches etc., the Prophet voluntarily goes on +to speak of himself, his system, and his calumniators. His talk soon +flows into a kind of monologue, and is indeed a curious rhapsody of +religion, sentimentality, shrewdness and egotism. Sometimes several +sentences succeed each other in which his hearers hardly seem to make +out any meaning whatever, and Brigham Young appears a grotesque kind of +Coleridge. Then again in a moment comes up a shrewd meaning very +distinctly expressed, and with a dash of humor and sarcasm gleaming +fantastically amid the scriptural allusions and the rhapsody of unctuous +words. The purport of the whole is that Brigham Young has been +misunderstood, misprized, and calumniated, even as Christ was; that were +Christ to come up to-morrow in New York or London, He would be +misunderstood, misprized, and caluminated, even as Brigham Young now is; +and that Brigham Young is not to be dismayed though the stars in their +courses should fight against him. He protests with especial emphasis and +at the same time especial meekness, with eyes half closed and +delicately-modulated voice, against the false reports that any manner of +force or influence whatever is, or ever was, exercised to keep men or +women in Salt Lake City against their will. He appeals to the evidence +of our own eyes, and asks us whether we have not seen for ourselves that +the city is free to all to come and go as they will. At this time we had +not heard the story told by the poor little maid at the hotel; but in +any case the evidence of our eyes could go no farther than to prove that +travellers like ourselves were free to enter and depart. We have, +however, little occasion to trouble ourselves about answering; for the +Prophet keeps the talk pretty well all to himself. His manner is +certainly not that of a man of culture, but it has a good deal of the +quiet grace and self-possession of what we call a gentleman. There is +nothing _prononce_ or vulgar about him. Even when he is most rhapsodical +his speech never loses its ease and gentleness of tone. He is bland, +benevolent, sometimes quietly pathetic in manner. He poses himself _en +victime_, but with the air of one who does this regretfully and only +from a disinterested sense of duty. I begin very soon to find that there +is no need of my troubling myself much to keep up the conversation; that +my business is that of a listener; that the Prophet conceives himself to +be addressing some portion of the English or American press through my +humble medium. So I listen and my companion listens; and Brigham Young +talks on; and I do declare and acknowledge that we are fast drifting +into a hazy mental condition by virtue of which we begin to regard the +Mormon President as a victim of cruel persecution, a suffering martyr +and an injured angel! + +Time, surely, that the interview should come to a close. We tear +ourselves away, and the Prophet dismisses us with a fervent and effusive +blessing. "Good-bye--do well, mean well, pray always. Christ be with +you, God be with you, God bless you." All this, and a great deal more to +the same effect, was uttered with no vulgar, maw-worm demonstrativeness +of tone or gesture, no nasal twang, no uplifted hands; but quietly, +earnestly, as if it came unaffectedly from the heart of the speaker. We +took leave of Brigham Young, and came away a little puzzled as to +whether we had been conversing with an impostor or a fanatic, a Peter +the Hermit or a Tartuffe. One thing, however, is clear to me. I do not +say that Brigham Young is a Tartuffe; but I know now how Tartuffe ought +to be played so as to render the part more effective and more apparently +natural and lifelike than I have ever seen it on French or English +stage. + +No one can doubt the sincerity of the homage which the Mormons in +general pay to Brigham Young. One man, of the working class, apparently, +with whom I talked at the gate of the Tabernacle, spoke almost with +tears in his eyes of the condescension the Prophet always manifested. My +informant told me that he was at one time disabled by some hurt or +ailment; and, the first day that he was able to come into the street +again, President Young happened to be passing in his carriage, and +caught sight of the convalescent. "He stopped his carriage, sir, called +me over to him, addressed me by my name, shook hands with me, asked me +how I was getting on, and said he was glad to see me out again." The +poor man was as proud of this as a French soldier might have been if the +Little Corporal had recognized him and called him by his name. There is +no flattery which the great can offer to the humble like this way of +addressing the man by his right name, and thus proving that the identity +of the small creature has lived clearly in the memory of the great +being. Many a renowned commander has endeared himself to the soldiers +whom he regarded and treated only as the instruments of his business, by +the mere fact that he took care to remember men's names. They would +gladly die for one who could be so nobly gracious, and could thus prove +that they were regarded by him as worthy to occupy each a distinct place +in his busy mind. The niggardliness and selfishness of John, Duke of +Marlborough, the savage recklessness of Claverhouse, were easily +forgotten by the poor private soldiers whom each commander made it his +business, when occasion required, to address correctly by their +appropriate names of Tom, Dick, or Harry. Lord Palmerston governed the +House of Commons and most of those outside it with whom he usually came +into contact, by just such little arts or courtesies as this. In one of +Messrs. Erckmann and Chatrian's novels we read of a soldier who declares +himself ready to go to the death for Marshal Ney because the Marshal, +who originally belonged to the same district as himself, had just +recognized his fellow-countryman and called him by his name. But the +hero of the novel is somewhat grim and sarcastic, and he thinks it was +not so wonderful a condescension that Ney should have recognized an old +comrade and called him by his name. Perhaps the hero of the tale had not +himself received any such recognition from Ney--perhaps if it had been +vouchsafed to him he, too, would have been ready to go to the death. +Anyhow, this correct calling of names, and quick recognition has always +been a great power in the governing of men and women. "Deal you in +words," is the advice of Mephistophiles to the student, in Faust, "and +you may leave others to do the best they can with things." I was able to +appreciate the governing power of Brigham Young all the better when I +had heard the expression of this poor Mormon's gratitude and homage to +the great President who had shaken hands with him and addressed him +promptly and correctly by his name. + +This same Mormon was very communicative. Indeed, as a rule, I found most +of the men in Salt Lake City ready and even eager to discuss their +"peculiar institution," and to invite Gentile opinion on it. He showed +us his two wives, and declared that they lived together in perfect +harmony and happiness; never had a word of quarrel, but were contented +and loving as two sisters. He delivered a panegyric on the moral +condition of Salt Lake City, where, he declared, there was no +dishonesty, no drunkenness, and no prostitution. I believe he was +correct in his description of the place. From many quite impartial +authorities I heard the same accounts of the honesty of the Mormons. +There certainly is no drunkenness to be observed anywhere openly, and I +believe (although I have heard others assert the contrary) that Salt +Lake City is really and truly free from this vice; and I suppose it goes +without saying that there is little or no prostitution in a place where +a man is expected to keep as many wives as his means will allow him. +Intelligent Mormons rely immensely on this absence of prostitution as a +justification of their system. They seem to think that when they have +said, "We have no prostitutes," all is said; and that the Gentile, with +the shames of London, Paris and New York burning in his memory and his +conscience, must be left without a word of reply. Brigham Young, in +conversation with me, dwelt much on this absence of prostitution. Orson +Pratt preached in the Tabernacle during our stay a sermon obviously "at" +the Gentile visitors, who were just then specially numerous; and he drew +an emphatic contrast between the hideous profligacy of the Eastern +cities and the purity of the Salt Lake community. I must say, for +myself, that I do not think the question can thus be settled; I do not +think prostitution so great an evil as polygamy. If this blunt +declaration should shock anybody's moral feelings I am sorry for it; but +it is none the less the expression of my sincere conviction. Pray do +not set me down as excusing prostitution. I think it the worst of all +social evils--except polygamy. I think polygamy the worse evil, because +I am convinced that, regarded from a physiological, moral, religious, +and even merely poetical and sentimental point of view, the only true +social bond to be sought and maintained and justified is the loving +union of one man with one woman--at least until death shall part the +two. Now, I regard the existence of prostitution as a proof that some +men and women fail to keep to the right path. I look on polygamy as a +proof that a whole community is going directly the wrong way. No man +proposes to himself to lead a life of profligacy. He falls into it. He +would get out of it if he only could--if the world and the flesh and the +devil were not now and then too strong for him. But the polygamist +deliberately sets up and justifies and glorifies a system which is as +false to physiology as it is to morals. Observe that I do not say the +polygamist is necessarily an immoral man. Doubtless he is often--in Utah +I really believe he is commonly--a sincere, devoted, mistaken man, who +honestly believes himself to be doing right. But when he attempts to +vindicate his system on the ground that it banishes prostitution, I, for +myself, declare that I believe a society which has to put up with +prostitution is in better case and hope than one which deliberately +adopts polygamy. I am emphatic in expressing this opinion because, as I +am opposed to any stronghanded or legal movement whatever to put down +Brigham Young and his system, I desire to have it clearly understood +that my opinions on the subject of polygamy are quite decided, and that +no one who has clamored, or may hereafter clamor, for the uprooting of +Mormonism by fire and sword, can have less sympathy than I have with +Mormonism's peculiar institution. + +Let me return to Brigham Young. I saw the Prophet but twice--once in the +street and once in his own house, where the interview took place which I +have described. The day after that on which I last saw him he left Salt +Lake City and went into the country--some people said to avoid the +necessity of meeting Mr. Colfax, who was just then expected to arrive +with his party from the West. My impressions, therefore, of Brigham +Young and his personal character are necessarily hasty, and probably +superficial. I can only say that he did not impress me either as a man +of great genius, or as a mere _charlatan_. My impression is that he is a +sincere man--that is to say, a man who sincerely believes in himself, +accepts his own impulses, prejudices and passions as divine instincts +and intuitions to be the law of life for himself and others, and who, +therefore, has attained that supreme condition of utterly unsparing and +pitiless selfishness when the voice of self is listened to as the voice +of God. With such a sincerity is quite consistent the adoption of every +craft and trick in the government of men and women. Nobody can doubt +that Napoleon I. was perfectly sincere as regards his faith in himself, +his destiny, and his duty; and yet there was no trick of lawyer, or +play-actor, or priest, of which he would not condescend to avail himself +if it served his purpose. This is not the sincerity of a Pascal, or a +Garibaldi, or a Garrison; but it is just as genuine and infinitely more +common. It is the kind of sincerity which we meet every day in ordinary +life, when we see some dogmatic, obstinate father of a family or +sense-carrier of a small circle trying to mould every will and +conscience and life under his control according to his own pedantic +standard, and firmly confident all the time that his own perverseness +and egotism are a guiding inspiration from heaven. After all, the +downright, conventional stage-hypocrite is the rarest of all beings in +real life. I sometimes doubt whether there ever was _in rerum natura_ +any one such creature. I suppose Tartuffe had persuaded himself into +self-worship, into the conviction that everything he said and did must +be right. I look upon Brigham Young as a man of such a temperament and +character. Cunning and crafty he undoubtedly is, unless all evidences of +eye, and lip, and voice belie him; but we all know that many a fanatic +who boldly and cheerfully mounted the funeral pile or the scaffold for +his creed had over and over again availed himself of all the tricks of +craft and cunning to maintain his ascendancy over his followers. The +fanatic is often crafty just as the madman is: the presence of craft in +neither case disproves the existence of sincerity. + +I believe Brigham Young to be simply a crafty fanatic. That he professes +and leads his creed of Mormonism merely to obtain lands and beeves and +wives, I do not believe, although this seems to be the general +impression among the Gentiles who visit his city. I am convinced that he +regards himself as a prophet and a heaven-appointed leader, and that +this belief prevents him from seeing how selfish he is in one sense and +how ridiculous in another. Any man who can deliberately put on such a +coat in combination with such a pair of boots, as Brigham Young +displayed during my interview with him, must have a faith in himself +which would sustain him in anything. No human creature capable of +looking at any two sides of a question where he himself was concerned, +ever did or could present himself in public and expect to be reverenced +when arrayed in such uncouth and preposterous toggery. + +I cannot pretend to have had any extraordinary revelations of the inner +mysteries or miseries of Mormonism made to me during my stay at Salt +Lake City. Other travellers, nearly all other travellers indeed, have +apparently been more fortunate or more pushing and persevering. I fancy +it is rather difficult just now to get to know much of the interior of +Mormon households; and I confess that I never could quite understand how +people, otherwise honorable and upright, can think themselves justified +in worming their way into Mormon confidences, and then making profit one +way or another by revelations to the public. But one naturally and +unavoidably hears, in Salt Lake City, of things which are deeply +significant and which he may without scruple put into print. For +example--there was a terrible pathos to my mind in the history of a +respectable and intelligent woman who, years and years ago, when her +life, now fading, was in its prime, married a man now a shining light of +Mormonism, whose photograph you may see anywhere in Salt Lake City. She +has been superseded since by divers successive wives; she is now +striving in a condition far worse than widowhood to bring up her seven +or eight children, and she has not been favored with even a passing call +for more than a year and a half by the husband of her youth, who lives +with the newest of his wives a few hundred yards away. I am told that +such things are perfectly common; that the result of the system is to +plant in Utah a number of families which may be described practically as +households without husbands and fathers. I believe the lady of whom I +have just spoken accepts her destiny with sad and firm resignation. Her +faith in the religion of Mormonism is unshaken, and she regards her +forlorn and widowed life as the heaven-appointed cross, by the bearing +of which she is to win her eternal crown. Of course the Indian widows +regard their bed of flames, the Russian women-fanatics behold their +mutilated and mangled breasts with a similar enthusiasm of hope and +superstition. But none the less ghastly and appalling is the monstrous +faith which exacts and glorifies such unnatural sacrifices. These dreary +homes, widowed not by death, seem to be the saddest, most shocking birth +of Mormonism. After all, this is not the polygamy of the East, bad as +that may be. "Give us," exclaimed M. Thiers in the French Chamber, three +or four years ago, when Imperialism had reached the zenith of its +despotic power--"give us liberty as in Austria!" So I can well imagine +one of these superseded and lonely wives in Salt Lake City, crying +aloud in the bitterness of her heart, "Give us polygamy as in Turkey!" + +That the thing is a religion, however hideously it may show, I do not +doubt. I mean that I feel no doubt that the great majority of the Mormon +men are drawn to and kept in Mormonism by a belief in its truth and +vital force as a religion. I do not believe that conscious and +hypocritical sensuality is the leading impulse in making them or keeping +them members of the Mormon church. I never heard of any community where +a sensual man found any difficulty in gratifying his sensuality; nor are +the vast majority of the Mormons men belonging to a class on whom a +severe public opinion would bear so directly that they must necessarily +wander thousands of miles away across the desert in order to be able +comfortably to gratify their immoral propensities. To me, therefore, the +possibility which appears most dangerous of all is the chance of any +sudden crusade, legal or otherwise, being set on foot against this +perverted and unfortunate people. Left to itself, I firmly believe that +Mormonism will never long bear the glare of daylight, the throng of +witnesses, the intelligent rivalry, the earnest and active criticism, +poured in and forced in upon it by the Pacific railroads. But if it can +bear all this then it can bear anything whatever which human ingenuity +or force can put in arms against it; and it will run its course and have +its day, let the Federal Hercules himself do what he may. Meanwhile it +would be well to bear in mind that Mormonism has thus far cumbered the +earth for comparatively a very few years; that all its members there in +Utah counted together would hardly equal the population of a respectable +street in London; and that at this moment the whole concern is ricketty +and shaky, and threatens to tumble to pieces. I know that some of the +ruling elders are panting for persecution; that they are openly doing +their very best to "draw fire;" that they are daily endeavoring to work +on the fears or the passions of Federal officials resident at Salt Lake +by threats of terrible deeds to be done in the event of any attempt +being made to interfere with Mormonism. Many of these Mormon apostles, +dull, vulgar and clownish as they seem, have foresight enough to see +that their system sadly needs just now the stimulus of a little +persecution, and have fanatical courage enough to put themselves gladly +in the front of any danger for the sake of sowing by their martyrdom the +seed of the church. "That man," said William the Third of England, +speaking of an inveterate conspirator against him "is determined to be +made a victim, and I am determined not to make him one." I hope the +United States will deal with the Mormons in a similar spirit. At the +same time, I would ask my brothers of the pen whether those of them who +have visited Salt Lake City have not made the place seem a good deal +more wonderful, more alluringly mysterious, more grandly paradoxical in +its nature, than it really is? I feel convinced that if people in +Lancashire and Wales and Sweden had all been made distinctly aware that +Salt Lake City is only a dusty or muddy little commonplace country +hamlet, where labor is not less hard and is not any better paid than in +dozens or scores of small hamlets this side the Missouri, one vast +temptation to emigrate thither, the temptation supplied by morbid +curiosity and ignorant wonder, would never have had any conquering +power, and Mormonism would have been deprived of many thousand votaries. +For, regarded in an artistic point of view, the City of the Saints is a +vulgar sham; a trumpery humbug; and I verily believe that it has swelled +into importance not more through the fanatical energy of its governing +elders and the ignorance of their followers, than through the +extravagant exaggeration and silly wonder of most of its hostile +visitors and critics. + + + + +THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND. + + +A year ago I happened to be talking with some French friends at a +dinner-table in Paris, about the Reform agitation then going on in +England. "We admire your great orators and leaders," said an +enthusiastic French gentleman; "your Bright, your Beales"--and he was +warming to the subject when he saw that I was smiling, and he at once +pulled up, and asked me earnestly whether he had said anything +ridiculous. I endeavored to explain to him gently that in England we did +not usually place our Bright and our Beales on exactly the same +level--that the former was our greatest orator, our most powerful +leader, and the latter a respectable, earnest gentleman of warm emotions +and ordinary abilities whom chance had made the figure-head of a passing +and vehement agitation, and who would probably be forgotten the day +after to-morrow or thereabouts. + +My French friend did not seem convinced. He had seen Mr. Beales's name +in the London papers quite as often and as prominently for some months +as Mr. Bright's; and, moreover, he had met Mr. Beales at dinner, and did +not like to be told that he had not thereby made the acquaintance of a +great tribune of the British people. So I dropped the subject and +allowed our Bright and and our Beales to rank together without farther +protest. + +Here in New York, where English politics are understood infinitely +better than in Paris, I have noticed not a little of this "Bright and +Beales" classification when people talk of the leaders of English +Liberalism. I have heard, with surprise, this or that respectable member +of Parliament, who never for a moment dreamed of being classed among the +chiefs of his party, exalted to a place of equality with Gladstone or +Bright. In truth the English Liberal party (I mean now the advancing and +popular party--not the old Whigs) has only three men who can be called +leaders. After Gladstone, Bright, and Mill there comes a huge gap--and +then follow the subalterns, of whom one might name half a dozen having +about equal rank and influence, and of whom you may choose any favorite +you like. Take, for example, Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. +Thomas Hughes, the O'Donoghue, Mr. Coleridge (who, however, is marked +out for the judicial bench, and therefore need hardly be counted), and +one or two others, and you have the captains of the advanced Liberal +party. The Liberals are not rich in rising talent; at least there seems +no man of the younger political generation who gives any promise of +commanding ability. They have many good debaters and clever politicians, +but I see no "pony Gladstone" to succeed him who used to be called the +"pony Peel;" and the man has yet to show himself in whom the House of +Commons can hope for a future Bright. The great Liberals of our day have +apparently not the gift of training disciples in order that the latter +may become apostles in their time. Like Cavour, they are too earnest +about the work and do too much of it themselves to have leisure or +inclination for teaching and pushing others. + +Officially Mr. Gladstone has been, of course, for several years the +leader of the party. He is formally invested with all the insignia of +command. He is indeed the only possible leader; for he is the only man +who has the slightest chance just now of commanding the allegiance of +the old Whigs with their dukes and earls, and the young Radicals with +their philosophers, their Comtists, their Irish Nationalists, and their +working men. But the true soul and voice and heart of the Liberal party +pay silent allegiance to John Bright. He is, by universal +acknowledgment, the maker of the Reform agitation and the Reform Bill. + +Mr. Disraeli has over and over again flung in the face of Mr. Gladstone +the fact that Bright, and not he, is the master spirit of Radicalism. Of +late the Tories have taken to praising and courting Bright incessantly +and ostentatiously, and contrasting his calm, consistent wisdom with +Gladstone's impetuosity and fitfulness. Of course both Bright and +Gladstone thoroughly understand the meaning of this, and smile at it and +despise it. The obvious purpose is to try to set up a rivalry between +the two. If Gladstone's authority could be damaged that would be quite +enough; for it would be impossible at present to get the Whig dukes and +earls to follow Bright, and the dethronement of Gladstone would be the +break-up of the party. The trick is an utter failure. Bright is +sincerely and generously loyal to Gladstone, and is a man as completely +devoid of personal vanity or self-seeking as he is of fear. No personal +question will ever divide these two men. + +Gladstone is beyond doubt the most fluent and brilliant speaker in the +English Parliament. No other man has anything like his inexhaustible +flow and rush of varied and vivid expression. His memory is as +surprising as his fluency. Grattan spoke of the eloquence of Fox as +"rolling in resistless as the waves of the Atlantic." So far as this +description conveys the idea of a vast volume of splendid words pouring +unceasingly in, it may be applied to Gladstone. A listener new to the +House is almost certain to prefer him to any other speaker there, and to +regard him as the greatest English orator of the present generation. I +was myself for a long time completely under the spell, and a little +impatient of those who insisted on the superiority of Bright. But when +one becomes accustomed to the speaking of the two men it is impossible +not to find the fluency, the glitter, the impetuous volubility, the +involved and complicated sentences, the Latinized, sesquipedalian words +of Gladstone gradually losing their early charm and influence, just as +the pure noble Saxon, the unforced energy, the exquisite simplicity, the +perfect "fusion of reason and passion" which are the special +characteristics of Bright's eloquence, grow more and more fascinating +and commanding. Perhaps the same effect may be found to arise from a +study or a contrast (if one must contrast them) between the political +characters of the two men. + +It is a somewhat singular fact that one English county has produced the +three men who undoubtedly rank beyond all others in England as +Parliamentary orators. The Earl of Derby, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Bright +are all Lancashire men. But Gladstone is only Lancashire by birth. His +shrewd old Scotch father came to Liverpool from across the Tweed, and +made his money and founded his family in the great port of the Mersey. +The Gladstones had, and have, large West Indian property; and when +England emancipated her slaves by paying off the planters, the +Gladstones came in for no small share of the national purchase-money. +When the great Liberal orator came out so impetuously and unluckily with +his celebrated panegyric on Jefferson Davis, a few years ago, some +people shook their heads and remarked that the old planter spirit does +not quite die out in the course of one generation; and I heard bitter +allusion made to the celebrated declaration flung by Cooke, the great +tragedian, in the face of an indignant theatre in Liverpool, that there +was not a stone in the walls of that town which was not "cemented by the +blood of Africans." But, indeed, Gladstone's outburst had no +traditional, or hereditary, or other such source. It came straight from +the impulsive heart and nature of the speaker. His strength and his +weakness are alike illustrated by that sudden, indiscreet, +unjustifiable, and repented outburst. Thus he every now and then +disappoints his friends and shakes the confidence of his followers. A +keen, intellectual, cynical member of the Liberal party, Mr. Grant Duff, +not long since publicly reproached Mr. Gladstone with this trick of +suddenly "turning round and firing his revolver in the face of his +followers." Certain it is that there is little or no enthusiasm felt +toward Gladstone personally, by his party. Admirers of Mr. Disraeli are +usually devotees of the man himself. Young men, especially, delight in +him and adore him. Mr. Gladstone is followed as a leader, admired as an +orator; but I have heard very few of his followers ever express any +personal affection or enthusiasm for him; but it is quite notorious in +London that some of his adherents can hardly control their dislike of +him. Mr. Bright, although a man of somewhat cold and reserved demeanor, +and occasionally _brusque_ in manner, is popular everywhere in the +House. Mr. Gladstone is not personally popular even among his own +followers. What is the reason? His enemies say that he has a bad temper +and an unbending intellectual pride, which is as untrue as if they were +to say he had a hoarse voice and a stammer. The obscurest man in the +House of Commons is not more modest; and there is nothing ungenial in +his manner or his temper. But the truth is that people cannot rely upon +him, or think they cannot, which, so far as they are concerned, amounts +to the same thing. His strongest passion in life--stronger than his love +of figures, or of Homer, or even of liberty--is a love of argument. He +is always ready to sacrifice his friend, or his party, or even his +cause, to his argument. Add to this that he has a conscience so +sensitive that it can hardly ever find any cause or deed smooth enough +to be wholly satisfactory; add, moreover, that he has an eloquence so +fluent as to flow literally away from him, or with him, and the wonder +will be how such a man ever came to be the successful leader of a great +party at all. He is always reconsidering what he has done, always +penitent for something he has said, always turning up to-day the side of +the question which everybody supposed was finally put away and done with +yesterday. + +You can read all this in his face. Furrowed with deep and rigid lines, +it proclaims a certain self-torturing nature--the nature of the +penitent, self-examining ascetic, whose heart is always vexed by doubts +of his own worth and purity, and past and future. Decidedly, Gladstone +wants force of character, and force of intellect as well. He is not a +man of great thought. Every such man settles a question, so far as he is +himself concerned, finally, one way or the other, before long; sees and +accepts what the human limitations of thinking are; recognizes the +necessity of being done with mere thinking about it, and so decides and +is free to act. There is intellectual weakness in Gladstone's +interminable consideration and reconsideration, qualification and +requalification of every subject and branch of a subject. But there is +also a strong, genuine, unmingled delight in mere argument--perhaps as +barren a delight as human intellect can yield to. + +Last year there were three Fenian prisoners lying under sentence of +death in Manchester. Their crime was such as undoubtedly all civil +governments are accustomed to punish by death. But there was +considerable sympathy for them, partly because of their youth, partly +because the deed they had done--the killing of a policeman in order to +rescue a political conspirator--did not seem to be a mere base and +malignant murder. Some eminent Liberals, Mr. Bright among the rest, +endeavored to obtain a mitigation of the sentence. The Tory Government +refused; then a point of law was raised on their behalf, and argued in +the House of Commons. The point was new, the Tory law-officers, dull men +at the best, were taken by surprise, and broke down in reply. Yet there +was a reply, and legally, a sufficient one. Mr. Gladstone saw it; saw +where the point raised was defective, and how it might be disposed of. +He sprang to his feet, pulled the Tory law-officers out of their +difficulty, and upset the case for the Fenians. Now this must have +seemed to a conscientious man quite the right thing to do. To a lover of +argument the temptation of upsetting a defective plea was irresistible. +But most of Mr. Gladstone's Irish followers, on whom he must needs rely, +were surprised and angry, and even some of his English friends thought +he might have left the Tories unaided to hang their own political +prisoners. Gladstone's conduct was eminently characteristic. No +impartial man could honestly say that he had done a wrong thing; but no +one acquainted with political life could feel surprised that a leader +who habitually does such things, is almost always being grumbled at by +one or other section of his followers. + +There is an obvious lack of directness as well as of robustness in the +whole intellectual and political character of the man. I think it was +Nathaniel Hawthorne who said of General McClellan that if he could only +have shut one eye he might have gone straight into Richmond almost at +any time during his command of the Army of the Potomac. I am sure if +Gladstone would only close one eye now and then he might lead his party +much more easily to splendid victory. With all his great, varied, +comprehensive faculties, he is not a man to make a deep mark on the +history of his country. He has to be driven on. Somebody must stand +behind him. He is not self-sufficing. His style of eloquence is not +straightforward, cleaving its way like an arrow. It goes round and round +a subject, turning it up, holding it to the light, now this way, now +that, examining and re-examining it. Even his reform speeches are as +Disraeli once said very happily of Lord Palmerston, rather speeches +about Reform than orations on behalf of it. He is indeed the brilliant +Halifax of his age--at least he is a complete embodiment of Lord +Macaulay's Halifax. A leader with so many splendid gifts and merits, no +English parliamentary party of modern times has ever had. Taking manner, +voice, elocution and all into account, as is but right in judging of a +speaker, I think he is the most splendid of all English orators. Burke's +manner and accent were terribly against him; Fox was full of repetition, +and often stammered and stuttered in the very rush and tumult of his +thoughts; Sheridan's glitter was sometimes tawdriness; both the Pitts +were given to pompousness and affectation; Bright has neither the silver +voice nor the varied information of Gladstone; Disraeli I do not rank +among orators at all. Gladstone has none of the special defects of any +of these men, yet I am convinced that Fox was a _greater_ orator than +Gladstone; I know that Bright is; while Burke's speeches are, as +intellectual studies, incomparably beyond anything that Gladstone will +ever bequeath to posterity; and as instruments to an end, some of +Disraeli's speeches have been more effective and triumphant than +anything ever spoken by his present rival. + +In brief, Gladstone is not, to my thinking, a _great_ orator; and I do +not believe he is a great statesman. A great statesman, I presume, is +tested by a crisis, and is greatest at a crisis. Such was Chatham; such +was Washington; such was Napoleon Bonaparte; such was Cavour; such is +Bismarck. All I have seen of Gladstone compels me to believe that he is +not such a man. He is just the man to lead the Liberal party at this +time; but I should despair of the triumph of that party for the present +generation, if there were not stronger and simpler minds behind his to +keep him in the right way, to drive him on--and, above all, to prevent +him from recoiling after he has made an effective stride forward. + +One of the great questions likely to arise soon in English political +discussion is that of national education. On educational questions I +fancy Mr. Gladstone is rather narrow-minded and old-fashioned; taking +too much the tone and view of a college Don. His recent severance from +the political representation of Oxford may have done something to +release his mind from tradition and pedantry; but I much doubt whether +he will not be found sadly wanting when a serious attempt is made to +revolutionize the principles and the system of the English universities, +and to substitute there (I quote again the language of Grant Duff) "the +studies of men for the studies of children." Gladstone is a devotee of +classical study; and his whole nature is under the influence of +aestheticism, or of what is commonly called "sentiment." The sweet and +genial traditions of the past have immense influence over him. His love +of Greek poetry and of Italian art follow him into politics. With the +Teuton, his poetry and his politics he has little or no sympathy; and I +think the question to be decided shortly as regards the university +system in England maybe figuratively described as a question between +Classic and Teuton. Gladstone is a profound Greek and Latin scholar--a +master of Italian, a connoisseur of Italian art; he does not, I believe, +know or care much about German literature. Accordingly, he was a devoted +Philhellene and a passionate champion of Italian independence; while the +outbreak of the recent struggle between the past and the present in +Germany found him indifferent, and probably even ignorant. So it was in +regard to the American crisis the other day. He knew little of American +politics and national life; and the whole thing was a bewilderment and a +surprise to him. If the Laocoon had been the work of a New England +artist I think the North would have found at once a warm advocate in Mr. +Gladstone. + +Of a mould utterly different is John Bright, at the very root of whose +character are found simplicity and straightforwardness. By simplicity I +do not mean freedom from pretence or affectation; for no man can be more +thoroughly unaffected and sincere than Gladstone. I mean that purely +intellectual attribute which frees the judgment from the influence of +complex emotions; which distinguishes at once essentials from +non-essentials; which sees at a glance the true end and the real way to +it, and can go directly onward. Men supremely gifted with this great +practical quality are commonly set down as men of one idea. In this +sense, undoubtedly, John Bright is a man of one idea; but the phrase +does not justly describe him, or men like him, who are peculiar merely +in having an accurate appreciation of what I may call political +perspective, and thus knowing what proportion of public consideration +certain objects ought, under certain circumstances, to obtain. + +So far as ideas are the offspring of information, Mr. Bright has +undoubtedly fewer ideas than some of his contemporaries. He is not a +profound classical scholar like Gladstone; he has had nothing like the +varied culture of Lowe; he makes, of course, no pretence to the +attainments of Mill, who is at once a master of science, of classics, +and of _belles-lettres_. But given a subject, almost any subject, coming +at all within the domain of politics or economics, and time to think +over it, and he is much more likely to be right in his judgment of it +than any of the three men I have named. He is gifted beyond any +Englishman now living with the rare and admirable faculty of seeing +right into the heart of a subject, and discerning what it means and what +it is worth. Nor is this ever a lucky jump at a conclusion. Bright never +gives an opinion at random or off-hand. Some new policy is announced; +some new subject is broached in the House of Commons; and Bright sits +silent and listens. Friends and followers come round him and ask him +what he thinks of it. "Wait until to-morrow and I will tell you," is +almost invariably, in whatever form of words, the tenor of his +reply--and to-morrow's judgment is certain to be right. I can remember +no great public question coming up in England for the past dozen years +in regard to which Mr. Bright's deliberate judgment did not prove itself +to be just. + +This quality of sagacious judgment, however valuable and uncommon, would +not of itself make a man a great statesman or even a great party leader; +but it is only one of many remarkable attributes which are found +harmoniously illustrated in the character of Mr. Bright. I do not mean, +however, to dwell at any length here on the place John Bright holds in +English political life or the qualities which have won him that place. +He has lately been the subject of an article in this magazine, and he is +indeed better known to American readers than any other English political +man now living. One or two observations are all that just now seem +necessary to make. + +Men who have not heard Bright speak, and who only know him by repute as +a powerful tribune of the people, a demagogue ("John of Bromwicham," +Carlyle calls him, classing him with John of Leyden), are naturally apt +to think of him as an impetuous, passionate, stormy orator, shaking +people's souls with sound and fury. Almost anybody who only knew the two +men vaguely and by rumor, would be likely to assume that the style of +the classical Gladstone was stately, calm, and regular; that of the +popular orator and democrat, impetuous, rugged, and vehement. Now, the +great characteristic of Gladstone, after his fluency, is his +impetuosity; that of Bright is his magnificent composure and +self-control. Intensity is his great peculiarity. He never foams or +froths or bellows, or wildly gesticulates. The heat of his oratorical +passion is a white heat which consumes without flash or smoke or +sputter. Some of his greatest effects have been produced by passages of +pathetic appeal, of irony, or of invective, which were delivered with a +calm intensity that might almost have seemed coldness, if the fire of +genius and of eloquence did not burn beneath it. Another remark I should +make is that Mr. Bright is the greatest master of pure Saxon English now +speaking the English language. As the blind commonly have their sense of +sound and of touch intensified, so it may be that Mr. Bright's +comparative indifference to classic and foreign literature has tended to +concentrate all his attention upon the culture of pure English, and +given him a supreme faculty of appreciating and employing it. Certain it +is that his unvarying choice of the very best Saxon word in every case +seems to come from an instinct which is in itself something like genius. + +Finally, let me remark, that the extent of Mr. Bright's democratic +tendencies would probably disappoint some Americans. I may say now what +I should probably have been laughed at for saying two or three years +ago, that there is a good deal of the conservative about John Bright; +that he is by nature disposed to shrink from innovation; that change for +the mere sake of change is quite abhorrent to him; and that he is about +the last man in England who would care to make political war for an +idea. He seems to me to be the only one Englishman I have lately spoken +with who retains any genuine feeling of personal loyalty toward the +sovereign of England. But for his eloquence and his power, I fancy Mr. +Bright would seem rather a slow sort of politician to many of the +younger Radicals. The "Times" lately attributed Mr. Bright's +conservatism to his advancing years. This was merely absurd. Mr. Bright +is little older now than O'Connell was when he began his Parliamentary +career. He is considerably younger than Disraeli, or Gladstone, or Mill. +What Bright now is he always was. A dozen years ago he was defending the +Queen and Prince Albert against the attacks of Tories and of some +Radicals. He never was a Democrat in the French or Italian sense. He has +always been wanting even, in sympathy, with popular revolution abroad. +He never showed the slightest interest in speculative politics. I doubt +if he ever talked of the "brotherhood of peoples." He has been driven +into political agitation only because, like Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, he +saw positive, practical, and pressing grievances bearing down upon his +neighbors, which he felt called by duty to make war against. I have many +times heard Mr. Bright say that he detests the House of Commons, and +would be glad if it were permitted him never to mount a platform again. + +But if Mr. Bright had little natural inclination for a Parliamentary +career, what is one to say of Mr. John Stuart Mill's natural +disinclination for such a path of life? + +Physical constitution, intellectual peculiarities, temperament, +habits--all seemed to mark out Mr. Mill as a man destined to close his +career, as he had so long conducted it--in almost absolute seclusion. He +is a silent, shy, shrinking man, of feeble frame and lonely ways. Until +the general election of three years back, Mr. Mill was to his countrymen +but as an oracle--as a voice--almost as a myth. The influence of his +writings was immense. Personally he was but a name. He never came into +any public place; he knew nobody. When the promoters of the movement to +return him to Parliament came to canvass the Westminster electors, the +great difficulty they had to contend with was, that three out of every +four of the honest traders and shopkeepers had never heard of him; and +the few who knew anything of his books had a vague impression that the +author was dead years before. The very men who formed the executive of +his committee could not say that they knew him, even by sight. Half in +jest, half for a serious purpose, some of the Tories sent abroad over +Westminster an awful report that there was no such man in existence as +John Stuart Mill. "Did you ever see him?" was the bewildering question +constantly put to this or that earnest canvasser, and invariably +answered with an apologetic negative. I believe the services of my +friend Dr. Chapman, editor of the "Westminster Review," were brought +into pressing requisition, because he was one of the very few who really +could boast a personal acquaintance with Stuart Mill. The day when the +latter first entered the House of Commons was the first time he and +Bright ever saw each other. I believe Cobden and Mill never met. Mill +had no university acquaintances--he had never been to any university. He +had no school friends--he had never been to a school. Perhaps the best +educated man of his time in England, he owes his education to the +personal care and teaching of his distinguished father, James Mill, who +would have been illustrious if his son had not overshadowed his fame. +Assuredly, to know James Mill intimately was, if I may thus apply Leigh +Hunt's saying, in itself a liberal education. Following his father's +steps at the India House, John Mill worked there methodically and +quietly, until he rose to the highest position his father had occupied; +and then he resigned his office, declined an offer of a seat at the +Indian Council Board, subsequently made by Lord Stanley, and lapsed +wholly into private life. Of late he rarely met even his close and +early friends. Some estrangement, not necessary to dwell on, had taken +place, I believe, between him and his old friend Thomas Carlyle, and I +suppose they ceased to meet. After the death of the wife whom he so +loved and revered, Mill lived almost always at Avignon, in the south of +France, where she died, and where he raised a monument over her remains, +which he visits and tends with a romantic devotion and constancy worthy +of a Roland. + +Only a profound sense of duty could drag such a man from his scholarly +and sacred seclusion into the stress and storm of a parliamentary life. +But it was urged upon Mill that he could do good to the popular cause by +going into Parliament; and he is not a man to think anything of his +personal preference in such a case. He accepted the contest and won. +Some of his warmest admirers regretted that he had ever given his +consent. They feared not so much that he might damage his reputation as +that he might weaken the influence of his authority, and with it the +strength of every great popular cause. Certainly those who thought thus, +and who met Mr. Mill for the first time during the progress of the +Westminster contest, did not feel much inclined to take a more +encouraging view of the prospect. + +Mr. Mill seems cut out by nature not to be a parliamentary success. He +has a thin, fragile, awkward frame; he has a nervous, incessant +twitching of the lips and eyes; he has a weak voice and a sort of +stammer; he is over sixty years of age; he had never, so far as I know, +addressed a political meeting of any kind up to the time of the +Westminster contest. Yet with all these disadvantages, Mill has, as a +political leader and speaker, been an undoubted success with the +country, and a sort of success in the House. An orator of any kind he +never could be. One might call him a wretchedly bad speaker, if his +speaking were not so utterly unlike anybody else's, as to refuse to be +classified with any other speaking, good or bad. But, so far as the best +selection of words, the clearest style, the most coherent and convincing +argument can constitute eloquence, Mill's speeches are eloquent. They +are, of course, only spoken essays. They differ in no wise from the +speaker's writings; and I need hardly say that a speech, to be +effective, must never be just what the speaker would have written if it +were to be consigned at once to print as a letter or an essay. As +speeches, therefore, Mr. Mill's utterances in the House have little or +no effect. Indeed, they are only listened to by a very few men of real +intelligence and judgment on both sides. Some of the more boisterous of +the Tories made many attempts to cough and laugh Mill into silence; +indeed, there was obviously a deliberate plan of this kind in operation +at one time. But Mill is a man whom nothing can deter from saying or +doing what he thinks right. A more absolutely fearless being does not +exist. He is even free from that fear which has sometimes paralyzed the +boldest spirits, the fear of becoming ridiculous. So the Tory trick +failed. Mill went on with patient, imperturbable, proud good-humor, +despite all interruption--now and then paying off his Tory enemies by +some keen contemptuous epigram or sarcasm, made all the more pungent by +the thin, bland tone in which it was uttered. So the Tories gave up +shouting, groaning and laughing; the more quickly because one at least +of their chiefs, the Marquis of Salisbury (then in the House of Commons +as Lord Cranbourne) had the spirit and sense to express openly and +loudly his anger and disgust at the vulgar and brutal behaviour of some +of his followers. Therefore Mr. Mill ceased to be interrupted; but he is +not much listened to. That supreme, irrefutable evidence that a man +fails to interest the House--the fact that a hum and buzz of +conversation may be heard all the time he is speaking--is always fatally +manifest when Mr. Mill addresses the Commons. But the House, after all, +is only a platform from which a man endeavors to speak to the country, +and if Mill does not always get the ear of the House, he never fails to +be heard by the nation. I have no doubt that even the Tory members of +the House read Mill's speeches when they appear in print; assuredly all +intelligent Tories do. These speeches, in any case, are never lost on +the country. They form at once a part of the really successful +literature of each session. They always excite controversy of some +kind--not even the great orations of Bright and Gladstone are more +talked of. + +So far they are a success, and there is something in the personal +character of Mr. Mill himself, which makes him specially popular with +the working classes of England. I doubt if there is now any Englishman +whose name would be received with a more cordial outburst of applause at +a popular meeting. Working-men, in fact, are very proud of Mr. Mill's +scholarship, culture, and profundity. They can perceive easily enough +that he is remarkable for just those intellectual qualities which the +conventional demagogue never has. Tory newspapers and the "Saturday +Review" sometimes affect to regard Mr. Bright as a man of defective +education, but it is impossible to pretend to think that Mill is +ignorant of Greek or superficial in his knowledge of history. When such +a man makes himself especially the champion of working-men, the +working-men think of him very much as the Irish peasants of '98 and '48 +did of Edward Fitzgerald and Smith O'Brien, the aristocrats of birth and +rank, who stepped down from their high places and gave themselves up to +the cause of the unlettered and the poor. + +There is something fascinating, moreover, about the singular blending of +the emotional, and even the romantic, with the keen, vigorous, logical +intellect, which is to be observed in Mill. Even political economy, in +Mill's mind, is strangely guided and governed by mere feeling. Somebody +said he was a combination of Ricardo and Tom Hughes--somebody else said, +rather more happily, I think, that he is Adam Smith and Fenelon revived +and rolled into one. The "Pall Mall Gazette" found his picture well +painted in Lord Macaulay's analysis of the motives which influenced +Edmund Burke, when he flung his soul into the impeachment of Warren +Hastings. The mere eccentricities, the very defects of such a nature +have in them something captivating. The admirers of Mr. Mill are +therefore not unusually somewhat given to exalting admiration into +idolatry. The classes who most admire him are the scholarly and +adventurous young Radicals, who have a dash of Positivism in them; the +extreme Radicals, who are prepared to go any and all lengths for the +mere sake of change; and the working-men. + +This is the Triumvirate of the English Liberal Party. Combined they +represent, guide, and govern every section and fraction of that party +that is worth taking into any consideration. Mr. Gladstone represents +official Liberalism; Mr. Bright speaks for and directs the +old-fashioned, robust, popular Liberalism of which Manchester was the +school; Mr. Mill is the exponent of the new Liberalism, the Liberalism +of Idea and Logic. Bright's programme is a little ahead of Gladstone's, +but Gladstone will probably be easily pulled up to it. Mill goes far +beyond either, far beyond any point at which either is ever likely to +arrive. Indeed, Mr. Mill may be fairly described by a phrase, which I +believe is German, as a man in advance of every possible future--at +least in England. But he is quite prepared to act loyally and steadily +with his party and its leader on all momentous issues. On some minor +questions he has lately gone widely away from them, and given thereby +much offence; and indeed I am sure there are not a few of the +old-fashioned Liberals and the Manchester men who would rather Mr. Mill +had never come into Parliament and sat at their side. But on nearly all +questions of Parliamentary Reform, and on that of the Irish Church, Mill +and his Liberal colleagues will pull cordially together. So, too, on +most economic questions, reduction of taxation, imposition of duties and +the like. Where a sharp difference is likely to arise will only be in +relation to some subject having an idea behind it--some question of +foreign policy perhaps, something not at present imminent; and, let us +hope, not destined in any case to be vital to the interests of the +party. Only where an idea is involved will Mr. Mill refuse to allow his +own judgment to bend to the general necessities of the party. It was his +objection (a very unwise one, I think) to the idea behind the system of +the ballot, which led him to separate himself sharply from Bright and +other Liberals on that subject; it was the idea which lies at the bottom +of a representation of minorities, which beguiled him into lending his +advocacy to that most chimerical, awkward, and absurd piece of political +mechanism which we know in England as the three-cornered constituency. +The cohesion of Gladstone and Bright is decidedly more close and likely +to endure than that between Bright and Mill. But on all immediate +questions of great importance, these two men are sure to be found side +by side. Mill has a deep and earnest admiration for Bright, who is +sometimes, perhaps, a little impatient of the Politics of Idea. + +During the session of 1868, I attended a meeting of a few representative +Liberals of all classes, brought together to decide on some course of +agitation with regard to Ireland. Mr. Mill was there, so were Professor +Fawcett, Mr. Thomas Hughes, Lord Amberley, and other members of +Parliament; Mr. Frederick Harrison, with some of his Positivist +colleagues, and several representative working men. Mr. Bright was +unable to attend. A certain course of action being recommended, Mr. Mill +expressed his own approval of it, but emphatically declared that he +considered Mr. Bright's judgment was entitled to be regarded as +authoritative, and that should Mr. Bright recommend the meeting not to +go on, the scheme had better be given up. Mr. Bright subsequently +discouraged the scheme, and it was, on Mr. Mill's recommendation, at +once abandoned. I mention this fact to illustrate the loyalty which Mr. +Mill, with all his tendency to political eccentricity, usually displays +toward the men whom he regards as the leaders of the party. + +Mill and Bright are alike warm admirers of Gladstone and believers in +him. Indeed one sometimes feels ashamed to doubt for a moment the +steadfastness of a man in whom Bright and Mill put so full a faith. + +Certainly the English Liberal has reason to congratulate himself, and +feel proud when he remembers what sort of men his party's leaders used +to be, and sees what men they are to-day. It will not do to study too +closely the private characters of the chiefs of any political band in +the House of Commons, from the days of Bolingbroke to those of Fox. The +man who was not a sinecurist or a peculator was pretty sure to be a +profligate or a gambler. Not a few eminent men were sinecurists, +peculators, profligates, and gamblers. The political purity of the +English Liberal leaders to-day is absolutely without the faintest shade +of suspicion--it never even occurs to any one to suspect them, while +their private lives, it may be said without indelicacy, are in pure and +perfect accord with the noble principles they profess. Not often has +there been a political triumvirate of greater men; of better men, never. + + + + +THE ENGLISH POSITIVISTS. + + +Some few months ago, a little bubble of interest was made on the surface +of London life, by a course of Sunday lectures of a peculiar kind. + +These lectures were given in a small room in Bouverie street, off Fleet +street--Bouverie street, sacred to publishing and newspaper offices--and +only a very small stream of persons was drawn to the place. There was +something very peculiar, however, about the lectures, the lecturer, and +the audience, which might well have repaid a stranger in London for the +trouble of going there. I doubt whether such a proportion of +intellectual faces could have been seen among the congregation of any +London church on these Sunday mornings; and I know one, at least, who +attended the lectures, less for the sake of what he heard than because +such listeners as the authoress of "Romola" were among the audience. The +lecturer was Mr. Richard Congreve, and the subject of his discourses was +the creed of Positivism. + +I do not know how familiar Mr. Congreve and his writings and his +doctrines are to the American public. In London, Mr. Congreve is, in a +quiet way, a sort of celebrity or peculiarity. He is the head of the +small, compact band of English Positivists. It is understood that he +goes as far in the direction of the creed which was the dream of Auguste +Comte's later years as any sane human creature can well go. I have, +however, very little to say here of Mr. Congreve, individually; and I +take his recent course of Sunday lectures only as a convenient starting +point from which to begin a few remarks on the political principles, +character, and influence of that small, resolute, aggressive body of +intellectual, highly-educated and able men who are beginning to be known +in the politics and society of England as the London Positivists. + +A discourse on the principles of Positivism would be quite out of place +here; but even those who understand the whole subject will, perhaps, +allow me, for the benefit of those who do not, to explain very briefly +what an English Positivist is. Positivism, it is known to my readers, is +the name given to the philosophy which Auguste Comte, more than any +other man, helped to reduce to a system. Regarded as a philosophy of +history and human society, its grand and fundamental doctrine merely is +that human life evolves itself in obedience to certain fixed laws, of +which we could obtain a knowledge if only we applied ourselves to this +study as we do to all other studies in practical science, by the patient +observation of phenomena. Auguste Comte's reduction of this +philosophical theory to a scientific system is undoubtedly one of the +grandest achievements of human intellect. The philosophy did not begin +with him or his generation, or, indeed, any generation of which we have +authentic record. Whenever there were men capable of thinking at all, +there must have been some whose minds were instinct with this doctrine; +but Comte made it a system at once simple, grand, and fascinating, and +he will always remain identified with its development, in the memory of +the modern world. Unfortunately, Comte, in his later years, set to +founding a _religion_ also--a religion which has, perhaps, called down +upon its founder and its followers more ridicule, contempt, and +discredit than any vagary of human imagination in our day. I speak of +all this only to explain to my readers that there is some little +difficulty in defining what is meant by a Positivist. If we mean merely +a believer in the philosophical theory of history, then Positivists +are, indeed, to be named as legion, and their captains are among the +greatest intellects of the world to-day. In England, we regard Mr. John +Stuart Mill as, in this sense, the greatest Positivist, and undoubtedly +he is so regarded here. But Mill utterly rejects and ridicules the +fantastic religion which Comte, in his days of declining mental power, +sought to graft on his grand philosophy. In his treatise on Comte, Mr. +Mill showed no mercy to the Positivist religion, and, indeed, bitterly +offended many of its votaries by his contemptuous exposure of its +follies. What is said of Mill may be said of nineteen out of every +twenty, at least, of the English followers of Comte. They accept the +philosophy as grand, scientific, inexorable truth; they reject the +religion with pity or with scorn, as a fantastic and barren chimera. Mr. +Congreve is, in London, the leader of the small school who go for taking +all or nothing, and to whom Auguste Comte is the prophet of a new and +final religion, as well as the teacher of a new philosophy. Now this +little school is the nucleus of the body of Englishmen of whom I write. + +When I speak, therefore, of English Positivists, I do not mean the men +who go no farther than John Stuart Mill does. These men are to be found +everywhere; they are of all schools, and all religions. I mean the much +smaller body of votaries who go, or feel inclined to go, much farther, +and accept Comte's religious teaching as a law of life. It is quite +probable that, even among the men who are now identified more or less, +in the public mind, with Mr. Congreve and his school, there may be some +who do not adopt, or even concern themselves about the religion of +Positivism. A community of sentiment on historical and political +questions, the habit of meeting together, consulting together, writing +for publication together, might naturally bring into the group men who +may not go the length of adopting the Comte worship. It is quite +possible, therefore, that, in mentioning the names of English +Positivists, I may happen to speak of some who have no more to do with +that worship than I have. + +I mean, then, only the group of men, most of whom are young, most of +whom are highly cultured, many of whom are endowed with remarkable +ability, who are to be found in a literary and political phalanstery +with Mr. Congreve, and of whom the majority are understood to be actual +votaries of the religion of Comte. Of course I have nothing to do here +with their faith or their practices. If they adopt the worship of woman +I think they do a better thing after all than the increasing and popular +class of writers, whose principal business in life is to persuade us +that our wives and sisters are all Messalinas in heart and nearly all +Messalinas in practice. If, when they pray, they touch certain cranial +bumps at certain passages of the prayer, I do not see that they +institute anything worse than the genuflections of the Ritualist or the +breast-beating of the Roman Catholics. If, finally, one is sometimes a +little puzzled when he receives a letter from a Positivist friend, and +finds it dated "5th Marcus Aurelius," or "12th Auguste Comte," instead +of July or December, as the case may be, one must remember that there +never yet was a young sect which did not delight in puzzling outsiders +by a new and peculiar nomenclature. I never heard anything worse charged +against the Positivists than that they worship woman, touch their +foreheads when they pray, and arrange the calendar according to a plan +of their own invention; except, of course, the general charge of +Atheism; but as that is made in England against anybody whom all his +neighbors do not quite understand, I hardly think it worth discussing in +this particular instance. We are all Atheists in England in the +estimation of our neighbors, whose political opinions are different from +our own. + +The English Positivists, then, are beginning to stand out sharply +against the common background of political life. They are a little +school; as distinctly a school for their time and chances as the +Girondists were, or the Manchester school, or the Massachusetts +Abolitionists, or the Boston Transcendentalists. They are Radical, of +course, but their Radicalism has a curious twist in it. On any given +question of Radicalism they go as far as any practical politician does; +but then they also go in most cases so very much farther that they often +alarm the practical politician out of his ordinary composure. They are +generally incisive of speech, aggressive of purpose, defiant of +political prudery, and even of political prudence. Their politics are +always politics of idea. + +Some three or four years ago the Positivists published a large and +ponderous volume of essays on subjects of international policy. Each man +who contributed an essay signed his name, and although a general +community of idea and principle pervaded the book, it was not understood +that everybody who wrote necessarily adopted all the views of his +associates. The book, in fact, was constructed on the model of the +famous "Essays and Reviews" which had sent such a thrill through the +religious world a few years before. The political essays naturally +failed to create anything like the sensation which was produced by their +theological predecessors; but they did excite considerable attention, +and awoke the echoes. They astonished a good many Liberal politicians of +the steady old school, and they set many men thinking. What surprised +people at first was the singular combination of literary culture and +ultra-Radical opinion. Literary young men in England, of late, are +generally to be divided into two classes--the smart writers for +periodicals, the minor novelists and dramatists, and so forth, who know +no more and care no more about politics than ballet girls do, and the +University men, the men of "culture," who affect Toryism as something +fine and distinguished, and profess a patrician horror of democracy and +the "mob." If at the time this volume was published one had taken aside +some practical politician in London and said, "Here is a collection of +practical essays written by a cluster of young men who all have +University degrees after their names--will you read it?" the answer +would certainly have been--"Not I, it's sure to be some contemptible +sham Tory rubbish; some 'blood-and-culture' trash; some schoolboy +impertinence about demagoguism and the mob." Therefore the surprise was +not slight to such men when they read the book and found that its +central idea, its connecting thread, was a Radicalism which might well +be called thorough; a Radicalism which made Bright look like a steady +old Conservative; invited Mill to push his ideas a little farther; and +poured scorn upon the Radical press for its slowness and its timidity. A +simple, startling foreign policy was prescribed to England. Its gospel, +after all, was but an old one--so old that it had been forgotten in +English politics. It was merely--Be just and fear not. Renounce all +aggression; give back the spoils of conquest. Give Gibraltar back to the +Spaniards who own it; prepare to cast loose your colonial dependencies; +prepare even to quit your loved India; ask the Irish people fairly and +clearly what they want, and if they desire to be free of your rule, bid +them go and be free and Godspeed. All the old traditional policies +seemed to these men only obsolete and odious superstitions. They would +have England, the State, to stand up and act precisely as an Englishman +of honor and conscience would do, and they treated with utter contempt +any policy of expediency or any policy whatever that aimed at any end +but that of finding out the right thing to do and then doing it at once. +This seemed to me, studying the school quite as an outside observer, its +one great central idea; and it would of course be impossible not to +honor the body of writers who proposed to show how it was to be +accomplished. + +But no school lives on one grand idea; and this school had its chimeras +and crotchets--almost its crazes. For example, the leader of the +Positivist band took great trouble to argue that Europe ought to form +herself into a noble federation of States, to the exclusion of Russia, +which was to be regarded as an Oriental, barbarous, unmanageable, +intolerable sort of thing, and pushed out of the European system +altogether. Then a good many of the leading minds of the school are +imbued with a passionate love for a sort of celestial despotism, an +ideal imperialism which the people are first to create and then to +obey--which is to teach them, house them, keep them in employment, keep +them in health, and leave them nothing to do for themselves, while yet +securing to them the most absolute freedom. To some of these men the +condition of New York, where the State does hardly anything for the +individual, would seem as distressing and objectionable as that of +despotic Paris or even Constantinople. A distinguished member of the +school declared that nothing was to him more odious than any manner of +voluntaryism, and that he hoped to see State operation introduced into +every department of English social organization. The connection of this +theory with the principle of Positivism, which would mould all men into +a sort of hierarchy, is natural and obvious enough, and there is, to +support it, a certain reaction now in England against the voluntary +principle, in education and in public charities. But, as it is put +forward and argued by men of the school I describe, it may be taken as +one of the most remarkable points of departure from the common tendency +of thought in England. The Positivists are all, indeed, un-English, in +the common use of a phrase which is ceasing of late to be so dreaded a +stigma as it once used to be in British politics. They are, as I have +already said, a somewhat aggressive body, and are imbued with a +contempt, which they never care to conceal, for the average public +opinion of the British Philistine, whether he present himself as a West +End tradesman or a West End Peer. + +The Positivists are almost always to be found in antagonism with this +sort of public opinion. They attack the Philistine, and they attack no +less readily the dainty scholar and critic who lately gave the +Philistine his name, and whose over-refining love of sweetness and light +is so terribly offended by the rough and earnest work of Radical +politics. Whatever way average opinion tends, the influence of the +Positivists is sure to tend the other way. + +There was a time, nearly two years ago, when the average English mind +was suddenly seized with a passion of blended hate, fear, and contempt +for Fenianism. The thing was first beginning to show itself in a serious +light and it had not gone far enough to show what it really was. It +looked more formidable than it proved to be, and it seemed less like an +ordinary rebellious organization than like some mysterious and +demoniacal league against property and public security. When I say it +seemed, I mean it seemed to the average English mind, to the ordinary +swell and the ordinary shopkeeper. Just at this time the Positivists +drew up a petition to be presented to the House of Commons, in which +they called upon the House to insist that lenity should be shown to all +Fenian prisoners, that they should be regarded as men driven into +rebellion by a deep sense of injustice, and that measures should be +taken to prevent the British troops from committing such excesses in +Ireland as had been perpetrated in the suppression of the Indian mutiny, +and more lately in Jamaica. Now, if there was anything peculiarly +calculated to vex and aggravate the House of Commons and the English +public generally, it was such a view of the business as this. Fenianism +had not acquired the solemn and tragic interest which it obtained a few +months afterward. It is only just to say that Englishmen in general +began to look with pity and a sort of respect on Fenianism, once it +became clear that it had among its followers men who, to quote the +language of one of the least sympathetic of London newspapers, "knew how +to die." But, at the time I speak of, Fenianism was a vague, mystic, +accursed thing, which it was proper to regard as utterly detestable and +contemptible. Imagine then what the feeling of the English county member +must have been when he learned that there were actually in London a set +of educated Englishmen, nearly all trained in the universities and +nearly all moving in good society, who regarded the Fenians just as he +himself regarded rebels against the Emperor of Austria or the Pope of +Rome, and who not merely asked that consideration should be shown toward +them, but went on to talk of the necessity of protecting them against +the brutality of the loyal British soldier! The petition was signed by +all who had a share in its preparation. Such men as Richard Congreve, T. +M. Ludlow, Frederick Harrison and Professor Beesly, were among the +petitioners who risked their admission into respectable society by +signing the document. The petitioners did not feel quite sure about +getting any one of mark to present their appeal; and it is certain that +a good many professed Liberals, of advanced opinions and full of +sympathy with foreign rebels of any class or character, would have +promptly refused to accept the ungenial office. The petitioners, +however, applied to one who was not likely to be influenced by any +considerations but those of right and justice, and whom, moreover, no +body in the House of Commons would think of trying to put down. They +asked Mr. Bright to present their petition, and there was, of course, no +hesitation on his part. Mr. Bright not merely presented the petition, +but read it amid the angry and impatient murmurs of an amazed and +indignant House; and he declared, in tones of measured and impressive +calmness, that he entirely approved of and adopted the sentiments which +the petitioners expressed. There was, of course, a storm of indignation, +and some members went the length of recommending that the petition +should not even be received--an extreme and indeed extravagant course in +a country where the right of petition is supposed to be held sacred, and +which the good sense even of some Tory members promptly repudiated. Mr. +Disraeli did his very best to aggravate the feeling of the House against +the petitioners. During the Indian mutiny he had himself loudly +protested against the spirit of vengeance which our press encouraged; +asked whether we meant to make Nana Sahib the model for a British +officer, and whether Moloch or Christ was our divinity. Yet he now +declared that the language of the petition was a libel on the Indian +army, and that nothing had ever occurred during the Bengal outbreak to +warrant the imputations cast on the humanity of our soldiers. + +I suppose it is not easy to convey to an American reader a correct idea +of the degree of boldness involved in the presentation of this +celebrated petition. It really was a very bold thing to do. It was +running right in the very teeth of the public opinion of all the classes +which are called respectable in England. It was, however, strictly +characteristic of the men who signed it. Most, if not all of them, took +a prominent part in the prosecution of Governor Eyre of Jamaica, for the +lawless execution of George William Gordon and the wholesale and +merciless floggings and hangings by which order was made to reign in the +island. Most of them, indeed, have a pretty spirit of contradiction of +their own, and a pretty gift of sarcasm. I think I hardly remember any +man who received, during an equal length of time, a greater amount of +abuse from the press than Professor Beesly drew down on himself not very +long ago. It was at the time when the public mind was in its wildest +thrill of horror at the really fearful revelations of organized murder +in connection with the Sawgrinders' Union in Sheffield. The whole +question of trades' union organization had been under discussion; and +even before the Sheffield revelations came out, the general voice of +English respectability was against the workmen's societies altogether. +But when the disclosures of organized murder in connection with one +union came out, a sort of panic took possession of the public mind. The +first, and not unnatural impulse was to assume that all trades' unions +must be very much the same sort of thing, and that the societies of +workmen were little better than organized Thuggism. Now, Professor +Beesly, Mr. Frederick Harrison and other signers of the petition for the +Fenians, had long been prominent and influential advocates of the +trades' union principle. They had been to the English artisan something +like what the Boston Abolitionist was so long to the negro. The trades' +union bodies, who felt aggrieved at the unjust suspicion which made them +a party to hideous crimes they abhorred, began to hold public meetings +to repudiate the charge, and record their detestation of the Sheffield +outrages. Professor Beesly attended one of these meetings in London. He +made a speech, in which he told the working men that he thought enough +had been done in the way of disavowing crimes which no one had a right +to impute to them; that there was no need of their further humiliating +themselves; and that it was rather odd the English Aristocracy had such +a horror of murderers among the poorer classes, seeing how very fond +they were of men like Eyre, of Jamaica! In fact, Professor Beesly +uplifted his voice very honestly, but rather recklessly and out of time, +against the social hypocrisy which is the stain and curse of London +society, and which is never so happy as when it can find some chance of +denouncing sin or crime among Republicans, or Irishmen, or workingmen. +There was nothing Professor Beesly said which had not sense and truth in +it; but it might have been said more discreetly and at a better time; +and it was said with a sarcastic and scornful bitterness which is one of +the characteristics of the speaker. For several days the London press +literally raged at the professor. "Punch" persevered for a long time in +calling him "Professor Beastly;" a a strong effort was made to obtain +his expulsion from the college in which he has a chair. He was talked of +and written of as if he were the advocate and the accomplice of +assassins, instead of being, as he is, an honorable gentleman and an +enlightened scholar, whose great influence over the working classes had +always been exerted in the cause of peaceful progress and good order. It +was a common thing, for days and weeks, to see the names of Broadhead +and Beesly coupled with ostentatious malignity in the leading columns of +London newspapers. + +I give these random illustrations only to show in what manner the school +of writers and thinkers I speak of usually present themselves before the +English public. Now Mr. Harrison devotes himself to a pertinacious, +powerful series of attacks on Eyre, of Jamaica, at a time when that +personage is the hero and pet martyr of English society; now Professor +Beesly horrifies British respectability by pointing out that there are +respectable murderers who are quite as bad as Broadhead; now Mr. John +Morley undertakes even to criticise the Queen; now Mr. Congreve assails +the anonymous writers of the London press as hired and masked assassins; +now the whole band unite in the defence of Fenians. This sort of thing +has a startling effect upon the steady public mind of England; and it +is thus, and not otherwise, that the public mind of England ever comes +to hear of these really gifted and honest, but very antagonistic and +somewhat crochetty men. Several of them are brilliant and powerful +writers. Professor Beesly writes with a keen, caustic, bitter force +which has something Parisian in it. I know of no writer in English +journalism who more closely resembles in style a certain type of the +literary gladiator of French controversy. He has much of Eugene Pelletan +in him, and something of Henri Rochefort, blended with a good deal that +reminds one of Jules Simon. Frederick Harrison is fast becoming a power +in the Radical politics and literature of England. John Morley is a +young man of great culture, and who writes with a quite remarkable +freshness and force. I could mention many other men of the same school +(I have already said that I do not know whether each and every one of +these is or is not a professed Positivist) who would be distinguished as +scholars and writers in the literature of any country. However they may +differ on minor points, however they may differ in ability, in +experience, in discretion, they have one peculiarity in common: they are +to be found foremost in every liberal and radical cause; they are always +to be found on the side of the weak, and standing up for the oppressed; +they are inveterate enemies of cant; they hate vulgar idolatry and +vulgar idols. Looking back a few years, I can remember that almost, if +not quite, every man I have alluded to was a fearless and outspoken +advocate of the cause of the North, at a time when it was _de rigueur_ +among men of "culture" in London to champion the cause of the South. +Some of the men I have named were indefatigable workers at that time on +the unfashionable side. They wrote pamphlets; they wrote leading +articles; they made speeches; they delivered lectures in out-of-the-way +quarters to workingmen and poor men of all kinds; they hardly came, in +any prominent way, before the public, in most of this work. It brought +them, probably, no notoriety or recognition whatever on this side of the +ocean; but their work was a power in England. I feel convinced that, in +any case, the English workingmen would have gone right on such a +question as that which was at issue between North and South. As Mr. +Motley truly said in his address to the New York Historical Society, the +workers and the thinkers were never misled; but I am bound to say that +the admirable knowledge of the realities of the subject; the clear, +quick, and penetrating judgment, and the patient, unswerving hope and +confidence which were so signally displayed by the London workingmen +from first to last of that great struggle, were in no slight degree the +result of the teaching and the labor of men like Professor Beesly and +Frederick Harrison. + +If I were to set up a typical Positivist, in order to make my American +reader more readily and completely familiar with the picture which the +word calls up in the minds of Londoners, I should do it in the following +way: I should exhibit my model Positivist as a man still young for +anything like prominence in English public life, but not actually young +in years--say thirty-eight or forty. He has had a training at one of the +great historical Universities, or at all events at the modern and +popular University of London. He is a barrister, but does not practise +much, and has probably a modest competence on which he can live without +working for the sake of living, and can indulge his own tastes in +literature and politics. He has immense earnestness and great +self-conceit. He has an utter contempt for dull men and timid or +half-measure men, and he scorns Whigs even more than Tories. He devotes +much of his time generously and patiently to the political and other +instruction of working men. He writes in the "Fortnightly Review," and +sometimes in "MacMillan," and sometimes in the "Westminster Review." He +plunges into gallant and fearless controversy with the "Pall Mall +Gazette," and he is not easily worsted, for his pen is sharp and his ink +very acrid. Nevertheless, is any great question stirring, with a serious +principle or a deep human interest at the heart of it, he is sure to be +found on the right side. Where the controversy is of a smaller kind and +admits of crotchet, then he is pretty sure to bring out a crotchet of +some kind. He is perpetually giving the "Saturday Review" an opportunity +to ridicule him and abuse him, and he does not care. He writes pamphlets +and goes to immense trouble to get up the facts, and expense to give +them to the world, and he never grudges trouble or money, where any +cause or even any crotchet is to be served. He is ready to stand up +alone, against all the world if needs be, for his opinions or his +friends. Benevolent schemes which are of the nature of mere charity he +never concerns himself about. I never heard of him on a platform with +the Earl of Shaftesbury, and I fancy he has a contempt for all patronage +of the poor or projects of an eleemosynary character. He is for giving +men their political rights and educating them--if necessary compelling +them to be educated; and he has little faith in any other way of doing +good. He has, of course, a high admiration for and faith in Mr. Mill. +His nature is not quite reverential--in general he is rather inclined to +sit in the chair of the scorner; but if he reverenced any living man it +would be Mill. He admires the manly, noble character of Bright, and his +calm, strong eloquence. I do not think he cares much about Gladstone--I +rather fancy our Positivist looks upon Gladstone as somewhat weak and +unsteady--and with him to be weak is indeed to be miserable. Disraeli is +to him an object of entire scorn and detestation, for he can endure no +one who has not deeply-rooted principles of some kind. He has a crotchet +about Russia, a theory about China; he gets quite beside himself in his +anger over the anonymous leading articles of the London press. He is not +an English type of man at all, in the present and conventional sense. He +cares not a rush about tradition, and mocks at the wisdom of our +ancestors. The bare fact that some custom, or institution, or way of +thinking has been sanctioned and hallowed by long generations of usage, +is in his eyes rather a _prima facie_ reason for despising it than +otherwise. He is pitilessly intolerant of all superstitions--save his +own--that is to say, he is intolerant in words and logic and ridicule, +for the wildest superstition would find him its defender, if it once +came to be practically oppressed or even threatened. He is "ever a +fighter," like one of Browning's heroes; he is the knight-errant, the +Quixote of modern English politics. He admires George Eliot in +literature, and, I should say, he regards Charles Dickens as a sort of +person who does very well to amuse idlers and ignorant people. I do not +hear of his going much to the theatre, and it is a doubt to me if he has +yet heard of the "Grande Duchesse." Life with him is a very earnest +business, and, although he has a pretty gift of sarcasm, which he uses +as a weapon of offence against his enemies, I cannot, with any effort of +imagination, picture him to myself as in the act of making a joke. + +A small drawing-room would assuredly hold all the London Positivists who +make themselves effective in English politics. Yet I do not hesitate to +say that they are becoming--that they have already become--a power which +no one, calculating on the chances of any coming struggle, can afford to +leave out of his consideration. Their public influence thus far has been +wholly for good; and they set up no propaganda that I have ever seen or +heard of, as regards either philosophy or religion. The course of +lectures I have already mentioned was the nearest approach to any +public diffusion of their peculiar doctrines which I can remember, and +it created little or no sensation in London. Indeed, little or no +publicity was sought for it. I have read lately somewhere that a +newspaper, specially devoted to the propagation and vindication of +Positivism, is about to be, or has been started in London. I do not know +whether this is true or not; but for any such journal I should +anticipate a very small circulation, and an existence only to be +maintained by continual subsidy. + +So quietly have these men hitherto pursued their course, whatever it may +be, in religion or religious philosophy, that it was long indeed before +any idea got abroad that the cluster of highly-educated, ultra-radical +thinkers, who were to be found sharpshooting on the side of every great +human principle and every oppressed cause, and who seemed positively to +delight in standing up against the vulgar rush of public opinion, were +anything more than chance associates, or were bound by any tie more +close and firm than that of general political sympathy. Even now that +people are beginning to know them, and to classify them, in a vague sort +of way, as "those Positivists," they make so little parade of any +peculiarity of faith that, without precise and personal knowledge, it +would be rash to say for certain that this or that member of the group +is or is not an actual professor of the Comtist religion. I read a few +days ago, in one of the few sensible books written on America by an +Englishman, some remarks made about a peculiar view of Europe's duty to +Egypt, which was described as being held by "the Comtists." I do not +know whether the men referred to hold the view ascribed to them or not; +but, assuredly, if they do, the fact has no more direct connection with +their Comtism than Bright's free-trade views have with Bright's +Quakerism. An illustration, however, will serve well enough as an +example of the vague and careless sort of way in which doctrines and the +men who profess them get mixed up together insolubly in the public mind. +The Sultan of a generation back, who told the European diplomatist that +if he changed his religion at all he would become a Roman Catholic, +because he observed that Roman Catholic people always grew the best +wine, was not more unreasonable in his logic than many well-informed men +when they are striving to connect cause and effect in dealing with the +religion of others. + +I do not myself make any attempt to explain why a follower of Comte's +worship should, at least in England, be always on the side of liberty +and equality and human progress. Indeed, if inclined to discuss such a +question at all, I should rather be disposed to put it the other way and +ask how it happens that men so enlightened and liberal in education and +principles should yield a moment's obedience to the ghostly shadow of +Roman Catholic superstition, which Auguste Comte, in the decaying years +of his noble intellect, conjured up to form a new religion. But I am +quite content to let the question go unanswered--and should be willing, +indeed, to leave it unasked. I wish just now to do nothing more than to +direct the attention of American readers to the fact that a new set or +sect has arisen to influence English politics, and that their influence +and its origin are different from anything which, judging by the history +of previous generations, one might naturally have been led to expect. +"Culture" in England has, of late years, almost invariably ranked itself +on the side of privilege. The Oxford undergraduate shouts himself hoarse +in cheering for Disraeli and groaning for Bright. Oxford rejects +Gladstone the moment he becomes a Liberal. The vigorous Radicalism of +Thorold Rogers costs him his chair as professor of political economy, +although no man in England is a more perfect master of some of the more +important branches of that science. The journals which are started for +the sake of being read by men of "culture" are sure to throw their +influence, nine times out of ten, into the cause of privilege and class +ascendency. The "Saturday Review" does this deliberately; the "Pall Mall +Gazette" does it instinctively. Suddenly there comes out from the bosom +of the universities themselves a band of keen, acute, fearless +gladiators, who throw themselves into the van of every great movement +which works for democracy, equality and freedom. They invade the press +and the platform; they write in this journal and in that; they are +always writing, always printing; they are ready for any assailant, +however big, they are willing to work with any ally, however small; they +shrink from no logical consequence or practical inconvenience of any +argument or opinion; they take the working man by the hand and talk to +him and tell him all they know--and it is something worth studying, the +fact that their scholarship and his no-scholarship so often come to the +same conclusion. They will work with anybody, because they go farther +than almost anybody; and they will allow anybody the full swing of his +own crotchet, even though he be not so willing to give them scope enough +for theirs. Thus they are commonly associated with Goldwin Smith, who +has a perfect horror of French Democracy and French Imperialism, and who +sees in Mirabeau only a "Voltairean debauchee;" with Tom Hughes, who is +a sturdy member of the Church of England, and does not, I fancy, care +three straws about the policy of ideas; with Bright, whose somewhat +Puritanical mind draws back with a kind of dread from anything that +savors of free-thinking; with Auberon Herbert, the mild young +aristocrat, converted from Toryism by pure sentimentalism and +philanthropy; with Connolly, the eloquent Irish plasterer, whose +vigorous stump oratory aroused the warm admiration of Louis Blanc. It +would be impossible that such a knot of men, so gifted and so fearless, +so independent and so unresting, so keen of pen, and so unsparing of +logic, should be without a clear and marked influence on the politics of +England. It is quite a curious phenomenon that such a group of men +should be found in close and constant co-operation with the English +artisan, his trades' union organizations, and his political cause. +Frederick Harrison represented the working men in the Parliamentary +commission lately held to inquire into the whole operation of the +trades' unions. Professor Beesly writes continually in the "Beehive," +the newspaper which is the organ of George Potter and the trades' +societies. I cannot see how the cause of Democracy can fail to derive +strength and help from this sort of alliance, and I therefore welcome +the influence upon English politics of the little group of Positivist +penmen, believing that it will have a deeper reach than most people now +imagine, and that where it operates effectively at all, it will be for +good. + + + + +ENGLISH TORYISM AND ITS LEADERS. + + +Sir John Mandeville tells a story of a man who set out on a voyage of +discovery, and sailing on and on in a westerly direction, at last +touched a land where he was surprised to find a climate the same as his +own; animals like those he had left behind; men and women not only +having the same dress and complexion, but actually speaking the same +language as the people of his own country. He was so struck with this +unexpected and wonderful discovery, that he took to his ship again +without delay, and sailed back eastward to impart to his own people the +news that in a far-off, strange, western sea he had found a race +identical with themselves. The truth was that the simple voyager had +gone round the world, reached his own country without recognizing it, +and then went round the world again to get home. + +If the voyage were made in our time, and the explorer were a British +Tory who had left England in the opening of the year 1867, and after +unconsciously sailing round the world had fallen in with British Tories +again in the autumn of the same year, one could easily excuse his +failing to recognize his own people. For in the interval of time from +February to August, British Toryism underwent the most sudden and +complete transformation known outside the sphere of Ovid's +Metamorphoses. If any of my American readers will try to imagine a whole +political party, great in numbers, greater still in wealth, station and +influence, suddenly performing just such a turn-round as the "New York +Herald" accomplished at a certain early crisis of the late civil war, he +will have some idea of the marvellous and unprecedented feat which was +executed by the English Tories, when, renouncing all their time-honored +traditions, watchwords and principles, they changed a limited and +oligarchical franchise into household suffrage. It is singular, indeed, +that such a thing should have been done. It is more singular still that +it should have been done, as it most assuredly was done, in order that +one man should be kept in power. It is even more singular yet that it +should have been done by a party of men individually high principled, +honorable, unselfish, incapable of any deliberate meanness--and of whom +many if not most actually disliked and distrusted the man in whose +interest and by whose influence the surrender of principle was made. + +Perhaps when I have said a little about the leadership of the English +Tories, the phenomenon will appear less wonderful or at least more +intelligible. It was not a mere epigram which Mr. Mill uttered when he +described the Tories as the stupid party. An average Tory really is a +stupid man. He is a gentleman in all the ordinary acceptation of the +word. He has been to Oxford or Cambridge; he has received a decent +classical education; he has travelled along the beaten tracks--made what +would have been called in Mary Wortley Montague's day "the grand tour;" +he has birth and high breeding; he is a good fellow, with manly, +honorable ways, and that genial consideration for the feelings of others +which is the fundamental condition, the vital element of gentlemanly +breeding. But he is, with all this, stupid. His mind is narrow, dull, +inflexible; he cannot connect cause with effect, or see that a change is +coming, or why it should come; with him _post hoc_ always means _propter +hoc_; he cannot account for Goodwin Sands otherwise than because of +Tenterden steeple. You cannot help liking him, and sometimes laughing at +him. It may seem paradoxical, but I at least am unable to get out of my +mind the conviction that there is a solid basis of stupidity in the mind +of the great Conservative Chief, Lord Derby. Let me explain what I mean. +The Earl of Derby is in one sense a highly accomplished man. He is a +good classical scholar, and can make a speech in Latin. He has produced +some very spirited translations from Horace; and I like his version of +the Iliad better on the whole than any other I know. He is a splendid +debater--Macaulay said very truly that with Lord Derby the science of +debate was an instinct. He will roll out resonant, rotund, verbose +sentences by the hour, by the yard; he is great at making hits and +points; he has immense power of reply and repartee--of a certain easy +and obvious kind; his voice is fine, his manner is noble, his invective +is powerful. But he has no ideas. The light he throws out is a polarized +light. He adds nothing new to the political thought of the age. I have +heard many of his finest speeches; and I can remember that they were +then very telling, in a Parliamentary point of view; but I cannot +remember anything he said. He is always interpreting into eloquent and +effective words the commonplace Philistine notions, the hereditary +conventionalities of his party--and nothing more. His mind is not open +to new impressions, and he is not able to appreciate the cause, the +purpose or the tendency of change. This I hold to be the essential +characteristic of stupidity; and this is an attribute of Lord Derby, +with all his Greek, his Latin, his impetuous rhetoric, his debating +skill and his audacious blunders, which sometimes almost deceive one +into thinking him a man of genius. Now the Earl of Derby is the greatest +Tory living; and if I have fairly described the highest type of Tory, +one can easily form some conception of what the average Tory must be. +Every one likes Lord Derby, and I fully believe it to be the fact that +those who know him best like him best. I cannot imagine Lord Derby doing +a mean thing; I cannot imagine him haughty to a poor man, or +patronizingly offensive to a timid visitor of humble birth. Look at Lord +Derby through the wrong end of the intellectual telescope and you have +the average British Tory. The Tory's knowledge is confined to classics +and field sports--when he knows anything. Even Lord Derby has been +guilty of the most flagrant mistakes in geography and modern history. +People are never tired of alluding to a famous blunder of his about +Tambov in Russia. It is also told of him that he once spoke in +Parliament of Demerara as an island; and when one of his colleagues +afterward remonstrated with him on the mistake, he asked with +ingenuousness and _naivete_ "How on earth was I to know that Demerara +was not an island?" He once, at a public meeting, spoke of himself very +frankly as having been born "in the pre-scientific period"--the period +but too recently closed, when English Universities and high class +schools troubled themselves only about Greek and Latin, and thought it +beneath their dignity to show much interest in such vulgar, practical +studies as chemistry and natural history, to say nothing of that +ungentlemanly and ungenerous study, the science of political economy. +The average British Tory is a Lord Derby without eloquence, brains, +official habits and political experience. + +How, then, do the Tories exist as a party? How do they continue to +believe themselves to be Tories, and speak of themselves as Tories, when +they have surrendered all, or nearly all, the great principles which are +the creed and faith, and business of Toryism? Because they have, in our +times, never had Tories for leaders. A man is not a Tory merely because +he fights the Tory battles, any more than a captain of the Irish Brigade +was a Frenchman because he fought for King Louis, or Hobart Pasha is a +Turk because he commands the Ottoman navy. The Tory party has always, +of late years, had to call in the aid of brilliant outsiders, political +renegades, refugees from broken-down agitations, disappointed and +cynical deserters from the Liberal camp, or mere adventurers, to fight +their battles for them. It used to be quite a curious sight, some three +or four years ago, when the Tories were, as they are now again, in +opposition, to look down from the gallery of the House of Commons and +see the men who did gladiatorial duty for the party. Along the back +benches, above and below the "gangway," were stretched out huge at +length the stalwart, handsome, manly country gentlemen, the bone and +sinew of the Tory party--the only real Tories to be found in the House. +But _they_ did not bear the brunt of debate. They could cheer +splendidly, and vote in platoons; but you don't suppose they were just +the sort of men to confront Gladstone, and reply to Bright? Not they; +and they knew it. There sat Disraeli, the brilliant renegade from +Radicalism, who was ready to think for them and talk for them: and who +were his lieutenants? Cairns, the successful, adroit, eloquent lawyer, a +North of Ireland man, with about as much of the genuine British Tory in +him as there is in Disraeli himself; Seymour Fitzgerald, the clever, +pushing Irishman, also a lawyer; Whiteside, the voluble, eloquent, +rather boisterous advocate, also a lawyer, and also an Irishman; smart, +saucy Pope Hennessy, a young Irish adventurer, who had taken up with +Toryism and ultramontanism as the best way of making a career, and who +would, at the slightest hint from his chief, have risen, utterly +ignorant of the subject under debate, and challenged Gladstone's finance +or Roundel Palmer's law. These men, and such men--these and no +others--did the debating and the fighting for the great Tory party of +England at a most critical period of that party's existence. Needless to +say that the party who were compelled by their own poverty of idea, +their own stupidity, to have these men for their representatives, were +stupid enough to be led anywhere and into anything by the force of a +little dexterity and daring on the part of the one man into whose hands +they had confided their destinies. + +In speaking, therefore, of the leaders of Toryism, I must distinctly say +that I am not speaking of Tories. The rank and file are Tories; the +general and officers belong to another race. Mr. Disraeli is so well +known on this side of the Atlantic that I need not occupy much time or +space in describing him. He is the most brilliant specimen of the +adventurer or political soldier of fortune known to English public life +in our days. I do not suppose anybody believes Mr. Disraeli's Toryism to +be a genuine faith. This is not merely because he has changed his +opinions so completely since the time when he came out as a Radical, +under the patronage of O'Connell, and wrote to William Johnson Fox, the +Democratic orator, a famous letter, in which he, Disraeli, boasted that +"his forte was revolution." Men have changed their views as completely, +and even as suddenly, and yet obtained credit for sincerity and +integrity. It is not even because, in all of Mr. Disraeli's novels, a +prime and favorite personage is a daring political adventurer, who +carries all before him by the audacity of his genius and his +unscrupulousness; it is not even that Mr. Disraeli, in private life, +frequently speaks of success in politics as the one grand object worth +striving for or living for. "What do you and I come to this House of +Commons night after night for?" said Mr. Disraeli once to a great +Englishman, and when the latter failed to reply very quickly, he +answered his own question by saying, "You know we come here for fame." +The man to whom he spoke declared, in all truthfulness, that he did not +follow a political career for the sake of fame. But Disraeli was quite +incredulous, and probably could not, by any earnestness and apparent +sincerity of asseveration, be got to believe that there lives a being +who could sacrifice time, and money, and intellect, and eloquence merely +for the sake of serving the public. Yet it is not alone this cynical +avowal of selfishness which makes people so profoundly sceptical as to +Mr. Disraeli's Toryism. It is the fact that he always escapes into +Liberalism whenever he has an opportunity; that he lives by hawking +Toryism, not by imbibing it himself; that he is ready to sell it, or +betray it, or drag it in the dirt whenever he can safely serve himself +by doing so; that he can become the most ardent of Freetraders, the most +uncompromising champion of a Popular Suffrage to-day, when it is for his +interest, after having fought fiercely against both yesterday, when to +fight against them was for his interest. Mr. Disraeli is decidedly a man +without scruple. Those who have read his "Vivian Grey" will remember +with what zest and unction he describes his hero bewildering a company +and dumbfoundering a scientific authority by extemporizing an imaginary +quotation from a book which he holds in his hand, and from which he +pretends to read the passage he is reciting. It is not long since Mr. +Disraeli himself publicly ventured on a bold little experiment of a +somewhat similar kind. The story is curious, and worth hearing; and it +is certain that it cannot be contradicted. + +Three or four years ago, a bitter factious attack was made in the House +of Commons upon Mr. Stansfeld, then holding office in the Liberal +government, because of his open and avowed friendship for, and intimacy +with Mazzini. This was at a time when the French government were +endeavoring to connect Mazzini with a plot to assassinate the Emperor +Napoleon. Mr. Disraeli was very stern in his condemnation of Mr. +Stansfeld for his friendship with one who, twenty odd years before, had +encouraged a young enthusiast (as the enthusiast said) in a design to +kill Charles Albert, King of Sardinia. Mr. Bright, in a moderate and +kindly speech, deprecated the idea of making unpardonable crimes out of +the hotheaded follies of enthusiastic men in their young days; and he +added that he believed there would be found in a certain poem, written +by Disraeli himself some twenty-five or thirty years before, and called +"A Revolutionary Epick," some lines of eloquent apostrophe in praise of +tyrannicide. Up sprang Mr. Disraeli, indignant and excited, and +vehemently denied that any such sentiment, any such line, could be found +in the poem. Mr. Bright at once accepted the assurance; said he had +never seen the poem himself, but only heard that there was such a +passage in it; apologized for the mistake--and there most people thought +the matter would have ended. In truth, the volume which Mr. Disraeli had +published a generation before, with the grandiloquent title, "A +Revolutionary Epick" (not "epic," in the common way, but dignified, +old-fashioned "epick"), was a piece of youthful, bombastic folly long +out of print, and almost wholly forgotten. But Disraeli chose to attach +great importance to the charge he supposed to be made against him; and +he declared that he felt himself bound to refute it utterly by more than +a mere denial. Accordingly, in a few weeks, there came out a new edition +of the Epick, with a dedication to Lord Stanley, and a preface +explaining that, as the first edition was out of print, and as a charge +founded on a passage in it had been made against the author, said author +felt bound to issue this new edition, that all the world might see how +unfounded was the accusation. Sure enough, the publication did seem to +dispose of the charge effectually. There was only one passage which in +any way bore on the subject of tyrannicide, and that certainly did not +express approval. What could be more satisfactory? Unluckily, however, +the gentleman on whose hint Mr. Bright spoke, happened to possess one +copy of the original edition. He compared this, to make assurance +doubly sure, with the copy at the British Museum, the only other copy +accessible to him, and he found that the passage which contained the +praise of tyrannicide had been partly altered, partly suppressed, in the +new edition specially issued by Mr. Disraeli, in order to prove to the +world that he had not written a line in the poem to imply that he +sanctioned the slaying of a tyrant. Now, this was a small and trifling +affair; but just see how significant and characteristic it was! It +surely did not make much matter whether Mr. Disraeli, in his young, +nonsensical days, had or had not indulged in a burst of enthusiasm about +the slaying of tyrants, in a poem so bombastical that no rational man +could think of it with any seriousness. But Mr. Disraeli chose to regard +his reputation as seriously assailed; and what did he do to vindicate +himself? He published a new edition, which he trumpeted as not merely +authentic, but as issued for the sole purpose of proving that he had not +praised tyrannicide, and he deliberately excised the lines which +contained the passage in question! The controversy turned on some two +lines and a half; and of these Mr. Disraeli cut out all the dangerous +words and gave the garbled version to the world as his authoritative +reply to the charge made against him! This, too, after the famous +"annexation" of one of Thiers's speeches, and the delivery of it as a +panegyric on the memory of the Duke of Wellington, and after the +appropriation of a page or two out of an essay by Macaulay, and its +introduction wholesale, as original, into one of Mr. Disraeli's novels. + +The truth is that Disraeli is so reckless a gladiator that he will catch +up any weapon of defence, use any means of evasion and escape; will +fight anyhow, and win anyhow. In political affairs, at least, he has no +moral sense whatever; and the public seems to tolerate him on that +understanding. Certainly, escapades and practices which would ruin the +reputation of any other public man do not seem to bring Disraeli into +serious disrepute. The few high-toned men of his own party and the other +who hold all trickery in detestation, had made up their minds about him +long ago; and nothing could hurt him more in their esteem--the great +majority of politicians laugh at the whole thing, and take no thought. +The feeling seems to be, "We don't expect grave and severe virtue from +this man; we take him as he is. It would be ridiculous to apply a grave +moral test to anything he may say or do." In Lockhart's "Life of Walter +Scott," it is told that the great novelist went one morning very early +to call on a certain friend. The friend was in bed, and Scott, pushing +into the room familiarly, found that his friend was--not alone, as he +expected him to be. Scott was a highly moral man, and he would have +turned his back indignantly on any other of his friends whom he found +guilty of vice; but his biographer says that he took the discovery he +had made very lightly in this instance; and he afterward explained that +the delinquent was so ridiculously without depth of character it would +be absurd to find serious fault with anything he did. Perhaps it is in a +similar spirit that the British public regard Mr. Disraeli. He delivered +a memorable peroration one night last year in the House of Commons, the +utterance and the language of which were so peculiar that charity itself +could not affect to be ignorant of the stimulating cause which sent +forth such extraordinary eloquence. Yet hardly anybody seemed to regard +it as more than a good joke; and the newspapers which were most +indignant and most scandalized over Andrew Johnson's celebrated +inaugural address made no allusion whatever to Mr. Disraeli's +bewildering outburst. One reason, probably, is that Disraeli, in +private, is much liked. He is very kindly; he is a good friend; he is +sympathetic in his dealings with young politicians, and is always glad +to give a helping hand to a young man of talent. Personal ambition, +which, in Mr. Bright's eyes, is something despicable, and which Mr. +Gladstone probably regards as a sin, is, in Disraeli's acceptation, +something generous and elevating, something to be fostered and +encouraged. Therefore, young men of talent admire Disraeli, and are glad +and proud to gather round him. The men who have any brains in the Tory +ranks are usually of the adventurer class; and they form a phalanx by +the aid of which Disraeli can do great things. No matter how the honest, +dull bulk of his party may distrust him, they cannot do without him and +his phalanx; and they allow him to win his battles by the force of their +votes, and they think he is winning their battles all the time. + +One young man of brains there was on the Tory side of the House of +Commons, who did not like Disraeli, and never professed to like him. +This was Lord Robert Cecil, who subsequently became Viscount Cranbourne, +and now sits in the House of Lords as Marquis of Salisbury. Lord Robert +Cecil was by far the ablest scion of noble Toryism in the House of +Commons. Younger than Lord Stanley he had not Lord Stanley's solidity +and caution; but he had much more of original ability; he had brilliant +ideas, great readiness in debate, and a perfect genius for saying bitter +things in the bitterest tone. The younger son of a wealthy peer, he had, +in consequence of a dispute with his father, manfully accepted honorable +poverty, and was glad, for no short time, to help out his means by the +use of his pen. He wrote in the "Quarterly Review," the time-honored +organ of Toryism; and after a while certain political articles regularly +appearing in that periodical became identified with his name. One great +object of these articles seemed to be to denounce Mr. Disraeli and warn +the Tory party against him as a traitor, certain in the end to sell and +surrender their principles. Lord Robert Cecil was an ultra-Tory--or at +least thought himself so--I feel convinced that his intellect and his +experience will set him free one day. He was a Tory on principle and +would listen to no compromise. People did not at first see how much +ability there was in him--very few indeed saw how much of genuine +manhood and nobleness there was in him. His tall, bent, awkward figure; +his prematurely bald crown, his face with an outline and a beard that +reminded one of a Jew pedler from the Minories, his ungainly gestures, +his unmelodious voice, and the extraordinary and wanton bitterness of +his tongue, set the ordinary observer strongly against him. He seemed to +delight in being gratuitously offensive. Let me give one illustration. +He assailed Mr. Gladstone's financial policy one night, and said it was +like the practice of a pettifogging attorney. This was rather coarse and +it was received with loud murmurs of disapprobation, but Lord Robert +went on unheeding. Next night, however, when the debate was resumed, he +rose and said he feared he had used language the previous evening which +was calculated to give offence, and which he could not justify. There +were murmurs of encouraging applause--nothing delights the House of +Commons like an unsolicited and manly apology. Yes, he had, on the +previous night, in a moment of excitement, compared the policy of the +Chancellor of the Exchequer to the practice of a pettifogging attorney. +That was language which on sober consideration he felt he could not +justify and ought not to have used, "and therefore," said Lord Robert, +"I beg leave to offer my sincere apology"--here Mr. Gladstone half rose +from his seat, with face of eager generosity, ready to pardon even +before fully asked--"I beg leave to tender my sincere apology--to the +attorneys!" Half the House roared with laughter, the other half with +anger--and Gladstone threw himself back in his seat with an expression +of mingled disappointment, pity and scorn, on his pallid, noble +features. + +There was something so wanton, something so nearly approaching to +outrageous buffoonery, in conduct like this, on the part of Lord Robert +Cecil, that it was long before impartial observers came to recognize the +fine intellect and the manly character that were disguised under such an +unprepossessing exterior. When the Tories came into power, the great +place of Secretary for India was given to Lord Robert, who had then +become Viscount Cranbourne, and the responsibilities of office wrought +as complete a change in him as the wearing of the crown did in Harry the +Fifth. No man ever displayed in so short a time greater aptitude for the +duties of the office he had undertaken, or a loftier sense of its +tremendous moral and political responsibility, than did Lord Cranbourne +during his too brief tenure of the Indian Secretaryship. The cynic had +become a statesman, the intellectual gladiator an earnest champion of +exalted political principle. The license of tongue, in which Lord +Cranbourne had revelled while yet a free lance, he absolutely renounced +when he became a responsible minister. He extorted the respect and +admiration of Gladstone and Bright, and indeed of every one who took the +slightest interest in the condition and the future of India. The manner +of his leaving office became him, too, almost as much as his occupation +of it. He was sincerely opposed to a sudden lowering of the franchise, +and he insisted that his party ought to think nothing of power when +compared with principle. He found that Disraeli was determined to +surrender anything rather than power, and he withdrew from the +uncongenial companionship. He resigned office, and dropped into the +ranks once more, never hesitating to express his conviction of the utter +insincerity of the Conservative leader. He would have been a sharp and +stinging thorn in Disraeli's side, only that death intervened and took +away, not him, but his father. The death of his elder brother had made +Lord Robert Cecil, Viscount Cranbourne; the death of his father now +converted Viscount Cranbourne into the Marquis of Salisbury, and +condemned him to the languid, inert, lifeless atmosphere of the House of +Peers. The sincere pity of all who admired him followed the brilliant +Salisbury in his melancholy descent. I should despair of conveying to an +American reader unacquainted with English politics any adequate idea of +the profundity and hopelessness of the fall which precipitates a young, +ardent and gifted politician from the brilliant battle-ground of the +House of Commons into the lifeless, Lethean pool of the House of Lords. + +Still, the Tory party may be led, as it has been, by a chief in the +House of Lords, although its great and splendid fights must be fought in +the Commons. If then, in our time, Toryism ever should again become a +principle which a man of genius and high character could fairly fight +for, it has a leader ready to its hand in the Marquis of Salisbury. For +the present it has Lord Cairns. The Earl of Derby's health no longer +allows him to undertake the serious and laborious duties of party +leadership. When he withdrew from the front, an attempt was made to put +up with Lord Malmesbury. But Malmesbury is stupid and muddle-headed to a +degree which even Tory peers cannot endure in a Tory peer; and it has +somehow been "borne in upon him" that he had better leave the place to +some one really qualified to fill it. Now, the Tories in the House of +Commons, the country gentlemen of England, the men whose ancestors came +over, perhaps, with the Conqueror, the men who imbibed family Toryism +from the breasts of their mothers, are driven, when they want a capable +leader, to follow a renegade Radical, the son of a middle-class Jew. In +like manner the Tory Lords, also sadly needing an efficient leader, are +compelled to take up with a lawyer from Belfast, the son of middle-class +parents in the North of Ireland, who has fought his way by sheer talent +and energy into the front rank of the bar, into the front bench of the +Parliamentary Opposition, and at last into a peerage. Lord Cairns is a +very capable man; his sudden rise into high place and influence proves +the fact of itself, for he was not a young man when he entered +Parliament, obscure and unknown, and he is now only in the prime of +life, while he leads the Opposition in the House of Lords. He is one of +the most fluent and effective debaters in either House; he has great +command of telling argument; his training at the bar gives him the +faculty of making the very most, and at the shortest notice, of all the +knowledge and all the facts he can bring to bear on any question. He has +shown more than once that he is capable of pouring forth a powerful, +almost indeed, a passionate invective. An orator in the highest sense he +certainly is not. No gleam of the poetic softens or brightens his lithe +and nervous logic; no deep feeling animates, inspires and sanctifies it. +He has made no speeches which anybody hereafter will care to read. He +has made, he will make, no mark upon his age. When he dies, he wholly +dies. But living, he is a skilful and a capable man--far better +qualified to be a party leader than an Erskine or a Grattan would be. A +North of Ireland Presbyterian, he has made his way to a peerage, and now +to be the leader of peers, with less of native genius than that which +conducted Wolfe Tone, another North of Ireland Presbyterian, to +rebellion and failure and a bloody death. He has, above all things, +skill and discretion; and he can lead the Tory party well, so long as no +great cause has to be vindicated, no splendid phantom of a principle +maintained. His name and his antecedents are useful to us now, inasmuch +as they serve still farther to illustrate the fact that Toryism is not +led by Tories. + +In speaking of Tory leaders one ought not, of course, to leave out the +name of Lord Stanley. But Lord Stanley is only a Tory _ex officio_, and +by virtue of his position as the eldest son and heir of the great Earl +of Derby. I have never heard of Lord Stanley's uttering a Tory +sentiment, even when he had to play a Tory part. His speeches are all +the speeches of a steady, respectable, thoughtful sort of Liberal, +inclined to study carefully both or all sides of a question, and opposed +to extreme opinions either way. He will never, it is quite clear, be +guilty of the audacity of openly breaking with his party while his +father lives; and perhaps when he becomes Earl of Derby, there may be +nothing distinctively Tory worth fighting about. Lord Stanley is indeed +totally devoid of that generous ardor which makes men open converts. He +is no longer young, and he will probably remain all his life where he +stands at present. But a genuine Tory he is not. I confess that at one +time I looked to him with great hope, as a man likely to develop into +statesmanship of the highest order, and to announce himself as a votary +of political and intellectual progress. Some years ago I wrote an +article in the "Westminster Review," the object of which was to point to +Lord Stanley as the future colleague of Gladstone in a great and a +really liberal government. I have changed my opinion since. Lord Stanley +wants, not the brains, but the heart for such a place. He has not the +spirit to step out of his hereditary way. He is one of the sort of men +of whom Goethe used to say, "If only they would commit an extravagance +even, I should have some hope for them." He seems to care for little +beyond accuracy of judgment and propriety; and I do not suppose accuracy +of judgment and propriety ever made a great statesman. There is nothing +venturesome about Lord Stanley--therefore there is nothing great. A man +to be great must brave being ridiculous; and I do not remember that Lord +Stanley has ever run the risk of being ridiculous. One of the finest and +most celebrated passages of modern Parliamentary eloquence is that in +which George Canning, vindicating his recognition of the South American +republics, proclaimed that he had called in the New World to redress the +balance of the Old. I once heard a member of the House of Lords, now +dead, who sat in the House of Commons near Canning, when Canning spoke +that famous speech, say that when the orator came to the great climax +the House was actually breaking into a titter, so absurd then did any +grandiloquence about South American republics seem; and it was only the +earnestness and resolve of his manner that commanded a respectful +attention, and thus compelled the House to recognize the genuine +grandeur of the idea, and to break into a tempest of applause. I have +heard something the same told of one of the grandest passages in any of +Bright's speeches--that in one of his orations against the Crimean War, +in which he declared that he already heard, during the debate, the +beating of the wings of the Angel of Death. The House was under the +influence of a war fever, and disposed to scoff at all appeals to +prudence or to pity; and it was just on the verge of a laugh at the +orator's majestic apostrophe, when his earnestness conquered, the +grandeur of the moment was recognized, and a peal of irrepressible +applause proclaimed the triumph of his eloquence. Now, these are the +risks that a man like Lord Stanley never will run. Only genius makes +such ventures. He is always safe: great statesmen must sometimes brave +terrible hazards. In England he has received immense praise for the part +he took in averting a war between France and Prussia on the Luxembourg +question. Now, it is quite true that he did much; that, in fact, he lent +all the influence of England to the mode of arrangement by which both +the contending Powers were enabled to back decently out of a dangerous +and painful position. But the idea of such a mode of settlement did not +come from him. It was originated by Baron von Beust, the Austrian Prime +Minister, and it was quietly urged a good deal before Lord Stanley saw +it. Von Beust, who has a keener wit than Stanley, knew that if the +proposition came directly from him it would, _ipso facto_, be odious to +Prussia; and he was, therefore, rejoiced when Lord Stanley took it up +and adopted it as his own and England's. Von Beust was well content, and +so was Lord Stanley--just as Cuddie Headrigg, in "Old Mortality," is +content that John Gudyill shall have the responsibility and the honor of +the shot which the latter never fired. The one original thing which Lord +Stanley did during the controversy was to write a dispatch to Prussia +recommending her to come to terms, because of the superior navy of +France, and the certainty, in the event of war, that France would have +the best of it at sea. + +Now, this was a capital argument to influence a man like Lord Stanley +himself--calm, cold-blooded, utterly rational. But human ingenuity could +hardly have devised an appeal less likely to influence Prussia in the +way of peace. Prussia, flushed with her splendid victories over Austria, +and deeply offended by the arrogant and dictatorial conduct of France, +was much more likely to be stung by such an argument, if it affected her +at all, into flinging down the gauntlet at once, and inviting France to +come if she dared. The use of such a mode of persuasion is, indeed, an +adequate illustration of the whole character of Lord Stanley. Cool, +prudent, and rational, he is capable enough of weighing things fairly +when they are presented to him; but he can neither create an opportunity +nor run a risk. Therefore, he remains officially a Tory, mentally a +Liberal, politically neither the one nor the other. His bones are +marrowless, his blood is cold. He can forfeit his own career, and hazard +his reputation for his party; but that is all. He cannot give his mind +to it, and he cannot redeem himself from his futile bondage to it. He is +a respectable speaker, despite his defective articulation and his +lifeless manner; he will be a respectable politician, despite his want +of faith in, or zeal for the cause he tries to follow. That is his +career; that is the doom to which he voluntarily condemns himself. + +I do not know that there are any other Tory chiefs worth talking about. +Sir Stafford Northcote looks like a Bonn or Heidelberg professor, and +has a fair average intellect, fit for commonplace finance and elementary +politics; there is not a ghost of an idea in him. Walpole is a pompous, +well-meaning, gentlemanlike imbecile. Gathorne Hardy is fluent, as the +sand in an hourglass is fluent--he can pour out words and serve to mark +the passing of time. Sir John Pakington is an educated Dogberry, a +respectable Justice Shallow. Not upon men like these do the political +fortunes of the Tory party of our day depend, although Walpole and +Pakington fairly represent the sincerity, the manhood, and the +respectability of Toryism. + +I come back to the point from which I started--that Toryism, in itself, +is only another word for stupidity, and that any triumphs the party have +won or may win are secured by the surrender of the principle they +profess to be fighting for, and by the skilful management of men whose +conscience permits them to adapt the means unscrupulously to the end. +Were the Tory party led by genuine Tories it would have been extinct +long ago. It lives and looks upon the earth, it has its triumphs and its +gains, its present and its future, only because by very virtue of its +own dulness it has allowed itself to be led by men whom it ought to +detest, whom it sometimes does distrust, but who have the wit to sell +principle in the dearest market, and buy reputation in the cheapest. + + + + +"GEORGE ELIOT" AND GEORGE LEWES. + + +Literary reputations are, in one respect, like wines--some are greatly +improved by a long voyage, while others lose all zest and strength in +the process of crossing the ocean. There ought to be hardly any +difference, one would think, between the literary taste of the public of +London and that of the public of New York; and yet it is certain that an +author or a book may be positively celebrated in the one city and only +barely known and coldly recognized in the other. Every one, of course, +has noticed the fact that certain English authors are better known and +appreciated in New York than in London; certain American writers more +talked of in London than in New York. The general public of England do +not seem to me to appreciate the true position of Whittier and Lowell +among American poets. The average Englishman knows hardly anything of +any American poet but Longfellow, who receives, I venture to think, a +far more wholesale and enthusiastic admiration in England than in his +own country. Robert Buchanan, the Scottish poet, lately, I have read, +described "Evangeline" as a far finer poem than Goethe's "Hermann und +Dorothea," a judgment which I presume and hope it would be impossible to +get any American scholar and critic to indorse or even to consider +seriously. On the other hand, it is well known that both the +Brownings--certainly Mrs. Browning--found quicker and more cordial +appreciation in America than in England. Lately, we in London have taken +to discussing and debating over Walt Whitman with a warmth and interest +which people in New York do not seem to manifest in regard to the author +of "Leaves of Grass." Charles Dickens appears to me to have more devoted +admirers among the best class of readers here than he has in his own +country. Of course, it would be hardly possible for any man to be more +popular and more successful than Dickens is in England; but New York +journals quote him and draw illustrations from him much more frequently +than London papers do--I do not think any day has passed since first I +came to this country, six or seven months ago, that I have not seen at +least two or three allusions to Dickens in the leading articles of the +daily papers--and I question whether, among critics standing as high in +London as George William Curtis does here, Dickens could find the +enthusiastic, the almost lyrical devotion of Curtis's admiration. +Charles Reade, again, is more generally and warmly admired here than in +England. Am I wrong in supposing that the reverse is the case with +regard to the authoress of "Romola" and "The Mill on the Floss?" All +American critics and all American readers of taste, have doubtless +testified practically their recognition of the genius of this +extraordinary woman; but there seems to me to be relatively less +admiration for her in New York than in London. The general verdict of +English criticism would, I feel no doubt, place George Eliot on a higher +pedestal than Charles Dickens. We regard her as belonging to a higher +school of art, as more nearly affined to the great immortal few whose +genius and fame transcend the fashion of the age and defy the caprice of +public taste. So far as I have been able to observe, I do not think this +is the opinion of American criticism. + +In any case, the mere question will excuse my writing a few pages about +a woman whom I regard as the greatest living novelist of England; as, on +the whole, the greatest woman now engaged in European literature. Only +George Sand and Harriet Martineau could fairly be compared with her; +and, while Miss Martineau, of course, is far inferior in all the higher +gifts of imagination and the higher faculties of art, George Sand, with +all her passion, her rich fancy, and daring, subtle analysis of certain +natures, has never exhibited the serene, symmetrical power displayed in +"Romola" and in "Silas Marner." Mrs. Lewes (it would be affectation to +try to assume that there is still any mystery about the identity of +"George Eliot") is what George Sand is not--a great writer, merely as a +writer. Few, indeed, are the beings who have ever combined so many high +qualities in one person as Mrs. Lewes does. Her literary career began as +a translator and an essayist. Her tastes seemed then to lead her wholly +into the somewhat barren fields where German metaphysics endeavor to +come to the relief or the confusion of German theology. She became a +contributor to the "Westminster Review;" then she became its assistant +editor, and worked assiduously for it under the direction of Dr. John +Chapman, the editor, with whose family she lived for a time, and in +whose house she first met George Henry Lewes. She is an accomplished +linguist, a brilliant talker, a musician of extraordinary skill. She has +a musical sense so delicate and exquisite that there are tender, simple, +true ballad melodies which fill her with a pathetic pain almost too keen +to bear; and yet she has the firm, strong command of tone and touch, +without which a really scientific musician cannot be made. I do not +think this exceeding sensibility of nature is often to be found in +combination with a genuine mastery of the practical science of music. +But Mrs. Lewes has mastered many sciences as well as literatures. +Probably no other novel writer, since novel writing became a business, +ever possessed one tithe of her scientific knowledge. Indeed, hardly +anything is rarer than the union of the scientific and the literary or +artistic temperaments. So rare is it, that the exceptional, the almost +solitary instance of Goethe comes up at once, distinct and striking, to +the mind. English novelists are even less likely to have anything of a +scientific taste than French or German. Dickens knows nothing of +science, and has, indeed, as little knowledge of any kind, save that +which is derived from observation, as any respectable Englishman could +well have. Thackeray was a man of varied reading, versed in the lighter +literature of several languages, and strongly imbued with artistic +tastes; but he had no care for science, and knew nothing of it but just +what every one has to learn at school. Lord Lytton's science is a mere +sham. Charlotte Bronte was all genius and ignorance. Mrs. Lewes is all +genius and culture. Had she never written a page of fiction, nay, had +she never written a line of poetry or prose, she must have been regarded +with wonder and admiration by all who knew her as a woman of vast and +varied knowledge; a woman who could think deeply and talk brilliantly, +who could play high and severe classical music like a professional +performer, and could bring forth the most delicate and tender aroma of +nature and poetry lying deep in the heart of some simple, old-fashioned +Scotch or English ballad. Nature, indeed, seemed to have given to this +extraordinary woman all the gifts a woman could ask or have--save one. +It will not, I hope, be considered a piece of gossipping personality if +I allude to a fact which must, some day or other, be part of literary +history. Mrs. Lewes is not beautiful. In her appearance there is nothing +whatever to attract admiration. Hers is not even a face like that of +Charlotte Cushman, which, at least, must make a deep impression, and +seize at once the attention of the gazer. Nor does it seem, like that of +Madame de Stael or Elizabeth Barrett Browning, informed and illuminated +by the light of genius. Mrs. Lewes is what we in England call decidedly +plain--what people in New York call homely; and what persons who did not +care to soften the force of an unpleasant truth would describe probably +by a still harder and more emphatic adjective. + +This woman, thus rarely gifted with poetry and music and +imagination--thus disciplined in man's highest studies and accustomed to +the most laborious of man's literary drudgery--does not seem to have +found out, until she had passed what is conventionally regarded as the +age of romance, that she had in her, transcendent above all other gifts, +the faculty of the novelist. When an author who is not very young makes +a great hit at last, we soon begin to learn that he had already made +many attempts in the same direction, and his publishers find an eager +demand for the stories and sketches which, when they first appeared, +utterly failed to attract attention. Thackeray's early efforts, +Trollope's, Charles Reade's, Nathaniel Hawthorne's, all these have been +lighted into success by the blaze of the later triumph. But it does not +seem that Miss Marion Evans, as she then was, ever published anything in +the way of fiction previous to the series of sketches which appeared in +"Blackwood's Magazine," and were called "Scenes of Clerical Life." These +sketches attracted considerable attention, and were much admired; but I +do not think many people saw in them the capacity which produced "Adam +Bede" and "Romola." With the publication of "Adam Bede" came a complete +triumph. The author was elevated at once and by acclamation to the +highest rank among living novelists. I think it was in the very first +number of the "Cornhill Magazine" that Thackeray, in a gossiping +paragraph about novelists of the day, whom he mentioned alphabetically +and by their initials, spoke of "E" as a "star of the first magnitude +just risen on the horizon." Thackeray, it will be remembered, was one of +the first, if not, indeed, the very first, to recognize the genius +manifested in "Jane Eyre." The publishers sent him some of the proof +sheets for his advice, and Thackeray saw in them the work of a great +novelist. + +The place which Mrs. Lewes thus so suddenly won, she has, of course, +always maintained. Her position of absolute supremacy over all other +women writers in England is something peculiar and curious. She is +first--and there is no second. No living authoress in Britain is ever +now compared with her. I read, not long since, in a New York paper, a +sentence which spoke of George Eliot and Miss Mulock as being the +greatest English authoresses in the field of fiction. It seemed very odd +and funny to me. Certainly, an English critic would never have thought +of bracketing together such a pair. Miss Mulock is a graceful, +true-hearted, good writer; but Miss Mulock and George Eliot! Robert +Lytton and Robert Browning! "A. K. H. B." (I think these are the +initials) and John Stuart Mill! Mark Lemon's novels and Charles +Dickens's! Mrs. Lewes has made people read novels who perhaps never read +fiction from any other pen. She has made the novel the companion and +friend and study of scholars and thinkers and statesmen. Her books are +discussed by the gravest critics as productions of the highest school of +art. Men and journals which have always regarded, or affected to regard, +Thackeray as a mere cynic, and Dickens as little better than a +professional buffoon, have discussed "The Mill on the Floss" and +"Romola" as if these novels were already classic. Of course it would be +a very doubtful kind of merit which commanded the admiration of literary +prigs or pedants; but that is not the merit of George Eliot. Her books +find their way to all hearts and intelligences, but it is their +peculiarity that they compel, they extort the admiration of men who +would disparage all novels, if they could, as frivolous and worthless, +but who are forced even by their own canons and principles to recognize +the deep clear thought, the noble culture, the penetrating, analytical +power, which are evident in almost every chapter of these stories. Most +of our novelists write in a slipslop, careless style. Dickens is +worthless, if regarded merely as a prose writer; Trollope hardly cares +about grammar; Charles Reade, with all his masculine force and +clearness, is terribly irregular and rugged. The woman writers have +seldom any style at all. George Eliot's prose might be the study of a +scholar anxious to acquire and appreciate a noble English style. It is +as luminous as the language of Mill; far more truly picturesque than +that of Ruskin; capable of forcible, memorable expression as the robust +Saxon of Bright. I am not going into a criticism of George Eliot, who +has been, no doubt, fully criticised in America already. I am merely +engaged in pointing out the special reasons why she has won in England a +certain kind of admiration which, it seems to me, hardly any novelist +ever has had before. I think she has infused into the novel some +elements it never had before, and so thoroughly infused them that they +blend with all the other materials, and do not form anywhere a solid +lump or mass distinguishable from the rest. There are philosophical +novels--"Wilhelm Meister," for example--which are weighed down and +loaded with the philosophy, and which the world admires in spite of the +philosophy. There are political novels--Disraeli's, for instance--which +are only intelligible to those who make politics and political +personalities a study, and which viewed merely as stories would not be +worth speaking about. There are novels with a great direct purpose in +them, such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin," or "Bleak House," or Charles Reade's +"Hard Cash;" but these, after all, are only magnificent pamphlets, +splendidly illustrated diatribes. The deep philosophic thought of George +Eliot's novels suffuses and illumines them everywhere. You can point to +no sermon here, no lecture there, no solid mass interposing between this +incident and that, no ponderous moral hung around the neck of this or +that personage. Only you feel that you are under the control of one who +is not merely a great story-teller but who is also a deep thinker. + +It is not, perhaps, unnecessary to say to American readers that George +Eliot is the only novelist who can paint such English people as the +Poysers and the Tullivers just as they really are. She looks into the +very souls of these people. She tracks out their slow peculiar mental +processes; she reproduces them fresh and firm from very life. Mere +realism, mere photographing, even from the life, is not in art a very +great triumph. But George Eliot can make her dullest people interesting +and dramatically effective. She can paint two dull people with quite +different ways of dulness--say a dull man and a dull woman, for +example--and you are astonished to find how utterly distinct the two +kinds of stupidity are--and how intensely amusing both can be made. Look +at the two pedantic, pompous, dull advocates in the later part of Robert +Browning's "The Ring and the Book." How distinct they are; how +different, how unlike, and how true, are the two portraits. But then it +must be owned that the poet is himself terribly tedious just there. His +pedants are quite as tiresome as they would be in real life, if each +successively held you by the button. George Eliot never is guilty of +this great artistic fault. You never want to be rid of Mrs. Poyser or +Aunt Glegg, or the prattling Florentines in "Romola." It is almost +superfluous to say that there never was or could be a Mark Tapley, or a +Sam Weller. We put up with these impossibilities and delight in them, +because they are so amusing and so full of fantastic humor. But Mrs. +Poyser lives, and I have met Aunt Glegg often; and poor Mrs. Tulliver's +cares and hopes, and little fears, and pitiful reasonings, are animating +scores of Mrs. Tullivers all over England to-day. I would propose a safe +and easy test to any American or other "foreigner" (I am supposing +myself now again in England), who is curious to know how much he +understands of the English character. Let him read any of George Eliot's +novels--even "Felix Holt," which is so decidedly inferior to the +rest--and if he fails to follow, with thorough appreciation, the talk +and the ways of the Poysers and such like personages, he may be assured +he does not understand one great phase of English life. + +Are these novels popular in England? Educated public opinion, I repeat, +ranks them higher than the novels of any other living author. But they +are not popular--that is, as Wilkie Collins or Miss Braddon is popular; +and I do not mean to say anything slighting of either Wilkie Collins or +Miss Braddon, both of whom I think possess very great talents, and have +been treated with quite too much of the _de haut en bas_ mood of the +great critics. George Eliot's novels certainly are not run after and +devoured by the average circulating library readers, as "The Woman in +White," and "Lady Audley's Secret" were. She has, of course, nothing +like the number of readers who follow Charles Dickens; nor even, I +should say, nearly as many as Anthony Trollope. When "Romola," which the +"Saturday Review" justly pronounced to be, if not the greatest, +certainly the noblest romance of modern days, was being published as a +serial in the "Cornhill Magazine," it was comparatively a failure, in +the circulating library sense; and even when it appeared in its complete +form, and the public could better appreciate its artistic perfection, it +was anything but a splendid success, as regarded from the publisher's +point of view. Perhaps this may be partly accounted for by the nature of +the subject, the scene and the time; but even the warmest admirer of +George Eliot may freely admit that "Romola" lacks a little of that +passionate heat which is needed to make a writer of fiction thoroughly +popular. When a statue of pure and perfect marble attracts as great a +crowd of gazers as a glowing picture, then a novel like "Romola" will +have as many admirers as a novel like "Consuelo" or "Villette." + +I am not one of the admirers of George Eliot who regret that she +ventured on the production of a long poem. I think "The Spanish Gypsy" a +true and a fine poem, although I do not place it so high in artistic +rank as the best of the author's prose writings. But I believe it to be +the greatest story in verse ever produced by an Englishwoman. This is +not, perhaps, very high praise, for Englishwomen have seldom done much +in the higher fields of poetry; but we have "Aurora Leigh;" and I think +"The Spanish Gypsy," on the whole, a finer piece of work. Most of our +English critics fell to discussing the question whether "The Spanish +Gypsy" was to be regarded as poetry at all, or only as a story put into +verse; and in this futile and vexatious controversy the artistic value +of the work itself almost escaped analysis. I own that I think criticism +shows to little advantage when it occupies itself in considering whether +a work of art is to be called by this name or that; and I am rather +impatient of the critic who comes with his canons of art, his +Thirty-Nine articles of literary dogma, and judges a book, not by what +it is in itself, but by the answer it gives to his self-invented +catechism. I do not believe that the art of man ever can invent--I know +it never has invented--any set of rules or formulas by which you can +decide, off-hand and with certainty, that a great story in verse, which +you admit to have power and beauty and pathos and melody, does not +belong to true poetry. One great school of critics discovered, by the +application of such high rules and canons that Shakespeare, though a +great genius was not a great poet; a later school made a similar +discovery with regard to Schiller; a certain body of critics now say the +same of Byron. I don't think it matters much what you call the work. +"The Spanish Gypsy" has imagination and beauty; it has exquisite +pictures and lofty thoughts; it has melody and music. Admitting this +much, and the most depreciating critics did admit it, I think it hardly +worth considering what name we are to apply to the book. Such, however, +was the sort of controversy in which all deep and true consideration of +the artistic value of "The Spanish Gypsy" evaporated. I am not sorry +Mrs. Lewes published the poem; but I am sorry she put her literary name +to it in the first instance. Had it appeared anonymously it would have +astonished and delighted the world. But people compared "The Spaniel +Gypsy" with the author's prose works, and were disappointed because the +woman who surpassed Dickens in fiction did not likewise surpass Tennyson +and Browning in poetry. Thus, and in no other sense, was "The Spanish +Gypsy" a failure. No woman had written anything of the same kind to +surpass it; but some men, even of our own day, had--and no man of our +day has written novels which excel those of George Eliot. Mrs. Lewes +will probably not write any more long poems; but I think English poetry +has gained something by her one venture. + +Mrs. Lewes's mind is of a class which, however varied its power, is not +fairly described by the word "versatile." Versatility is a smaller kind +of faculty, a dexterity of intellect and capacity--the property of a +mind of the second order. If we want a perfect type and pattern of +versatility, we may find it very close to the authoress of "Silas +Marner," in the person of her husband, George Henry Lewes. What man of +our day has done so many things and done them so well? He is the +biographer of Goethe and of Robespierre; he has compiled the "History of +Philosophy," in which he has something really his own to say of every +great philosopher, from Thales to Schelling; he has translated Spinoza; +he has published various scientific works; he has written at least two +novels; he has made one of the most successful dramatic adaptations +known to our stage; he is an accomplished theatrical critic; he was at +one time so successful as an amateur actor that he seriously +contemplated taking to the stage as a profession, in the full +conviction, which he did not hesitate frankly to avow, that he was +destined to be the successor to Macready. He did actually join a company +at one of the Manchester theatres, and perform there for some time under +a feigned name; but the amount of encouragement he received from the +public did not stimulate him to continue on the boards, although I +believe his confidence in his own capacity to succeed Macready remained +unshaken. Mr. Lewes was always remarkable for a frank and fearless +self-conceit, which, by its very sincerity and audacity, almost disarmed +criticism. Indeed, I do not suppose any man less gifted with +self-confidence would have even attempted to do half the things which +George Henry Lewes has done well. Margaret Fuller was very unfavorably +impressed by Lewes when she met him at Thomas Carlyle's house, and she +wrote of him contemptuously and angrily. But these were the days of +Lewes's Bohemianism; days of an audacity and a self-conceit unsubdued as +yet by experience and the world, and some saddening and some refining +influences; and Margaret Fuller failed to appreciate the amount of +intellect and manliness that was in him. Charlotte Bronte, on the other +hand, was quite enthusiastic about Lewes, and wrote to him and of him +with an almost amusing veneration. Indeed, he is a man of ability and +versatility that may fairly be called extraordinary. His merit is not +that he has written books on a great variety of subjects. London has +many hack writers who could go to work at any publisher's order and +produce successively an epic poem, a novel, a treatise on the philosophy +of the conditioned, a handbook of astronomy, a farce, a life of Julius +Caesar, a history of African explorations, and a volume of sermons. But +none of these productions would have one gleam of genuine native +vitality about it. The moment it had served its purpose in the literary +market it would go, dead, down to the dead. Lewes's works are of quite +a different style. They have positive merit and value of their own, and +they live. It was a characteristically audacious thing to attempt to +cram the history of philosophy into a couple of medium-sized volumes, +polishing off each philosopher in a few pages--draining him, plucking +out the heart of his mystery and his system, and stowing him away in the +glass jar designed to exhibit him to an edified class of students. But +it must be avowed that Lewes's has been a marvellously clever and +successful attempt. He certainly crumples up the whole science of +metaphysics, sweeps away transcendental philosophy, and demolishes _a +priori_ reasoning, in a manner which strongly reminds one of Arthur +Pendennis upsetting, in a dashing criticism and on the faith of an +hour's reading in an encyclopaedia, some great scientific theory of which +he had never heard previously, and the development of which had been the +life's labor of a sage. But Lewes does, somehow or other, very often +come to a right conclusion, and measure great theories and men with +accurate estimate; and the work is immensely interesting, and it is not +easy to see how anybody could have done it better. His "Life of Goethe" +is undoubtedly a very successful, symmetrical, and comprehensive piece +of biography. Some of his scientific studies have a genuine value, and +they are all fascinating. One of his pieces--adapted from the French, of +course, as most so-called English pieces are--will always be played +while Charles Mathews lives, or while there are actors who can play in +Charles Mathews's style. I wonder whether any of the readers of THE +GALAXY read, or having read remember, Lewes's novels? I only recollect +two of them, and I do not know whether he wrote any others. One was +called "Ranthorpe," and it had, in its day, quite a sort of success. How +long ago was it published? Fully twenty years, I should think: I +remember quite well being thrown into youthful raptures with it at the +time. But I do not go upon my boyish admiration for it. I came across it +somewhere much more recently, and read it through. There was a good deal +of inflation, and audacity, and nonsense in it; but at the same time it +showed more of brains and artistic impulse and constructive power than +nine out of every ten novels published in England to-day. It was all +about a young poet, who came to London and made, for a moment, a great +success, and was dazzled by it, and became intoxicated with love for a +lustrous beauty of high rank, who only played with him; and how he +forgot, for a time, the modest, delightful, simple girl to whom he was +pledged at home; and how he did not get on, and the public and the +_salons_ grew tired of him; and he became miserable, and was going to +drown himself (I think), but was prevented by some wise and timely +person; and how, of course, it all came right in the end, and he was +redeemed. This outline, probably, will not suggest much of originality +to any reader; but there was a great deal of freshness and thought in +the book, some of the incidents and one or two of the characters had a +flavor of originality about them; and the style was, for the most part, +animated and attractive. It was the work of a man of brains, and +culture, and taste; and one felt this all through, and was not ashamed +of the time spent in reading it. The other of Lewes's novels was called +"Rose, Blanche, and Violet." It charmed me a good deal when I read it; +but I have not read it lately, and so I forbear giving any decided +opinion as to its merits. It is, of course, quite settled now that +George Lewes had not in him the materials to make a successful novelist; +but men of far less talent have produced far worse novels than his, and +been, in their way, successful. + +Lewes first became prominent in literature as a contributor to the +"Leader," a very remarkable weekly organ of advanced opinions on all +questions, which was started in London seventeen or eighteen years ago, +and died, after much flickering and lingering, in 1861 or thereabouts. +The "Leader," in its early and best days, fairly sparkled all over with +talent, originality and audacity. It was to extreme philosophical +radicalism, (with a dash of something like atheism) what the "Saturday +Review" now is to cultured swelldom and Belgravian Sadduceeism. Miss +Martineau wrote for it. Lewes and Thornton Hunt (they were then +intimates, unfortunately for Lewes) were among its principal +contributors; Edward Whitty flung over its pages the brilliant eccentric +light which was destined to immature and melancholy extinction. Lewes's +theatrical criticisms, which he used to sign "Vivian," were inimitable +in their vivacity, their wit, and their keenness, even when their +soundness of judgment was most open to question. Poor Charles Kean was +an especial object of Lewes's detestation, and was accordingly pelted +and peppered with torturingly clever and piquant pasquinades in the form +of criticism. Lewes has got wonderfully sober and grave in style since +those wild days, and his occasional contributions in the shape of +dramatic criticism to the "Pall Mall Gazette" are doubtless more +generally accurate, are certainly much more thoughtful, but are far less +amusing than the admirable fooling of days gone by. It was in the +"Leader," I think, that Lewes carried on his famous controversy with +Charles Dickens on the possibility of such spontaneous combustion as +that of the old brute in "Bleak House," and it was in the "Leader" that +he made an equally famous exposure of a sham spiritualist medium, about +whom London was then much agitated. The "Leader," probably, never paid; +it was far too iconoclastic and eccentric to be a commercial success, +but it made quite a mark and will always be a memory. It did not succeed +in its object; but, like the arrow of the hero in Virgil, it left a long +line of sparkles and light behind it. Lewes has abandoned Bohemia long +since, and Edward Whitty is dead, and Thornton Hunt has come to +nothing--and there is another "Leader" now in London which bears about +as much resemblance to the original and real "Leader" as Richard +Cromwell did to Oliver, or Charles Kean to Edmund. + +Bohemianism, and novel-writing, and amateur acting, and persiflage, and +epigram, are all gone by now with Lewes. He has settled into a grave and +steady writer, for the most part of late confining himself to scientific +subjects. A few years ago he started the "Fortnightly Review," in the +hope of establishing in England a counterpart of the "Revue des Deux +Mondes." The first number was enriched by one of the most thoughtful, +subtle, beautiful essays lately contributed to literature; and it bore +the signature of George Eliot. Lewes himself wrote a series of essays on +"The Principles of Success in Literature," very good, very sound, but +not very lively reading. A great English novelist was pleased graciously +to say, _apropos_ of these essays, "Success in literature! What does +Lewes know about success in literature?" and the small devotees of the +great successful novelist laughed and repeated the joke. It is certain +that the "Fortnightly Review" was not a success under the editorship of +George Henry Lewes; and people said, I do not know how truly, that a +good deal of the nobly-earned money paid for "Silas Marner" and the +"Mill on the Floss" disappeared in the attempt to erect a British "Revue +des Deux Mondes." The "Fortnightly" lives still, and is called +"Fortnightly" still, although it now only comes out once a month, but +Lewes has long ceased to edit it. I think the present editor, John +Morley, a young man of great ability and promise, is better suited for +the work than Lewes was--indeed I doubt whether Lewes, with all his +varied gifts and acquirements, possesses the peculiar qualities which +make a man a genuine editor. But, the difference between wild Hal, the +Prince of Gadshill, and grave, wise Henry the Fifth, could hardly be +greater than that between the Vivian of the "Leader" and the late +editor of the solemn, ponderous "Fortnightly Review." + +Lewes wrote at one time a great deal for the "Westminster Review." It +was during his connection with it that he became acquainted, at Dr. +Chapman's house, with Marion Evans. There was a great similarity between +their tastes. Both loved the study of languages, and of philosophical +thought, and of literature and science generally. Both were splendid in +conversation, brilliant in epigram; both loved music and were intensely +susceptible to its influence. The mind of the woman was, I need hardly +say, far the stronger, wider, deeper of the two; but the affinity was +clear and close. A great misfortune had fallen on Lewes; and he was +probably in that condition of mind which makes a man not unlikely to +lose his faith in everything and drift into hopeless, perpetual +cynicism. From this, if this impended over him, Lewes was saved by his +intercourse with the rarely-gifted woman he had met in so timely an +hour. The result is, as every one knows, a companionship and union +unusual indeed in literary life. Very seldom has a distinguished author +had for wife a distinguished authoress, or _vice versa_; indeed, it used +to be one of the dear delightful theories of blockheads that such +unions, if they could take place, would be miserably unhappy. This +theory, so soothing to complacent dulness, was hardly borne out in the +instance of the Brownings; it is just as little corroborated by the +example of "George Eliot" and George Lewes. I believe, too, the example +of George Eliot is highly unsatisfactory to the devotees of that other +theory, so long cherished by dolts of both sexes, that a woman of talent +and culture can never do anything in the way of mending or making, of +cooking a chop or ordering a household. People tell us they can trace +the influence of Lewes's varied scholarship and critical judgment in the +novels of George Eliot. It is hardly possible to doubt that some such +influence must be there, but I certainly never saw it anywhere +distinctly and openly evident. It would be poor art which allowed a thin +stream of Lewes to be seen sparkling through the broad, deep, luminous +lake which mirrors the genius of George Eliot. I am, however, rather +inclined to fancy that Lewes, in general, abstains from critical +_surveillance_ or restraint over the productions of his greater +companion, believing, perhaps, that the higher mind had better be a law +to itself. If this be so, I think it is a wholesome principle pushed +sometimes too far, for one can hardly believe that the calm judgment of +any sincere and qualified adviser would not have discouraged and +condemned the painful, unnecessary underplot of past intrigue and sin +which is so great a blot in "Felix Holt," or suggested a rapider +dramatic movement in some passages of "The Spanish Gypsy." Lewes once +wrote to Charlotte Bronte that he would rather be the author of Miss +Austen's stories than of the whole of the Waverley Novels. I certainly +do not agree with him in that opinion; but it is strange that one who +held it should not have endeavored to prevent an authoress greater than +Miss Austen, and far more directly under his influence than Charlotte +Bronte, from sinking, in one or two instances, into faults which neither +Miss Austen nor Miss Bronte would ever have committed. Many things are +strange about this literary and domestic companionship; this +comparatively trifling fact seems to me not the least strange. + +Finally let me say that I fully expect George Eliot yet to give to the +world some work of art even greater than any she has already produced. +She is not a woman to close with even a comparative failure. Her maxim, +I feel confident, would be that of the Emperor Napoleon--offer terms of +peace and repose after a great victory; never otherwise. + + + + +GEORGE SAND. + + +We are all of us probably inclined now and then to waste a little time +in vaguely speculating on what might have happened if this or that +particular event had not given a special direction to the career of some +great man or woman. If there had been an inch of difference in the size +of Cleopatra's nose; if Hannibal had not lingered at Capua; if Cromwell +had carried out his idea of emigration; if Napoleon Bonaparte had taken +service under the Turk--and so on through all the old familiar +illustrations dear to the minor essayist and the debating society. I +have sometimes felt tempted thus to lose myself in speculating on what +might have happened if the woman whom all the world knows as George Sand +had been happily married in her youth to the husband of her choice. +Would she ever have taken to literature at all? Would she, loving as she +does, and as Frenchwomen so rarely do, the changing face of inanimate +nature--the fields, the flowers, and the brooks--have lived a peaceful +and obscure life in some happy country place, and been content with +home, and family, and love, and never thought of fame? Or if, thus +happily married, she still had allowed her genius to find an expression +in literature, would she have written books with no passionate purpose +in them--books which might have seemed like those of a good Miss Mulock +made perfect--books which Podsnap might have read with approval and put +without a scruple into the hands of that modest young person, his +daughter? Certainly one cannot but think that a different kind of early +life would have given a quite different complexion to the literary +individuality of George Sand. + +Bulwer Lytton, in one of his novels, insists that true genius is always +quite independent of the individual sufferings or joys of its possessor, +and describes some inspired youth in the novel as sitting down while +sorrow is in his heart and hunger gnawing at his vitals, to throw off a +sparkling and gladsome little fairy tale. Now this is undoubtedly true +in general of any high order of genius; but there are at least some +great and striking exceptions. Rousseau and Byron are, in modern days, +remarkable illustrations of genius, admittedly of a very high rank, +governed and guided almost wholly by the individual fortunes of the men +themselves. So too must we speak of the genius of George Sand. Not +Rousseau, not even Byron, was in this sense more egotistic than the +woman who broke the chains of her ill-assorted marriage with a crash +that made its echoes heard at last in every civilized country in the +world. Just as people are constantly quoting _nous avons change tout +cela_ who never read a page of Moliere, or _pour encourager les autres_ +without even being aware that there is a story of Voltaire's called +"Candide," so there have been thousands of passionate protests uttered +in America and Europe for the last twenty years by people who never saw +a volume of George Sand, and yet are only echoing her sentiments and +even repeating her words. + +In a former number of THE GALAXY I expressed casually the opinion that +George Sand is probably the most influential writer of our day. I am +still, and deliberately, of the same opinion. It must be remembered that +very few English or American authors have any wide or deep influence +over peoples who do not speak English. Even of the very greatest authors +this is true. Compare, for example, the literary dominion of Shakespeare +with that of Cervantes. All nations who read Shakespeare read +Cervantes: in Stratford-upon-Avon itself Don Quixote is probably as +familiar a figure in people's minds as Falstaff; but Shakespeare is +little known indeed to the vast majority of readers in the country of +Cervantes, in the land of Dante, or in that of Racine and Victor Hugo. +In something of the same way we may compare the influence of George Sand +with that of even the greatest living authors of England and America. +What influence has Charles Dickens or George Eliot outside the range of +the English tongue? But George Sand's genius has been felt as a power in +every country of the world where people read any manner of books. It has +been felt almost as Rousseau's once was felt; it has aroused anger, +terror, pity, or wild and rapturous excitement and admiration; it has +rallied around it every instinct in man or woman which is revolutionary; +it has ranged against it all that is conservative. It is not so much a +literary influence as a great disorganizing force, riving the rocks of +custom, resolving into their original elements the social combinations +which tradition and convention would declare to be indissoluble. I am +not now speaking merely of the sentiments which George Sand does or did +entertain on the subject of marriage. Divested of all startling effects +and thrilling dramatic illustrations, these sentiments probably amounted +to nothing more dreadful than the belief that an unwedded union between +two people who love and are true to each other is less immoral than the +legal marriage of two uncongenial creatures who do not love and probably +are not true to each other. But the grand, revolutionary idea which +George Sand announced was that of the social independence and equality +of woman--the principle that woman is not made for man in any other +sense than as man is made for woman. For the first time in the history +of the world woman spoke out for herself with a voice as powerful as +that of man. For the first time in the history of the world woman spoke +out as woman, not as the servant, the satellite, the pupil, the +plaything, or the goddess of man. + +Now I intend at present to write of George Sand rather as an individual, +or an influence, than as the author of certain works of fiction. +Criticism would now be superfluously bestowed on the literary merits and +peculiarities of the great woman whose astonishing intellectual activity +has never ceased to produce, during the last thirty years, works which +take already a classical place in French literature. If any reputation +of our day may be looked upon as established, we may thus regard the +reputation of George Sand. She is, beyond comparison, the greatest +living novelist of France. She has won this position by the most +legitimate application of the gifts of an artist. With all her +marvellous fecundity, she has hardly ever given to the world any work +which does not seem at least to have been the subject of the most +elaborate and patient care. The greatest temptation which tries a +story-teller is perhaps the temptation to rely on the attractiveness of +story-telling, and to pay little or no attention to style. Walter +Scott's prose, for example, if regarded as mere prose, is rambling, +irregular, and almost worthless. Dickens's prose is as bad a model for +imitation as a musical performance which is out of tune. Of course, I +need hardly say that attention to style is almost as characteristic of +French authors in general, as the lack of it is characteristic of +English authors; but even in France, the prose of George Sand stands out +conspicuous for its wonderful expressiveness and force, its almost +perfect beauty. Then of all modern French authors--I might perhaps say +of all modern novelists of any country--George Sand has added to +fiction, has annexed from the worlds of reality and of imagination, the +greatest number of original characters--of what Emerson calls new +organic creations. Moreover, George Sand is, after Rousseau, the one +only great French author who has looked directly and lovingly into the +face of Nature, and learned the secrets which skies and waters, fields +and lanes, can teach to the heart that loves them. Gifts such as these +have won her the almost unrivalled place which she holds in living +literature, and she has conquered at last even the public opinion which +once detested and proscribed her. I could therefore hope to add nothing +to what has been already said by criticism in regard to her merits as a +novelist. Indeed, I think it probable that the majority of readers in +this country know more of George Sand through the interpretation of the +critics than through the pages of her books. And in her case criticism +is so nearly unanimous as to her literary merits, that I may safely +assume the public in general to have in their minds a just recognition +of her position as a novelist. My object is rather to say something +about the place which George Sand has taken as a social revolutionist, +about the influence she has so long exercised over the world, and about +the woman herself. For she is assuredly the greatest champion of woman's +rights, in one sense, that the world has ever seen; and she is, on the +other hand, the one woman out of all the world who has been most +commonly pointed to as the appalling example to scare doubtful and +fluttering womanhood back into its sheepfold of submissiveness and +conventionality. There is hardly a woman's heart anywhere in the +civilized world which has not felt the vibration of George Sand's +thrilling voice. Women who never saw one of her books, nay, who never +heard even her _nom de plume_, have been stirred by emotions of doubt or +fear or repining or ambition, which they never would have known but for +George Sand, and perhaps but for George Sand's uncongenial marriage. For +indeed there is not now, and has not been for twenty years, I venture to +think, a single "revolutionary" idea, as slow and steady-going people +would call it, afloat anywhere in Europe or America, on the subject of +woman's relations to man, society, and destiny, which is not due +immediately to the influence of George Sand, and to the influence of +George Sand's unhappy marriage upon George Sand herself. + +The world has of late years grown used to this extraordinary woman, and +has lost much of the wonder and terror with which it once regarded her. +I can quite remember--younger people than I can remember--the time when +all good and proper personages in England regarded the authoress of +"Indiana" as a sort of feminine fiend, endowed with a hideous power for +the destruction of souls and an inextinguishable thirst for the +slaughter of virtuous beliefs. I fancy a good deal of this sentiment was +due to the fearful reports wafted across the seas, that this terrible +woman had not merely repudiated the marriage bond, but had actually put +off the garments sacred to womanhood. That George Sand appeared in men's +clothes was an outrage upon consecrated proprieties far more astonishing +than any theoretical onslaught upon old opinions could be. Reformers +indeed should always, if they are wise in their generation, have a care +of the proprieties. Many worthy people can listen with comparative +fortitude when sacred and eternal truths are assailed, who are stricken +with horror when the ark of propriety is never so lightly touched. +George Sand's pantaloons were therefore regarded as the most appalling +illustration of George Sand's wickedness. I well remember what +excitement, scandal, and horror were created in the provincial town +where I lived some twenty years ago, when the editor of a local +Panjandrum (to borrow Mr. Trollope's word) insulted the feelings and the +morals of his constituents and subscribers by polluting his pages with a +translation from one of George Sand's shorter novels. Ah me, the little +novel might, so far as morality was concerned, have been written every +word by Miss Phelps, or the authoress of the "Heir of Redcliffe"; it +had not a word, from beginning to end, which might not have been read +out to a Sunday school of girls; the translation was made by a woman of +the purest soul, and in her own locality the highest name; and yet how +virtue did shriek out against the publication! The editor persevered in +the publishing of the novel, spurred on to boldness by some of his very +young and therefore fearless coadjutors, who thought it delightful to +confront public opinion, and liked the notion of the stars in their +courses fighting against Sisera, and Sisera not being dismayed. That +charming, tender, touching little story! I would submit it to-day +cheerfully to the verdict of a jury of matrons, confident that it would +be declared a fit and proper publication. But at that time it was enough +that the story bore the odious name of George Sand; public opinion +condemned it, and sent the magazine which ventured to translate it to an +early and dishonored grave. I remember reading about that time a short +notice of George Sand by an English authoress of some talent and +culture, in which the Frenchwoman's novels were described as so +abominably filthy, that even the denizens of the Paris brothels were +ashamed to be caught reading them. Now this declaration was made in all +good faith, in the simple good faith of that class of persons who will +pass wholesale and emphatic judgment upon works of which they have never +read a single page. For I need hardly tell any intelligent person of +to-day, that whatever may be said of George Sand's doctrines, she is no +more open to the charge of indelicacy than the authoress of "Romola." I +cannot myself remember any passage in George Sand's novels which can be +called indelicate; and indeed her severest and most hostile critics are +fond of saying, not without a certain justice, that one of the worst +characteristics of her works is the delicacy and beauty of her style, +which thus commends to pure and innocent minds certain doctrines that, +broadly stated, would repel and shock them. Were I one of George Sand's +inveterate opponents, this, or something like it, is the ground I would +take up. I would say: "The welfare of the human family demands that a +marriage, legally made, shall never be questioned or undone. Marriage is +not a union depending on love or congeniality, or any such condition. It +is just as sacred when made for money, or for ambition, or for lust of +the flesh, or for any other purpose, however ignoble and base, as when +contracted in the spirit of the purest mutual love. Here is a woman of +great power and daring genius, who says that the essential condition of +marriage is love and natural fitness; that a legal union of man and +woman without this is no marriage at all, but a detestable and +disgusting sin. Now the more delicately, modestly, plausibly she can put +this revolutionary and pernicious doctrine, the more dangerous she +becomes, and the more earnestly we ought to denounce her." This was in +fact what a great many persons did say; and the protest was at least +consistent and logical. + +But horror is an emotion which cannot long live on the old fuel, and +even the world of English Philistinism soon ceased to regard George Sand +as a mere monster. Any one now taking up "Indiana," for example, would +perhaps find it not quite easy to understand how the book produced such +an effect. Our novel-writing women of to-day commonly feed us on more +fiery stuff than this. Not to speak of such accomplished artists in +impurity as the lady who calls herself Ouida, and one or two others of +the same school, we have young women only just promoted from +pantalettes, who can throw you off such glowing chapters of passion and +young desire as would make the rhapsodies of "Indiana" seem very feeble +milk-and-water brewage by comparison. Indeed, except for some of the +descriptions in the opening chapters, I fail to see any extraordinary +merit in "Indiana"; and toward the end it seems to me to grow verbose, +weak, and tiresome. "Leone Leoni" opens with one of the finest dramatic +outbursts of emotion known to the literature of modern fiction; but it +soon wanders away into discursive weakness, and only just toward the +close brightens up into a burst of lurid splendor. It is not those which +I may call the questionable novels of George Sand--the novels which were +believed to illustrate in naked and appalling simplicity her doctrines +and her life--that will bear up her fame through succeeding generations. +If every one of the novels which thus in their time drew down the +thunders of society's denunciation were to be swept into the wallet +wherein Time, according to Shakespeare, carries scraps for oblivion, +George Sand would still remain where she now is, at the head of the +French fiction of her day. It is true, as Goethe says, that +"miracle-working pictures are rarely works of art." The books which make +the hair of the respectable public stand on end, are not often the works +by which the fame of the author is preserved for posterity. + +It is a curious fact that at the early time to which I have been +alluding, little or nothing was known in England (or, I presume, in +America) of the real life of Aurore Amandine Dupin, who had been pleased +to call herself George Sand. People knew, or had heard, that she had +separated from her husband, that she had written novels which +depreciated the sanctity of legal marriage, and that she sometimes wore +male costume in the streets. This was enough. In England, at least, we +were ready to infer any enormity regarding a woman who was unsound on +the legal marriage question, and who did not wear petticoats. What would +have been said had people then commonly known half the stories which +were circulated in Paris; half the extravagances into which a passionate +soul and the stimulus of sudden emancipation from restraint had hurried +the authoress of "Indiana" and "Lucrezia Floriani"? For it must be owned +that the life of that woman was, in its earlier years, a strange and +wild phenomenon, hardly to be comprehended perhaps by American or +English natures. I have heard George Sand bitterly arraigned even by +persons who protested that they were at one with her as regards the +early sentiments which used to excite such odium. I have heard her +described by such as a sort of Lamia of literature and passion; a +creature who could seize some noble, generous, youthful heart, drain it +of its love, its aspirations, its profoundest emotions, and then fling +it, squeezed and lifeless, away. I have heard it declared that George +Sand made "copy" of the fierce and passionate loves which she knew so +well how to awaken and to foster; that she distilled the life-blood of +youth to obtain the mixture out of which she derived her inspiration. +The charge so commonly (I think unjustly) made against Goethe, that he +played with the girlish love of Bettina and of others in order to obtain +a subject for literary dissection, is vehemently and deliberately urged +in an aggravated form, in many aggravated forms, against George Sand. +Where, such accusers ask, is that young poet, endowed with a lyrical +genius rare indeed in the France of later days, that young poet whose +imagination was at once so daring and so subtle; who might have been +Beranger and Heine in one, and have risen to an atmosphere in which +neither Beranger nor Heine ever floated? Where is he, and what evil +influence was it which sapped the strength of his nature, corrupted his +genius, and prepared for him a premature and shameful grave? Where is +that young musician, whose pure, tender, and lofty strains sound sweetly +and sadly in the ears, as the very hymn and music of the +Might-Have-Been--where is he now, and what was the seductive power which +made a plaything of him and then flung him away? Here and there some man +of stronger mould is pointed out as one who was at the first conquered, +and then deceived and trifled with, but who ordered his stout heart to +bear, and rose superior to the hour, and lived to retrieve his nature +and make himself a name of respect; but the others, of more sensitive +and perhaps finer organizations, are only the more to be pitied because +they were so terribly in earnest. Seldom, even in the literary history +of modern France, has there been a more strange and shocking episode +than the publication by George Sand of the little book called "Elle et +Lui," and the rejoinder to it by Paul de Musset called "Lui et Elle." I +can hardly be accused of straying into the regions of private scandal +when I speak of two books which had a wide circulation, are still being +read, and may be had, I presume, in any New York bookstore where French +literature is sold. The former of the two books, "She and He," was a +story, or something which purported to be a story, by George Sand, +telling of two ill-assorted beings whom fate had thrown together for a +while, and of whom the woman was all tenderness, love, patience, the man +all egotism, selfishness, sensuousness, and eccentricity. The point of +the whole business was to show how sublimely the woman suffered, and how +wantonly the man flung happiness away. Had it been merely a piece of +fiction, it must have been regarded by any healthy mind as a morbid, +unwholesome, disagreeable production; a sin of the highest aesthetic kind +against true art, which must always, even in its pathos and its tragedy, +leave on the mind exalted and delightful impressions. But every one in +Paris at once hailed the story as a chapter of autobiography, as the +author's vindication of one episode in her own career--a vindication at +the expense of a man who had gone down, ruined and lost, to an early +grave. Therefore the brother of the dead man flung into literature a +little book called "He and She," in which a story, substantially the +same in its outlines, is so told as exactly to reverse the conditions +under which the verdict of public opinion was sought. Very curious +indeed was the manner in which the same substance of facts was made to +present the two principal figures with complexions and characters so +strangely altered. In the woman's book, the woman was made the patient, +loving, suffering victim; in the man's reply, this same woman was +depicted as the most utterly selfish and depraved creature the human +imagination could conceive. Even if one had no other means whatever of +forming an estimate of the character of George Sand, it would be hardly +possible to accept as her likeness the hideous picture sketched by Paul +de Musset. No woman, I am glad to believe, ever existed in real life so +utterly selfish, base, and wicked as his bitter pen has drawn. I must +say that the thing is very cleverly done. The picture is at least +consistent with itself. As a character in romance it might be pronounced +original, bold, brilliant, and, in an artistic sense, quite natural. +There is something thoroughly French in the easy and delicate force of +the final touch with which de Musset dismisses his hideous subject. +Having sketched this woman in tints that seem to flame across the eyes +of the reader; having described with wonderful realism and power her +affectation, her deceit, her reckless caprices, her base and cruel +coquetries, her devouring wantonness, her soul-destroying arts, her +unutterable selfishness and egotism; having, to use a vulgar phrase, +"turned her inside out," and told her story backwards, the author calmly +explains that the hero of the narrative in his dying hour called his +brother to his bedside, and enjoined him, if occasion should ever arise, +if the partner of his sin should ever calumniate him in his grave, to +vindicate his memory and avenge the treason practised upon him. "Of +course," adds the narrator, "the brother made the promise--and I have +since heard that he has kept his word." I can hardly hope to convey to +the reader any adequate idea of the effect produced on the mind by these +few simple words of compressed, whispered hatred and triumph, closing a +philippic, or a revelation, or a libel of such extraordinary bitterness +and ferocity. The whole episode is, I believe and earnestly hope, +without precedent or imitation in literary controversy. Never, that I +know of, has a living woman been publicly exhibited to the world in a +portraiture so hideous as that which Paul de Musset drew of George Sand. +Never, that I know of, has any woman gone so near to deserving and +justifying such a measure of retaliation. + +For if it be assumed--and I suppose it never has been disputed--that in +writing "Elle et Lui" George Sand meant to describe herself and Alfred +de Musset, it is hard to conceive of any sin against taste and feeling, +against art and morals, more flagrant than such a publication. The +practice, to which French writers are so much addicted, of making "copy" +of the private lives, characters, and relationships of themselves and +their friends, seems to me in all cases utterly detestable. Lamartine's +sins of this kind were grievous and glaring; but were they red as +scarlet, they would seem whiter than snow when compared with the lurid +monstrosity of George Sand's assault on the memory of the dead poet who +was once her favorite. The whole affair indeed is so unlike anything +which could occur in America or in England, that we can hardly find any +canons by which to try it, or any standard of punishment by which to +regulate its censure. I allude to it now because it is the only +substantial evidence I know of which does fairly seem to justify the +worst of the accusations brought against George Sand; and I do not think +it right, when writing for grown men and women, who are supposed to have +sense and judgment, to affect not to know that such accusations are +made, or to pretend to think that it would be proper not to allude to +them. They have been put forward, replied to, urged again, made the +theme of all manner of controversy in scores of French and in some +English publications. Pray let it be distinctly understood that I am not +entering into any criticism of the morality of any part of George Sand's +private life. With that we have nothing here to do. I am now dealing +with the question, fairly belonging to public controversy, whether the +great artist did not deliberately deal with human hearts as the painter +of old is said to have done with a purchased slave--inflicting torture +in order the better to learn how to depict the struggles and contortions +of mortal agony. In answer to such a question I can only point to +"Lucrezia Floriani" and to "Elle et Lui," and say that unless the +universal opinion of qualified critics be wrong these books, and others +too, owe their piquancy and their dramatic force to the anatomization of +dead passions and discarded lovers. We have all laughed over the +pedantic surgeon in Moliere's "Malade Imaginaire," who invites his +_fiancee_ as a delightful treat to see him dissect the body of a woman. +I am afraid that George Sand did sometimes invite an admiring public to +an exhibition yet more ghastly and revolting--the dissection of the +heart of a dead lover. + +But in truth we shall never judge George Sand and her writings at all if +we insist on criticising them from any point of view set up by the +proprieties or even the moralities of Old England or New England. When +the passionate young woman, in whose veins ran the wild blood of Marshal +Saxe, found herself surrendered by legality and prescription to a +marriage bond against which her soul revolted, society seemed for her to +have resolved itself into its original elements. Its conventionalities +and traditions contained nothing which she held herself bound to +respect. The world was not her friend, nor the world's law. By one great +decisive step she sundered herself forever from the bonds of what we +call society. She had shaken the dust of convention from her feet; the +world was all before her where to choose. No creature on earth is so +absolutely free as the Frenchwoman who has broken with society. There, +then, stood this daring young woman, on the threshold of a new, fresh, +and illimitable world; a young woman gifted with genius such as our +later years have rarely seen, and blessed or cursed with a nature so +strangely uniting the most characteristic qualities of man and woman as +to be in itself quite unparalleled and unique. Just think of it--try to +think of it! Society and the world had no longer any laws which she +recognized. Nothing was sacred; nothing was settled. She had to evolve +from her own heart and brain her own law of life. What wonder if she +made some sad mistakes? Nay, is it not rather a theme for wonder and +admiration that she did somehow come right at last? I know of no one who +seems to me to have been open at once to the temptations of woman's +nature and man's nature except this George Sand. Her soul, her brain, +her style may be described, from one point of view, as exuberantly and +splendidly feminine; yet no other woman has ever shown the same power of +understanding and entering into the nature of a man. If Balzac is the +only man who has ever thoroughly mastered the mysteries of a woman's +heart, George Sand is the only woman, so far as I know, who has ever +shown that she could feel as a man can feel. I have read stray passages +in her novels which I would confidently submit to the criticism of any +intelligent men unacquainted with the text, convinced that they would +declare that only a man could have thus analyzed the emotions of +manhood. I have in my mind just now especially a passage in the novel +"Piccinino" which, were the authorship unknown, would, I am satisfied, +secure the decision of a jury of literary experts that the author must +be a man. Now this gift of entire appreciation of the feelings of a +different sex or race is, I take it, one of the rarest and highest +dramatic qualities. Especially is it difficult for a woman, as our +social life goes, to enter into the feelings of a man. While men and +women alike admit the accuracy of certain pictures of women drawn by +such artists as Cervantes, Moliere, Balzac, and Thackeray, there are few +women--indeed, perhaps there are no women but one--by whom a man has +been so painted as to challenge and compel the recognition and +acknowledgment of men. In THE GALAXY some months ago I wrote of a great +Englishwoman, the authoress of "Romola," and I expressed my conviction +that on the whole she is entitled to higher rank as a novelist than even +the authoress of "Consuelo." Many, very many men and women, for whose +judgment I have the highest respect, differed from me in this opinion. I +still hold it, nevertheless; but I freely admit that George Eliot has +nothing like the dramatic insight which enables George Sand to enter +into the feelings and the experiences of a man. I go so far as to say +that, having some knowledge of the literature of fiction in most +countries, I am not aware of the existence of any woman but this one who +could draw a real, living, struggling, passion-tortured man. All other +novelists of George Sand's sex--even including Charlotte Bronte--draw +only what I may call "women's men." If ever the two natures could be +united in one form, if ever a single human being could have the soul of +man and the soul of woman at once, George Sand might be described as +that physical and psychological phenomenon. Now the point to which I +wish to direct attention is the peculiarity of the temptation to which a +nature such as this was necessarily exposed at every turn when, free of +all restraint and a rebel against all conventionality, it confronted the +world and the world's law, and stood up, itself alone, against the +domination of custom and the majesty of tradition. I claim, then, that +when we have taken all these considerations into account, we are bound +to admit that Aurora Dudevant deserves the generous recognition of the +world for the use which she made of her splendid gifts. Her influence on +French literature has been on the whole a purifying and strengthening +power. The cynicism, the recklessness, the wanton, licentious disregard +of any manner of principle, the debasing parade of disbelief in any +higher purpose or nobler restraint, which are the shame and curse of +modern French fiction, find no sanction in the pages of George Sand. I +remember no passage in her works which gives the slightest encouragement +to the "nothing new, and nothing true, and it don't signify" code of +ethics which has been so much in fashion of late years. I find nothing +in George Sand which does not do homage to the existence of a principle +and a law in everything. This daring woman, who broke with society so +early and so conspicuously, has always insisted, through every +illustration, character, and catastrophe in her books, that the one only +reality, the one only thing that can endure, is the rule of right and of +virtue. Nor has she ever, that I can recollect, fallen into the +enfeebling and sentimental theory so commonly expressed in the works of +Victor Hugo, that the vague abstraction society is always to bear the +blame of the faults committed by the individual man or woman. Of all +persons in the world Aurora Dudevant might be supposed most likely to +adopt this easy and complacent theory as her guiding principle. She had +every excuse, every reason for endeavoring to preach up the doctrine +that our errors are society's and our virtues our own. But I am not +aware that she ever taught any lesson save the lesson that men and women +must endeavor to be heroes and heroines for themselves, heroes and +heroines though all the world else were craven and weak and selfish and +unprincipled. Even that wretched and lamentable "Elle et Lui" affair, +utterly inexcusable as it is when we read between the lines its secret +history, has at least the merit of being an earnest and powerful protest +against the egotistical and debasing indulgence of moral weaknesses and +eccentricities which mean and vulgar minds are apt to regard as the +privilege of genius. "Stand upon your own ground; be your own ruler; +look to yourself, not to your stars, for your failure or success; always +make your standard a lofty ideal, and try persistently to reach it, +though all the temptations of earth and all the power of darkness strive +against you"--this and nothing else, if I have read her books rightly, +is the moral taught by George Sand. She may be wrong in her principle +sometimes, but at least she always has a principle. She has a profound +and generous faith in the possibilities of human nature; in the capacity +of man's heart for purity, self-sacrifice, and self-redemption. Indeed, +so far is she from holding counsel with wilful weakness or sin, that I +think she sometimes falls into the noble error of painting her heroes as +too glorious in their triumph over temptation, in their subjugation of +every passion and interest to the dictates of duty and of honor. Take, +for instance, that extraordinary book which has just been given to the +American public in Miss Virginia Vaughan's excellent translation, +"Mauprat." If I understand that magnificent romance at all, its purport +is to prove that no human nature is ever plunged into temptation beyond +its own strength to resist, provided that it really wills resistance; +that no character is irretrievable, no error inexpiable, where there is +sincere resolve to expiate and longing desire to retrieve. Take again +that exquisite little story, "La Derniere Aldini"; I do not know where +one could find a finer illustration of the entire sacrifice of man's +natural impulse, passion, interest, to what might almost be called an +abstract idea of honor and principle. I have never read this little +story without wondering how many men one ever has known who, placed in +the same situation as that of Nello, the hero, would have done the same +thing; and yet so simply and naturally are the characters wrought out +and the incidents described, that the idea of pompous, dramatic +self-sacrifice never enters the mind of the reader, and it seems to him +that Nello could not do otherwise than as he is doing. I speak of these +two stories particularly, because in both of them there is a good deal +of the world and the flesh; that is, both are stories of strong human +passion and temptation. Many of George Sand's novels, the shorter ones +especially, are as absolutely pure in moral tone, as entirely free from +even a taint or suggestion of impurity, as they are perfect in style. +Now, if we cannot help knowing that much of this great woman's life was +far from being irreproachable, are we not bound to give her all the +fuller credit because her genius at least kept so far the whiteness of +its soul? Revolutions are not to be made with rose water; you cannot +have omelettes without breaking of eggs. I am afraid that great social +revolutionists are not often creatures of the most pure and perfect +nature. It is not to patient Griselda you must look for any protest +against even the uttermost tyranny of social conventions. One thing I +think may at least be admitted as part of George Sand's +vindication--that the marriage system in France is the most debased and +debasing institution existing in civilized society, now that the buying +and selling of slaves has ceased to be a tolerated system. I hold that +the most ardent advocates of the irrevocable endurance of the marriage +bond are bound by their very principles to admit that in protesting +against the so-called marriage system of France George Sand stood on the +side of purity and right. Assuredly she often went into extravagances in +the other direction. It seems to be the fate of all French reformers to +rush suddenly to extremes; and we must remember that George Sand was not +a Bristol Quakeress or a Boston transcendentalist, but a passionate +Frenchwoman, the descendant of one of the maddest votaries of love and +war who ever stormed across the stage of European history. + +Regarding George Sand then as an influence in literature and on society, +I claim for her at least four great and special merits. First, she +insisted on calling public attention to the true principle of marriage; +that is to say, she put the question as it had not been put before. Of +course, the fundamental principle she would have enforced is always +being urged more or less feebly, more or less sincerely; but she made it +her own question, and illuminated it by the fervid, fierce rays of her +genius and her passion. Secondly, her works are an exposition of the +tremendous reality of the feelings which people who call themselves +practical are apt to regard with indifference or contempt as mere +sentiments. In the long run the passions decide the life-question one +way or the other. They are the tide which, as you know or do not know +how to use it, will either turn your mill and float your boat, or drown +your fields and sweep away your dwellings. Life and society receive no +impulse and no direction from the influences out of which the novels of +Dickens or even of Thackeray are made up. These are but pleasant or +tender toying with the playthings and puppets of existence. George Sand +constrains us to look at the realities through the medium of her +fiction. Thirdly, she insists that man can and shall make his own +career; not whine to the stars and rail out against the powers above, +when he has weakly or wantonly marred his own destiny. Fourthly--and +this ought not to be considered her least service to the literature of +her country--she has tried to teach people to look at nature with their +own eyes, and to invite the true love of her to flow into their hearts. +The great service which Ruskin, with all his eccentricities and +extravagances, has rendered to English-speaking peoples by teaching them +to use their own eyes when they look at clouds, and waters, and grasses, +and hills, George Sand has rendered to France. + +I hold that these are virtues and services which ought to outweigh even +very grave personal and artistic errors. We often hear that this or that +great poet or romancist has painted men as they are; this other as they +ought to be. I think George Sand paints men as they are, and also not +merely as they ought to be, but as they can be. The sum of the lesson +taught by her books is one of confidence in man's possibilities, and +hope in his steady progress. At the same time she is entirely practical +in her faith and her aspirations. She never expects that the trees are +to grow up into the heavens, that men and women are to be other than men +and women. She does not want them to be other; she finds the springs and +sources of their social regeneration in the fact that they are just what +they are, to begin with. I am afraid some of the ladies who seem to base +their scheme of woman's emancipation and equality on the assumption +that, by some development of time or process of schooling, a condition +of things is to be brought about where difference of sex is no longer to +be a disturbing power, will find small comfort or encouragement in the +writings of George Sand. She deals in realities altogether; the +realities of life, even when they are such as to shallow minds may seem +mere sentiments and ecstasies; the realities of society, of suffering, +of passion, of inanimate nature. There is in her nothing unmeaning, +nothing untrue; there is in her much error, doubtless, but no sham. + +I believe George Sand is growing into a quiet and beautiful old age. +After a life of storm and stress, a life which, metaphorically at least, +was "worn by war and passion," her closing years seem likely to be +gilded with the calm glory of an autumnal sunset. One is glad to think +of her thus happy and peaceful, accepting so tranquilly the reality of +old age, still laboring with her unwearied pen, still delighting in +books, and landscapes, and friends, and work. The world can well afford +to forget as soon as possible her literary and other errors. Of the vast +mass of romances, stories, plays, sketches, criticisms, pamphlets, +political articles, even, it is said, ministerial manifestoes of +republican days, which she poured out, only a few comparatively will +perhaps be always treasured by posterity; but these will be enough to +secure her a classic place. And she will not be remembered by her +writings alone. Hers is probably the most powerful individuality +displayed by any modern Frenchwoman. The influence of Madame Roland was +but a glittering unreality, that of Madame de Stael only a boudoir and +coterie success, when compared with the power exercised over literature, +human feeling, and social law, by the energy, the courage, the genius, +even the very errors and extravagances of George Sand. + + + + +EDWARD BULWER, LORD LYTTON. + + +Ten years ago an important political question was agitating the English +House of Commons and the English public. It was the old question of +Parliamentary Reform in a new shape. Thirty years before Lord John +Russell had pleaded the right of the middle classes to have a voice in +the election of their Parliamentary representatives; this time he was +asserting a similar right for the working population. Then he had to +contend against the opposition of the aristocracy only; this time he had +to fight against the combined antagonism of the aristocracy and the +middle classes, the latter having made common cause with their old +enemies to preserve a monopoly of their new privileges. The debate in +the House of Commons on the proposed Reform Bill of 1860 was long and +bitter. When it was reaching its height, a speaker arose on the Tory +side of the House whose appearance on the scene of the debate lent a new +and piquant interest to the night's discussion. He sat on the front +bench of the Opposition, quite near to Disraeli himself. The moment he +rose, every head craned forward to see him; the moment he began to +speak, every ear was strained with keen curiosity to hear him. The ears +were for a while sorely tried and perplexed. What was he saying--nay, +what language was he speaking? What extraordinary, indescribable sounds +were those which were heard issuing from his lips? Were they articulate +sounds at all? For some minutes certainly those who like myself had +never heard the speaker before were utterly bewildered. We could only +hear what seemed to us an incoherent, inarticulate guttural jabber, like +the efforts at speech of somebody with a mutilated tongue or excided +palate. Anything like it I never heard before or since; for no +subsequent listening to the same speaker ever produced nearly the same +impression: either he had greatly improved in elocution, or his listener +had grown used to him. But the night of this famous speech, nothing +could have exceeded the extraordinary nature of the sensations produced +on those who heard the orator for the first time. After a while we began +to detect articulate sounds; then we guessed at and recognized words; +then whole sentences began to shape themselves out of the guttural fag; +and at last we grew to understand that, with an elocution the most +defective and abominable ever possessed by mortal orator, this Tory +speaker was really delivering a speech of astonishing brilliancy, +ingenuity, and power. The sentences had a magnificent, almost majestic +rotundity, energy, and power; they reminded one of something cut out of +solid and glittering marble, at once so dazzling and so impressive. The +speech was from first to last an aristocratic argument against the +fitness of the working man to be anything but a political serf. In the +true fashion of the aristocrat, the speaker was for patronizing the +working man in every possible way; behaving to him as a kind and +friendly master; seeing that he had a decent home to live in and coals +and blankets in winter; but all the time insisting that the ruin of +England must follow any successful attempt to place political power in +the hands of "poverty and passion." The speech overflowed with +illustration, ingenious analogy, felicitous quotation, brilliant +epigram, and political paradoxes that were made to sound wondrously like +maxims of wisdom. Despite all its hideous defects of delivery, this +speech was, beyond the most distant comparison, the finest delivered on +the Tory side during the whole of that long and memorable debate. For a +time one was almost cheated into the belief that that elaborate and +splendid diction, now so stately and now so sparkling, was genuine +eloquence. Yet to the last the listener was frequently baffled by some +uncouth, semi-articulate, hardly intelligible sound. "What on earth does +he mean," asked a puzzled and indeed agonized reporter of some laboring +brother, "by talking so often about the political authority of Joe +Miller?" Careful inquiry elicited the fact that the name of the +political authority to which the orator had been alluding was John Mill. +Fortunately for his readers and his fame, the speaker had taken good +care to write out his oration and send the manuscript to the newspapers. + +Now this inarticulate orator, this Demosthenes without the +pebble-training, was, as my readers have already guessed, Edward +Bulwer-Lytton, then a baronet and a member of the House of Commons, now +a peer. Undoubtedly he succeeded, by this and one or two other speeches, +in securing for himself a place among the few great Parliamentary +debaters of the day. Despite of physical defects which would have +discouraged almost any other man from entering into public life at all, +he had succeeded in winning a reputation as a great speaker in a debate +where Palmerston, Gladstone, Bright, and Disraeli were champions. So +deaf that he could not hear the arguments of his opponents, so defective +in utterance as to become often almost unintelligible, he actually made +the House of Commons doubt for a while whether a new great orator had +not come among them. It was not great oratory after all; it was not true +oratory of any kind; but it was a splendid imitation of the real +thing--the finest electroplate anywhere to be found. "If it is not Bran, +it is Bran's brother," says a Scottish proverb. If this speech of +Bulwer-Lytton's was not true oratory, it was oratory's illegitimate +brother. + +Nearly a whole generation before the winning of that late success, +Bulwer-Lytton had tried the House of Commons, and miserably, ludicrously +failed. The young Tory members who vociferously cheered his great +anti-reform speech of 1860, were in their cradles when Bulwer-Lytton +first addressed the House of Commons, and having signally failed +withdrew, as people supposed, altogether from Parliamentary life. His +failure was even more complete than that of his friend Disraeli, and he +took the failure more to heart. Rumor affirms that the first serious +quarrel between Bulwer and his wife arose out of her vexation and +disappointment at his break-down, and the bitter, provoking taunts with +which she gave vent to her anger. I know no other instance of a +rhetorical triumph so long delayed, and at length so completely +effected. Nor can one learn that it was by any intervening practice or +training that Bulwer in his declining years atoned for the failure of +his youth. He was never that I know of a public speaker; he won his +Parliamentary success in defiance of Charles James Fox's famous axiom, +that a speaker can only improve himself at the expense of his audiences. +Between his failure and his triumph Bulwer-Lytton may be said to have +had no political audience. + +A statesman Bulwer-Lytton never became, although he held high office in +a Tory Cabinet. He did little or nothing to distinguish himself, unless +there be distinction in writing some high-flown, eloquent despatches, +such as Ernest Maltravers might have penned, to the discontented +islanders of Ionia; and it was he, if I remember rightly, who thought of +sending out "Gladstone the Philhellene" on that mission of futile +conciliation which only misled the Ionians and amused England. It always +seemed to me that in his political career Bulwer acted just as one of +the heroes of his own romances might have done. Having suffered defeat +and humiliation, he vowed a vow to wrest from Fate a victory upon the +very spot which had seen his discomfiture; and he kept his word, won his +victory, and then calmly quitted the field forever. A more prosaic +explanation might perhaps be found in the fact that weak physical health +rendered it impossible for Bulwer to encounter the severe continuous +labor which English political life exacts. But I prefer for myself the +more romantic and less commonplace explanation, and I hope my readers +will do likewise. I prefer to think of the great romancist retrieving +after thirty years of silence his Parliamentary defeat, and then, having +reconciled himself with Destiny, retiring from the scene contented, to +struggle in that arena no more. In all seriousness, there must be some +quality of greatness in the man who, after bearing such a defeat for so +many years, can struggle with Fate again, and accomplish so conspicuous +a success. + +Now this is in fact one grand explanation of Bulwer-Lytton's rank in +English literature. He has the self-reliance, the patience, the courage +so rare among literary men, by which one is enabled to extract their +full and utter value from whatsoever intellectual endowments he may +possess. Bulwer-Lytton alone among all famous English authors of our +days has apparently done all that he could possibly do--obtained from +his faculties their entire tribute. Readers of the letters of poor +Charlotte Bronte may remember the impatience with which she occasionally +complained that her idol Thackeray would not put forth his whole +strength. No such fault could possibly be found with Bulwer-Lytton. +Sooner or later he always put forth his whole strength. He had many +failures, but, as in the case of his political discomfiture, he had +always the art of learning from failure the way how to succeed, and +accordingly succeeding. When he wrote his wretched "Sea Captain," the +critics all told him he could not produce a successful drama. Bulwer +thought he could. He thought the very failure of that attempt would show +him how to succeed another time. He was determined not to give in until +he had satisfied himself as to his fitness, one way or the other, and so +he persevered. Now observe the character of the man, and see how much +superior he himself is to his works, and how much of their success the +works owe to the man's peculiar temper. We all know what authors usually +are, and how they receive criticism. In ordinary cases, when the critics +declare some piece of work a failure, the author either is crushed for +the time by the fiat, or he insists that the critics are idiots, hired +assassins, personal enemies, and so forth; he defiantly adheres to his +own notions and his own method--and he probably fails. Bulwer-Lytton +looked at the matter in quite a different light. He said, apparently, to +himself: "The critics only know what I have done; I know what I can do. +From their point of view they are quite right--this thing is a failure. +But I know that it is a failure only because I went to work the wrong +way. I _can_ do something infinitely better. Their experience and their +comments have given me some valuable hints; I will forthwith go to work +on a better principle." So Bulwer-Lytton wrote "Richelieu," "Money," and +the "Lady of Lyons"--the last probably the most successful acting drama +produced in England since the days of Shakespeare, and the first hardly +below it in stage success. Of course I am not claiming for either of +these plays a high and genuine dramatic value. They probably bear the +same resemblance to the true drama that their author's Parliamentary +speech-making does to true eloquence. But of their popularity and their +transcendent technical success there cannot be the slightest doubt. +Bulwer-Lytton proved to his critics that he could do better than any +other living man the very thing they said he could never do--write a +play that should conquer the public and hold the stage. So to those who +affirmed that, whatever else he might do, he never could be a +Parliamentary speaker, he replied by standing up when approaching the +very brink of old age, and delivering speeches which won the willing and +generous applause of Disraeli, and extorted the reluctant but manly and +frank recognition of such an opponent as John Bright. + +Bulwer-Lytton once insisted, in an address delivered to some English +literary institution, that the word "versatile" is generally used +wrongly when we speak of men who do a great many things well; that it is +a comprehensive, not merely a versatile mind, each of these men has; not +a knack of adroitly turning himself to many heterogeneous labors, but a +capacity so wide that it unfolds quite naturally many fields of labor. +In this sense Bulwer-Lytton has undoubtedly a more comprehensive mind +than any of his English contemporaries. He has written the most +successful dramas and some of the most successful novels of his day; and +he has so varied the method of his novel-writing that he may be said to +have at least three distinct and separate principles of construction. +Some of his poetic translations seem to me almost absolutely the best +done in England of late years; many of his essays approach a true +literary value, while all or nearly all of them are attractive reading; +his satire, "The New Timon," is the only thing of the kind which is +likely to outlive his age; and his political speeches are what I have +already described. Now, to estimate the personal value of these +successes, let us not fail to remember that their author never was +placed in a condition to make literary or other labor a necessity, and +that for nearly a whole generation he has been in the enjoyment of +actual wealth; that in England literature adds little or no social +distinction to a man of Bulwer-Lytton's rank; and that during a +considerable portion of his life the author of "The Caxtons" and "My +Novel" has been tortured by almost incessant ill-health. Almost +everything that could tend to make a man shun continuous and patient +labor (opulence and ill-health would be quite enough to make most of us +shun it) combined to render Bulwer-Lytton an idle or at least an +indolent man. Yet almost all the literary success he attained was due to +a patient toil which would have wearied out a penny-a-liner, and a +laborious self-study and self-culture which might have overtaxed the +nerves of a Koenigsberg professor. "Easy writing is cursed hard reading," +is a maxim which Bulwer-Lytton fully understood, and of which he showed +his appreciation in his personal practice. + +Bulwer-Lytton was born on the fringe of the aristocratic region. He can +hardly be said to belong to the genuine aristocracy, although of late, +thanks to his political opinions and his peerage, he has come to be +ranked among aristocrats. He is the brother of a distinguished +diplomatist, Sir Henry Bulwer, and the father of a somewhat promising +diplomatist, not quite unknown to Washington people, Robert Lytton, +"Owen Meredith." Bulwer-Lytton had advanced tolerably far upon his +career when he inherited through his mother a magnificent estate, which +enabled him to set up for an aristocrat. His baronetcy had been +conferred upon him by the Crown, as his peerage lately was. He started +in political life, like Mr. Disraeli, as a Liberal; indeed, it was, if I +am not greatly mistaken, on the introduction of Bulwer-Lytton that +Disraeli obtained the early patronage of Daniel O'Connell, which he so +soon forfeited by the political tergiversation that drew down from the +great Agitator the famous outburst of fierce and savage scorn wherein, +alluding to Disraeli's boasted Jewish origin, he proclaimed him +evidently descended in a right line from the blasphemous thief who died +impenitent on the cross. Disraeli's apostasy was sudden and glaring, and +he kept the field. Bulwer-Lytton soon faded out of politics altogether +for nearly thirty years, and when he reappeared in the House of Commons +and wore the garb of a Tory, his old friend and political patron +O'Connell had long become a mere tradition. Nearly all of those who +listened with curiosity to Bulwer-Lytton's speeches in 1859 and 1860, +were curious only to hear how a great romancist and dramatist would +acquit himself in a part which, so far as they were concerned, was +entirely a new appearance. They had no personal memory of his former +efforts; no recollection of the time when the young author of the +sparkling, piquant, and successful "Pelham" endeavored to take London by +storm as a political orator, and failed in the enterprise. + +In one peculiarity, at least, Bulwer-Lytton the novelist surpassed all +his rivals and contemporaries. His range was so wide as to take in all +circles and classes of English readers. He wrote fashionable novels, +historical novels, political novels, metaphysical novels, psychological +novels, moral-purpose novels, immoral purpose novels. "Wilhelm Meister" +was not too heavy nor "Tristram Shandy" too light for him. He tried to +rival Scott in the historical romance; he strove hard to be another +Goethe in his "Ernest Maltravers"; he quite surpassed Ainsworth's "Jack +Sheppard," and the general run of what we in England call "thieves' +literature," in his "Paul Clifford"; he became a sort of pinchbeck +Sterne in "The Caxtons," and was severely classical in "The Last Days of +Pompeii." One might divide his novels into at least half a dozen +classes, each class quite distinct and different from all the rest, and +yet the one author, the one Bulwer-Lytton, showing and shining through +them all. Bulwer is always there. He is masquerading now in the garb of +a mediaeval baron, and now in that of an old Roman dandy; anon he is +disguised as a thief from St. Giles's, and again as a full-blooded +aristocrat from the region of St. James's. But he is the same man +always, and you can hardly fail to recognize him even in his cleverest +disguise. It may be questioned whether there is one spark of true and +original genius in Bulwer. Certain ideas commonly floating about in this +or that year he collects and brings to a focus, and by their aid he +burns a distinct impression into the public mind. Just as he expressed +the thin and spurious classicism of one period in his Pompeian romance, +so he made copy out of the pseudoscience and bastard psychology of a +later day in his "Strange Story." Never was there in literature a more +masterly and wonderful mechanic. Many-sided he never was, although +probably the fame of many-sidedness (if one may use so ungraceful an +expression) is the renown which he specially coveted and most +strenuously strove to win. Only genius can be many-sided, and +Bulwer-Lytton's marvellous capability never can be confounded with +genius. The nearest approach to genius in all his works may be found in +their occasional outbursts and flashes of audacious, preposterous +absurdity. The power which could palm off such outrageous nonsense as in +some instances he has done on two or three generations of novel-readers, +which could compel the public to swallow it and delight in it, despite +all that the satire of a Thackeray or a Jerrold could do, must surely, +one would almost say, have had something in it savoring of a sort of +genius. For there are in some even of the very best and purest of +Bulwer's novels whole scenes and characters which it seems almost +utterly impossible that any reader whatever could follow without +laughter. I protest that I think the author of "Ernest Maltravers" owed +much of his success to the daring which assumed that anything might be +imposed on the public, and to the absence of that sense of the ludicrous +which might have made a man of a different stamp laugh at his own +nonsense. I assume that Bulwer wrote in perfect faith and seriousness, +honestly believing them to be fine, the most ridiculous, bombastic, +fantastic passages in all his novels. I take it for granted that Mr. +Morris's sad hero, "The Man who never Laughed Again," must have been +frivolity itself when compared with Bulwer-Lytton at work upon a novel. +The sensitive distrust of one's own capacity, the high-minded doubt of +the value of one's own works, which is probably the companion, the +Mentor, the tormentor often, and not unfrequently the conqueror and +destroyer of true genius, never seems to have vexed the author of +"Eugene Aram" and "Godolphin." Bulwer-Lytton won a great name partly +because he was not a man of genius. The kind of thing he tried to do +could not have been done truly and successfully, in the high artistic +sense, by any one with a capacity below that of a Shakespeare, or at +least a Goethe. A man of genius, but inferior genius, would have made a +wretched failure of it. Between the two stools of popularity and art, of +time and eternity, he must have fallen to the ground. But where genius +might fail to achieve a splendid success, talent and audacity might turn +out a magnificent sham. This is the sort of success, this and none +other, which I believe Bulwer-Lytton to have achieved. He is the finest +_faiseur_ in the literature of to-day. His wax-work gallery surpasses +Madame Tussaud's; or rather his sham art is as much superior to that of +a James or an Ainsworth as Madame Tussaud's gallery is to Mrs. Jarley's +show. That sort of sentiment which lies somewhere down in the heart of +every one, however commonplace, or busy, or cynical--the sentiment which +is represented by the applause of the galleries in a popular theatre, +and which cultivated audiences are usually ashamed to acknowledge--was +the feeling which Bulwer-Lytton could always reach and draw forth. He +had so much at least of the true artistic instinct as to recognize that +the strongest element of popularity is the sentimental; and he knew that +out of ten persons who openly laugh at such a thing, nine are secretly +touched by it. Bulwer-Lytton found much of his stock and capital in the +human emotions which sympathize with youthful ambition and youthful +love, just as Dickens makes perpetual play with the feelings which are +touched by the death of children. When Claude Melnotte, transfigured +into the splendid Colonel Morier, rushes forward just at the critical +moment, outbids yon sordid huckster for his priceless jewel Pauline, +flings down the purse containing double the needful sum, declares that +he has bought every coin of it in the cause of nations with a +Frenchman's blood, and sweeps away his ransomed bride amid the thunder +of the galleries, of course we all know that sort of thing is not +poetry, or high art, or anything but splendiferous rubbish. Yet it does +touch most of us somehow. I know I always feel divided between laughter +and enthusiastic sympathy even still, when I see it for the hundred and +fiftieth time or so. In the same way, when Paul Clifford charges on +society the crimes of his outlaw career; when Rienzi vows vengeance for +his brother's blood; when Zanoni resigns his immortal youth that "the +flower at his feet may a little longer drink the dew"; when Ernest +Maltravers silently laments amid all his splendor of success the obscure +Arcadia of his boyish love, we can all see at a glance how bombastic, +gaudy, melodramatic, is the style in which the author works out his +ideas; how utterly unlike the simple, strong majesty of true art the +whole thing is; but yet we must acknowledge that the author understands +thoroughly how to touch a certain vein of what may be called elementary +emotion, common almost to all minds, which it is the object of society +to repress or suppress, and the object of the popular artist to stir up +into activity. Preach, advise, remonstrate, demonstrate as you will, the +majority of us will always feel inclined to give alms to beggar-women +and whining little children in the snowy streets. We know we are doing +unwisely, and perhaps even wrongly; we know that the misery which +touches us is probably a trumped-up and sham misery; we know that +whatever we give to the undeserving and the insincere is practically +withdrawn from the deserving and the sincere; we are ashamed to be seen +giving the money, and yet we do give it whenever we can. Because, after +all, our common emotion of sympathy with the more obvious, intelligible, +and I would almost say vulgar forms of human suffering, are far too +strong for our moderating maxims and our more refined mental conditions. +So of the sympathies which heroes and heroines, aspirations and agonies +of the style of Bulwer-Lytton awaken in us. Virtue cannot so inoculate +our old stock but we shall relish it; and is not he something of an +artist who recognizes this great fact in human nature, and plays upon +that vibrating, imperishable chord, and compels it to give him back such +an applauding echo? After all, I think there is just as much of sham and +of Madame Tussaud, and of the beggar-child in the snow, about Paul +Dombey's deathbed and Little Dorrit's filial devotion, as about the mock +heroics of Claude Melnotte or the domestic virtues of the Caxtons. Of +course I am not comparing Bulwer-Lytton with Dickens. The latter was a +man of genius, and one of the greatest humorists known at least to +modern literature. But nearly all the pathetic side of Dickens seems to +me of much the same origin as the heroic side of Bulwer-Lytton, and I +question whether the greater part of the popularity won by the author of +"Bleak House" has not been gained by a mastery of the very same kind of +art as that which sets galleries applauding for Claude Melnotte, and +young women in tears for Eugene Aram. + +There are, moreover, two points of superiority in artistic purpose which +may be claimed for Bulwer-Lytton over either Dickens or Thackeray. They +do not, perhaps, "amount to much" in any case; but they are worth +mentioning. Bulwer-Lytton has more than once drawn to the best of his +power a gentleman, and he has often drawn, or tried to draw, a man +possessed by some great, impersonal, unselfish object in life. The +former of these personages Dickens never seemed to have known or +believed in; the latter, Thackeray never even attempted to paint. Why +has Dickens never drawn a gentleman? I am not using the word in the +artificial, conventional, snobbish sense. I mean by a gentleman a +creature with intellect as well as heart, with refined and cultivated +tastes, with something of personal dignity about him. I do not care from +what origin he may have sprung, or to what class he may have belonged: +there is no reason, even in England, why a man born in a garret might +not acquire all the ways, and thoughts, and refinements of a gentleman. +Among the class to which most of Dickens's heroes are represented as +belonging, have we not all in England known gentlemen of intellect and +culture? Yet Dickens has never painted such a being. Nicholas Nickleby +is a plucky, honest, good-hearted blockhead; Tom Pinch is a benevolent +idiot; Eugene Wrayburn is a low-bred, impertinent snob--a mere "cad," as +Londoners would say. I have had no sympathy with the "Saturday Review" +in its perpetual accusations of vulgarity against Dickens; and I think a +recent English critic was pleasantly and purposely extravagant when he +charged the author of the "Christmas Carol" with having no loftier idea +of human happiness than the eating of plum pudding and kissing girls +under the mistletoe. But I do say that Dickens never drew a cultivated +English gentleman or lady--a cultivated and refined English man or +woman, if you will; and yet I know that there are such personages to be +found without troublesome quest among the very classes of society which +he was always describing. + +Now Thackeray could draw and has drawn English gentlemen and +gentlewomen; but has he ever drawn a high-minded, self-forgetting man or +woman devoted to some, to any, great object, or cause, or purpose of +any kind in life--absorbed by it and faithful to it? Is it true that +even in London society men are wholly given up to dining, and paying +visits, and making and spending money? Is it true that all men, even in +London society, pass their lives in a purposeless, drifting way, making +good resolves and not carrying them out; doing good things now and then +out of easy, generous impulse; loving lightly, and recovering from love +quickly? Are there in London society, on the one hand, no passions; on +the other hand, no simple, strong, consistent, unselfish, high-minded +lives? Assuredly there are; but Thackeray, the greatest painter of +English society England has ever had, chose, for some reason or another, +to ignore them. Only when he comes to speak of artists, more especially +of painters, does he ever hint that he is aware of the existence of men +whose lives are consistent, steadfast, and unselfish. Surely this is a +great omission. One does not care to drag into this discussion the names +of living illustrations; but I should like to have pointed Thackeray's +attention to this and that and the other man whom, to my certain +knowledge, he knew and warmly, fully appreciated, and asked him, "Why, +when you were painting with such incomparable fidelity such +illustrations of English life as you chose to select, did you not think +fit to picture such a simple, strong, consistent, magnanimous, +self-forgetting, self-devoting nature as that, or that, or that?"--and +so on, through many examples which I or anybody could have named. I +suppose the honest answer would have been, "I cannot draw that kind of +character; I cannot quite enter into its experiences and make it look +life-like as I see it; it is not in my line, and I prefer not to attempt +it." Now, I think it to the credit of Bulwer-Lytton, as a mere artist, +that he did include such figures even in his wax-work gallery. He could +not make them look like life; but he showed at least that he was aware +of their existence, and that he did his best to teach the world to +recognize them. + +Thus then, using with inexhaustible energy and perseverance his +wonderful gifts as an intellectual mechanician, Edward Bulwer-Lytton +went on from 1828 to 1860 grinding out of his mill an almost unbroken +succession of novels and romances to suit all changes in public taste. I +do not believe he changed his themes and ways of treating them +purposely, to suit the changes of public taste; but rather that, being a +man of no true original and creative power, his style and his views were +modified by the modifying conditions of successive years. Some new idea, +some new way of looking at this or that question of human life came up, +and it attracted him who was always a close and diligent student of the +world and its fashions; and he made it into a romance. Whatever new +schools of fiction came into existence, Bulwer-Lytton, always directing +the new ideas into the channel where popular and elementary sympathies +flowed freely, succeeded in turning each change to advantage, and +keeping his place. Dickens sprang up and founded a school; and yet +Bulwer-Lytton held his own. Thackeray arose and established a new +school, and Bulwer-Lytton, whom no human being would have thought of +comparing with either as a man of genius, did not lose a reader. +Charlotte Bronte came like a shadow, and so departed; George Eliot gave +a new lift and life to romance; the realistic school was followed by the +sensational school; the Literature of Adultery ran its vulgar +course--and Bulwer-Lytton remained where he always had been, and moulted +no feather. + +It is not likely that any true critic ever thought very highly of him, +or indeed took him quite seriously; but for many, many years criticism, +which had so scoffed and girded at him once, had only civil words and +applauding smiles for him. How Thackeray once did make savage fun of +"Bullwig," and more lately how Thackeray praised him! Charles +Dickens--what an enthusiastic admirer of the genius of his friend Lytton +he too became! And Tennyson--what a fierce passage of arms that was long +ago between Bulwer and him; and now what cordial mutual admiration! +Fonblanque and Forster, the "Athenaeum" and "Punch," Tray, Blanche, and +Sweetheart--how they all welcomed in chorus each new effort of genius by +the great romancist who was once the stock butt of all lively satirists. +How did this happy change come about? Nobody ever had harder dealing at +the hands of the critics than Bulwer when his powers were really most +fresh and forcible; nobody ever had more general and genial commendation +than shone of late years around his sunny way. How was this? Did the +critics really find that they had been mistaken and own themselves +conquered by his transcendent merit? Did he "win the wise who frowned +before to smile at last"? To some extent, yes. He showed that he was not +to be written down; that no critical article could snuff him out; that +he really had some stuff in him and plenty of mettle and perseverance; +and he soon became a literary institution, an accomplished fact which +criticism could not help recognizing. But there was much more than this +operating towards Bulwer-Lytton's reconciliation with criticism. He +became a wealthy man, a man of fashion, a sort of aristocrat, with yet a +sincere love for the society of authors and artists, with a taste for +encouraging private theatricals and endowing literary institutions, and +with a splendid country house. He became a genial, golden link between +literature and society. Even Bohemia was enabled by his liberal and +courteous good-will to penetrate sometimes into the regions of +Belgravia. The critics began to fall in love with him. I do not believe +that Lord Lytton made himself thus agreeable to his literary brethren +out of any motive whatever but that of honest goodfellowship and +kindness. I have heard too many instances of his frank and brotherly +friendliness to utterly obscure writers, who could be of no sort of +service to him or to anybody, not to feel satisfied of his unselfish +good-nature and his thorough loyalty to that which ought to be the +_esprit de corps_ of the literary profession. But it is certain that he +thus converted enemies into friends, and stole the gall out of many an +inkstand, and the poison from many a penman's feathered dart. Not that +the critics simply sold their birthright of bitterness for an invitation +to dinner or the kindly smile of a literary Peer. But you cannot, I +suppose, deal very rigidly with the works of a man who is uniformly kind +to you; who brings you into a sort of society which otherwise you would +probably never have a chance of seeing; who, being himself a lord, +treats you, poor critic, as a friend and brother; and whose works, +moreover, are certain to have a great public success, no matter what you +say or leave unsaid. The temptation to look for and discover merit in +such books is strong indeed--perhaps too strong for frail critical +nature. Thus arises the great sin of English criticism. It is certainly +not venal; it is hardly ever malign. Mere ill-nature, or impatience, or +the human delight of showing one's strength, may often induce a London +critic to deal too sharply with some new and nameless author; but +although we who write books are each and all of us delighted to persuade +ourselves that any disparaging criticism must be the result of some +personal hatred, I cannot remember ever having had serious reason to +believe that a London critic had attacked a book because of his personal +ill-will to the author. The sin is quite of another kind--a tendency to +praise the books of certain authors merely because the critic knows the +men so intimately, and likes them so well, that he is at once naturally +prejudiced in their favor, and disinclined to say anything which could +hurt or injure them. Thus of late criticism has had hardly anything to +say of Lord Lytton, except in the way of praise. He is the head, and +patron, and ornament of a great London literary "Ring." I use this word +because none other could so well convey to a reader in New York a clear +idea of the friendly professional unity of the coterie I desire to +describe; but I wish it to be distinctly understood that I do not +attribute anything like venality or hired partisanship of any kind to +the literary Ring of which Lord Lytton is the sparkling gem. Of course +it has become, as such cliques always must become, somewhat of a Mutual +Admiration Society; and it is certain that a place in that brotherhood +secures a man against much disparaging criticism. There are indeed +literary cliques in London, of a somewhat lower range than this, where +the influence of personal friendships does operate in a manner that +closely borders upon a sort of literary corruption. But Lord Lytton and +his friends and admirers are not of that sort. They are friends +together, and they do admire each other, and I suppose everybody (save +one person) likes Lord Lytton now; and so it is only in the rare case of +a fresh, independent outsider, like the critic who wrote in the +"Westminster Review" some two years ago, that a really impartial, keen, +artistic survey is taken of the works of him that was "Bullwig." When +Lytton published his "Caxtons," the reviewer of the "Examiner," even up +to that time a journal of great influence and prestige, having nearly +exhausted all possible modes of panegyric, bethought himself that some +unappreciative and cynical persons might possibly think there was a lack +of originality in a work so obviously constructed after the model of +"Tristram Shandy." So he hastened to confute or convince all such +persons by pointing out that in this very fact consisted the special +claim of "The Caxtons" to absolute originality. The original genius of +Lytton was proved by his producing so excellent a copy. Don't you see? +You don't, perhaps. But then if you were intimate with Lord Lytton, and +were liked by him, and were a performer in the private theatricals at +Knebworth, his country seat, you would probably see it quite clearly, +and agree with it, every word. + +There was one person indeed who had no toleration for Lord Lytton, or +for his friendly critics. That was Lord Lytton's wife. There really is +no scandal in alluding to a conjugal quarrel which was brought so +persistently under public notice by one of the parties as that between +Bulwer-Lytton and his wife. I do not know whether I ought to call it a +quarrel. Can that be called a fight, piteously asks the man in Juvenal, +where my enemy only beats and I am merely beaten? Can that be called a +quarrel in which, so far as the public could judge, the wife did all the +denunciation, and the husband made no reply? Lady Lytton wrote novels +for the purpose of satirizing her husband and his friends--his +parasites, she called them. Bulwer-Lytton she gracefully described as +having "the head of a goat on the body of a grasshopper"--a description +which has just enough of comical truthfulness in its savage ferocity to +make it specially cruel to the victim of the satire, and amusing to the +unconcerned public. Lady Lytton attributed to her husband the most +odious meannesses, vices, and cruelties; but the public, with all its +love of scandal, seems to have steadfastly refused to take her +ladyship's word for these accusations. Dickens she denounced and +vilified as a mere parasite and sycophant of her husband. At one time +she poured out a gush of fulsome eulogy on Thackeray because he +apparently was not one of Lytton's friends; afterwards, when the +relationship between "Pelham" and "Pendennis" became friendly, she +changed her tune and tried to bite the file, to satirize the great +satirist. Disraeli she caricatured under the title of "Jericho Jabber." +This sort of thing she kept always going on. Sometimes she issued +pamphlets addressed to the women of England, calling on them to take up +her quarrel--which somehow they did not seem inclined to do. Once when +Lord Lytton, then only Sir Edward, was on the hustings, addressing his +constituents at a county election, her ladyship suddenly mounted the +platform and "went for" him. Sir Edward and his friends prudently and +quietly withdrew. I do not know anything of the merits of the quarrel, +and have always been disposed to think that something like insanity must +have been the explanation of much of Lady Lytton's conduct. But it is +beyond doubt that her husband's demeanor was remarkable for its quiet, +indomitable patience and dignity. Lately the public has happily heard +little of Lady Lytton's complaints. I did not even know whether she was +still living, until I saw a little book announced the other day by some +publisher, which bore her name. Let her pass--with the one remark that +her long succession of bitter attacks upon her husband does not seem to +have done him any damage in the estimation of the world. + +It is not likely that posterity will preserve much of Lord Lytton's +writings. They do not, I think, add to literature one original +character. Even the glorified murderer or robber, the Eugene Aram or +Paul Clifford sort of person, had been done and done much better by +Schiller, by Godwin, and by others, before Bulwer-Lytton tried him at +second hand. As pictures of English society, those of them which profess +to deal with modern English life have no value whatever. The historical +novels, the classical novels, are glaringly false in their color and +tone. Some of the personages in "The Last Days of Pompeii" are a good +deal more like modern English dandies than most of the people who are +given out as such in "Pelham." The attempts at political satire in "Paul +Clifford," at broad humor in "Eugene Aram" (the Corporal and his cat for +example), are feeble and miserable. There is hardly one touch of refined +and genuine pathos--of pathos drawn from other than the old stock +conventional sources--in the whole of the romances, plays, and poems. +The one great faculty which the author possessed was the capacity to +burnish up and display the absolutely commonplace, the merely +conventional, the utterly unreal, so that it looked new, original, and +real in the eyes of the ordinary public, and sometimes even succeeded, +for the hour, in deceiving the expert. Bulwer-Lytton's romance is only +the romance of the London "Family Herald" or the "New York Ledger," plus +high intellectual culture and an intimate acquaintance with the best +spheres of letters, art, and fashion. I own that I have considerable +admiration for the man who, with so small an original outfit, +accomplished so much. So successful a romancist; occasionally almost a +sort of poet; a perfect master of the art of writing plays to catch +audiences; so skilful an imitator of oratory that, despite almost +unparalleled physical defects, he once nearly persuaded the world that +his was genuine eloquence--who shall say that the capacity which can do +all this is not something to be admired? It is a clever thing to be able +to make ornaments of paste which shall pass with the world for diamonds; +mock-turtle soup which shall taste like real; wax figures which look at +first as if they were alive. Of the literary art which is akin to this, +our common literature has probably never had so great a master as Lord +Lytton. Such a man is especially the one to stand up as the appropriate +representative of literature in such an assembly as the English House of +Lords. I should be sorry to see a Browning, a Thackeray, a Carlyle, a +Tennyson, a Dickens there; but I think Lord Lytton is in his right +place--a splendid sham author in a splendid sham legislative assembly. + + + + +"PAR NOBILE FRATRUM--THE TWO NEWMANS." + + +"The truth, friend," exclaims Mr. Arthur Pendennis, debating some +question with his comrade Warrington; "where is the truth? Show it me. I +see it on both sides. I see it in this man who worships by act of +Parliament, and is rewarded with a silk apron and five thousand a year; +in that man who, driven fatally by the remorseless logic of his creed, +gives up everything, friends, fame, dearest ties, closest vanities, the +respect of an army of churchmen, the recognized position of a leader, +and passes over, truth-impelled, to the enemy in whose ranks he is ready +to serve henceforth as a nameless private soldier; I see the truth in +that man as I do in his brother, whose logic drives him to quite a +different conclusion, and who, after having passed a life in vain +endeavors to reconcile an irreconcilable book, flings it at last down in +despair, and declares, with tearful eyes and hands up to heaven, his +revolt and recantation." + +Perhaps many American readers, meeting with this passage, may have +supposed that the two brothers here described were merely typical +figures, invented almost at random by Thackeray to enable Pendennis to +point his moral. But in England people know that the two brothers are +real personages, and still live. I saw one of them a few nights ago, the +one last mentioned by Arthur Pendennis. I saw him, as he is indeed often +to be seen, the centre and leader of a little group or knot, a hopeless +minority, vainly striving by force of argument and logic, of almost +unlimited erudition, and a keen bright intellect, to obtain public +attention for something which the public persisted in regarding as an +idle crotchet, an impotent craze. The other brother, the elder, is a man +whose secession from the Church of England has lately been described by +Disraeli, in the preface to the collected edition of his works, as +having "dealt a blow to the Church under which it still reels." "That +extraordinary event," says Disraeli, "has been 'apologized for' but has +never been explained. It was a mistake and a misfortune." Probably no +reader of "The Galaxy" will now need to be told that the typical +brothers alluded to by Pendennis are John Henry and Francis W. Newman. + +The Atlantic deals curiously and capriciously with reputations. Both +these brothers Newman seem to me to be less known in America than they +deserve to be. John Henry in especial I found to be thus comparatively +ignored in the United States. He is beyond doubt one of the greatest, +certainly one of the most influential Englishmen of our time. He has +engraved his name deeply on the history of his age. He has led perhaps +the most remarkable religious movement known to England for generations. +He is one of the very few men whose lofty and commanding intellect has +been acknowledged and admired by all sects and parties. Gather together +any company of eminent Englishmen, however select in its composition, +however splendid in its members, and John Henry Newman will be among the +few especially conspicuous. + +Perhaps most of my readers will be of opinion that Newman's intellect +has been sadly misused; that his influence has been for the most part +disastrous. But no one who knows anything of the subject can deny the +greatness alike of the intellect and of the influence. Let me add, too, +that no enemy ever yet called into question the simple sincerity, the +blameless purity of John Henry Newman's purposes and character. Of later +years he has been rarely seen in London, for his duties keep him in +Birmingham, where he is at the head of a religious and educational +institution. I have heard that years are telling heavily on him, and +that when he now preaches he is listened to with the kind of +half-melancholy reverence which hangs on the words of a great man who is +already beginning to be a portion of the past. But his influence was a +power almost unequalled in its day, and that day has not yet wholly +faded. + +The Newman brothers are Londoners by birth, sons of a wealthy banker of +Lombard street--the British Wall street. Both were educated at Ealing +school, and both went to the University of Oxford. John Henry is by some +four years the senior of Francis, who was born in 1805, and who now +looks at least a dozen or fifteen years younger than his distinguished +brother. Both men were endowed with remarkable gifts; both had a +splendid faculty of acquiring knowledge. John Henry Newman became a +clergyman of the Established Church. He was a close and intimate friend +of Keble, of Pusey, and of Manning. He grew to be regarded as one of the +rising stars of Protestantism. No name, soon, stood higher than his. His +friends loved him, and Protestant England began to revere him. Now +observe the change that came on these two brothers, alike so gifted and +earnest, alike so wooed by the promise of brilliant worldly career. Two +movements of thought, having perhaps a common origin in the +dissatisfaction with the existing intellectual stagnation of the Church, +but tending in widely different directions, carried the brothers along +with them--"seized," to use the words of Richter, "their bleeding hearts +and flung them different ways." The younger brother found himself drawn +toward rationalism. He could not subscribe the Thirty-Nine Articles for +his degree as a Master; he left Oxford. He wandered for years in the +East, endeavoring, not very successfully, to teach Christianity on its +broadest basis to the Mohammedans; and he finally returned to England to +take his place among the leaders of that school of free thought which +the ignorant, the careless, or the malignant set down as infidelity. In +the mean time his brother became one of the pioneers of a still more +unexpected movement. In the English Church for a long time every thing +had seemed to be settled and at rest. The old controversy with Rome +appeared out of date, unnecessary, and perhaps vulgar. Everything was +just as it should be--stable and respectable. But it suddenly occurred +to some earnest, unresting souls, like that of Keble--souls "without +haste and without rest," like Goethe's star--to insist that the Church +of England had higher claims and nobler duties than those of preaching +harmless sermons and enriching bishops. Keble could not bear to think of +the Church taking pleasure since all is well. He urged on some of the +more vigorous and thoughtful minds around him that they should reclaim +for the Church the place which ought to be hers as the true successor of +the Apostles. He claimed for her that she, and she alone, was the real +Catholic Church, authorized to teach all nations, and that Rome had +wandered away from the right path, foregone the glorious mission which +she might have maintained. One of Keble's closest and dearest friends +was John Henry Newman, and Keble regarded Newman as a man qualified +beyond all others to become the teacher and leader of the new movement. +Keble preached a famous sermon in 1833, and inaugurated the publication +of a series of tracts designed to vindicate the real mission of the +Church of England. This was the Tractarian movement, which had early, +various, and memorable results. John Henry Newman wrote the most +celebrated of all the tracts, the famous "No. 90," which drew down the +censure of the University authorities on the ground that it actually +tended to abolish all difference between the Church of England and the +Church of Rome. Yet a little, and the gradual workings of Newman's mind +became evident to all the world. The brightest and most penetrating +intellect in the English Protestant Church was publicly and deliberately +withdrawn from her service, and John Henry Newman became a priest of the +Church of Rome. To this had the inquiry conducted him which led his +friend Dr. Pusey merely to endeavor to incorporate some of the mysticism +and the symbols of Rome with the practice and the progress of the +English Church; which had led Dr. Keble only to a more liberal and truly +Christianlike temper of Protestant faith; which had sent Francis Newman +into radical rationalism. The two brothers were intellectually divided +forever. Each renounced a career rich in promise for mere conscience' +sake; and the one went this way, the other that. + +Disraeli has in no wise exaggerated the depth and painfulness of the +sensation produced among English Protestants by the secession of John +Henry Newman. It was of course received upon the opposite side with +corresponding exultation. No man, indeed, could be less qualified than +Mr. Disraeli to understand the tremendous, the irresistible force of +conviction in a nature like that of Newman. The brilliant master of +political tactics has made it evident that he did not understand the +motive of Newman's secession any more than he did the meaning of the +title of Newman's celebrated book, "Apologia pro Vita sua." "That +extraordinary event," says Disraeli, speaking of the secession, "has +been apologized for, but has never been explained." Evidently Disraeli +believed that the English word "apology" is the correct translation of +the Latinized Greek word "apologia," which it most certainly is not. +Nothing could have been further from Newman's mind or from the purpose, +or indeed from the title of his book, than to apologize for his +secession. On the contrary, the book is sharply and pertinaciously +aggressive. It was called forth by an attack made on Dr. Newman by the +Rev. Charles Kingsley. I think Kingsley was in the main right in his +views, but he was rough and blundering in his expression of them, and he +is about as well qualified to carry on a controversy with John Henry +Newman as Governor Hoffman would be to undertake a rhetorical +competition with Mr. Wendell Phillips. Kingsley's bluff, rude, illogical +way of fighting, his "wild and skipping spirit," were placed at +ludicrous and fearful disadvantage. Newman "went for him" unsparingly, +and literally tore him with the beak and claws of logic, satire, and +invective. One was reminded of Pascal's attacks on the Jesuits--only +that this time the wit and power were on the side which might fairly be +called Jesuitical. Out of this merciless onslaught on Kingsley came the +"Apologia pro Vita sua," in which Newman endeavored to vindicate and +glorify, not excuse or apologize for, his strange secession. The book is +well worth reading, if only as a curious illustration of the utter +inadequacy of human intellect and human logic to secure a soul from the +strangest wandering, the saddest possible illusion. You cannot read a +page of it without admiration for the intellect of the author, and +without pity for the poverty even of the richest intellectual gifts +where guidance is sought in a faith and in things which transcend the +limits of human logic. + +John Henry Newman threw his whole soul, energy, genius, and fame into +the cause of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome welcomed him with that +cordial welcome she always gives to a new-comer, and she utilized him +and set work for him to do. Macaulay has shown very effectively in one +of his essays how the Roman Church seldom loses any one it has gained, +because it is so skilful in finding for everybody his proper place, and +assigning him in her service the task he is best qualified to do, so +that her ambition becomes his ambition, her interest his interest, her +conquests his conquests. Newman appears to have been made a sort of +missionary from Rome to the intellect and culture of the English people. +Within the Church to which he had gone over he became an immense +influence and almost unequalled power. The Catholics delighted to have a +leader whose intellect no one could pretend to despise, whose gifts and +culture had been panegyrized in the most glowing terms, over and over +again, by the foremost statesmen and divines of the Protestant Church. +Newman was appointed head of the oratory of St. Philip Neri at +Birmingham, and was for some years rector of the Roman Catholic +University of Dublin. He rarely came before the public. In all the arts +that make an orator or a great preacher he is strikingly deficient. His +manner is constrained, awkward, and even ungainly; his voice is thin and +weak. His bearing is not impressive. His gaunt, emaciated figure, his +sharp, eagle face, his cold, meditative eye, rather repel than attract +those who see him for the first time. The matter of his discourse, +whether sermon, speech, or lecture, is always admirable, and the +language is concise, scholarly, expressive--perhaps a little +overweighted with thought; but there is nothing there of the orator. It +is as a writer, and as an "influence"--I don't know how better to +express it--that Newman has become famous. I doubt if we have many +better prose writers. He is full of keen, pungent, satirical humor; and +there is, on the other hand, a subtle vein of poetry and of pathos +suffusing nearly all he writes. One of the finest and one of the most +frequently quoted passages in modern English literature is Newman's +touching and noble apostrophe to England's "Saxon Bible." He has +published volumes of verse which I think belong to the very highest +order of verse-making that is not genuine poetry. They are full of +thought, feeling, pathos, tenderness, beauty of illustration; they are +all that verse can be made by one who just fails to be a poet. An +English critical review not long since classed the poetical works of Dr. +Newman and George Eliot together, as the nearest approach which +intellect and culture have made in our days toward the production of +genuine poetry. When Newman made his famous attack on Dr. Achilli, an +Italian priest who had renounced the Roman Church, and whom Newman +publicly accused of many crimes, the judge who had to sentence the +accuser to the payment of a fine for libel pronounced a panegyric on his +intellect and his character such as is rarely heard from an English +judgment seat. Not long after, when the subject came up somehow in the +House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone broke into an encomium of John Henry +Newman which might have seemed poetical by hyperbole to those who did +not know the merits of the one man and the conscientious truthfulness of +the other. We have heard the testimony borne by Mr. Disraeli to the +importance of Newman's intellect as a support of the English Church, and +the shock which was caused by his withdrawal. Seldom, indeed, has a man +seceded from one church and become the aggressive, unsparing, intolerant +champion of its enemy, and yet retained the esteem and the affection of +those whom he abandoned, as this good, great, mistaken Englishman has +done. + +The two brothers then are hopelessly divided. One consorts with the Pope +and Cardinal Wiseman and Archbishop Manning, and is the idol and saint +of the Ultramontanes, and devotes his noble intellect to the task of +making the Irish Catholic a more bigoted Catholic than ever. The other +falls in with the little band, that once seemed a forlorn hope, of what +we may call the philosophical radicals of England. He becomes a +professor of the rationalistic University of London, and a contributor +to the free-thinking "Westminster Review." Judging each brother's +success merely by what each sought to do, I suppose the career of the +Catholic has been the more successful. Not that I think he has made much +way toward the conversion of England to Catholicism. With all its +Puseyism and ritualism, England seems to have little real inclination +toward the doctrines of Rome. There is indeed a distinguished "convert" +every now and then--the Marquis of Bute some two years ago, Lord Robert +Montagu last year; but the great mass of the English people remain +obstinately anti-papal. The tendency is far more toward Rationalism than +toward Romanism; with the Newman who withdrew from all churches rather +than with the Newman who renounced one church to enter another. +Therefore, when I say that the career of John Newman appears to me to +have been more successful than that of Francis, I mean only that he has +been a greater influence, a more powerful instrument of his cause than +his brother ever has been. The boast was made unjustly for Voltaire that +he almost arrested the progress of Christianity in Europe. I think the +admirers of John Newman might claim for him that he actually did for a +time at least arrest the progress of Protestantism in England. He had +indeed the great advantage of passing from one organization to another. +Like Coriolanus, when he seceded he became the leader of the enemy's +army. It was quite otherwise with his brother, who leaving the English +Church was thenceforward only an individual, and for the most part an +isolated worker. But indeed, with all his intellect, his high culture, +and his indomitable courage, Francis Newman has never been an +influential man in English politics. It may be that his keen logic is +too uncompromising; and there can be no practical statesmanship without +compromise. It may be that there is something eccentric, egotistic (in +the less offensive sense), and crotchety in that sharp, independent, and +self-sufficing intelligence. Whatever the reason, nine out of ten men in +London set down Francis Newman as hopelessly given over to crotchets, +while the tenth man, admiring however much his character and his +capacity, is sometimes grieved and sometimes provoked that both together +do not make him a greater power in the nation. I never remember Francis +Newman to have been in accord with what I may call the average public +opinion of English political life, except in one instance; and in that +case I believe him to have been wrong. He was in favor of the Crimean +war; and for this once therefore he found himself on the side of the +majority. As if to mark the contrast of views which it has been the fate +of these two brothers to present during their lives, it so happened +that, so far as John Henry's opinions on the subject could be learned by +the public, they were against the war. At least they were decidedly +against the Turks. I remember hearing him deliver at that time a course +of lectures in an educational institution, having for their subject the +origin and the results of the Ottoman settlement in Europe. I well +remember how effectively and vividly he argued, with his thin voice and +his constrained, ungraceful action, that the Turk had no greater moral +right to the territory he occupies, but does not cultivate and improve, +than the pirate has to the sea over which he sails. But Francis Newman +was then for once mixed up with the majority; and I doubt whether he +could have much liked the unwonted position. He certainly took care to +explain more than once that his reasons for taking that side were not +those of the average Englishman. He thus might have given some of his +casual associates occasion to say of him, as Charles Mathews says of +woman in general, that even when he is right he is right in a wrong +sort of way. For myself I am inclined to reverse the saying, and declare +of Francis Newman that even when he is wrong he is wrong in a right sort +of way. He was right, and in a very right sort of way, when he came out +from his habitual seclusion during the American civil war, and stood up +on many a platform for the cause of the Union. Like his brother, he is a +poor public speaker. At his very best he is the professor talking to his +class, not the orator addressing a crowd. His manner is singularly +constrained, ineffective, and even awkward; his voice is thin and weak. +There is a certain very small and rare class of bad speakers, which has +yet a virtue and charm of its own almost equal to eloquence. I am now +thinking of men utterly wanting in all the arts and graces, in all the +power and effect of rhetorical delivery, but who yet with whatever +defect of manner can say such striking things, can put such noble +thoughts into expressive words, can be so entirely original and so +completely masters of their subject, that they seem to be orators in all +but voice and manner. Horace Greeley always is, to me at least, such a +speaker; so is Stuart Mill. These are bad speakers as Jane Eyre or +Consuelo may have been an unlovely woman; all the rules declare against +them, all the intelligences and sympathies are in their favor. But +Francis Newman is not a speaker of this kind. He is feeble, ineffective, +and often even commonplace. Nature has denied to him the faculty of +adequately expressing himself in spoken words. He is almost as much out +of his element when addressing a public meeting as he would be if he +were singing in an opera. Few Englishmen living can claim to be the +intellectual superiors of Francis Newman; but you would never know +Francis Newman by hearing him speak on a platform. The last time I heard +him address a public meeting was on an occasion to which I have already +alluded. He was presiding over an assemblage called together to protest +against compulsory vaccination. The Government and Parliament have +lately made very stringent the enactment for compulsory vaccination, in +consequence of the terrible increase of small-pox. There is in London, +as in all other great capitals, a certain knot of persons who would +refuse to wash their faces or kiss their wives if Government ordered or +even recommended either performance. Therefore there was a small +agitation got up against vaccination, and Francis Newman consented to +become the president of one of its meetings. This meeting was held in +Exeter Hall--not indeed in the vast hall where the oratorios are +performed, and where once upon a time Henry Ward Beecher pleaded the +cause of the Union; but in the "lower hall," as it is called, a little +subterranean den. Some eminent classic person, I really forget who, +being reproached with the small size of his apartments, declared that he +should be only too glad if he could fill his rooms, small as they were, +with men his friends. The organizers of this meeting might have been +content if they could have filled the hall, small as it was, with men +and women their friends. The attendance was not nearly up to the size of +the room. There on the platform sat the good, the gifted, and the +fearless Francis Newman; and immediately around him were some dozen +embodied and living crotchets and crazes. There was this learned +physician who has communication with the spirit-world regularly. There +was this other eminent person who has long been trying in vain to teach +an apathetic Government how to cure crime on phrenological principles. +There was Smith, who is opposed to all wars; Brown, who firmly believes +that every disease comes from the use of salt; Jones, who has at his own +expense put into circulation thousands of copies of his work against the +employment of medical men in puerperal cases; Robinson, who is ready to +spend his last coin for the purpose of proving that vaccination and +original sin are one and the same thing. How often, oh, how often have I +not heard those theories expounded! How often have I marvelled at the +extraordinary perversion of ingenuity by which figures, facts, +philosophy, and Scripture are jumbled up together to convince you that +the moon is made of green cheese! We just wanted on this memorable +occasion the awful persons who prove to you that the earth is flat, and +the indefatigable ladies who expound their claims to the British crown +feloniously usurped by Queen Victoria. There sat Francis Newman +presiding over this preposterous little conclave, and having of course +what seemed to him satisfactory and just reasons for the position he +occupied. He spoke rather better than usual, and there was a bewildering +bravery of paradox writhing through his speech which must have delighted +his listeners. The meeting came to nothing. The papers took hardly any +notice of it (London papers were never in my time so entirely +conventional, respectable, and Philistinish as they are just now); and +Newman's effort went wholly in vain. I have mentioned it only because it +was illustrative or typical of so much in the man's whole career. So +much of lovely independence; such a disdain of public opinion and public +ridicule; such an absence of all perception of the ridiculous! Thus it +was that he endeavored to rouse up the English public, who except for +the extreme democracy always have had a strong hankering for the +Austrian Government, to a sense of the crimes of the House of Hapsburg +against its subjects. Thus he was for reform in Parliament when +Parliamentary reform was a theme supposed to be dead and buried; when +Palmerston had trampled on its ashes, and Disraeli had made merry over +its coffin. Thus he came out for the American Union when John Bright +stood almost alone in the House of Commons, and Mill and Goldwin Smith +and two or three others were trying to organize public opinion outside +the House. The same qualities after all which made Newman nearly sublime +in these latter instances, were just those which made him well nigh +ridiculous in the anti-vaccination business. But in all the instances +alike the same thing can be said of Francis Newman. There is a turn or +twist of some kind in his nature and intellect which always seems to mar +his best efforts at practical accomplishment. Even his purely literary +and scholastic productions are marked by the same fatal characteristic. +All the outfit, all the materials are there in surprising profusion. +There is the culture, there is the intellect, the patience, the +sincerity. But the result is not in proportion to the value of the +materials. The blending is not complete, is not effectual. Something has +always intervened or been wanting. Francis Newman has never done and +probably never will do anything equal to his strength and his capacity. + +I am not inviting a comparison between these two brothers, so alike in +their sincerity, their devotion, their courage, and their gifts--so +singularly unlike, so utterly divided, in their creeds and their +careers. My own sympathies, of course, naturally go with Francis Newman, +who has in a vast majority of instances been a teacher of some opinion, +a champion of some political cause of which I am proud to be a disciple +and a follower. But I suppose the greater intellect and the richer gifts +were those which were given up so meekly and wholly to the service of +the dogmatism of the Roman Catholic Church. The career of John Henry +Newman may probably be regarded as having practically closed. His latest +work of note, "The Grammar of Assent," does not indeed seem to show any +falling away of his intellectual powers; but I have heard that his +physical strength has suffered severely with years, and he never was a +strong man. He is now in his seventieth year, and it is therefore only +reasonable to regard him as one who has done his work and whose life is +fully open to the judgment of his time. May I be allowed to say that I +think he has done some good even to that English Church to which his +secession struck so heavy a blow? Newman was really the mainspring of +that movement which proposed to rescue the Church from apathy, from dull +easy-going quiescence, from the perfunctory discharge of formal duties, +and to quicken her once again with the spirit of a priesthood, to arouse +her to the living work, physical and spiritual, of an ecclesiastical +sovereignty. The impulse indeed overshot itself in his case, and was +misdirected in the case of Dr. Pusey, plunging blindly into Romanism +with the one, degenerating into a somewhat barren symbolism with the +other. But throughout the English Church in general there has been +surely a higher spirit at work since that famous Oxford movement which +was inspired by John Henry Newman. I think its influence has been more +active, more beneficent, more human, and yet at the same time more +spiritual, since that sudden and startling impulse was given. For the +man himself little more needs to be said. Every one acknowledges his +gifts and his virtues. No one doubts that in his marvellous change he +sought only the pure truth. His theology, I presume, is not that of the +readers of "The Galaxy" in general, any more than it is mine; but I +trust there is none of us so narrowed to his own form of Christianity as +to refuse his respect and admiration to one so highly lifted above the +average of men in goodness and intellect, even though his career may +have been sacrificed at the shrine of a faith that is not ours. For me, +I am sometimes lost in wonder at the sacrifice, but I can only think +with respect and even veneration of the man. + +The younger brother needs no apology or vindication, in the United +States especially. He is, be it understood, a thoroughly religious man. +He has never sunk into materialism or frittered away his earnestness in +mere skepticism. He is not orthodox--he has gone his own way as regards +church dogma and discipline; but except in the vulgarest and narrowest +application of the word, he is no "infidel." The United States owe him +some good feeling, for he was one of the few eminent men in England who +never were faithless to the cause of the Union, and never doubted of its +ultimate triumph. I have now before me one of the most powerful +arguments addressed to an English audience for the Union and against +secession that reason, justice, and eloquence could frame. It is a +pamphlet published in 1863 by "F. W. Newman, late Professor at +University College, London," in the form of a "Letter to a Friend who +had joined the Southern Independence Association." How wonderful it +seems now that such arguments ever should have been needed; how few +there were then in England who regarded them; how completely time has +justified and sealed them as true, right, and prophetic. I read the +pages over, and all the old struggle comes back with its rancors and its +dangers, and I honor anew the brave man who was not afraid to stand as +one of a little group, isolated, denounced, and laughed at, confiding +always in justice and time. + +The story of these two brothers is on the whole as strange a chapter as +any I know in the biography of human intellect and creed. I think it may +at least teach us a lesson of toleration, if nothing better. The very +pride of intellect itself can hardly pretend to look down with mere +scorn upon beliefs or errors which have carried off in contrary +directions these two Newmans. The sternest bigot can scarcely refuse to +admit that truthfulness and goodness may abide without the limits of his +own creed, when he remembers the high and noble example of pure, true, +and disinterested lives which these intellectually-sundered brothers +alike have given to their fellow-men. + + + + +ARCHBISHOP MANNING. + + +St. James's Hall, London, is primarily a place for concerts and singers, +as Exeter Hall is. But, like its venerable predecessor, St. James's Hall +has come to be identified with political meetings of a certain class. +Exeter Hall, a huge, gaunt, unadorned, and dreary room in the Strand, is +resorted to for the most part as the arena and platform of +ultra-Protestantism. St. James's Hall, a beautiful and almost lavishly +ornate structure in Piccadilly, is commonly used by the leading Roman +Catholics of London when they desire to make a demonstration. There are +political classes which will use either place indifferently; but Exeter +Hall has usually a tinge of Protestant exclusiveness about its political +expression, while the ceiling of the other building has rung alike to +the thrilling music of John Bright's voice, to the strident vehemence of +Mr. Bradlaugh, the humdrum humming of Mr. Odger, and the clear, +delicate, tremulous intonations of Stuart Mill. But I never heard of a +Roman Catholic meeting of great importance being held anywhere in London +lately, except in St. James's Hall. + +Let us attend such a meeting there. The hall is a huge oblong, with +galleries around three of the sides, and a platform bearing a splendid +organ on the fourth. The room is brilliantly lighted, and the mode of +lighting is peculiar and picturesque. The platform, the galleries, the +body of the hall alike are crowded. This is a meeting held to make a +demonstration in favor of some Roman Catholic demand--say for separate +education. On the platform are the great Catholic peers, most of them +men of lineage stretching back to years when Catholicism was yet +unsuspicious of any possible rivalry in England. There are the Norfolks, +the Denbighs, the Dormers, the Petres, the Staffords; there are such +later accessions to Catholicism as the Marquis of Bute, whose change +created such a sensation, and Lord Robert Montagu, who "went over" only +last year. There are some recent accessions of the peerage also--Lord +Acton, for instance, head of a distinguished and ancient family, but +only lately called to the Upper House, and who, when Sir John Acton, won +honorable fame as a writer and scholar. Lord Acton not many years ago +started the "Home and Foreign Review," a quarterly periodical which +endeavored to reconcile Catholicism with liberalism and science. The +universal opinion of England and of Europe declared the "Home and +Foreign Review" to be unsurpassed for ability, scholarship, and +political information by any publication in the world. It leaped at one +bound to a level with the "Edinburgh," the "Quarterly," and the "Revue +des Deux Mondes." But the Pope thought the Review too liberal, and +intimated that it ought to be suppressed; and Lord Acton meekly bowed +his head and suppressed it in all the bloom of its growing fame. Some +Irish members of Parliament are on the platform--men of station and +wealth like Munsell, men of energy and brains like John Francis Maguire; +perhaps, too, the handsome, brilliant-minded O'Donoghue, with his +picturesque pedigree and his broken fortunes. But in general there is +not a very cordial _rapprochement_ between the English Catholic peers +and the Irish Catholic members. Of all slow, cold, stately Conservatives +in the world, the slowest, coldest, and stateliest is the English +Catholic peer. Only the common bond of religion brings these two sets of +men together now and then. They meet, but do not blend. In the body of +the hall are the middle-class Catholics of London, the shopkeepers and +clerks, mostly Irish or of Irish parentage. In the galleries are +swarming the genuine Irishmen of London, the Paddies who are always +threatening to interrupt Garibaldian gatherings in the parks, and who +throw up their hats at the prospect of any "row" on behalf of the Pope. +The chair is taken by some duke or earl, who is listened to +respectfully, but without any special fervor of admiration. The English +Catholics are undemonstrative in any case, and Irish Paddy does not care +much about a chilly English peer. But a speaker is presently introduced +who has only to make his appearance in front of the platform in order to +awaken one universal burst of applause. Paddy and the Duke of Norfolk +vie with each other; the steady English shopkeeper from Islington is as +demonstrative as any O'Donoghue or Maguire. The meeting is wide awake +and informed by one spirit and soul at last. + +The man who has aroused all this emotion shrinks back almost as if he +were afraid of it, although it is surely not new to him. He is a tall +thin personage, some sixty-two years of age. His face is bloodless--pale +as a ghost, one might say. He is so thin as to look almost cadaverous. +The outlines of the face are handsome and dignified. There is much of +courtly grace and refinement about the bearing and gestures of this +pale, weak, and wasted man. He wears a long robe of violet silk, with +some kind of dark cape or collar, and has a massive gold chain round his +neck, holding attached to it a great gold cross. There is a certain +nervous quivering about his eyes and lips, but otherwise he is perfectly +collected and master of the occasion. His voice is thin, but wonderfully +clear and penetrating. It is heard all through this great hall--a moment +ago so noisy, now so silent. The words fall with a slow, quiet force, +like drops of water. Whatever your opinion may be, you cannot choose but +listen; and, indeed, you want only to listen and see. For this is the +foremost man in the Catholic Church of England. This is the Cardinal +Grandison of Disraeli's "Lothair"--Dr. Henry Edward Manning, Roman +Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, successor in that office of the late +Cardinal Wiseman. + +It is no wonder that the Irishmen at the meeting are enthusiastic about +Archbishop Manning. An Englishman of Englishmen, with no drop of Irish +blood in his veins, he is more Hibernian than the Hibernians themselves +in his sympathies with Ireland. A man of social position, of old family, +of the highest education and the most refined instincts, he would leave +the Catholic noblemen at any time to go down to his Irish teetotallers +at the East End of London. He firmly believes that the salvation of +England is yet to be accomplished through the influence of that +religious devotion which is at the bottom of the Irish nature, and which +some of us call superstition. He loves his own country dearly, but +turns away from her present condition of industrial prosperity to the +days before the Reformation, when yet saints trod the English soil. "In +England there has been no saint since the Reformation," he said the +other day, in sad, sweet tones, to one of wholly different opinions, who +listened with a mingling of amazement and reverence. No views that I +have ever heard put into living words embodied to anything like the same +extent the full claims and pretensions of Ultramontanism. It is quite +wonderful to sit and listen. One cannot but be impressed by the +sweetness, the thoughtfulness, the dignity, I had almost said the +sanctity of the man who thus pours forth, with a manner full of the most +tranquil conviction, opinions which proclaim all modern progress a +failure, and glorify the Roman priest or the Irish peasant as the true +herald and repository of light, liberty, and regeneration to a sinking +and degraded world. + +Years ago, Henry Edward Manning was one of the brilliant lights of the +English Protestant Church. Just twenty years back he was appointed to +the high place of Archdeacon of Chichester, having also, according to +the manner in which the English State Church rewards its dignitaries, +more than one other ecclesiastical appointment at the same time. Dr. +Manning had distinguished himself highly during his career at the +University of Oxford. His father was a member of the House of Commons, +and Manning on starting into life had many friends and very bright +prospects. Nothing would have been easier, nothing seemingly would have +been more natural than for him to tread the way so plainly opened before +him, and to rise to higher and higher dignity, until at last perhaps the +princely renown of a bishopric and a seat in the House of Lords would +have been his reward. But Dr. Manning's career was cast in a time of +stress and trial for the English State Church. I have described briefly +in a former article the origin, growth, and effects of that remarkable +movement which, beginning within the Church itself and seeking to +establish loftier claims for her than she had long put forward, ended by +convulsing her in a manner more troublous than any religious crisis +which had occurred since the Reformation. Dr. Manning's is evidently a +nature which must have been specially allured by what I may be allowed +to call the supernatural claims put forward on behalf of the Church of +England. He was of course correspondingly disappointed by what he +considered the failure of those claims. As Coleridge says that every man +is born an Aristotelian or a Platonist, so it may perhaps be said that +every man is born with a predisposition to lean either on natural or +supernatural laws in the direct guidance of life. I am not now raising +any religious question whatever. What I say may be said of members of +the same sect or church--of any sect, of any church. One man, as +faithful and devout a believer as any, is yet content to go through his +daily duties and fulfil his career trusting to his religious principles, +his insight, and his reason, without requiring at every moment the light +of spiritual or supernatural guidance. Another must always have his +world in direct communion with the spiritual, or it is no world of faith +to him. Now it is impossible to look in Dr. Manning's face without +seeing that his is one of those sensitive, spiritual, I had almost said +morbid natures, which can find no endurable existence without a close +and constant communion with the supernatural. Keble, Newman, Time and +the Hour, called out for the assertion of the claim that the Church of +England was the true heir of the apostolic succession. Such a nature as +Manning's must have delightedly welcomed the claim. But the mere +investigation sent, as I have already explained, one Newman to +Catholicism and the other to Rationalism. Dr. Manning, too, felt +compelled to ask himself whether the Church could make good its claim, +and whether, if it could not, he had any longer a place within its +walls. The change does not appear to have come so rapidly to fulfilment +with him as with John Henry Newman. Dr. Manning seems to me to have a +less aggressive temperament than his distinguished predecessor in +secession. There is more about him of the quietist, of the ecstatic, so +far as religious thought is concerned, while it is possible that he may +be a more practical and influential guide in the mere policy of the +church to which he belongs. There is an amount of scorn in Newman's +nature which sometimes reminds one of Pascal, and which I have not +observed in Dr. Manning or in his writings. I cannot imagine Dr. +Manning, for example, pelting Charles Kingsley with sarcasms and +overwhelming him with contempt, as Dr. Newman evidently delighted to do +in the famous controversy which was provoked by the apostle of Muscular +Christianity. I suppose therefore that Dr. Manning clung for a long time +to the faith in which he was bred. But his whole nature is evidently +cast in the mould which makes Roman Catholic devotees. He is a man of +the type which perhaps found in Fenelon its most illustrious example. I +think it is not too much to say that to him that light of private +judgment which some of us regard as man's grandest and most peculiarly +divine attribute, must always have presented itself as something +abhorrent to his nature. I am judging, of course, as an outsider and as +one little acquainted with theological subjects; but my impression of +the two men would be that Dr. Newman joined the Roman Catholic Church in +obedience to some compulsion of reason, acting in what must seem to most +of us an inscrutable manner, and that Dr. Manning never would have been +a Protestant at all if he had not believed that the Protestant Church +was truly all which its rival claims to be. + +Dr. Manning in fact did not leave the Church. The Church left him. He +had misunderstood it. It became revealed at last as it really is, a +church founded on the right of private judgment, and Manning was +appalled and turned away from it. Something that may almost be called +accident brought home to his mind the true character of the Church to +which he belonged. Many readers of "The Galaxy" may have some +recollection of the once celebrated Gorham case in England--a case which +I shall not now describe any further than by saying that it raised the +question whether the Church of England can prescribe the religion of the +State. Had the Church the right to decide whether certain doctrine +taught by one of its clergy was heretical, and to condemn it if so +declared? In England, Church and State are so bound up together, that it +is practically the State and not the Church which decides whether this +or that teaching is heresy or true religion. A lord chancellor who may +be an infidel, and two or three "law lords" who may be anything or +nothing, settle the question in the end. We all remember the epigram +about Lord Chancellor Westbury, the least godly of men, having +"dismissed Hell with costs," and taken away from the English Protestant +"his last hope of damnation." The Gorham case, twenty years ago, showed +that the Church, as an ecclesiastical body, had no power to condemn +heresy. This, to men like Stuart Mill, appears on the whole a +satisfactory condition of things so long as there is a State Church, for +the plain reason which he gives--namely, that the State in England is +now far more liberal than the Church. But to Dr. Manning the idea of the +Church thus abdicating its function of interpreting and declaring +doctrine was equivalent to the renunciation of its right to existence. +He strove hard to bring about an organized and solemn declaration and +protest from the Church--a declaration of doctrine, a protest against +secular control. He became the leader of an effort in this direction. +The effort met with little support. The then Bishop of London did indeed +introduce a bill into the House of Lords for the purpose of enacting +that in matters of doctrine, as distinct from questions of mere law, the +final decision should rest with the prelates. Dr. Manning sat in the +gallery of the House of Lords on that memorable night. The Bishop of +London wholly failed. The House of Lords scouted the idea of liberal +England tolerating a sort of ecclesiastical inquisition. Every one +admitted the anomalous condition in which things then were placed; but +few indeed would think of enacting a dogma of infallibility in favor of +the bishops of the Church. Lord Brougham spoke against the bill with +what Dr. Manning himself admits to be plain English common sense. He +said the House of Lords through its law peers could decide questions of +mere ecclesiastical law, and the decisions would carry weight and +authority; but neither peers nor bishops could in England decide a +question of doctrine. Suppose, he asked, the bishops were divided +equally on such a question, where would the decision be then? Suppose +there was a very small majority, who would accept such a decision? Or +even suppose there was a large majority, but that the minority comprised +the few men of greatest knowledge, ability, and authority, what value +would attach to the judgment of such a majority? The bill was a hopeless +failure. Dr. Manning has himself described with equal candor and +clearness the effect which the debate had upon him. He mentally +supplemented Lord Brougham's questions by one other. Suppose that all +the bishops of the Church of England should decide unanimously on any +doctrine, would any one receive the decision as infallible? He was +compelled to answer, "No one." The Church of England had no pretension +to be the infallible spiritual guide of men. Were she to raise any such +pretension, it would be rejected with contempt by the common mind of the +nation. Hear then how this conviction affected the man who up to that +time had had no thought but for the interests and duties of the English +Church. "To those," he has himself told us, "who believed that God has +established upon the earth a divine and therefore an unerring guardian +and teacher of his faith, this event demonstrated that the Church of +England could not be that guardian and teacher." + +While Dr. Manning was still uncertain whither to turn, the celebrated +"Papal aggression" took place. Cardinal Wiseman was sent to England by +the Pope, with the title of Archbishop of Westminster. All England +raged. Earl Russell wrote his famous "Durham Letter." The Lord +Chancellor Campbell, at a public dinner in the city of London, called up +a storm of enthusiasm by quoting the line from Shakespeare, which +declares that + + + Under our feet we'll stamp the cardinal's hat. + + +Protestant zealots in Stockport belabored the Roman Catholics and sacked +their houses; Irish laborers in Birkenhead retorted upon the +Protestants. The Government brought in the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill--a +measure making it penal for any Catholic prelate to call himself +archbishop or bishop of any place in England. Let him be "Archbishop +Wiseman" or "Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop of Mesopotamia," as long as he +liked--but not Archbishop of Westminster or Tuam. The bill was +powerfully, splendidly opposed by Gladstone, Bright, and Cobden, on the +broad ground that it invaded the precincts of religious liberty; but it +was carried and made law. There it remained. There never was the +slightest attempt made to enforce it. The Catholic prelates held to the +titles the Pope had given them; and no English court, judge, magistrate, +or policeman ever offered to prevent or punish them. So ludicrous, so +barren a proceeding as the carrying of that measure has not been known +in the England of our time. + +Cardinal Wiseman was an able and a discreet man. He was calm, plausible, +powerful. He was very earnest in the cause of his Church, but he seemed +much more like a man of the world than Newman or Dr. Manning. There was +little of the loftily spiritual in his manner or appearance. His bulky +person and swollen face suggested at the first glance a sort of Abbot +Boniface; he was, I believe, in reality an ascetic. The corpulence which +seemed the result of good living was only the effect of ill health. He +had a persuasive and an imposing way. His ability was singularly +flexible. His eloquence was often too gorgeous and ornamental for a pure +taste, but when the occasion needed he could address an audience in +language of the simplest and most practical common sense. The same +adaptability, if I may use such a word, was evident in all he did. He +would talk with a cabinet minister on terms of calm equality, as if his +rank must be self-evident, and he delighted to set a band of poor school +children playing around him. He was a cosmopolitan--English and Irish by +extraction, Spanish by birth, Roman by education. When he spoke English +he was exactly like what a portly, dignified British bishop ought to +be--a John Bull in every respect. When he spoke Italian at Rome he fell +instinctively and at once into all the peculiarities of intonation and +gesture which distinguish the people of Italy from all other races. When +he conversed in Spanish he subsided into the grave, somewhat saturnine +dignity and repose of the true Castilian. All this, I presume, was but +the natural effect of that flexibility of temperament I have attempted +to describe. I had but slight personal acquaintance with Cardinal +Wiseman, and I paint him only as he impressed me, a casual observer. I +am satisfied that he was a profoundly earnest and single-minded man; the +testimony of many whom I know and who knew him well compels me to that +conviction. But such was not the impression he would have left on a mere +acquaintance. He seemed rather one who could, for a purpose which he +believed great, be all things to all men. He impressed me quite +differently from the manner in which I have been impressed by John Henry +Newman and by Archbishop Manning. He reminded one of some great, +capable, worldly-wise, astute Prince of the Church of other generations, +politician rather than priest, more ready to sustain and skilled to +defend the temporal power of the Papacy than to illustrate its highest +spiritual influence. + +The events which brought Cardinal Wiseman to England had naturally a +powerful effect upon the mind of Dr. Manning. It was the renewed claim +of the Roman Church to enfold England in its spiritual jurisdiction. For +Dr. Manning, who had just seen what he regarded as the voluntary +abdication of the English Church, the claim would in any case have +probably been decisive. It "stepped between him and his fighting soul." +But the personal influence of Cardinal Wiseman had likewise an immense +weight and force. Dr. Manning ever since that time entertained a feeling +of the profoundest devotion and reverence for Cardinal Wiseman. The +change was consummated in 1851, and one of the first practical comments +upon the value of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act was the announcement +that a scholar and divine of whom the Protestant Church had long been +especially proud had resigned his preferments, his dignities, and his +prospects, and passed over to the Church of Rome. I cannot better +illustrate the effect produced on the public mind than by saying that +even the secession of John Henry Newman hardly made a deeper impression. + +Dr. Manning, of course, rose to high rank in the church of his adoption. +He became Roman of the Romans--Ultramontane of the Ultramontanes. On the +death of his friend and leader, Cardinal Wiseman, whose funeral sermon +he preached, Henry Manning became Archbishop of Westminster. Except for +his frequent journeys to Rome, he has always since his appointment lived +in London. Although a good deal of an ascetic, as his emaciated face and +figure would testify, he is nothing of a hermit. He mingles to a certain +extent in society, he takes part in many public movements, and he has +doubtless given Mr. Disraeli ample opportunity of studying his manner +and bearing. I don't believe Mr. Disraeli capable of understanding the +profound devotion and single-minded sincerity of the man. A more +singular, striking, marvellous figure does not stand out, I think, in +our English society. Everything that an ordinary Englishman or American +would regard as admirable and auspicious in the progress of our +civilization, Dr. Manning calmly looks upon as lamentable and +evil-omened. What we call progress is to his mind decay. What we call +light is to him darkness. What we reverence as individual liberty he +deplores as spiritual slavery. The mere fact that a man gives reasons +for his faith seems shocking to this strangely-gifted apostle of +unconditional belief. Though you were to accept on bended knees +ninety-nine of the decrees of Rome, you would still be in his mind a +heretic if you paused to consider as to the acceptance of the hundredth +dogma. All the peculiarly modern changes in the legislation of England, +the admission of Jews to Parliament, the introduction of the principle +of divorce, the practical recognition of the English divine's right of +private judgment, are painful and odious to him. I have never heard from +any other source anything so clear, complete, and astonishing as his +cordial acceptance of the uttermost claims of Rome; the prostration of +all reason and judgment before the supposed supernatural attributes of +the Papal throne. In one of the finest passages of his own writings he +says: "My love for England begins with the England of St. Bede. Saxon +England, with all its tumults, seems to me saintly and beautiful. Norman +England I have always loved less, because, although majestic, it became +continually less Catholic, until the evil spirit of the world broke off +the light yoke of faith at the so-called Reformation. Still I loved the +Christian England which survived, and all the lingering outlines of +diocese and parishes, cathedrals and churches, with the names of saints +upon them. It is this vision of the past which still hovers over England +and makes it beautiful and full of the memories of the kingdom of God. +Nay, I loved the parish church of my childhood and the college chapel of +my youth, and the little church under a green hillside where the morning +and evening prayers and the music of the English Bible for seventeen +years became a part of my soul. Nothing is more beautiful in the natural +order, and if there were no eternal world I could have made it my home." +To Dr. Manning the time when saints walked the earth of England is more +of a reality than the day before yesterday to most of us. Where the +ordinary eye sees only a poor, ignorant Irish peasant, Dr. Manning +discerns a heaven-commissioned bearer of light and truth, destined by +the power of his unquestioning faith to redeem perhaps, in the end, even +English philosophers and statesmen. When it was said in the praise of +the murdered Archbishop of Paris that he was disposed to regret the +introduction of the dogma of infallibility, Archbishop Manning came +eagerly to the rescue of his friend's memory, and as one would vindicate +a person unjustly accused of crime, he vindicated the dead Archbishop +from the stigma of having for a moment dared to have an opinion of his +own on such a subject. Of course, if Dr. Manning were an ordinary +theological devotee or fanatic, there would be nothing remarkable in all +this. But he is a man of the widest culture, of high intellectual gifts, +of keen and penetrating judgment in all ordinary affairs, remarkable for +his close and logical argument, his persuasive reasoning, and for a +genial, quiet kind of humor which seems especially calculated to +dissolve sophistry by its action. He is an English gentleman, a man of +the world; he was educated at Oxford with Arthur Pendennis and young +Lord Magnus Charters; he lives at York Place in the London of to-day; he +drives down to the House of Commons and talks politics in the lobby with +Gladstone and Lowe; he meets Disraeli at dinner parties, and is on +friendly terms, I dare say, with Huxley and Herbert Spencer; he reads +the newspapers, and I make no doubt is now well acquainted with the +history of the agitation against Tammany and Boss Tweed. I think such a +man is a marvellous phenomenon in our age. It is as if one of the +mediaeval saints from the stained windows of a church should suddenly +become infused with life and take a part in all the ways of our present +world. I can understand the long-abiding power of the Catholic Church +when I remember that I have heard and seen and talked with Henry Edward +Manning. + +Dr. Manning is not, I fancy, very much of a political reformer. His +inclinations would probably be rather conservative than otherwise. He is +drawn toward Gladstone and the Liberal party less by distinct political +affinity, of which there is but little, than by his hope and belief that +through Gladstone something will be done for that Ireland which to this +Oxford scholar is still the "island of the saints." The Catholic members +of Parliament, whether English or Irish, consult Archbishop Manning +constantly upon all questions connected with education or religion. His +parlor in York Place--not far from where Mme. Tussaud's wax-work +exhibition attracts the country visitor--is the frequent scene of +conferences which have their influence upon the action of the House of +Commons. He is a devoted upholder of the doctrine of total abstinence +from intoxicating drinks; and he is the only Englishman of real +influence and ability, except Francis Newman, who is in favor of +prohibitory legislation. He is the medium of communication between Rome +and England; the living link of connection between the English Catholic +peer and the Irish Catholic bricklayer. The position which he occupies +is at all events quite distinctive. There is nobody else in England who +could set up the faintest claim to any such place. It would be +superfluous to remark that I do not expect the readers of "The Galaxy" +to have any sympathy with the opinions, theological or political, of +such a man. But the man himself is worthy of profound interest, of +study, and even of admiration. He is the spirit, the soul, the ideal of +mediaeval faith embodied in the form of a living English scholar and +gentleman. He represents and illustrates a movement the most remarkable, +possibly the most portentous, which has disturbed England and the +English Church since the time of Wyckliffe. No one can have any real +knowledge of the influences at work in English life to-day, no one can +understand the history of the past twenty years, or even pretend to +conjecture as to the possibilities of the future, who has not paid some +attention to the movement which has Dr. Manning for one of its most +distinguished leaders, and to the position and character of Manning +himself. + + + + +JOHN RUSKIN. + + +Any one who has visited the National Gallery in London must have seen, +and seeing must have studied, the contrasted paintings placed side by +side of Turner and of Claude. They will attract attention if only +because the two Turners are thus placed apart from the rooms used as a +Turner Gallery, and containing the great collection of the master's +works. The pictures of which I am now speaking are hung in a room +principally occupied by the paintings of Murillo. As you enter you are +at once attracted by four large pictures which hang on either side of +the door opposite. On the right are Turner's "Dido Building Carthage," +and Claude's "Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba." On the left are a +"Landscape with the Sun Rising" by Turner, and "The Marriage of Isaac +and Rebecca" by Claude. Nobody could fail to observe that the pictures +are thus arranged for some distinct purpose. They are in fact placed +side by side for the sake of comparison and contrast. They are all +eminently characteristic; they have the peculiar faults and the peculiar +merits of the artists. In the Claudes we have even one of those yellow +trunks which are the abomination of the critic I am about to speak of, +and one might almost suppose that the Queen of Sheba was embarking for +Saratoga. I do not propose to criticise the pictures; but in them you +have, to the full, Turner and Claude. + +Now in the contrast between these pictures may be found, symbolically at +least, the origin and motive of John Ruskin's career. He sprang into +literary life simply as a vindicator of the fame and genius of Turner. +But as he went on with his task he found, or at least he convinced +himself, that the vindication of the great painter was essentially a +vindication of all true art. Still further proceeding with his +self-imposed task, he persuaded himself that the cause of true art was +identical with the cause of truth, and that truth, from Ruskin's point +of view, enclosed in the same rules and principles all the morals, all +the politics, all the science, industry, and daily business of life. +Therefore from an art-critic he became a moralist, a political +economist, a philosopher, a statesman, a preacher--anything, everything +that human intelligence can impel a man to be. All that he has written +since his first appeal to the public has been inspired by this +conviction--that an appreciation of the truth in art reveals to him who +has it the truth in everything. This belief has been the source of Mr. +Ruskin's greatest successes and of his most complete and ludicrous +failures. It has made him the admiration of the world one week, and the +object of its placid pity or broad laughter the next. A being who could +be Joan of Arc to-day and Voltaire's Pucelle to-morrow would hardly +exhibit a stronger psychical paradox than the eccentric genius of Mr. +Ruskin commonly displays. But in order to understand him, or to do him +common justice--in order not to regard him as a mere erratic utterer of +eloquent contradictions, poured out on the impulse of each moment's new +freak of fancy--we must always bear in mind this fundamental faith of +the man. Extravagant as this or that doctrine may be, outrageous as +to-day's contradiction of yesterday's assertion may be, yet the whole +career is consistent with its essential principles and belief. + +Ruskin was singularly fitted by fortune to live for a purpose; to +consecrate his life to the cause of art and of what he considered truth. +As everybody knows, he was born to wealth so considerable as to allow +him to indulge all his tastes and whims, and to write without any regard +for money profit. I hardly know of any other author of eminence who in +our time has worked with so complete an independence of publisher, +public, or paymaster. I do not suppose Ruskin ever wrote one line for +money. Some of his works must have brought him in a good return of mere +pounds and shillings; but they would have been written just the same if +they had never paid for printing; and indeed the author is always +spending money on some benevolent crotchet. He was born in London, and +he himself attributes much of his early love for nature to the fact that +he was "accustomed for two or three years to no other prospect than that +of the brick walls over the way," and that he had "no brothers nor +sisters nor companions." I question whether anybody not acquainted with +London can understand how completely one can be shut in from the pure +face of free nature in that vast city. In New York one can hardly walk +far in any direction without catching glimpses of the water and the +shores of New Jersey or Long Island. But in some of the most respectable +middle-class regions of London, you might drudge away or dream away your +life and never have one sight of open nature unless you made a regular +expedition to find her. Ruskin speaks somewhere of the strange and +exquisite delight which the cockney feels when he treads on grass; and +every biographical sketch of him recalls that passage in his writings +which tells us of the first thing he could remember as an event in his +life--his being taken by his nurse to the brow of one of the crags +overlooking Derwentwater, and the "intense joy, mingled with awe, that I +had in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots over the crag into +the dark lake, and which has associated itself more or less with all +twining roots of trees ever since." Ruskin travelled much, and at a very +early age, through Europe. He became familiar with most of the beautiful +show-places of the European Continent when a boy, and I believe he never +extended the sphere of his travels. About his early life there is little +to be said. He completed his education at Oxford, and, more successful +than Arthur Pendennis, he went in for a prize poem and won the prize. He +visited the Continent, more especially Switzerland and Italy, again and +again. He married a Scottish lady, and the marriage was not a happy one. +I don't propose to go into any of the scandal and talk which the events +created; but I may say that the marriage was dissolved without any moral +blame resting on or even imputed to either of the parties, and that the +lady afterwards became the wife of Mr. Millais. Since then Mr. Ruskin +has led a secluded rather than a lonely life. His constitution is +feeble; he has as little robustness of _physique_ as can well be +conceived, and no kind of excitement is suitable for him. Only the other +day he sank into a condition of such exhaustion that for a while it was +believed impossible he could recover. At one time he used to appear in +public rather often; and was ready to deliver lectures on the ethics of +art wherever he thought his teaching could benefit the ignorant or the +poor. He was especially ready to address assemblages of workingmen, the +pupils of charitable institutions for the teaching of drawing. I cannot +remember his ever having taken part in any fashionable pageant or +demonstration of any kind. Of late he has ceased to show himself at any +manner of public meeting, and he addresses his favorite workingmen +through the medium of an irregular little publication, a sort of +periodical or tract which he calls "Fors Clavigera." Of this publication +"I send a copy," he announces, "to each of the principal journals and +periodicals, to be noticed or not at their pleasure; otherwise, I shall +use no advertisements." The author also informs us that "the tracts will +be sold for sevenpence each, without abatement on quantity." I doubt +whether many sales have taken place, or whether the reference to +purchase in quantity was at all necessary, or whether indeed the author +cared one way or the other. In one of these printed letters he says: +"The scientific men are busy as ants, examining the sun and the moon and +the seven stars; and can tell me all about them, I believe, by this +time, and how they move and what they are made of. And I do not care, +for my part, two copper spangles how they move nor what they are made +of. I can't move them any other way than they go, nor make them of +anything else better than they are made." This might sound wonderfully +sharp and practical, if, a few pages on, Mr. Ruskin did not broach his +proposition for the founding of a little model colony of labor in +England, where boys and girls alike are to be taught agriculture, vocal +music, Latin, and the history of five cities--Athens, Rome, Venice, +Florence, and London. This scheme was broached last August, and it is +rather soon yet even to ask whether any steps have been taken to put it +into execution; but Mr. Ruskin has already given five thousand dollars +to begin with, and will probably give a good deal more before he +acknowledges the inevitable failure. Ruskin lives in one of the most +beautiful of London suburbs, on Denmark Hill, at the south side of the +river, near Dulwich and the exquisite Sydenham slopes where the Crystal +Palace stands. Here he indulges his love of pictures and statues, and of +rest--when he is not in the mood for unrest--and nourishes philanthropic +schemes of eccentric kinds, and is altogether about the nearest approach +to an independent, self-sufficing philosopher our modern days have +known. Of his life as a private citizen this much is about all that it +concerns us to hear. + +Twenty-eight years have passed away since Mr. Ruskin leaped into the +critical arena, with a spring as bold and startling as that of Edward +Kean on the Kemble-haunted stage. The little volume, so modest in its +appearance, so self-sufficient in its tone, which the author defiantly +flung down like a gage of battle before the world, was entitled "Modern +Painters: their Superiority in the Art of Landscape Painting to all the +Ancient Masters. By a Graduate of Oxford." I was a boy of thirteen, +living in a small provincial town, when this book made its first +appearance, but it seems to me that the echo of the sensation it created +still rings in my ears. It was a challenge to all established beliefs +and prejudices; and the challenge was delivered in the tones of one who +felt confident that he could make good his words against any and all +opponents. If there was one thing that more than another seemed to have +been fixed and rooted in the English mind, it was that Claude and one or +two other of the old masters possessed the secret of landscape painting. +When, therefore, this bold young dogmatist involved in one common +denunciation "Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Ruysdael, Paul +Potter, Cavaletto, and the various Van-Somethings and Koek-Somethings, +more especially and malignantly those who have libelled the sea," it was +no wonder that affronted authority raised its indignant voice and +thundered at him. Affronted authority, however, gained little by its +thunder. The young Oxford graduate possessed, along with genius and +profound conviction, an imperturbable and magnificent self-conceit, +against which the surges of angry criticism dashed themselves in vain. +Mr. Ruskin, when putting on his armor, had boasted himself as one who +takes it off; but in his case there proved to be little rashness in the +premature fortification. For assuredly that book overrode and bore down +its critics. I need not follow it through its various editions, its +successive volumes, its amplifications, wherein at last the original +design, the vindication of Turner, swelled into an enunciation and +illustration of the true principles of landscape art. Nor do I mean to +say that the book carried all its points. Far from it. Claude still +lives, and Salvator Rosa has his admirers, among whom most of us are +very glad to enroll ourselves; and Ruskin himself has since that time +pointed out many serious defects in Turner, and has unsaid a great deal +of what he then proclaimed. But if the Oxford graduate had been wrong in +every illustration of his principal doctrine, I should still hold that +the doctrine itself was true and of inestimable value, and that the book +was a triumph. For, I think, it proclaimed and firmly established the +true point of view from which we must judge of the art of painting in +all its departments. In plain words, Ruskin taught the English public +that they must look at nature with their own eyes, and judge of art by +the help of nature. Up to the publication of that book England, at +least, had been falling into the way of regarding art as a sort of +polite school to which it was our duty to endeavor to make nature +conform. Conventionality and apathy had sunk apparently into the very +souls of men and women. Hardly one in ten thousand ever really saw a +landscape, a wave, a ray of the sun as it is. Nobody used his own eyes. +Every one was content to think that he saw what the painters told him he +saw. Ruskin himself tells us somewhere about a test question which used +to be put to young landscape painters by one who was supposed to be a +master of the craft: "Where do you put your brown tree?" The question +illustrates the whole theory and school of conventionality. +Conventionality had decreed first that there are brown trees, and next +that there cannot be a respectable landscape without a brown tree. Long +after the teaching of Ruskin had well-nigh revolutionized opinion in +England, I stood once with a lover of art of the old-fashioned school, +looking on one of the most beautiful and famous scenes in England. The +tender autumn season, the melancholy woods in the background, the little +lake, the half-ruined abbey, did not even need the halo of poetic and +romantic association which hung around them in order to render the scene +a very temptation, one might have thought, to the true artist. I +suggested something of the kind. My companion shook his head almost +contemptuously. "You could never make a picture of that," he said. I +pressed him to tell me why so picturesque a scene could not be +represented somehow in a picture. He did not care evidently to argue +with ignorance, and he even endeavored to concede something to my +untutored whim. "Perhaps," he began with hesitation, "if one were to put +a large dark tree in there to the left, one might make something of it. +But no" (he had done his best and could not humor me any further), "it +is out of the question; there couldn't be a picture made out of _that_." +How could I illustrate more clearly the kind of thing which Ruskin came +to put down and did put down in England? + +Of course Mr. Ruskin was never a man to do anything by halves, and +having once laid down the canon that nature and truth are to be the +guides of the artist, he soon began to write and to think as if nature +and truth alone were concerned. He seemed to have taken no account of +the fact that one great object of art is simply to give delight, and +that however natural and truthful an artist may be, yet he is to bear in +mind this one purpose of his work, or he might almost as well let it +alone. Nature and truth are to be his guides to the delighting of men; +to show him how he is to give a delight which shall be pure and genuine. +A single inaccuracy as to fact seems at one time to have spoiled all Mr. +Ruskin's enjoyment of a painting, and filled him with a feeling of scorn +and detestation for it. He denounces Raphael's "Charge to Peter," on the +ground that the apostles are not dressed as men of that time and place +would have been when going out fishing; and he makes no allowance for +the fact, pointed out by M. Taine, that Raphael's design first of all +was to represent a group of noble, serious men, majestic and +picturesque, and that mere realism entered little into his purpose. It +may seem the oddest thing to compare Ruskin with Macaulay, but it is +certain that the very kind of objection which the former urges against +the paintings of Raphael the latter brings forward against one of the +poems of Goldsmith. "What would be thought of a painter," asks Macaulay, +"who would mix January and August in one landscape, who would introduce +a frozen river into a harvest scene? Would it be a sufficient defence of +such a picture to say that every part was exquisitely colored; that the +green hedges, the apple trees loaded with fruit, the wagons reeling +under the yellow sheaves, and the sunburned reapers wiping their +foreheads, were very fine; and that the ice and the boys sliding were +also very fine? To such a picture the 'Deserted Village' bears a great +resemblance." Now it would indeed be an incomprehensible mistake if a +painter were to mix up August and January as Macaulay suggests, or to +depict the apostles like a group of Greek philosophers, as in Ruskin's +opinion Raphael did. But I venture to think that even the extraordinary +blunder mentioned in the first part of the sentence would not +necessarily condemn a picture to utter contempt. It was a great mistake +to make Dido and Iulus contemporaries; a great mistake to represent +angels employing gunpowder for the suppression of Lucifer's +insurrection; a great mistake to talk of the clock having struck in the +time of Julius Caesar. Yet I suppose Virgil and Milton and Shakespeare +were great poets, and that the very passages in which those errors occur +are nevertheless genuine poetry. Now Ruskin criticises Raphael and +Claude on precisely the principle which would declare Virgil, Milton, +and Shakespeare worthless because of the errors I have mentioned. The +errors are errors no doubt, and ought to be pointed out, and there an +end. Virgil was not writing a history of the foundation of Carthage. +Shakespeare was not describing the social life of Rome under Julius +Caesar. Milton was not a gazetteer of the revolt of Lucifer and his +angels. Mr. Ruskin might as well dispose of a sculptured group of +Centaurs by remarking that there never were Centaurs, or of the famous +hermaphrodite in the Louvre by explaining that hermaphrodites of that +perfect order are unknown to physiology. The beauty of color and +contour, the effect of graceful grouping, the reach of poetic +imagination, the dignity of embodied thought, outlive all such criticism +even when in its way it is just, for they bear in themselves the +vindication of their existence. But Ruskin's criticism is the legitimate +result of the cardinal error of his career--the belief that the morality +of art exactly corresponds with the morality of human life; that there +is a central law of right and wrong for everything, like Stephen Pearl +Andrews's universal science, of which when you have once got the key you +can open every lock--which is the solving word of every enigma, the +standard by which everything is finally to be judged. I need not show +how he followed out that creed and gave it a new application in "The +Seven Lamps of Architecture" and the "Stones of Venice." In these +masterpieces of eloquent declamation, the building of houses was brought +up to be tried according to Mr. Ruskin's self-constructed canons of +aesthetic and architectural morality. No one, I venture to think, cares +much about the doctrine; everybody is carried away by the eloquence, the +originality, and the feeling. Later still Mr. Ruskin applied the same +central, all-pervading principle to the condemnation of fluttering +ribbons in a woman's bonnet. The stucco of a house he set down as false +and immoral, like the painting of a meretricious cheek. His aesthetic +transcendentalism soon ceased to have any practical influence. It would +be idle to try to persuade English house-builders that the attributes of +a building are moral qualities, and that the component parts of a London +residence ought to symbolize and embody "action," "voice," and "beauty." +It may be doubted whether a single architect was ever practically +influenced by the dogmatic eloquence of Mr. Ruskin. In fact the +architects, above all other men, rebelled against the books and scorned +them. But the books made their way with the public, who, caring nothing +about the principles of morality which underlie the construction of +houses, were charmed by the dazzling rhetoric, the wealth of gorgeous +imagery, the interesting and animated digressions, the frequent flashes +of vigorous good sense, and the lofty thought whose only fault was that +which least affected the ordinary reader--its utter inapplicability to +the practical subject of the books. + +It was about the year 1849 that that great secession movement in art +broke out to which its leaders chose to give the title of +pre-Raphaelite. The principal founder of the movement has since been +almost forgotten as an artist, but has come into a sort of celebrity as +a poet--Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. With him were allied, it is almost +needless to say, the two now famous and successful painters, Holman Hunt +and Millais. Decidedly that was the most thriving controversy in the +world of art and letters during our time. It was the only battle of +schools which could tell us what the war for and against the +Sturm-und-Drang school in Germany, the Byron epoch in England, the +struggle of the Classicists and Romanticists in France, must have been +like. The pre-Raphaelite dispute has long ceased to be heard. Years ago +Mr. Ruskin himself, the prophet and apostle of the new sect, described +the defection of its greatest pupil as "not a fall, but a catastrophe." +Rossetti's sonnets are criticised, but not his paintings. "Are not you +still a pre-Raphaelite?" asked an inquisitive person lately of the +sonneteer. "I am not an 'ite' of any kind," was the answer; "I am an +artist." John Everett Millais is among the most fortunate and +fashionable painters of the day. Those who saw his wonderful +"Somnambulist" in last season's exhibition of the London Royal Academy +would have found in it little of the harsh and "crawling realism" which +distinguished the "Beauty in Bricks Brotherhood," as somebody called the +rebellious school of twenty years ago. A London comic paper lately +published a capital likeness of Mr. Millais, handsome, respectable, +tending to stoutness and baldness, and described the portrait as that of +the converted pre-Raphaelite. The progress of things was exactly similar +to that which goes on in the English political world so often. A fiery +young Radical member of Parliament begins by denouncing the Government +and the constitution. He wins first notoriety, and then, if he has any +real stuff in him, reputation; and then he is invited to office, and he +takes it and becomes respectable, wealthy, and fashionable; and his +rebellion is all over, and the world goes on just as before. Such was, +so far as individuals are concerned, the course of the pre-Raphaelite +rebellion; undoubtedly the movement did some good; most rebellions do. +It was a protest against the vague and feeble generalizations and the +vapid classicism which were growing too common in art. Ruskin himself +has happily described the generalized and conventional way of painting +trees and shrubs which was growing to be common and tolerated, and which +he says was no less absurd than if a painter were to depict some +anomalous animal, and defend it as a generalization of pig and pony. +Anything which teaches a careful and rigid study of nature must do good. +The pre-Raphaelite school was excellent discipline for its young +scholars. Probably even those of Millais's paintings which bear on the +face of them least evident traces of that early school, might have been +far inferior to what they are, were it not for the slow and severe study +which the original principles of the movement demanded. The present +interest which the secession has for me is less on its own account than +because of the vigorous, ingenious, and eloquent pages which Ruskin +poured forth in its vindication. He gave it meanings which it never had; +found out truth and beauty in its most prosaic details such as its +working scholars never meant to symbolize; he explained and expounded it +as Johnson did the meaning of the word "slow" in the opening line of the +"Traveller," and in fact well-nigh persuaded himself and the world that +a new priesthood had arisen to teach the divinity of art. But even he +could not write pre-Raphaelitism into popularity and vitality. The +common instinct of human nature, which looks to art as the +representative of beauty, pathos, humor, and passion, could not be +talked into an acceptance of ignoble and ugly realisms. It may be an +error to depict a Judean fisherman like a stately Greek philosopher; but +error for error, it is far less gross and grievous than to paint the +exquisite heroine of Keats's lovely poem as a lank and scraggy spinster, +with high cheek bones like one of Walter Scott's fishwives, undressing +herself in a green moonlight, and displaying a neck and shoulders worthy +of Miss Miggs, and stays and petticoat that bring to mind Tilly Slowboy. + +The pre-Raphaelite mania faded away, but Ruskin's vindication endures; +just as the letters of Pascal are still read by every one, although +nobody cares "two copper spangles" about the controversy which provoked +them. Mr. Ruskin's mental energy did not long lie fallow. Turning the +bull's-eye of his central theory upon other subjects, he dragged +political economy up for judgment. Who can forget the whimsical +sensation produced by the appearance in the "Cornhill Magazine" of the +letters entitled "Unto this Last"? I need not say much about them. They +were a series of fantastic sermons, sometimes eloquent and instructive, +sometimes turgid and absurd, on the moral duty of man. They had +literally nothing to do with the subject of political economy. The +political economists were talking of one thing, and Mr. Ruskin was +talking of another and a totally different thing. The value of an +article is what it will bring in the market, say the economists. "For +shame!" cries Mr. Ruskin; "is the value of her rudder to a ship at sea +in a tempest only what it would be bought for at home in Wapping?" So on +through the whole, the two disputants talking on quite different +subjects. Mr. Ruskin might just as reasonably have interrupted a medical +professor lecturing to his class on the effects and uses of castor oil, +by telling him in eloquent verbiage that castor oil will not make men +virtuous and nations great. Nobody ever said it would; but it is +important to explain the properties of castor oil for all that. It would +be a grand thing of course if, as Mr. Ruskin prayed, England would "cast +all thoughts of possessive wealth back to the barbaric nations among +whom they first arose," and leave "the sands of the Indus and the +adamant of Golconda" to "stiffen the housings of the charger, and flash +from the turban of the slave." This would be ever so much finer than +opening banks, making railways (which Mr. Ruskin specially detests), and +dealing in stocks. But it has nothing to do, good or bad, with the +practical exposition of the economic laws of banking and exchange. It is +about as effective a refutation of the political economist's doctrines +as a tract from the Peace Society denouncing all war would be to a +lecture from Von Moltke on the practical science of campaigning. But Mr. +Ruskin never saw this, and never was disconcerted. He turned to other +missions with the firm conviction that he had finished off political +economy, as a clever free-thinking London lady calmly announced a few +years back to her friends that she had abolished Christianity. Then Mr. +Ruskin condemned mines and factories, railways and engines. With all the +same strenuous and ornate eloquence he passed sentence on London +pantomimes and "cascades of girls," and the too liberal exposure of +"lower limbs" by the young ladies composing those cascades. Nothing is +too trivial for the omniscient philosopher, and nothing is too great. +The moral government of a nation is decreed by the same voice and on the +same principles as those which have prescribed the length of a lady's +waist-ribbon and the shape of a door-scraper. The first Napoleon never +claimed for himself the divine right of intermeddling with and arranging +everything more complacently than does the mild and fragile philosopher +of Denmark Hill. Be it observed that his absolute ignorance of a subject +never deters Mr. Ruskin from pronouncing prompt judgment upon it. It may +be some complicated question of foreign, say of American politics, on +which men of good ability, who have mastered all the facts and studied +the arguments on both sides, are slow to pronounce. Mr. Ruskin, boldly +acknowledging that until this morning he never heard of the subject, +settles it out of hand and delivers final judgment. Sometimes his +restless impulses and his extravagant way of plunging at conclusions and +conjecturing facts lead him into unpleasant predicaments. He delivered a +manifesto some years ago upon the brutality of the lower orders of +Englishmen, founded on certain extraordinary persecutions inflicted on +his friend Thomas Carlyle. Behold Carlyle himself coming out with a +letter in which he declares that all these stories of persecution were +not only untrue, but were "curiously the reverse of truth." Of course +every one knew that Ruskin believed them to be true; that he half heard +something, conjectured something else, jumped at a conclusion, and as +usual regarded himself as an inspired prophet, compelled by his mission +to come forward and deliver judgment on a sinful people. + +Mr. Ruskin's devotion to Carlyle has been unfortunate for him, as it has +for so many others. For that which is reality in Carlyle is only echo +and imitation in Ruskin, and the latter has power enough and a field +wide enough of his own to render inexcusable the attempt to follow +slavishly another man. Moreover, Carlyle's utterances, right or wrong, +have meaning and practical application; but when Ruskin repeats them +they become meaningless and inapplicable. Mr. Ruskin endeavoring to +apply Carlyle's dogmas to the business of art and social life and +politics often reminds one of the humorous Hindoo story of the Gooroo +Simple and his followers, who went through life making the most +outrageous blunders, because they would insist on the literal +application of their traditional maxims of wisdom to every common +incident of existence. When a self-conceited man ever consents to make +another man his idol, even his very self-conceit only tends to render +him more awkwardly and unconditionally devoted and servile. The amount +of nonsense that Ruskin has talked and written, under the evident +conviction that thus and not otherwise would Thomas Carlyle have dealt +with the subject, is something almost inconceivable. I never heard of +Ruskin taking up any political question without being on the wrong side +of it. I am not merely speaking of what I personally consider the wrong +side; I am alluding to questions which history and hard fact and the +common voice and feeling of humanity have since decided. Against every +movement to give political freedom to his countrymen, against every +movement to do common justice to the negro race, against every effort +to secure fair play for a democratic cause, Mr. Ruskin has peremptorily +arrayed himself. "I am a Kingsman and no Mobsman," he declares; and this +declaration seems in his mind to settle the question and to justify his +vindication of every despotism of caste or sovereignty. To this has his +doctrine of aesthetic moral law, to this has his worship of Carlyle, +conducted him. + +For myself, I doubt whether Mr. Ruskin has any great qualities but his +eloquence, and his true, honest love of Nature. As a man to stand up +before a society of which one part was fashionably languid and the other +part only too busy and greedy, and preach to it of Nature's immortal +beauty and of the true way to do her reverence, I think Ruskin had and +has a place almost worthy the dignity of a prophet. I think, too, that +he has the capacity to fill the place, to fulfil its every duty. Surely +this ought to be enough for the work and for the praise of any man. But +the womanish restlessness of Ruskin's temperament, combined with the +extraordinary self-sufficiency which contributed so much to his success +when he was master of a subject, sent him perpetually intruding into +fields where he was unfit to labor, and enterprises which he had no +capacity to conduct. No man has ever contradicted himself so often, so +recklessly, so complacently, as Mr. Ruskin has done. It is absurd to +call him a great critic even in art, for he seldom expresses any opinion +one day without flatly contradicting it the next. He is a great writer, +as Rousseau was--fresh, eloquent, audacious, writing out of the fulness +of the present mood, and heedless how far the impulse of to-day may +contravene that of yesterday; but as Rousseau was always faithful to his +idea of Truth, so Ruskin is ever faithful to Nature. When all his errors +and paradoxes and contradictions shall have been utterly forgotten, this +his great praise will remain: No man since Wordsworth's brightest days +ever did half so much to teach his countrymen, and those who speak his +language, how to appreciate and honor that silent Nature which "never +did betray the heart that loved her." + + + + +CHARLES READE. + + +A few days ago I came by chance upon an old number of an illustrated +publication which made a rather brilliant start in London four or five +years since, but died, I believe, not long after. It sprang up when +there was a sudden rage in England for satirical portraits of eminent +persons, and it really showed some skill and humor in this not very +healthful or dignified department of art. This number of which I speak +has a humorous cartoon called "Companions of the Bath," and representing +a miscellaneous crowd of the celebrated men and women of the day +enjoying a plunge in the waves at Havre, Dieppe, or some other French +bathing-place. There are Gladstone and Disraeli; burly Alexandre Dumas +and small, fragile Swinburne; Tennyson and Longfellow; Christine Nilsson +and Adelina Patti, the two latter looking very pretty in their tunics +and _calecons_. Most of the likenesses are good, and the attitudes are +often characteristic and droll. Mr. Spurgeon flounders and puffs wildly +in the waves; Gladstone cleaves his way sternly and earnestly; Mario +floats with easy grace. One group at present attracts very special +attention. It represents a big, heavy, gray-headed man, ungainly of +appearance, whom a smaller personage, bald and neat, is pushing off a +plank into the water. The smaller man is Dion Boucicault; the larger is +Mr. Charles Reade. This was the time when Reade and Boucicault were +working together in "Foul Play." The insinuation of the artist evidently +was that Boucicault, always ready for any plunge into the waves of +sensationalism, had to give a push to his hesitating companion in order +to impel him to the decisive "header." + +The artist has been evidently unjust to Mr. Reade. Indeed, one can +hardly help suspecting that there must have been some little personal +grievance which the pencil was employed to pay off, after the fashion +threatened more than once by Hogarth. Mr. Reade is not an Adonis, but +this attempt at his likeness is cruelly grotesque and extravagant. +Charles Reade is a big, heavy, rugged, gray man; a sort of portlier Walt +Whitman, but with closer-cut hair and beard; a Walt Whitman, let us say, +put into training for the part of a stout British vestryman. He +impresses you at once as a man of character, energy, and originality, +although he is by no means the sort of person you would pick out as a +typical romancist. But the artist who has delineated him in this +cartoon, and who has dealt so fairly, albeit humorously, with Tennyson +and Swinburne and Longfellow, must surely have had some spite against +the author of "Peg Woffington" when he depicted him as a sort of huge +human gorilla. It is in fact for this reason only that I have thought it +worth while to introduce an allusion to such a caricature. The +caricature is in itself illustrative of my subject. It helps to +introduce an inevitable allusion to a weakness of Mr. Charles Reade's +which makes for him many enemies and satirists among minor authors, +critics, and artists in London. To a wonderful energy and virility of +genius and temperament Charles Reade adds a more than feminine +susceptibility and impatience when criticism attempts to touch him. With +a faith in his own capacity and an admiration for his own works such as +never were surpassed in literary history, he can yet be rendered almost +beside himself by a disparaging remark from the obscurest critic in the +corner of the poorest provincial newspaper. There is no pen so feeble +anywhere but it can sting Charles Reade into something like delirium. He +replies to every attack, and he discovers a personal enemy in every +critic. Therefore he is always in quarrels, always assailing this man +and being assailed by that, and to the very utmost of his power trying +to prevent the public from appreciating or even recognizing the wealth +of genuine manhood, truth, and feeling, which is bestowed everywhere in +the rugged ore of his strange and paradoxical character. I am not myself +one of Mr. Reade's friends, or even acquaintances; but from those who +are, and whom I know, I have always heard the one opinion of the +sterling integrity, kindness, and trueheartedness of the man who so +often runs counter to all principles of social amenity, and whose bursts +of impulsive ill-humor have offended many who would fain have admired. + +I said once before in the pages of "The Galaxy," when speaking of +another English novelist, that Charles Reade seems to me to rank more +highly in America than he does in England. It is only of quite recent +years that English criticism of the higher class has treated him with +anything like fair consideration. There was a long time of Reade's +growing popularity during which such criticism declined altogether to +regard him _au serieux_. Even now he has not justice done to him. But if +I cannot help believing that Mr. Reade rates himself far too highly, and +announces his opinion far too frankly, neither can I help thinking that +English criticism in general fails to do him justice. For a long time he +had to struggle hard to obtain a mere recognition. He had during part of +his early career the good sense, or the spirit, or the misfortune, +according as people choose to view it, to write in one of the popular +weekly journals of London which correspond somewhat with the "New York +Ledger." I think Charles Dickens described Reade as the one only man +with a genuine literary reputation who at that time had ventured upon +such a performance. There are indeed men now of undoubted rank in +literature who began their career with work like this; but they did not +put their names to it, and the world was never the wiser. Reade worked +boldly and worked his best, and put his own name to it; and therefore +the London press for some time regarded or affected to regard him as an +author of that class whose genius supplies weekly instalments of +sensation and tremendously high life, to delight the servant girls of +Islington and the errand boys of the City. Long after the issue of some +of the finest novels Reade has written, the annual publication called +"Men of the Time" contained no notice of the author. The odd thing about +this is that Reade is an author of the very class which English +criticisms of the kind I allude to ought to have delighted to encourage. +In the reaction against literary Bohemianism, which of late years has +grown up in England, and which the "Saturday Review" may be said to +have inaugurated, it became the whim and fashion to believe that only +gentlemen with university degrees, only "blood and culture," as the cant +phrase was, could write anything which gentlemanly persons could find it +worth their while to read. The "Saturday Review" for a long time +affected to treat Dickens as a good-humored and vulgar buffoon, with a +gift of genius to delight the lower classes. It usually regarded +Thackeray as a person made for better things, who had forfeited his +position as a gentleman and a university man by descending to literature +and to lectures. Now Charles Reade is what in the phraseology of English +_caste_ would be called a gentleman. He is of good English family; he is +a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford. He is a man of culture and +scholarship. His reading, and especially his classical acquirements, I +presume to be far wider and deeper than those of Thackeray, who, it need +hardly be said, was as Porson or Parr when compared with Dickens. +Altogether Reade seems to have been the sort of man whom the "Saturday +Review," for example, ought to have taken promptly up and patted on the +back and loftily patronized. But nothing of the sort occurred. Reade was +treated merely as the clever, audacious concocter of sensational +stories. He was hardly dealt with as an artist at all. The reviews only +began to come round when they discovered that the public were positively +with the new and stirring romancist. What renders this more curious is +the fact that the earlier novels were incomparably more highly finished +works of art than their successors. "Peg Woffington" and "Christie +Johnstone"--the former published so long ago as 1852--seem almost +perfect in their symmetry and beauty. "The Cloister and the Hearth" +might well-nigh have persuaded a reader that a new Walter Scott was +about to arise on the horizon of our literature. All the more recent +works seem crude and rough by comparison. They ought to have been the +vigorous, uncouth, undisciplined efforts of the author's earlier years. +They ought to have led up to the "Cloister and the Hearth" and "Peg +Woffington," instead of succeeding them. Yet, if I am not greatly +mistaken, it was while he was publishing those earlier and finer +products of his fresh intellect that Charles Reade was especially +depreciated and even despised by what is called high-class English +criticism. He never indeed has had much for which to thank the English +critics, and he has never been slow to express his peculiar sense of +obligation; but assuredly they treated with greater respect the works +which will be soonest forgotten than those on which he may perhaps rest +a claim to a more enduring reputation. + +The general public, however, soon began to find him out. "Peg +Woffington" was a decided success. Its dramatic adaptation is still one +of the favorite pieces of the English stage. "It is Never Too Late to +Mend" set everybody talking. Reade began to devote himself to exposing +this or that social and legal grievance calling for reform, and people +came to understand that a new branch of the art of novel-writing was in +process of development, the special gift of which was to convert a +Parliamentary blue-book into a work of fiction. The treatment of +criminals in prisons and in far-off penal settlements, the manner in +which patients are dealt with in private lunatic asylums, became the +main subject and backbone of the new style of novel, instead of the +misunderstandings of lovers, the trials of honest poverty, or the +struggles for ascendancy in the fashionable circles of Belgravia. Mr. +Reade undoubtedly stands supreme and indeed alone in work of this kind. +No man but he can make a blue-book live and yet be a blue-book still. +When Dickens undertook some special and practical question, we all knew +that we had to look for lavish outpouring of humor, fancy, and +eccentricity, for generous pathos, and for a sentimental misapplication +or complete elimination of the actual facts. Miss Martineau made dry +little stories about political economy; and Disraeli's "Sibyl" is only a +fashionable novel and a string of tracts bound up together and called by +one name. But Reade takes the hard and naked facts as he finds them in +some newspaper or in the report of some Parliamentary commission, and he +so fuses them into the other material whereof his romance is to be made +up that it would require a chemical analysis to separate the fiction +from the reality. You are not conscious that you are going through the +boiled-down contents of a blue-book. You have no aggrieved sense of +being entrapped into the dry details of some harassing social question. +The reality reads like romance; the romance carries you along like +reality. No author ever indulged in a fairer piece of self-glorification +than that contained in the last sentence of "Put Yourself in his Place": +"I have taken a few undeniable truths out of many, and have labored to +make my readers realize those appalling facts of the day which most men +know, but not one in a thousand comprehends, and not one in a hundred +thousand realizes, until fiction--which, whatever you may have been told +to the contrary, is the highest, widest, noblest, and greatest of all +the arts--comes to his aid, studies, penetrates, digests the hard facts +of chronicles and blue-books, and makes their dry bones live." To this +object, to this kind of work, Reade seems to have deliberately purposed +to devote himself. It was evidently in accordance with his natural +tastes and sympathies. He is a man of exuberant and irrepressible +energy. He must be doing something definite always. He did actually +bestir himself in the case of a person whom he believed to be unjustly +confined in a lunatic asylum, as energetically as he makes Dr. Sampson +do in "Hard Cash," and with equal success. Most of the scenes he +describes, in England at least, have thus in some way fallen in to be +part of his own experience. Whatever he undertakes to do he does with a +tremendous earnestness. His method of workmanship is, I believe, +something like that of Mr. Wilkie Collins, but of course the object is +totally different. Wilkie Collins collects all the remarkable police +cases and other judicial narratives he can find, and makes what Jean +Paul Richter called "quarry" of them--a vast accumulation of materials +in which to go digging for subjects and illustrations at leisure. +Charles Reade does the same with blue-books and the reports of official +inquiries. The author of the "Dead Secret" is looking for perplexing +little mysteries of human crime; the author of "Hard Cash" for stories +of legal or social wrong to be redressed. I need hardly say, perhaps, +that I rank Charles Reade high above Wilkie Collins. The latter can +string his dry bones on wires with remarkable ingenuity; the former can, +as he fairly boasts, make the dry bones live. + +Meanwhile, let us follow out the progress of Mr. Charles Reade as a +literary influence. He grows to have a distinct place and power in +England quite independently of the reviewers, and at last the very storm +of controversy which his books awaken compels the reviewers themselves +to take him into account. "It is Never Too Late to Mend" raised a clamor +among prison disciplinarians. Years after its publication it is brought +out as a drama in London, and its first appearance creates a sort of +riot in the Princess's Theatre. Hostile critics rise in the stalls and +denounce it; supporters and admirers vehemently defend it; speeches are +made on either side. Mr. Reade plunges into the arena of controversy a +day or two after in the newspapers, assails one of the critics by name, +and charges him with having denounced the piece in the theatre, and +applauded his own denunciation in the journal for which he wrote. Some +friend of the critic replies by the assertion that one of Mr. Reade's +most enthusiastic literary supporters is Mr. Reade's own nephew. All +this sort of thing is dreadfully undignified, but it brings an author at +all events into public notice, and it did for Mr. Reade what I am +convinced he would have disdained to do consciously--it "puffed" his +books. An amusing story is told in connection with the production of +this drama. An East End manager thought of bringing it out. (The East +End, I need hardly say, is the lower and poorer quarter of London.) This +manager came and studied the piece as produced at the West End. One of +the strong scenes, the sensation scene, was a realistic exhibition of +prison discipline. The West End had been duly impressed and thrilled +with this scene. But the East End manager shook his head. "It would +never do for _me_," he said despondingly to a friend. "Not like the real +thing at all. _My_ gallery would never stand it. Bless you, my fellows +know the real thing too well to put up with _that_." + +In this, as in other cases, Mr. Reade's hot temper, immense +self-conceit, and eager love of controversy plunged him into discussions +from which another man would have shrunk with disgust. He went so far on +one occasion as to write to the editor of a London daily paper, +threatening that if his books were not more fairly dealt with he would +order his publisher to withdraw his advertisements from the offending +journal. One can fancy what terror the threat of a loss of a few +shillings a month would have had upon the proprietors of a flourishing +London paper, and the amount of ridicule to which the bare suggestion of +such a thing exposed the irritable novelist. But Reade was, and probably +is, incurable. He would keep pelting his peppery little notes at the +head of any and everybody against whom he fancied that he had a +grievance. I remember one peculiarly whimsical illustration of this +weakness, which found its way into print some years ago in London, but +which perhaps will be quite new in the United States, and I cannot +resist the temptation to reproduce it. Once upon a time, it would seem +from the correspondence, Mr. Reade wrote a play called "Gold," which was +produced at Drury Lane Theatre. Except from this correspondence I own +that I never heard of the play. Subsequently, Mr. Reade presented +himself one night at the stage-door of Drury Lane Theatre, and was +refused admittance. Mr. Charles Mathews was then performing at the +theatre, and Mr. Reade evidently supposed him to have been the manager +and responsible for all the arrangements. Therefore he addressed his +complaint to the incomparable light comedian, who is as renowned for +easy sparkling humor and wit off the stage as for brilliant acting on +it. Here is the correspondence; and we shall see how much Mr. Reade took +by his motion: + + + GARRICK CLUB, COVENT GARDEN, November 28. + + DEAR SIR: I was stopped the other night at the stage-door of Drury + Lane Theatre by people whom I remember to have seen at the Lyceum + under your reign. + + This is the first time such an affront was ever put upon me in any + theatre where I had produced a play, and is without precedent + unless when an affront was intended. As I never forgive an affront, + I am not hasty to suppose one intended. It is very possible that + this was done inadvertently; and the present stage-list may have + been made out without the older claims being examined. + + Will you be so kind as to let me know at once whether this is so, + and if the people who stopped me at the stage-door are yours, will + you protect the author of "Gold," etc., from any repetition of such + an annoyance? + + I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, + CHARLES READE. + + +To this imperious demand Mr. Reade received next day the following +genial answer: + + + T. R., DRURY LANE, November 29. + + DEAR SIR: If ignorance is bliss on general occasions, on the + present it certainly would be folly to be wise. I am therefore + happy to be able to inform you that I am ignorant of your having + produced a play at this theatre; ignorant that you are the author + of "Gold"; ignorant of the merits of that play; ignorant that your + name has been erased from the list at the stage-door; ignorant that + it had ever been on it; ignorant that you had presented yourself + for admittance; ignorant that it had been refused; ignorant that + such a refusal was without precedent; ignorant that in the man who + stopped you you recognized one of the persons lately with me at the + Lyceum; ignorant that the doorkeeper was ever in that theatre; + ignorant that you never forgive an affront; ignorant that any had + been offered; ignorant of when, how, or by whom the list was made + out, and equally so by whom it was altered. + + Allow me to add that I am quite incapable of offering any + discourtesy to a gentleman I have barely the pleasure of knowing, + and moreover have no power whatever to interfere with Mr. Smith's + arrangements or disarrangements; and, with this wholesale admission + of ignorance, incapacity, and impotence, believe me + + Faithfully yours, + C. T. MATHEWS. + + CHARLES READE, ESQ. + + +The correspondence got into print somehow, and created, I need hardly +say, infinite merriment in the literary clubs and circles of London. Not +all disputes with Charles Reade ended so humorously, for the British +novelist is as fond of actions at law as Fenimore Cooper used to be. +Thus more than one critic has had to dread the terrors of an action for +damages when he has ventured in a rash moment to disparage the literary +value of Mr. Reade's teaching. Lately, however, in the case of the +"Times," and its attack on "A Terrible Temptation," Mr. Reade adopted +the unexpected tone of mild and even flattering remonstrance. Whether he +thought it hopeless to alarm the "Times" by any threat of action, or +feared that if he wrote a savage letter the journal would not even give +him the comfort of seeing it in print, I do not know. But he certainly +took a meek tone and endeavored to propitiate, and got rather coarsely +rebuked for his pains. People in London were amused to find that he +could be thus mild and gentle. I do remember, however, that on one +occasion he wrote a letter of remonstrance, which was probably intended +to be a kind of rugged compliment to the "Saturday Review," a paper +which likewise cares nothing about actions for damages. Usually, +however, his tone of argument with his critics is perfervid, and his +estimate of himself is exquisitely candid. In one of his manifestoes he +assured the world that he never allowed a publisher to offer any +suggestions with regard to his story, but simply sold the manuscript in +bulk--"_c'est a prendre ou a laisser_." In another instance he spoke of +one of his novels as "floating" the serial publication in which it was +making its appearance, and which we were therefore given to understand +would have sunk to the bottom but for his cooeperation. In short, it is +well known in London that Mr. Charles Readers character is disfigured by +a self-conceit which amounts to something like mania, and an impatience +of criticism which occasionally makes him all but a laughing-stock to +the public. Rarely, indeed, in literary history have high and genuine +talents been united with such a flatulence of self-conceit. + +Probably Reade had reached his highest position just after the +publication of "Hard Cash." This remarkable novel, crammed with +substance enough to make half a dozen novels, appeared in the first +instance in Dickens's "All the Year Round." Dickens himself, if I +remember rightly, felt bound to publish a note disclaiming any +concurrence in or personal responsibility for the attacks on the private +madhouse system, and the whole subject aroused a very lively +controversy, wherein, I think, Reade certainly was not worsted. The +"Griffith Gaunt" controversy we all remember. I confess that I have no +sympathy whatever with the kind of criticism which treats any of Mr. +Reade's works as immoral in tendency, and I think the charge was even +more absurd when urged against "Griffith Gaunt" than when pressed +against the "Terrible Temptation." To me the clear tendency of Reade's +novels seems always healthy, purifying, and bracing, like a fresh, +strong breeze. I cannot understand how any man or woman could be the +worse for reading one of them. They are always novels with a purpose, +and I, at least, never could discern any purpose in them which was not +honest and sound. I feel inclined to excuse all Reade's vehemence of +self-vindication and childish frankness of self-praise when I read some +of the attacks against what people try to paint as the immorality of his +books. But I need not go into that controversy. Enough to say for my own +part that I found "Griffith Gaunt" a grim and dreary book--a tiresome +book, in fact; but I saw nothing in it which could with any justice be +said to have the slightest tendency to demoralize any reader. I have +indeed heard people who are in general fair critics condemn "Adam Bede" +as immoral because Hetty is seduced; and I have even heard poor Maggie +Tulliver rated as unfit for decent society because she ever allowed even +a moment's thought of her cousin's engaged lover to enter her mind. On +this principle, doubtless, "Griffith Gaunt" is immoral. There are people +in the book who commit sin, and yet are not eaten by lions or bodily +carried down below like Don Juan. But if we are to have novels made up +only of good people who always do right and the one stock villain who +always does wrong, I think the novelist's art cannot too soon be +delegated to its only fitting province--the amusement of the nursery. +"Griffith Gaunt," however, I regard as a falling off, because it is a +sour, unpleasant, and therefore inartistic book. "Foul Play" was a +clever _tour de force_, a brilliant thing, made to sell, with hardly +more character in it than would suffice for a Bowery melodrama. "Put +Yourself in his Place" was a wholesome return to the former style, a +marrowy, living blue-book, instinct with power and passion. "A Terrible +Temptation" I do not admire. I do not think it immoral, but it hardly +calls for any deliberate criticism. Since "Hard Cash" Mr. Reade has, in +my opinion, written only one novel which the literary world will care to +preserve, and even that one, "Put Yourself in his Place," can hardly be +said to add one cubit to his stature. + +Mr. Reade has, I believe, rather a passion for dramatic enterprise, and +a characteristic faith in his power to turn out a good drama. A season +or two back he hired, I am told, a London theatre, in order to have the +complete superintendence of the production of one of his novels turned +into a drama. I have been assured that the dramatic version was +accomplished entirely by himself. If so, I am sure no enemy could have +more cruelly damaged the original work. All the character was completely +sponged out of it. The one really effective and original personage in +the novel did not appear in the play. A number of the most antique and +conventional melodramatic situations and surprises were crammed into the +piece. All the silly old stage business about mysterious conspiracies +carried on under the very ear of the identical personage who never ought +to have been allowed to hear them are called in to form an essential +feature of the drama. The play, of course, was not successful, although +the novel had in it naturally all the elements of a stirring and +powerful drama. If Charles Reade really with his own hand converted a +vigorous and thrilling story into that limp, languid, and vapid play, +it was surely the most awful warning against amateur dramatic enterprise +that ever self-conceit could receive undismayed. + +Of course we won't rank Mr. Reade as one of the most popular novelists +now in England. But his popularity is something very different indeed +from that of Dickens, or even from that of Thackeray. In Forster's "Life +of Dickens" there is a letter of the great novelist's in which he +complains of having been treated (by Bentley, I think) no better than +any author who had sold but fifteen hundred copies. I should think the +occasions were very rare when Mr. Reade's circulation in England went +much beyond fifteen hundred copies. The whole system of publishing is so +different in England from that which prevails in America, our fictitious +prices and the controlling monopoly of our great libraries so restrict +and limit the sale, that a New York reader would perhaps hardly believe +how small a number constitute a good circulation for an English +novelist. I assume that, speaking roughly, Reade, Wilkie Collins, and +Trollope may be said to have about the same kind of circulation--almost +immeasurably below Dickens, and below some such abnormal sale as that of +"Lothair" or "Lady Audley's Secret," but much above even the best of the +younger novelists. I venture to think that not one of these three +popular and successful authors may be counted on to reach a circulation +of two thousand copies. Probably about eighteen hundred copies would be +a decidedly good thing for one of Charles Reade's novels. Of the three, +I should say that Wilkie Collins has the most eager readers; that +Trollope's novels take the highest place in what is called "society"; +and that Reade's rank the best among men of brains. But there is so wide +a difference between the popularity of Dickens and that of Reade that it +seems almost absurd to employ the same word to describe two things so +utterly unlike. It is, indeed, a remarkable proof of Reade's power and +success that, setting out as he always does to tell a story which shall +convey information and a purpose of some practical kind, he can get any +sort of large circulation at all. For one great charm and excellence of +our library system is that it creates a huge class of regular, I might +almost say professional, novel-readers, who subscribe to Mudie's by the +year, want to get all the reading they can out of it, and instinctively +shudder at the thought of any novel that is weighted by solid +information and overtaxing thought. This is the class for whom and by +whom the circulating libraries exist, and Mr. Reade deserves the full +credit of having utterly disregarded them, or rather boldly encountered +them, and at least to some extent compelled them to read him. + +Mr. Reade's position as a novelist may be adjudged now as safely as ever +a novelist's place can be fixed by a contemporary generation. He is +nearly sixty years old, and he has written about a dozen novels. It is +not likely that he will ever write anything which could greatly enhance +the estimate the public have already formed of him; and no future +failures could affect his past success. I think his career is, +therefore, fairly and fully before us. We know how singularly limited +his _dramatis personae_ are. He marches them on and off the stage boldly +ever so often, and by a change of dresses every now and then he for a +while almost succeeds in making us believe that he has a very full +company at his command. But we soon get to know every one by sight, and +can swear to him or her, no matter by what name or garb disguised. We +know the sweet, impulsive, incoherent heroine, who is always +contradicting herself and saying what she ought not to say and does not +mean to say; who now denounces the hero, and then falls upon his neck +and vows that she loves him more than life. This young woman is +sometimes Julia and sometimes Helen and sometimes Grace; she now is +exiled for a while on a lonely island, and even she is carried away by a +flood; but in every case she is just the same girl rescued by the same +hero. That hero is always a being of wonderful mechanical and scientific +knowledge of some kind or other, whether as Captain Dodd he makes love +to Lucy Fountain, or as Henry Little he captivates Grace Carden, or as +the gentleman in "Foul Play" he cures the heroine of consumption and +builds island huts better than Robinson Crusoe. Then we have the rough, +clever, eccentric personage, Dr. Sampson or Dr. Amboyne, whose business +principally is to act a part like that of Herr Mittler in Goethe's +novel, and help the characters of the book through every difficulty. +Then we have the white-livered sneak, the villain of the book when he is +bad enough for such a part; the Coventry of "Put Yourself in his Place"; +I forget what his name is in "Foul Play." These are the puppets which +principally make up the show. Very vigorously and cleverly do they +dance, and capitally do they imitate life; but there are so very few of +them that we grow a little tired of seeing them over and over again. +Indeed, Charles Reade's array of characters sometimes reminds us of the +simple system of Plautus, in which we have for every play the same types +of people--the rather stingy father, the embarrassed lover, the clever +comic slave, and so forth. It cannot be said that Reade has added a +single character to fiction. He understands human nature, or at least +such types of it as he habitually selects, very well, and he draws +vigorously his figures and groups; but he has discovered nothing fresh, +he has rescued no existence from the commonplace and evanescent +realistics of life, to be preserved immortal in a work of art. Not one +of his characters is cited in ordinary conversation or in the writings +of journalists. Nobody quotes from him unless in reference to some one +of the stirring social topics which he has illustrated, and even then +only as one would quote from a correspondent of the "Times." Every +educated man and woman in England is assumed, as a matter of course, to +be familiar with the works of George Eliot; but nobody is necessarily +assumed to have read Charles Reade. That educated people do read him and +do admire him is certain; but it is quite a matter of option with them +to read him or let him alone so far as society and public opinion are +concerned. There are certain tests and evidences of a novelist's having +attained a front-rank place in England which are unmistakable. They are +purely social, may be only superficial, and will neither one way nor the +other affect the views of foreign critics or of posterity; but they are +decisive as far as England is concerned. Among them I shall mention two +or three. One is the fact that writers in the press allude to some of +his characters without feeling bound to explain in whose novel and what +novel the characters appear. Another is the fact that artists +voluntarily select from his works subjects for paintings to be sent to +the Royal Academy's annual exhibition or elsewhere. A third is the fact +that articles about him, not formal reviews of a work just published, +appear pretty often in the magazines. Now, whatever may be the genius +and merits of an author, I think he cannot be said to have attained the +front rank in English public opinion unless he can show these evidences +of success; and, so far as I know, Mr. Reade cannot show any of them. +For myself, I do not believe that Mr. Reade ever could under any +circumstances have become a really great novelist. All the higher gifts +of imagination and all the richer veins of humor have been denied to +him. Not one gleam of poetic fancy ever seems to have floated across the +nervous Saxon of his style. He is a powerful story-teller, who has a +manly purpose in every tale he tells, and that is all. That surely is a +great deal. No one tells a story more thrillingly. Once you begin to +listen, you cannot release yourself from the spell of the _raconteur_ +until all be done. A strong, healthy air of honest and high purpose +breathes through nearly all the stories. An utter absence of cant, +affectation, and sham distinguishes them. A surprising variety of +descriptive power, at once bold, broad, and realistic, is one of their +great merits. Mr. Reade can describe a sea-fight, a storm, the forging +of a horseshoe, the ravages of an inundation, the trimming of a lady's +dress, the tuning of a piano, with equal accuracy and apparent zest. I +once heard an animated discussion in a literary club as to whether the +scrap of minute description was artistic and effective or absurd and +ludicrous which makes us acquainted with the fact that when Henry Little +dragged Grace Carden out of the raging flood, the force of the water +washed away the heroine's stockings and garters and left her barefoot. +Some irreverent critics would only laugh at the gravity with which the +author detailed this important circumstance. Others, however, insisted +that this little touch, so homely, and to the profane mind so +exceedingly ridiculous, was necessary and artistic; that it heightened +the effect of the great word-picture previously shown by the force of +its practical and circumstantial reality. However this momentous +controversy may settle itself in the estimation of readers, it cannot be +denied that some at least of Reade's success is due to the courage and +self-reliance which will brave the risk of being ridiculous for the sake +of being real and effective. Indeed, Mr. Reade wants no quality which is +necessary to make a powerful story-teller, while he is distinguished +from all mere story-tellers by the fact that he has some great social +object to serve in nearly everything he undertakes to detail. More than +this I do not believe he is, nor, despite the evidences of something yet +higher which were given in "Christie Johnstone" and "The Cloister and +the Hearth," do I think he ever could have been. He is a magnificent +specimen of the modern special correspondent, endowed with the +additional and unique gift of a faculty for throwing his report into the +form of a thrilling story. But it requires something more than this, +something higher than this, to make a great novelist whom the world will +always remember. Mr. Reade is unsurpassed in the second class of English +novelists, but he does not belong to the front rank. His success has +been great in its way, but it is for an age and not for time. + + + + +THE EXILE-WORLD OF LONDON. + + +Leicester Square and the region that lies around it are conventionally +regarded as the exile quarter of London. The name of Leicester square +suggests the idea of an exile, as surely and readily, even to the mind +of one who has never looked on the mournful and decaying enclosure, as +the name of Billingsgate does that of fish-woman, or the name of the +Temple that of a law-student. Yet, if a stranger visiting London thinks +he is likely to see any exile of celebrity, while pacing the streets +which branch off Leicester square, he will be almost as much mistaken as +if he were to range Eastcheap in the hope of meeting the wild Prince and +Poins. + +Many a conspiracy has had its followers and understrappers in the +Leicester square region; but the great conspirators do not live there +any more. The place is falling, falling; the foreign and distinctive +character of the population remains as marked as ever, but the +foreigners whom London people would care to see are not to be found +there any longer. The exiles who have made part of history, whose names +are on record, do not care for Leicester square. They are to be found in +Kensington, in Brompton, in Hampstead and Highgate; in the Regent's Park +district; a few in Bloomsbury, a few in Mayfair. A marble slab and an +inscription now mark the house in King street, St. James's, where Louis +Napoleon lodged; and there is a house in Belgrave square dear to all +true Legitimists, where the Count de Chambord ("Henri Cinq") received +Berryer and his brother pilgrims. Only poor exiles herd together now in +London. Only poverty, I suppose, ever causes nationalities to herd +together anywhere. The men who group around Leicester square are the +exiles without a fame; the subterranean workers in politics; the men who +come like shadows, and so depart; the men whose names are writ in water, +even though their life-paths may have been marked in blood. + +Living in London, I had of late years many opportunities of meeting with +the exiles of each class. I know few men more to be pitied than the +great majority of those who make up the latter or Leicester square +section. On the other hand, I should say that few men, indeed, are more +to be envied by any of their fellow-creatures who love to be courted and +"lionized," than the political exiles of great name who come to London +and do not stay too long there. + +Far away as the days of Thaddeus of Warsaw and the conventional and +romantic type of exile now seem, there is still a fervent yearning in +British society toward the representative of any Continental nationality +which happens to be oppressed. No man had ever before received such a +welcome in London as Kossuth did; but Kossuth stayed too long, became +domesticized and familiarized, and society in London likes its lions to +be always new and fresh. Moreover, the late Lord Palmerston, a warm +patron of exiles when the patronage went no further than an invitation +to a dinner or an evening party, set his face against Kossuth from the +first; and polite society soon took the hint. + +The man who most completely conquered all society, even the very +highest, in London, during my recollection, was the man who probably +cared least about it, and who certainly never sought to win the favor of +fashion--I mean, of course, Garibaldi. To this day I am perfectly unable +to understand the demeanor of the British peerage toward Garibaldi, when +he visited London for a few days some years ago. The thing was utterly +unprecedented and inexplicable. The Peerage literally rushed at him. He +was beset by dukes, mobbed by countesses. He could not by any human +possibility have so divided his day as to find time for breakfasting and +dining with one-fifth of the noble hosts who fought and scrambled for +him. It was a perpetual torture to his secretaries and private friends +to decide between the rival claims of a Prime Minister and a Prince of +the blood; an Archbishop and a Duchess; the Lord Chancellor and the +leader of the Opposition. The Tories positively outdid the Whigs in the +struggle for the society of the simple seaman, the gallant guerilla. The +oddest thing about the business was, that three out of every four of +these noble personages had always previously spoken of Garibaldi--when +they did speak of him at all--with contempt and dislike, as a buccaneer +and a filibuster. + +What did it mean? Was it a little comedy? Was it their fun? Was it a +political _coup de theatre_, to dodge the Radicals and the workingmen +out of their favorite hero? Certainly some of Garibaldi's friends +suspected something of the kind, and were utterly bewildered and +confounded by the unexpected rush of aristocratic admirers, who beset +the hero from the moment he touched the shore of England. + +It was a strange sight, not easily to be forgotten, to see the manner in +which Garibaldi sat among the dukes and marchionesses--simple, sweet, +arrayed in the calm, serene dignity of a manly, noble heart. There was +something of Oriental stateliness in the unruffled, imperturbable, bland +composure, with which he bore himself amid the throng of demonstrative +and titled adulators. I do not think he believed in the sincerity of +half of it, any more than I did, but he showed no more sign of distrust +or impatience than he did of gratified vanity. + +The thing ended in a quarrel between the Aristocracy and the Democracy, +between Belgravia and Clerkenwell, for the custody of the hero, and +Garibaldi escaped somehow back to his island during the squabble. But I +think Lady Palmerston let the mask fall for a moment, when, growing +angry at the assurance of Garibaldi's humbler friends, and perhaps a +little tired of the whole business, she told some gentlemen of my +acquaintance, that quite too much work had been made about a person who, +after all, was only a respectable brigand. This was said (and it _was_ +said) at the very meridian of the day of noble homage to the Emancipator +of Sicily. + +Garibaldi has never since returned to England. Should he ever do so, he +will find himself unembarrassed by the attentions of the Windsor uniform +and Order of the Garter. The play, however it was got up, or whatever +its object, was played out long ago. But the West End is, as a rule, +very fond of distinguished exiles, when they come and go quickly; and +Lord Palmerston's drawing-room was seldom without a representative of +the class. No man ever did less for any great cause than Lord Palmerston +did; but he liked brilliant exiles, and, perhaps, more particularly the +soldierly than the scholarly class. Such a man as the martial, dashing, +adventurous General Tuerr, for example, was the kind of refugee that Lord +and Lady Palmerston especially favored. + +Many English peers have, indeed, quite a _specialite_ in the way of +patronizing exiles; but, of course, in all such cases the exile must +have a name which brings some gratifying distinction to his host. He +must be somebody worth pointing out to the other guests. I know that +many Continental refugees have chafed at all this, and some have +steadily held aloof from it, and declined to be shown off for the +admiration of a novelty-hunting crowd. Many, too, have been deceived by +it; have mistaken such idle attention for profound and practical +sympathy, and have thought that two or three peers and half a dozen +aristocratic petticoats could direct the foreign policy of England. They +have swelled with hope and confidence; have built their plans and based +their organizations on the faith that Park Lane meant the British +government, and that the politeness of a Cabinet Minister was as good as +the assistance of a British fleet; and have found out what idiots they +were in such a belief, and have gone nigh to breaking their hearts +accordingly. Indeed, the readiness of all classes in England to rush at +any distinguished exile, and become effusive about himself and his cause +is very often--or, at least, used to be--a cruel kindness, sure to be +misunderstood and to betray--a love that killed. + +Nothing could, in its way, have been more unfortunate and calamitous +than the outburst of popular enthusiasm in England about the Polish +insurrection four years ago. Some of the Polish leaders living in London +were completely deceived by it, and finally believed that England was +about to take up arms in their cause. An agitation was got up, outside +the House of Commons, by an earnest, well-meaning gentleman, who really +believed what he said; and inside the House by a bustling, quickwitted, +political adventurer, who certainly ought not to have believed what he +said. This latter gentleman actually went out to Cracow, in Austrian +Poland, and was received there with wild demonstrations of welcome as a +representative of the national will of England and the precursor of +English intervention. The Polish insurrection went on; and England wrote +a diplomatic note, which Russia resented as a piece of impertinence; and +there England's sympathy ended. "I think," said a great English Liberal +to me, "that every Englishman who helped to encourage these poor Poles +and give them hope of English help, has Polish blood on his hands." I +think so, too. + +I have always thought that Felice Orsini was in some sort a victim to +the kind of delusion which English popularity so easily fosters. I met +Orsini when he came to England, not very long before the unfortunate and +criminal attempt of the Rue Lepelletier; and I was much taken, as most +people who met him were, by the simplicity, sweetness, and soldierly +frankness of his demeanor. He delivered some lectures in London, +Manchester, Liverpool, and other large towns, on his own personal +adventures--principally his escape from prison--and though he had but a +moderate success as a lecturer, he was surrounded everywhere by +well-meaning and sympathizing groups, the extent of whose influence and +the practical value of whose sympathy he probably did not at first quite +understand. He certainly had, at one time, some vague hopes of obtaining +for the cause of Italian independence a substantial assistance from +England. A short experience cured him of that dream; and I fancy it was +then that he formed the resolution which he afterward attempted so +desperately to carry out. I think, from something I heard him say once, +that Mazzini had endeavored to enlighten him as to the true state of +affairs in England, and the real value of the sort of sympathy which +London so readily offers to any interesting exile. But I do not believe +Mazzini's advice had much influence over Orsini. Indeed, the latter, at +the time I saw him, had but little respect for Mazzini. He spoke with +something like contempt of the great conspirator. It would have been +well for Orsini if he had, in one thing at least, followed the counsels +of Mazzini. People used to say, some years ago, that odious and +desperate as Orsini's attempt was, it at least had the merit of +frightening Louis Napoleon into active efforts on behalf of Italy. There +was so much about Orsini that was worthy and noble that one would be +glad to regard him as even in his crime the instrument of good to the +country he loved so well. But documentary and other evidence has made +it clear since Orsini's death that the negotiations which ended in +Solferino and Villafranca were begun before Orsini had ever planned his +murderous enterprise. The fact is, that, during the Crimean war, Cavour +first tried England on the subject, through easy-going and heedless Lord +Clarendon--who hardly took the trouble to listen to the audacious +projects of his friend--and then turned to France, where quicker and +shrewder ears listened to what he had to say. + +I have spoken of Orsini's contempt for Mazzini. Such a feeling toward +such a man seems quite inexplicable. Many men detest Mazzini; many men +distrust him; many look up to him as a prophet, and adore him as a +chief; but I am not able to understand how any one can think of him with +mere contempt. For myself, I find it impossible to contemplate without +sadness and without reverence that noble, futile career; that majestic, +melancholy dream. But it must be owned that an atmosphere of illusion +sheds itself around Mazzini wherever he goes. I believe the man himself +to be the very soul of truth and honor; and yet I protest I would not +take, on any political question, the unsupported testimony of any +devotee of Mazzini to any fact whatsoever. Mazzini's own faith is so +sublimely transcendental, so utterly independent of realities and of +experience, that I sincerely believe the visions of the opium-eater are +hardly less to be relied on than the oracles and opinions of the great +Italian. And yet the force of his character, the commanding nature of +his genius, are such that his followers become more Mazzinian than +Mazzini himself. There is something a good deal provoking about the +manner of the minor followers of Mazzini. I mean in England. I do not +speak of such men as my friend, Mr. Stansfeld, now a Lord of the +Treasury, or my friend, Mr. P. A. Taylor, M. P. These are men of ability +and men of the world, whose enthusiasm and faith, even at their highest, +are under the control of practical experience and the discipline of +public life. But I speak of the minor and less responsible admirers, the +men and women who accept oracle as fact, aspiration as experience, the +dream as the reality. The calm, self-satisfied way in which they deal +with contemporary history, with geography, with statistics, with +possibilities and impossibilities, in the hope of making you believe +what they firmly believe--that Italy could, if only she had proclaimed +herself Republican, have driven the Austrians into the sea in 1859, and +the French across the Alps in 1860, while at the same time quietly +kicking Pope, Bourbon, and Savoy out of throned existence. The confident +and imperturbable assurance with which they can do all this--and I have +never met with any genuine devotee of Mazzini who could not--is +something to make one bewildered rather than merely impatient. For it is +true in politics as in literature or in fashion, the admiring imitator +reproduces only the defects, the weaknesses, the mannerisms and mistakes +of the original. Mazzini himself is, I need hardly say, a singularly +modest and retiring man. While he lived in London, he shrank from all +public notice, and was seen only by his friends and followers. He sought +out nobody. "Sir," said Mr. Gladstone, addressing the Speaker of the +House of Commons, one night, when a fierce and factious attack was made +on Mr. Stansfeld as a follower of the great exile, "I never saw Signor +Mazzini." Yet Gladstone was by far the most prominent and influential of +all the English sympathizers with the cause of Italian liberty. One +would have thought it impossible for such a man as Mazzini to live for +years in the same city with Gladstone without the two ever chancing to +meet. But for the modest seclusion and shrinking way of Mazzini, such a +thing would, indeed, have been impossible. + +Louis Blanc is, perhaps, the only Revolutionary exile who, in my time, +has been everywhere and permanently popular in London society. The fate +of a political exile in a place like London usually is to be a lion +among one clique and a _bete noir_ in another. But Louis Blanc has been +accepted and welcomed everywhere, although he has never compromised or +concealed one iota of his political opinions. I think one explanation, +and, perhaps, _the_ explanation of this somewhat remarkable phenomenon, +is to be found in the fact that Louis Blanc never for an hour played the +part of a conspirator. He seems to have honorably construed his place in +English society to be that of one to whom a shelter had been given, and +who was bound not to make any use of that shelter which could embarrass +his host. In London he ceased to be an active politician. He refused to +exhibit himself _en victime_. He appealed to no public pity. He made no +parade of defeat and exile. He went to work steadily as a literary man, +and he had the courage to be poor. When he appeared in public it was +simply as a literary lecturer. He was not very successful in that +capacity. At least, he was not what the secretary of a lyceum would call +a success. He gave a series of lectures on certain phases of society in +Paris before the great Revolution, and they were attended by all the +best literary men in London, who were, I think, unanimous in their +admiration of the power, the eloquence, the brilliancy which these +pictures of a ghastly past displayed. But the general public cared +nothing about the _salons_ where wit, and levity, and wickedness +prepared the way for revolution; and I heard Louis Blanc pour out an +_apologia_ (I don't mean an apology) for Jean Jacques Rousseau in +language of noble eloquence, and with dramatic effect worthy of a great +orator, in a small lecture-room, of which three-fourths of the space was +empty. Since that time he has delivered lectures occasionally at the +request of mechanics' institutions and such societies; but he has not +essayed a course of lectures on his own account. Everyone knows him; +everyone likes him; everyone admires his manly, modest character and his +uncompromising Republicanism. Lately he has lived more in Brighton than +in London; but wherever in England he happens to be, he lives always as +a simple citizen; has never been raved about like Kossuth, or denounced +like Mazzini; and has occupied himself wholly with his historical labors +and his letters to a Paris newspaper. + +Another exile of distinction who lived for years in London apart from +politics and heedless of popular favor was Ferdinand Freiligrath, the +German poet. Freiligrath had to leave Prussia because of his political +poems and writings. He had undergone one prosecution and escaped +conviction, but Prussia was not then (twenty years ago) a country in +which to run such risks too often. So Freiligrath went to Amsterdam and +thence to London. He lived in London for many years, and acted as +manager of a Swiss banking-house. His life was one of entire seclusion +from political schemes or agitations. He did not even, like his +countryman and friend, Gottfried Kinkel, take any part in public +movements among the Germans in London--and he certainly never went about +society and the newspapers blowing his own trumpet, and keeping his name +always prominent, like the egotistical and inflated Karl Blind. Indeed, +so complete was Freiligrath's retirement that many Englishmen living in +London, who delighted in some of his poems--his exquisite, fanciful, +melodious "Sand Songs" his glowing Desert poems, his dreamy, delightful +songs of the sea, and his burning political ballads--were quite amazed +to find that the poet himself had been a resident of their own city for +nearly half a lifetime. Freiligrath has now at last returned to his own +country. His countrymen invited him home, and raised a national tribute +to enable him to give up his London engagement and withdraw altogether +from a life of mere business. In a letter I lately received from +Freiligrath's daughter (a young lady of great talent and +accomplishments, recently married in London), I find it mentioned that +Freiligrath expected soon to receive a visit from Longfellow in +Germany--the first meeting of these two old friends for a period of some +five-and-twenty years. + +Alexander Herzen, the famous Russian exile, the wittiest of men, endowed +with the sharpest tongue and the best nature, has left us. For many +years he lived in London and published his celebrated _Kolokol_--"The +Bell," which rang so ominously and jarringly in the ears of Russian +autocracy. He has now set up his staff in Geneva, a little London in its +attractiveness to exiles; and his arrowy, flashing wit gleams no longer +across the foreign world of the English metropolis. I do not know how +long Herzen had lived in London, but I fancy the difficulties of the +English language must have proved insurmountable to him--a strange +phenomenon in the case of a Russian. Certainly he never, so far as I am +aware, either spoke or wrote English. + +The latest exile of great mark whom we had among us in London was +General Prim. When his attempt at revolution in Spain failed some two +years ago, Prim went into Belgium. There some pressure was brought to +bear upon him by the Ministry, in consequence, no doubt, of certain +pressure brought to bear by France, and Prim left Brussels and came to +live in London. He lived very quietly, made no show of himself in any +way, and was no doubt hard at work all the time making preparation for +what has since come to pass. To all appearance he had an easy and +careless sort of life, living out among his private friends, going to +the races and going to the opera. But he was incessantly planning and +preparing; and he told many Englishmen candidly what he was preparing +for. There were many men in London who were looking out for the Spanish +Revolution months before it came, on the faith of Prim's earnest +assurances that it was coming. So much has of late been written about +Prim that his personal appearance and manner must be familiar to most +readers of newspapers and magazines. I need only say that there is in +private much less of the _militaire_ about him than one who had not +actually met him would be inclined to imagine. He is small, neat, and +even elegant in dress, very quiet and perhaps somewhat languid in +manner, looking wonderfully young for his years, and without the +slightest tinge of the Leicester square foreigner about him. He is +rather the foreigner of Regent street and the stalls of the opera +house--any one who knows London will at once understand the difference. +Prim impressed me with a much greater respect for his intellect, even +from a literary man's point of view, than I had had before meeting and +conversing with him. I think those who regard him as a mere _sabreur_, +the ordinary Spanish leader of a successful military revolution, are +mistaken. His animated and epigrammatic conversation seemed to me to be +inspired and guided by an intellectual depth and a power of observation +and reflection such as I at least was not prepared to find in the +dashing soldier of the Moorish campaign. + +There is one class of the obscure exiles, different from both the +favored and the poorest, whose existence has often puzzled me. A +political question of moment begins to disturb the European continent. +Immediately there turns up in London, and presents himself at your door +(supposing you are a journalist with acknowledged sympathies for this or +that side of the question) a mysterious and generally shabby-looking +personage, who professes to know all about it, and volunteers to supply +you with the most authentic information and the most trustworthy +"appreciation" of any events that may transpire. He wants no money; his +information is given for the sake of "the cause." You ask for +credentials, and he produces recommendations which quite satisfy you +that his objects are genuine, although, oddly enough, the persons who +recommend him do not seem to have anything whatever to do with the cause +he represents. He comes, for example, to talk about the affairs of +Roumania, and he brings letters and vouchers from literary friends in +Paris. He professes to be an emissary from the Cretans, and his +recommendations are from a Manchester cotton-firm. Anyhow, you are +satisfied; you ask no explanations; you assume that your Paris or +Manchester friends have enlarged the sphere of their sympathies since +you saw them last, and you repose confidence in your new acquaintance. +You are right. He brings you information, the most rapid, the most +surprising, the most accurate. Such a man I knew during the +Schleswig-Holstein agitation, which ended in the Danish war of four +years since. He was a Prussian--a waif of the Berlin rising of 1848. Was +he in the confidence of Von Beust, and Bismarck, and Palmerston, and all +the rest of them? I venture to doubt it; yet if he had been, he could +hardly have been more quick and accurate in all the information he +brought me. Evening after evening he brought a regular minute of the +proceedings of the day at the Conference of London, which was sitting +with closed doors, and pledged to profoundest secrecy. Perhaps this was +only guesswork! Here is one illustration. The Conference was held +because some of the European Great Powers, England and France +especially, desired to save Denmark from a struggle against the +immeasurably superior force of Prussia and Austria. A certain proposal +was to be made to the Conference by England and France on the part of +Denmark. So much we all knew. One evening my friend came to me, and bade +me announce to the world that the proposal had been made that day, and +indignantly rejected--by Denmark! The story seemed preposterous, but I +relied on my friend. Next day I was laughed at; my news was denounced +and repudiated. The day after it was proved to be true--and Denmark went +to war. + +The last time I saw my friend was in the spring of 1866. He came to tell +me that Prussia had resolved--at least that Bismarck had resolved--on +war with Austria. "Stick to that statement," he said, "whatever anybody +may say to the contrary--unless Bismarck resigns." I took his advice. At +this time I am convinced that the English government had not the least +idea that a war was really coming. The war came; but I never saw my +friend any more. + +Another of my mysterious acquaintances was an old, white-haired, grave, +placid man who turned up in London during the early part of the French +occupation of Mexico. He was a passionate Republican and +anti-Bonapartist. He was a friend and apparently a confidant of Juarez, +and was thoroughly identified with the interests of the Republicans in +Mexico, although himself a Frenchman. I doubt whether I have ever met +with a finer specimen of the courtly old gentleman, the class now +beginning to disappear even in France, than this mysterious friend of +the Mexican Republic. He might have been fresh from the Faubourg St. +Germain, such was the grave, dignified, and somewhat melancholy grace of +his courtly bearing. Yet he had evidently lived long in Mexico, and he +was an ardent Republican of the red tinge; there was something of the +old _militaire_ about him, too, which lent a certain strength to his +bland and placid demeanor. I never quite knew what he was doing in +London. He was not what is called an "unofficial representative" of +Juarez (at this time diplomatic relations between England and Mexico +were of course broken off) for he never seemed to go near any of our +ministers or diplomatists, and his only object appeared to be to supply +accurate information to one or two Liberal journals which he believed +to be honestly inclined toward the right side of every question. His +information was always accurate, his estimate of a critical situation +was always justified by further knowledge and the progress of events, +his predictions always came true. He looked like a poor man, indeed, +like a needy man; yet he never seemed to want for money, and he neither +sought nor would have any compensation for the constant and valuable +information he afforded. His knowledge of European and American politics +was profound; and though he spoke not one word of English he seemed to +understand all the daily details of our English political life. He was a +constant visitor to me (always at night and late) during the progress of +the Mexican struggle. When the Mexican Empire was nearly played out he +came and told me the end was very, very near, and that in the event of +Maximilian's being captured it would be impossible for Juarez to spare +his life. He did not tell me that he was at once returning to Mexico, +but I presume that he did immediately return, for that was the last I +saw or heard of him. + +During the quarrels between the Prussian Representative Chamber and +Count von Bismarck (before the triumph of Sadowa had condoned for the +offences of the great despotic Minister), I had a visit, one night, from +a mysterious, seedy, snuffy old German. He came, he said, to develop a +grand plan for the extinction of the Junker or Feudal party. Why he came +to develop it to me I do not know, as it will presently be seen that I +could hardly render it any practical assistance. It was, like all grand +schemes, remarkably simple in its nature. Indeed, it was literally and +strictly Captain Bobadil's immortal plan; although my German visitor +indignantly repudiated the supposition that he had borrowed it, and +declared, I believe, with perfect truth, that he had never heard of +Captain Bobadil before. The plan was simply that a society should be +formed of young and devoted Germans who should occupy themselves in +challenging and killing off, one by one, the whole Junker party. My +friend made his calculations very calmly, and he did not foolishly or +arrogantly assume that the swordsmanship of his party must needs be +always superior to that of their adversaries. No; he counted that there +would be a certain number of victims among his Liberal heroes, and made, +indeed, a large allowance, left a broad margin for such losses. But +this, in no wise affected the success of his plan. The Liberals, were +many, the Junkers few. It would simply be a matter of time and +calculation. Numbers must tell in the end. A day must come when the last +Junker would fall to earth--and then Astrea would return. Now the man +who talked in this way was no lunatic. He had nothing about him, except +his plan, which denoted mental aberration. His scheme apart, he was as +steady and prosy an old German as you could meet under the lindens of +Berlin or on the Lutherplatz of Koenigsberg. He was, moreover, as +earnest, argumentative, and profoundly wearisome over his project as if +he were expounding to an admiring class of students the relations of the +Ego and Non-Ego. I need hardly add that one single beam, even the +faintest, of a sense of the ridiculous, never shone in upon him during +his long and eloquent exposition of the patriotic virtue, the +completeness and the mathematical certainty of his ingenious project. + +Let me close my random reminiscences with one recollection of a sadder +nature. Some three or four years ago there came to London from Naples an +Italian of high education and character--a lawyer by profession; a +passionate devotee of Italian unity, and filled naturally with a hatred +of the expelled Bourbons. This gentleman had discovered in one of the +Neapolitan prisons a number of instruments of torture--rusty, hideous +old iron chairs, and racks, and screws, and "cages of silence," and such +other contrivances. He became the possessor of these, and he obtained +from the new government a certificate of the genuineness of his +treasure-trove--that is to say, a certificate that the things were +actually found in the place where the owner professed to have found +them. The Italian authorities, of course, could say nothing as to +whether they had or had not been used as instruments of torture in any +modern reign. They may have lain rusting there since hideous old days +when the Inquisition was a fashionable institution; they may have been +used--public opinion and Mr. Gladstone said things as horrible had been +done--in the blessed reign of good King Bomba. The Neapolitan lawyer +firmly believed that they had been so used; and he became inspired with +the idea that to take these instruments, first to London and then to the +United States, and exhibit them, and lecture on them, would arouse such +a tempest of righteous indignation among all peoples, free or enslaved, +as must sweep kingcraft and priestcraft off the earth. This idea became +a faith with him. He brought his treasure of rusty iron to London, and +proposed to take a great hall and begin the work of his mission. I +endeavored to dissuade him (he had brought some introductions to me). I +told him frankly that, just at that time, public opinion in London was +utterly indifferent to the Bourbons. The fervor of interest about the +Neapolitan Revolution had gone by; people were tired of Italy, and +wanted something new; the Polish insurrection was going on; the great +American Civil War was occupying public attention; London audiences +cared no more about the crimes of the Bourbons than about the crimes of +the Borgias. He was not to be dissuaded. He really believed at first +that he could induce some great English orator, Gladstone or Bright, to +deliver lectures on those instruments and the guilt of the system which +employed them. Then he became more moderate, and applied to this and +that professional lecturer--in vain. No one would have anything to do +with a project so obviously doomed to failure--he himself spoke no +English. At last he induced a lady who was somewhat ambitious of a +public career, to lecture for him; and he took a great hall for a series +of nights, and advertised largely, and went to great expense. I believe +he staked all he had in money or credit on the success of the +enterprise; and the making of money was not his object; he would have +cheerfully given all he had to create a flame of public indignation +against despotism. Need I say what a failure the enterprise was? The +London public never manifested the slightest interest in the exhibition. +The lecture-hall was empty. I believe the poor Neapolitan tried again +and again. The public would not come, or look, or listen. He spent his +money in vain; he got into debt in vain. His instruments of torture must +have inflicted on their owner agonies enough to have satisfied +Maniscalco or Carafa. At last he could bear it no longer. He wrote a few +short letters to some friends (I have still that which I received--a +melancholy memorial), simply thanking them for what efforts they had +made to assist him in his object, acknowledging that he had been over +sanguine, and intimating that he had now given up the enterprise. +Nothing more was said or hinted. A day or two after, he locked himself +up in his room. Somebody heard an explosion, but took no particular +notice. The lady who had endeavored to give voice to my poor friend's +scheme came, later in the day, to see him. The door was broken open--and +the poor Neapolitan lay dead, a pistol still in his hand, a pistol +bullet in his brain. + + + + +THE REVEREND CHARLES KINGSLEY. + + +I wonder how many of the rising generation in America or in England have +read "Alton Locke"? Many years have passed since I read or even saw it. +I do not care to read it any more, for I fear that it would not now +sustain the effect of the impression it once produced on me, and I do +not desire to destroy or even to weaken that impression. I know the book +is not a great work of art. I know that three-fourths of its value +consists in its blind and earnest feeling; that the story is heavily +constructed, that many of the details are extravagant exaggerations, and +that the author after all was not in the least a democrat or a believer +in human equality. I have not forgotten that even then, when he braved +respectable public opinion by taking a tailor for his hero, he took good +care that the tailor should have genteel relations. Still I retain the +impression which the book once produced, and I do not care to have it +disturbed. Therefore I do not read or criticise "Alton Locke" any more; +I remember it only as it struck me long ago--as a generous protest +against the brutal indifference, literary and political, which left the +London artisan so long to toil and suffer and sicken, to run into debt, +to drink and fight and pine and die, in the darkness. Is it +necessary--perhaps it is--to explain to some of my readers the story of +"Alton Locke"? It is the story of a young London tailor-boy who has +instincts and aspirations far above his class; who yearns to be a poet +and a patriot; who loves and struggles in vain; who is supposed to sum +up in his own weakly body all the best emotions, the vainest pinings, +the wildest wishes, the most righteous protests of his fellows; who +joins with the Chartist movement for lack of a better way to the great +end, and sees its failure, and himself utterly broken down goes out to +America to seek a new life there, and only beholds the shore of the +promised land to die. Here at least was a grand idea. Here was the +motive of a prose epic that ought to have been more thrilling to modern +ears than the song of Tasso. The effect of the work at the time was +strengthened by the fact that the author was a clergyman of the Church +of England, who was believed to be a man of aristocratic family and +connections. The book was undoubtedly a great success in its day. The +strong idea which was in the heart of it carried it along. The Rev. +Charles Kingsley became suddenly famous. + +"Alton Locke" was published more than twenty years ago. Then Charles +Kingsley was to most boys in Great Britain who read books at all a sort +of living embodiment of chivalry, liberty, and a revolt against the +established order of baseness and class-oppression in so many spheres of +our society. The author of "Alton Locke" about the same time delivered a +sermon in the country church where he officiated, so full of warm and +passionate protest against the wrongs done to the poor by existing +systems, that his spiritual chief, the rector or dean or some other +dignitary, arose in the church itself--morally and physically arose, as +Mrs. Gamp did--and denounced the preacher. Need it be said that the +report of so unusual and extraordinary a scene as this excited our +youthful enthusiasm into a perfect flame for the minister of the State +Church who had braved the public censure of his superior in the cause of +human right? For a long time Charles Kingsley was our chosen hero--I am +speaking now of young men with the youthful spirit of revolt in them, +with dreams of republics and ideas about the equality of man. If I were +to be asked to describe Charles Kingsley now, having regard to the +tendency of his writings and his public attitude, how should I speak of +him? First, as about the most perverse and wrong-headed supporter of +every political abuse, the most dogmatic champion of every wrong cause +in domestic and foreign politics, that even a State Church has for many +years produced. I hardly remember, in my practical observation of +politics, a great public question but Charles Kingsley was at the wrong +side of it. The vulgar glorification of mere strength and power, such a +disgraceful characteristic of modern public opinion, never had a +louder-tongued votary than he. The apostle of liberty and equality, as +he seemed to me in my early days, has of late only shown himself to my +mind as the champion of slave-systems of oppression and the iron reign +of mere force. Is this a paradox? Has the man undergone a wonderful +change of opinions? It is not a paradox, and I think Charles Kingsley +has not changed his views. Perhaps a short sketch of the man and his +work may reconcile these seeming antagonisms and make the reality +coherent and clear. + +I was present at a meeting not long since where Mr. Kingsley was one of +the principal speakers. The meeting was held in London, the audience was +a peculiarly Cockney audience, and Charles Kingsley is personally little +known to the public of the metropolis. Therefore when he began to speak +there was quite a little thrill of wonder and something like incredulity +through the listening benches. Could that, people near me asked, really +be Charles Kingsley, the novelist, the poet, the scholar, the +aristocrat, the gentleman, the pulpit-orator, the "soldier-priest," the +apostle of muscular Christianity? Yes, that was indeed he. Rather tall, +very angular, surprisingly awkward, with thin, staggering legs, a +hatchet face adorned with scraggy gray whiskers, a faculty for falling +into the most ungainly attitudes, and making the most hideous +contortions of visage and frame; with a rough provincial accent and an +uncouth way of speaking, which would be set down for absurd caricature +on the boards of a comic theatre; such was the appearance which the +author of "Glaucus" and "Hypatia" presented to his startled audience. +Since Brougham's time nothing so ungainly, odd, and ludicrous had been +displayed upon an English platform. Needless to say, Charles Kingsley +has not the eloquence of Brougham. But he has a robust and energetic +plain-speaking which soon struck home to the heart of the meeting. He +conquered his audience. Those who at first could hardly keep from +laughing; those who, not knowing the speaker, wondered whether he was +not mad or in liquor; those who heartily disliked his general principles +and his public attitude, were alike won over, long before he had +finished, by his bluff and blunt earnestness and his transparent +sincerity. The subject was one which concerned the social suffering of +the poor. Mr. Kingsley approached it broadly and boldly, talking with a +grand disregard for logic and political economy, sometimes startling the +more squeamish of his audience by the Biblical frankness of his +descriptions and his language, but, I think, convincing every one that +he was sound at heart, and explaining unconsciously to many how it +happened that one endowed with sympathies so humane and liberal should +so often have distinguished himself as the champion of the stupidest +systems and the harshest oppressions. Anybody could see that the strong +impelling force of the speaker's character was an emotional one; that +sympathy and not reason, feeling rather than logic, instinct rather than +observation, would govern his utterances. There are men in whom, no +matter how robust and masculine their personal character, a +disproportionate amount of the feminine element seems to have somehow +found a place. These men will usually see things not as they really are, +but as they are reflected through some personal prejudice or emotion. +They will generally spring to conclusions, obey sudden impulses and +instincts, ignore evidence and be very "thorough" and sweeping in all +their judgments. When they are right they are--like the young lady in +the song--very, very good; but like her, too, when they happen to be +wrong they are "horrid." Of these men the author of "Alton Locke" is a +remarkable illustration. It seems odd to describe the expounder of the +creed of Muscular Christianity as one endowed with too much of the +feminine element. But for all his vigor of speech and his rough voice, +Mr. Charles Kingsley is as surely feminine in his way of reasoning, his +likes and dislikes, his impulses and his prejudices, as Harriet +Martineau is masculine in her intellect and George Sand in her emotions. + +Mr. Charles Kingsley is a man of ancient English family, very proud of +his descent, and full of the conviction so ostentatiously paraded by +many Englishmen, that good blood carries with it a warrant for bravery, +justice, and truth. The Kingsleys are a Cheshire family; I believe they +date from before the Conquest--it does not much matter. I shall not +apply to them John Bright's epigram about families which came over with +William the Conqueror and never did anything else; for the Kingsleys +seem to have been always an active race. They took an energetic part in +the civil war during Charles the First's time, and stood by the +Parliament. I am told that the family have still in their possession a +commission to raise a troop of horse, given to a Kingsley and signed by +Oliver Cromwell. One of the family emigrated to the New World with the +Pilgrim Fathers, and I believe the Kingsley line still flourishes there +like a bay-tree. Irrepressible energy, so far as I know, seems to have +always been a characteristic of the household. Charles Kingsley was born +near Dartmouth, in Devonshire; every one who has read his books must +know how he revels in descriptions of the lovely scenery of Devon. He +was for a while a pupil of the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, son of the poet, +and he finally studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Mr. Kingsley was +originally intended for the legal profession, but he changed his mind +and went into the church. He was first curate and soon after rector of +the Hampshire parish of Eversley, the name of which has since been so +constantly kept in association with his own. I may mention that Mr. +Kingsley married one of a trio of sisters--the Misses Grenfell--a second +of whom was afterwards married to Mr. Froude, and is since dead, while +the third became the wife of one of the foremost English journalists. +Passing away from these merely personal facts, barely worth a brief +note, we shall find that Kingsley's real existence, if I may use such a +phrase, began and developed under the guidance of a remarkable man and +under the inspiration of a strange movement. The man to whose leadership +and teaching Mr. Kingsley owed so much was the Rev. Frederick Denison +Maurice, who died in the first week of last April. + +It would not be easy to explain to an American reader the meaning and +the extent of the influence which this eminent man exercised over a +large field of English society. The life of Mr. Maurice contains nothing +worthy of note as to facts and dates; but its spirit infused new soul +and sense into a whole generation. He was not a great speaker or a great +thinker; he was not a bold reformer; he had not a very subtle intellect; +I doubt whether his writings will be much read in coming time. He was +simply a great character, a grand influence. He sent a new life into the +languid and decaying frame of the State Church of England. He quickened +it with a fresh sense of duty. His hope and purpose were to bring that +church into affectionate and living brotherhood with modern thought, +work, and society. An early friend and companion of John Sterling (the +two friends married two sisters), Maurice had all the sweetness and +purity of Carlyle's hero, with a far greater intellectual strength. Mr. +Maurice set himself to make the English Church a practical influence in +modern thought and society. He did not believe in a religion sitting +apart on the cold Olympian heights of dogmatic theology, and looking +down with dignified disdain upon the common life and the vulgar toils of +humanity. He held that a church, if it is good for anything, ought to be +able to meet fair and square the challenge of the skeptic and the +infidel, and that it ought to concern itself about all that concerns men +and women. One of the fruits of his long and valuable labor is the +Workingmen's College in Red Lion Square, London, an institution of which +he became the principal and to which he devoted much of his time and +attention. Only a few weeks before his death he presided at one of the +public meetings of this his favorite institution. He was the parent of +the scheme of "Christian socialism," which sprang into existence more +than twenty years ago and is bearing fruit still--a scheme to set on +foot cooeperative associations among working men on sound and progressive +principles; to help the working men by advances of capital, in order +that they might thus be enabled to help themselves. One of Mr. Maurice's +earliest and most ardent pupils was Charles Kingsley; another was Thomas +Hughes. In helping Mr. Maurice to carry out these schemes Kingsley was +brought into frequent intercourse with some of the London Chartists, and +especially with the working tailors, who have nearly all a strong +radical tendency. Kingsley's impulsive sympathies took fire, and flamed +out with the novel "Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet." + +That extraordinary Chartist movement, so long in preparation and so +suddenly extinguished, how completely a thing of the past it seems to +have become! Only twenty-four years have passed since its collapse. Men +under forty can recall, as if it were yesterday, all its incidents and +its principal figures. People in the United States know that my friend +Henry Vincent is still only in his prime; he was one of its earliest and +foremost leaders. But it seems as old and dead as a peasant-war of the +Middle Ages. It was a strange jumble of politics and social complaints. +It was partly the blind, passionate protest of working men who knew that +they had no right to starve and suffer in a prosperous country, but who +hardly knew where the real grievance lay. It was partly the protest of +untaught and eager intelligence against the brutal apathy of government +which would do nothing for national education. Its political demands +were very modest. Some of them have since been quietly carried into law; +some of them have been quietly dismissed into the realm of anachronisms. +Chartism was indeed rather a wild cry, a passionate yearning of lonely +men for combination, than any definite political enterprise. One looks +back now with a positive wonder upon the savage stupidity of the ruling +classes which so nearly converted it into a rebellion. Of course it was +in some instances seized hold of by selfish and scheming politicians, +who played with it for their own purposes. Of course it had its evil +counsellors, its false friends, its cowards, and its traitors. But on +the whole there was a noble spirit of manly honesty pervading the +movement, which to my mind fills it with a romantic interest and ought +to secure for it an honorable memory. It found leaders in many cases +outside its own classes. There was, for example, "Tom Duncombe," a sort +of Alcibiades of English Radicalism; a brilliant talker in Parliament, a +gay man of fashion, steeped deep in reckless debt and sparkling +dissipation; hand and glove with the fast young noblemen of the West End +gambling houses, and the ardent Chartist working men of Shoreditch and +Clerkenwell. There was Feargus O'Connor--huge, boistering, fearless--a +burlesque Mirabeau with red hair; a splendid mob-speaker, who could +fight his way by sheer strength of muscle and fist through a hostile +crowd; vain of his half-mythical descent from Irish kings, even when he +delighted in being hail fellow well met with tailors and hod-carriers; +revelling in the fiercest struggles of politics and the wildest freaks +of prolonged debauchery. O'Connor tried to crowd half a dozen lives into +one, and the natural result was that he prematurely broke down. For a +long time before his death he was a mere lunatic. A strange fact was +that as his manners were always eccentric and boisterous, he had become +an actual madman for months before those around him were fully aware of +the change. In the House of Commons the freaks of the poor lunatic were +for a long time supposed to be only more marked eccentricities, or, as +some thought, insolent affectations of eccentricity. He would rise while +Lord Palmerston was addressing the House, walk up to the great minister, +and give him a tremendous slap on the back. One night he actually +assaulted a member of the House, and the Speaker ordered his arrest. +Feargus sauntered coolly out into the lobbies. The sergeant-at-arms was +bidden to go forth and arrest the offender. Lord Charles Russell +(brother of Earl Russell), then and now sergeant-at-arms, is a thin, +little, feeble man. I have been told by some who witnessed it that the +scene in the lobbies became highly amusing. Lord Charles went with +reluctant steps about his awful task. By this time everybody was +beginning to suspect that O'Connor was really a madman. Anyhow, he was a +giant, and at his sanest moments perfectly reckless. Now it is not a +pleasant task for a weak and little man to be sent to arrest even a sane +giant; but only think of laying hands on a giant who appears to be out +of his senses! The dignity of his office, however, had to be upheld, and +Lord Charles trotted quietly after his huge quarry. He cast imploring +looks at member after member, but it was none of their business to +interfere, and they had no inclination to volunteer. Some of them indeed +were deeply engrossed in speculations as to what would happen if Feargus +were suddenly to turn round. Would the sergeant-at-arms put his dignity +in his pocket and actually run? Or, if he stood his ground, what would +be the result? Happily, however, just as Feargus and his unwilling +pursuer reached Westminster Hall, the eager eye of Lord Charles Russell +descried a little knot of policemen; he hailed them; they came up, and +the sergeant-at-arms did his duty and the capture was effected. I can +well remember seeing O'Connor, somewhere about this time, sauntering +through Covent Garden market, with rolling, restless gait; his hair, +that once was fiery red, all snowy white; his eye gleaming with the +peculiar, quick, shallow, ever-changing glitter of madness. The poor +fellow rambled from fruit-stall to fruit-stall, talking all the while to +himself, sometimes taking up a fruit as if he meant to buy it, and then +putting it down with a vacant laugh and walking on. It was a pitiable +spectacle. His light of reason soon flickered out altogether, and death +came to his relief. + +I must not omit to mention, when speaking of the Chartist leaders, the +brave, disinterested, and highly-gifted Ernest Jones, who sacrificed +such bright worldly prospects for the cause of the People's Charter. +Long after the Charter and its agitation were dead, Jones emerged into +public life again, still comparatively a young man, and he seemed about +to enter on a career both brilliant and valuable. An immature and +unexpected death interposed. + +However, I have wandered away from the subject of my paper. Charles +Kingsley came to know the principal working men among the Chartists, +and his impulsive nature was greatly influenced by their words and +their lives. Most of their leaders drawn from other classes, O'Connor +especially, he distrusted and disliked. But the rank and file of the +movement, the working men, the sufferers, the "proletaires" as they +would be called nowadays, attracted his kindly heart. Chartism had +fallen. It collapsed suddenly in 1848; died amid Homeric laughter of the +public. It fell mainly because it had come to occupy a false position +altogether. Partly by ignorance, partly by the selfish folly of some of +its leaders, and partly by the severity of the government measures, the +movement had been driven into a dilemma which it never originally +contemplated. It must either go into open rebellion or surrender. It was +jammed up like MacMahon at Sedan. Chartism had no real wish to rebel, +although of course the flame of the recent revolution in Paris had +glared over it and made it wild; and it had no means of carrying on a +revolt for a single day. So it could only surrender; and the surrender +took place under conditions which made it seem utterly ridiculous. +Kingsley was seized with the idea of crystallizing all this into a +romance. He had as a further stimulant and guide the work which Henry +Mayhew was then publishing, "London Labor and the London Poor," a serial +which by its painful and startling revelations was working a profound +impression on England. Mayhew's narratives were often inaccurate, for he +could not conduct the whole enterprise himself, and had sometimes to +call in the aid of careless and untrustworthy associates, who +occasionally found it easier to throw off a bit of sentimental or +sensational romance than to pursue a patient inquiry. But the general +effect of the publication was healthful and practical, and it became the +parent of nearly all the efforts that followed to lay bare and +ameliorate the condition of the London poor. There can be no doubt that +it had a great influence on the impressionable mind of Charles Kingsley. +He wrote "Alton Locke," and the book became a great success. The Tailor +and Poet was the hero of the hour. "Blackwood" at once christened Alton +Locke "Young Remnants;" but Young Remnants survived the joke. The novel +is full of nonsense and extravagance; and with all its sympathy for +tailors, it has a great deal of Kingsley's characteristic affection for +rank and birth. But it had a really great idea at its heart, and struck +out one or two new characters--especially that of the old Scotch +bookseller--and it made its mark. The peculiarity, however, to which I +wish now especially to direct attention is its utter absence of +practical thinking-power. Nowhere can you find any proof that the author +is able to think about anything. An idea strikes him; he seizes it, and, +to use Hawthorne's expression, "wields it like a flail." Then he throws +it down and takes up something else, to employ it in the same wild and +incoherent fashion. This is Kingsley all out, and always. He is not +content with developing his one only gift of any literary value--the +capacity to paint big, striking pictures with a strong glare or glow on +them. He firmly believes himself a profound philosopher and social +reformer, and he will insist on obtruding before the world on all +occasions his absolute incapacity for any manner of reasoning on any +subject whatsoever. Wild with intellectual egotism, and blind to all +teaching from without, Kingsley rushes at great and difficult subjects +head downwards like a bull. Thus he tackled Chartism, and society, and +competition, and political economy, and what not, in his "Alton Locke"; +and thus he has gone on ever since and will to the end of his chapter, +always singling out for the display of his powers the very subjects +whereof he knows least, and is by the whole constitution of his +intellect and temperament least qualified to judge. + +I am writing now rather about Kingsley himself than about his books, +with which the readers of "The Galaxy" are of course well acquainted. I +therefore pass over the many books he produced between "Alton Locke" and +"Westward Ho!"--and I dwell upon the latter only because it illustrates +the next great idea which got hold of the author after the little fever +about Chartism had passed away. I suppose "Westward Ho!" may be regarded +as the first appearance of the school of Muscular Christianity. Mr. +Kingsley started for our benefit the huge British hero who could do +anything in the way of fighting and walking, and propagated the +doctrines of the English Church. To read the Bible and to kill the +Spaniards was the whole duty of the ideal Briton of Elizabeth's time, +according to this authority. The notion was a success. In a moment our +literature became flooded with pious athletes who knocked their enemies +down with texts from the Scriptures and left-handers from the shoulder. +All these heroes were of necessity "gentlemen." One of the principal +articles of the new gospel according to Kingsley was that truth, valor, +muscle, and theological fervor were only possessed in their fulness by +the scions of good old English county families. Other nations seldom had +such qualities at all; never had them to perfection; and even favored +Britain only saw them properly illustrated in country gentlemen of long +descent. Of course this sort of thing, which was for the moment a +sincere idea with Kingsley, became a mere affectation among his +followers and admirers. The fighting-parson pattern of hero was for a +while as great a bore as the rough and ugly hero after Jane Eyre's +"Rochester," or the colossal and corrupt guardsman whom "Guy +Livingstone" sent abroad on the world. Certainly Kingsley's hero was a +better style of man than Guy Livingstone's, for at the worst he was only +an egotistical savage, and not a profligate. But I think he did a good +deal of harm in his day. He helped to encourage and inflate that feeling +of national self-conceit which makes people such nuisances to their +neighbors, and he fostered that odious reverence for mere force and +power which Carlyle had already made fashionable. Kingsley himself +appears to have become "possessed" by his own idea as if by some +unmanageable spirit. It banished all his chartism and democracy and +liberalism, and the rest of it. Under its influence Kingsley +out-Carlyled Carlyle in the worship of strong despotisms and force of +any kind. He went out of his way to excuse slavery in the Southern +States. He became the fervent panegyrist of Governor Eyre of Jamaica. +When two sides were possible to any question of human politics, he was +sure to take the wrong one. Nothing for long years, I think, has been +more repulsive, and in its way more mischievous, than the cant about +"strength" which Kingsley did so much to diffuse and to glorify. + +Meanwhile his irrepressible energy was always driving him into new +fields of work. It never allowed him time to think. The moment any sort +of idea struck him, he rushed at it and crushed it into the shape of a +book or an essay. He wrote historical novels, philosophical novels, and +theological novels. He wrote poetry--yards of poetry--volumes of poetry. +There really is a great deal of the spirit of poetry in him, and he has +done better things with the hexameter verse than better poets have done. +There was for a long time a fervid school of followers who swore by him, +and would have it that he was to be the great English poet of the +century. He published essays, tracts, lectures, and sermons without +number. He seems to have made up his mind to publish in book form +somehow everything that he had spoken or written anywhere. He inundated +the leading newspapers with letters on this, that, and the other +subject. He was appointed professor of modern history at the University +of Cambridge on the death of Sir James Stephen, and he launched at once +into a series of lectures, which were almost immediately published in +book form. Why he published them it was hard for even vanity itself to +explain, because with characteristic bluntness he began his course with +the acknowledgment that he really knew nothing in particular about the +subjects whereon he had undertaken to instruct the University and the +world. He made up in courage, however, for anything he may have lacked +in knowledge. He went bravely in for an onslaught on the positive theory +of history--on Comte, Mill, Buckle, Darwin, and everybody else. He made +it perfectly clear very soon that he did not know even what these +authors profess to teach. He flatly denied that there is any such thing +as an inexorable law in nature. He proved that even the supposed law of +gravitation is not by any means the rigid and universal sort of thing +that Newton and such-like persons have supposed. How, it may be asked, +did he prove this? In the following words: "If I choose to catch a +stone, I can hold it in my hands; it has not fallen to the ground, and +will not till I let it. So much for the inevitable action of the laws of +gravity." This way of dealing with the question may seem to many readers +nothing better than downright buffoonery. But Kingsley was as grave as a +church and as earnest as an owl. He fully believed that he was refuting +the pedants who believe in the inevitable action of the law of +gravitation, when he talked of holding a stone in his hand. That an +impulsive, illogical man should on the spur of the moment talk this kind +of nonsense, even from a professor's chair, is not perhaps wonderful; +but it does seem a little surprising that he should see it in print, +revise it, and publish it, without ever becoming aware of its absurdity. + +In the same headlong spirit Mr. Kingsley rushed into his famous +controversy with Dr. John Henry Newman. I have already, when writing of +Dr. Newman, alluded to this controversy, which for a time excited the +greatest interest and indeed the greatest amusement in England. I only +refer to it now as an illustration of the surprising hotheadedness and +lack of thinking power which characterize the author of "Alton Locke." +Dr. Newman preached a sermon on "Wisdom and Innocence." Mr. Kingsley +went out of his way to discourse and comment on this sermon, and +publicly declared that its doctrine was an exhortation to disregard +truth. "Dr. Newman informs us that truth need not and on the whole ought +not to be a virtue for its own sake." Of course this was as grave a +charge as could possibly be made against a great religious teacher. It +was doubly odious and offensive to Dr. Newman because it was the revival +of an old and familiar charge against the church he had lately entered. +It was made by Kingsley in an oft-hand, careless sort of way, as if it +were something acknowledged and indisputable--as if some one were to +say, "Horace Greeley informs us that a protective tariff is often +useful," or "Henry Ward Beecher is in favor of early rising." Newman +wrote with a cold civility to ask in what passage of his writings any +such doctrine was to be found. Of course nothing of the kind was to be +found. If it were possible to conceive of any divine in our days holding +such a doctrine, we may be perfectly certain that he would never put it +into print. Newman was known to all the world as the purest and most +austere devotee of what he believed to be the truth. He had sacrificed +the most brilliant career in the Church of England for his convictions, +and, strange to say, had yet retained the admiration and the affection +of those whose religious fellowship he had renounced. Kingsley had but +one course in fairness and common sense open to him. He ought to have +frankly apologized. He ought to have owned that he had spoken without +thinking; that he had blurted out the words without observing the +gravity of the charge they contained; and that he was sorry for it. But +he did not do this. He published a letter, in which he said that Dr. +Newman having denied that his doctrine bore the meaning Mr. Kingsley had +put upon it, he (Kingsley) could only express his regret at having +mistaken him. This was nearly as bad as the first charge. It distinctly +conveyed the idea that but for Dr. Newman's subsequent explanation and +denial, certain words of his might fairly have been understood to bear +the odious meaning ascribed to them. Dr. Newman returned to the charge, +still with a chill urbanity which I cannot help thinking Kingsley +mistook for weakness or fear. He pointed out that he had never denied +anything; that there was nothing for him to deny; that Mr. Kingsley had +charged him with teaching a certain odious doctrine, and he therefore +asked Mr. Kingsley to point to the passage containing the doctrine, or +frankly own that there was no such passage in existence. Kingsley +thereupon took the worst, the most unfair, and as it proved the most +foolish course a man could possibly have pursued. He went to work to +fasten on Newman by a constructive argument, drawn from the general +tendency of his teaching, a belief in the doctrine of which he was +unable to find any specific statement. Then opened out that controversy, +which was quite an event in its time, and set everybody talking. +Newman's was an intellect which must be described as the peer of Stuart +Mill's or Herbert Spencer's. He was a perfect master of polemical +science. He could write, when he thought fit, with a vitriolic keenness +of sarcasm. When he had allowed Kingsley to entangle himself +sufficiently, Newman fairly opened fire, and the rest of the debate was +like a duel between some blundering, wrong-headed cudgel-player from a +village green, and some accomplished professor of the science of the +rapier from Paris or Vienna. Not the least amusing thing about the +controversy was the manner in which it put Kingsley into open antagonism +with his own teaching. He endeavored gratuitously and absurdly to +convict Dr. Newman of a disregard for the truth, because Newman believed +in the miracles of the saints. For, he argued, a man of Newman's +intellect could not believe in such things if he inquired into them. But +he did not inquire into them; he taught that they were not to be +questioned but accepted as orthodox. Thereby he showed that he preferred +orthodoxy to truth--"truth, the capital virtue, the virtue of virtues, +without which all others are rotten." Now, that sounds very well, and we +all agree in what Kingsley says of the truth. But Kingsley had not long +before been assailing Bishop Colenso for his infidelity. Kingsley +declared himself shocked at the publication of a work like Dr. +Colenso's, which claimed and exercised a license of inquiry that seemed +to him "anything but reverent." He distinctly laid it down that the +liberty of religious criticism must be "reverent," and "within the +limits of orthodoxy!" Now, I am not challenging Mr. Kingsley's doctrine +as to the limit of religious inquiry. That forms no part of my purpose. +But it is perfectly obvious that if to limit inquiry within the bounds +of orthodoxy shows a disregard for truth in John Henry Newman, the same +practice must be evidence of a similar disregard in Charles Kingsley. Of +course Kingsley never thought of this--never thought about the matter at +all. He disliked Colenso's teaching on the one hand and Newman's on the +other. He said the first thing that came into his mind against each in +turn, and never heeded the fact that the reproach he employed in the +former case was utterly inconsistent with that which he uttered in the +other. I do not believe, however, that the controversy did Kingsley any +harm. Nobody ever expected consistency or rational argument from him. +People were amused, and laughed, and perhaps wondered why Dr. Newman +should have taken any trouble in the matter at all. But Kingsley +remained in popular estimation just the same as before--blundering, +hot-headed, boisterous, but full of brilliant imagination, and +thoroughly sound at heart. + +Thus Charles Kingsley is always at work. Lately he has been describing +some of the scenery of the West Indies, and proclaiming the virtues of +Australian potted meats. He has thrown his whole soul into the +Australian meat question. The papers have run over with letters from him +intended to prove to the world how good and cheap it is to eat the +mutton and beef brought in tin cans from Australia. I believe Mr. +Kingsley acknowledges that all his energy and eloquence have been +unequal to the task of persuading his servants to eat the excellent food +which he is himself willing to have at his table. He has also been +lecturing on temperance, and delivering a philippic against Darwin. He +has also written a paper condemning and deprecating the modern critical +spirit. There is one rule, he insists, "by which we should judge all +human opinions, endeavors, characters." That is, "Are they trying to +lessen the sum of human misery, of human ignorance? Are they trying, +however clumsily, to cure physical suffering, weakness, deformity, +disease, and to make human bodies what God would have them?... If so, +let us judge them no further. Let them pass out of the pale of our +criticism. Let their creed seem to us defective, their opinions +fantastic, their means irrational. God must judge of that, not we. They +are trying to do good; then they are children of the light." This is +not, perhaps, the spirit in which Kingsley himself criticised Newman or +Colenso. But if we judge him according to the principle which he +recommends, he would assuredly take high rank; for I never heard any one +question his sincerity and his honest purpose to do good. Of course he +is often terribly provoking. His feminine and almost hysterical +impulsiveness, and his antiquated, feudal devotion to rank, are +difficult to bear always without strong language. His utter absence of +sympathy with political emancipation is a lamentable weakness. His +self-conceit and egotism often make him a ludicrous object. Still, he +has an honest heart, and he tries to do the work of a man; and he is one +of those who would, if they could, make the English State Church still a +living, an active, and an all-pervading influence. As a preacher and a +pastor he often reminds me of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Of course he +is far below Mr. Beecher in all oratorical gifts as well as in political +enlightenment; but he has the same perfervid and illogical nature, the +same vigorous, self-sufficient temperament, the same tendency to "slop +over," the same generous energy in any cause that seems to him good. + +It will be inferred that I do not rate Mr. Kingsley very highly as an +author. He can describe glowing scenery admirably, and he can vigorously +ring the changes on his one or two ideas--the muscular Englishman, the +glory of the Elizabethan discoverers, and so on. He is a scholar, and he +has written verses which sometimes one is on the point of mistaking for +poetry, so much of the poet's feelings have they about them. He can do a +great many things very cleverly. He belongs to a clever family. His +brother, Henry Kingsley, is a spirited and dashing novelist, whom the +critics sneer at a good deal, but whose books always command a large +circulation, and have made a distinctive mark. Perhaps if Charles +Kingsley had done less he might have done better. Human capacity is +limited. It is not given to mortal to be a great preacher, a great +philosopher, a great scholar, a great poet, a great historian, a great +novelist, an indefatigable country parson, and a successful man in +fashionable society. Mr. Kingsley seems never to have quite made up his +mind for which of these callings to go in especially, and being with all +his versatility not at all many-sided, but strictly one-sided, and +almost one-ideaed, the result of course has been that, touching success +at many points, he has absolutely mastered it at none. His place in +letters has been settled this long time. Since "Westward Ho!" at the +latest, he has never added half a cubit to his stature. The "Chartist +Parson" has, on the other hand, been growing more and more aristocratic, +illiberal, and even servile in politics. His discourse on the recovery +of the Prince of Wales was the very hyperbole of the most old-fashioned +loyalty--a discourse worthy of Filmer, and utterly out of place in the +present century. Muscular Christianity has shrunk and withered long +since. The professorship of modern history was a failure, and has been +given up. Darwin is flourishing, and I am not certain about the success +of Australian beef. All this acknowledged, however, it must still be +owned that, failing in this, that, and the other attempt, and never +probably achieving any real and enduring success, Charles Kingsley has +been an influence and a name of mark in the Victorian age. I cannot, +indeed, well imagine that age without him, although his presence is +sometimes only associated with it as that of Malvolio with the court of +the fair lady in "Twelfth Night." Men of far greater intellect have made +their presence less strongly felt, and imprinted their image much less +clearly on the minds of their contemporaries. He is an example of how +much may be done by energetic temper, fearless faith in self, an absence +of all sense of the ridiculous, a passionate sympathy, and a wealth of +half-poetic descriptive power. If ever we have a woman's parliament in +England, Charles Kingsley ought to be its chaplain; for I know of no +clever man whose mind and temper more aptly illustrate the illogical +impulsiveness, the rapid emotional changes, the generous, often +wrong-headed vehemence, the copious flow of fervid words, the vivid +freshness of description without analysis, and the various other +peculiarities which, justly or unjustly, the world has generally agreed +to regard as the special characteristics of woman. + + + + +MR. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. + + +Mr. Froude, I perceive, is about to visit the United States. _Reddas +incolumem!_ He is a man of mark--with whatever faults, a great +Englishman. It will not take the citizens of New York and Boston long to +become quite as familiar with his handsome, thoughtful face as the +people of London. Mr. Froude rarely makes his appearance at any public +meeting or demonstration of any kind. He delivers a series of lectures +now and then to one of the great solemn literary institutions. He is a +member of some of our literary and scientific societies. He used at one +time occasionally to attend the meetings of the Newspaper Press Fund +Committee, where his retiring ways and grave, meditative demeanor +reminded me, I cannot tell why, of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He has many +friends, and mingles freely in private society, but to the average +public he is only a name; to a large proportion of that average public +he is not even so much. I presume he might walk the Strand every day and +no head turn round to look after him. I presume it would not be +difficult to get together a large public meeting of respectable and +intelligent London rate-payers of whom not one could tell who Mr. Froude +was, or would be aroused to the slightest interest by the mention of his +name. Who, indeed, is generally known or cared about in London? I do not +say universally known, for nobody enjoys that proud distinction, not +even the Prince of Wales--nay, not even the Tichborne claimant. But who +is ever generally known? Gladstone and Disraeli are; and Bright is. +Dickens was, and, to a certain extent, Thackeray. Archbishop Manning and +Mr. Spurgeon are, perhaps; and I cannot remember anybody else just now. +Palmerston, in his day, was better known than any of these; and the Duke +of Wellington was by far the most widely known of all. The Duke of +Wellington was the only man who during my time was nearly as well known +in London as Mr. Greeley is in New York. "How can you, you know?" as Mr. +Pecksniff asks. We have four millions of people crowded into one city. +It takes a giant of popularity indeed to be seen and recognized above +that crowd. As for your Brownings and Spencers and Froudes and the rest, +your mere men of genius--well, they have their literary celebrity and +they will doubtless have their fame. But average London knows and cares +no more about them than it does about you or me. + +Therefore, let not any American reader, when I describe Mr. Froude as a +man of mark and a great Englishman, assume that he is a man of mark with +the crowd. Let no American visitor to London be astonished if, finding +himself in the neighborhood of Mr. Froude's residence, and stepping +into half a dozen shops in succession to ask for the exact address of +the historian, he should hear that nobody there knew anything about him. +Nobody but scholars and literary people knew anything about the late +George Grote, one of the few great philosophic historians of the modern +world. Compared with the influence of Mr. Grote upon average London, +that of Mr. Froude may almost be described as sensational; for Froude +has stirred up literary and religious controversy, and has been +denounced and has personally defended himself, and in that way must have +attracted some attention. At all events, when New York has seen and +heard Mr. Froude, she will have seen and heard one of the men of our +time in the true sense; one of the men who have toiled out a channel for +a fresh current of literature to run in, and whose name can hereafter be +omitted from no list of celebrities, however select, which pretends to +illustrate the characteristics of the Victorian age in England. + +Mr. Froude is a Devonshire man, son of a Protestant archdeacon. He was +educated in Westminster School, and afterward at the famous Oriel +College, Oxford. He is now some fifty-four or fifty-five years of age, +but seems, and I hope is, only in his prime. Froude is a waif of that +marvellous Oxford movement which began some forty years ago, and of +which the strange, diversely operating influence still radiates through +English thought and society. That movement was a peculiar theological +_renaissance_, which partly converted itself into a reaction and partly +into a revolt. It began with the saintly and earnest Keble; its master +spirits were John Henry Newman and Dr. Pusey. It proposed to vindicate +for the Protestant Church the true place of spiritual heir to the +apostles and universal teacher of the Christian world. Newman, Pusey, +and others worked in the production of the celebrated "Tracts for the +Times." The results were extraordinary. The impulse of inquiry thus set +going seemed to shake all foundations of agreement. It was an explosion +which blew people various ways, they could hardly tell why or how. It +made one man a ritualist, another an Ultramontane Roman Catholic, a +third a skeptic. Like the two women grinding at the mill in the +Scripture, two devoted companions, brothers perhaps, were seized by that +impulse and flung different ways. Before the wave had subsided it tossed +Mr. Froude, then a young man of five or six and twenty, clear out of his +intended career as a clergyman of the Church of England. He had taken +deacon's orders before the change came on him, which drove him forth as +the two Newmans had been driven; but his course was more like that of +Francis Newman than of John Henry. He seemed, indeed, at one time likely +to pass away altogether into the ranks of the skeptics. Skepticism is in +London attended with no small degree of social disadvantage. To be in +"society," you must believe as people of good position do. Dissent of +any kind is unfashionable. A shrewd friend of mine says a dissenter can +never enter London. Dissent never gets any further than Hackney or +Clapham, a northern and a southern suburb. Allowance being made for a +touch of satirical exaggeration, the saying is very expressive, and even +instructive. Probably, however, the odds are more heavily against mere +dissent than a bold, intellectual skepticism, which may have a piquant +and alluring flavor about it, and make a man a sort of curiosity and +lion, so that "society" would tolerate him as it does a poet. There was, +however, nothing in exclusion from fashionable society to frighten a man +like Froude, who, so far as I know, has never troubled himself about the +favor of the West End. His first work of any note (for I pass over "The +Shadows of the Clouds," a novel, I believe, which I have never read nor +seen) was "The Nemesis of Faith." This work was published in 1848, and +is chiefly to be valued now as an illustration of one stage of +development through which the intellect of the author and the tolerance +of his age were passing. "The Nemesis of Faith" was declared a skeptical +and even an infidel book. It was sternly censured and condemned by the +authorities of the university to which Mr. Froude had belonged. He had +won a fellowship in Exeter College, Oxford; the college authorities +punished him for his opinions by depriving him of it. "The Nemesis of +Faith" created a sensation, an excitement and alarm, which surely were +extravagant even then and would be impossible now. Its doubts and +complaints would seem wild enough to-day. Men of any freshness and +originality so commonly begin--or about that time did begin--their +career with a little outburst of skepticism, that the thing seems almost +as natural as it seemed to Major Pendennis for a young peer to start in +public life as a professed republican. Besides, we must remember that +"The Nemesis of Faith" was published in what the late Lord Derby once +called the pre-scientific age. It was the time when skepticism dealt +only in the metaphysical or the emotional, and had not congealed into +the far more enduring and corroding form of physical science. As well as +I can remember, "The Nemesis of Faith"--which I have not seen for +years--was full of life and genius, but not particularly dangerous to +settled beliefs. However, a storm raged around it, and around the +author; and finally Mr. Froude himself seems to have reconsidered his +opinions, for he subsequently withdrew the book from circulation. Its +literary success, however, must have shown him clearly what his career +was to be. He was at this time drifting about the world in search of +occupation; for he found himself cut off from the profession of the +Church, on which he had intended to enter, and yet he had, if I am not +mistaken, passed far enough within its threshold to disqualify him for +admission to one of the other professions. He began to write for the +"Westminster Review," which at that time was in the zenith of its +intellectual celebrity, and for "Fraser's Magazine." His studies led him +especially into the history of the Tudor reigns, and most of his early +contributions to "Fraser" were explorations in that field. Out of these +studies grew the "History of England," on which the fame of the author +is destined to rest. Mr. Froude himself tells us that he began his task +with a strong inclination toward what may be called the conventional and +orthodox opinions of the character of Henry VIII.; but he found as he +studied the actual records and state papers that a different sort of +character began to grow up under his eyes. I can easily imagine how his +emotional and artistic nature gradually bore him away further and +further in the direction thus suddenly opened up, until at last he had +created an entirely new Henry for himself. Of course the old traditional +notion of Henry, the simple idea which set him down as a monster of lust +and cruelty, would soon expose its irrationality to a mind like that of +Froude. But, like the writers who, in revolt against the picture of +Tiberius given by Tacitus, or that of the French Revolution woven by +Burke, have painted the Roman Emperor as an archangel, and the +Revolution as a stainless triumph of liberty, so Mr. Froude seems to +have been driven into a positive affection and veneration for the +subject of his study. In 1856 the first and second volumes appeared of +the "History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of +Elizabeth." There has hardly been in our time so fierce a literary +controversy as that which sprang up around these two volumes. Perhaps +the war of words over Buckle's first volume or Darwin's "Origin of +Species" could alone be compared with it. Mr. Froude became famous in a +moment. The "Edinburgh Review" came out with a fierce, almost a savage +attack, to which Mr. Froude replied in an article which he published in +"Fraser" and to which he affixed his own signature. Mr. Froude, indeed, +has during his career fought several battles in this open, personal +manner--a thing very uncommon in England. He has had many enemies. The +"Saturday Review" has been unswerving in its passionate hostility to +him, and has even gone so far as to arraign his personal integrity as a +chronicler. Rumor in London ascribes some of the bitterest of the +"Saturday Review" articles to the pen of Mr. Edward A. Freeman, author +of "The History of Federal Government," "The History of the Norman +Conquest of England," and many historical essays--a prolific writer in +reviews and journals. Then as the successive volumes of Froude's work +began to appear, and the historian brought out his famous portraiture of +Elizabeth and Mary, it was but natural that controversy should thicken +and deepen around him. The temper of parties in Great Britain is still +nearly as hot as ever it was on the characters of Mary and Elizabeth. +Not many years ago Thackeray was hissed in Edinburgh, because in one of +his lectures he said something which was supposed to be disparaging to +the moral character of Mary of Scotland. Then the whole question of +Saxon against Celt comes up again in Mr. Froude's account of English +rule in Ireland. Everybody knows what a storm of controversy broke +around the historian's head. He was accused not merely of setting up his +own personal prejudices as law and history, but even of misrepresenting +facts and actually misquoting documents in order to suit his purpose. I +do not mean to enter into the discussion, for I am not writing a +criticism of Mr. Froude's history, but only a chapter about Mr. Froude +himself. But I confess I can quite understand why so many readers, not +blind partisans of any cause, become impatient with some of the passages +of his works. He coolly and deliberately commends as virtue in one +person or one race the very qualities, the very deeds which he +stigmatizes as the blackest and basest guilt in others. "Show me the +man, and I will show you the law," used to be an old English proverb, +illustrating the depth which judicial partisanship and corruption had +reached. "Show me the person, and I will show you the moral law," might +well be the motto of Mr. Froude's history. But I believe Mr. Froude to +be utterly incapable of any misrepresentation or distortion of facts, +any conscious coloring of the truth. Indeed, I am rather impressed by +the extraordinary boldness with which he often gives the naked facts, +and still calmly upholds a theory which to ordinary minds would seem +absolutely incompatible with their existence. It appears to be enough if +he once makes up his mind to dislike a personage or a race. Let the +facts be as they may, Mr. Froude will still explain them to the +discredit of the object of his antipathy. His mode of dealing with the +characters and actions of those he detests, might remind one of the +manner in which the discontented subjects of the perplexed prince in +"Rabagas" explain every act of their good-natured ruler: "Je donne un +bal--luxe effrene! Pas de bal--quelle avarice! Je passe une +revue--intimidation militaire! Je n'en passe pas--je crains l'esprit des +troupes! Des petards a ma fete--l'argent du peuple en fumee! Pas de +petards--rien pour les plaisirs du peuple! Je me porte bien--l'oisivite! +Je me porte mal--la debauche! Je batis--gaspillage! Je ne batis pas--et +le proletaire?" + +However that may be, it is certain that the "History" placed Mr. Froude +in the very front rank of English authors. He had made a path for +himself. He refused to accept the thought of what is commonly called a +science of history, although his own method of evolving his narrative is +very often in faithful conformity with the principles of that science. +He had written about political economy, in the very opening of his first +volume, in a manner which, if it did not imply an actual contempt for +the doctrines of that science, yet certainly showed an impatience of its +rule which aroused the anger of the economists. He claimed a reversal of +the universal decision of modern history as to the character of Henry +VIII. He assailed one of the English Protestant's articles of faith when +he denied the virtue of Anne Boleyn. He made mistakes and confessed +them, and went to work again. The opening of the Spanish archives in the +castle of Simancas flooded him with new lights and required a +reconstruction of much that he had done. The progress of his work became +one of the literary phenomena of the age. All eyes were on it. The rich +romantic splendor of the style, the singular power and impressiveness of +the historical portraits, fascinated everybody. Orthodox Protestants +looked on him as a sort of infidel or pagan, despite his admiration for +Queen Bess, because, with all his admiration, he exposed her meannesses +and her falsehoods with unsparing hand. Catholics insisted on regarding +him as a mere bigot of Protestantism, although he condemned Anne Boleyn. +Mr. Froude has always shown a remarkable freedom from prejudice and +bigotry. Some of his closest friends are Catholics and Irishmen. I +remember a little personal instance of liberality on his part which is +perhaps worth mentioning. There was an official in the Record or State +Paper Office of England who had become a Roman Catholic, and was, like +most English Catholics, especially if converts, rather bigoted and +zealous. This gentleman, Mr. Turnbull, happened to be employed some +years ago in arranging, copying, and calendaring the Elizabethan State +papers. The Evangelical Alliance Society got up a cry against him. They +insisted that to employ a Roman Catholic in such a task was only to +place in his hands the means of falsifying a most important period of +English history, and they argued that the temptation would be too strong +for any man like Mr. Turnbull to resist. There sprang up one of those +painful and ignoble disputations which are even still only too common in +England when religious bigotry gets a chance of raising an alarm. I am +sorry to say that so influential a journal as the "Athenaeum" joined in +the clamor for the dismissal of Mr. Turnbull, who was not accused of +having done anything wrong, but only of being placed in a position which +might perhaps tempt some base creatures to do wrong. Mr. Turnbull was a +gentleman of the highest honor, and, unfortunately for himself, an +enthusiast in the very work which then occupied him. Mr. Froude was then +engaged in studying the period of history which employed Mr. Turnbull's +labors. The opinions of the two men were utterly at variance. Mr. +Turnbull must have thought Froude's work in the rehabilitation of Henry +VIII., and the glorification of Elizabeth positively detestable. But Mr. +Froude bore public testimony to the honor and integrity of Mr. Turnbull. +"Mr. Turnbull," Froude wrote, "could have felt no sympathy with the work +in which I was engaged; but he spared no pains to be of use to me, and +in admitting me to a share of his private room enabled me to witness the +ability and integrity with which he discharged his own duties." Bigotry +prevailed, however. Mr. Turnbull was removed from his place, and died +soon after, disappointed and embittered. But Froude the man is not +Froude the author. The man is free from dislikes and prejudices; the +author can hardly take a pen in his hand without being suffused by +prejudices and dislikes. Take for example his way of dealing with Irish +questions, not merely in his history, but in his miscellaneous writings. +Mr. Froude has some little property in the west of Ireland, and resides +there for a short time every year. He has occasionally detailed his +experiences, and commented on them, in the pages of "Fraser." I shall +not give my own view of his apparent sentiments toward Ireland, because +I am obviously not an impartial judge; but I shall take the opinion of +the London "Spectator," which is. The "Spectator" declares that "it may +be not unfairly said that Mr. Froude simply loathes the Irish people; +not consciously perhaps, for he professes the reverse. But a certain +bitter grudge breaks out despite his will now and then. It colors all +his tropes. It adds a sting to the casual allusions of his language. +When he wants a figure of speech to express the relation between the two +islands, he compares the Irish to a kennel of fox-hounds, and the +English to their master, and declares that what the Irish want is a +master who knows that he is a master and means to continue master." In +his occasional studies of contemporary Ireland from the window of his +shooting lodge in Kerry, Mr. Froude exhibits the same strange mixture of +candor as to fact and blind prejudice as to conclusion which so oddly +characterizes his history. He recounts deliberately the most detestable +projects--he himself calls them "detestable;" the word is his, not +mine--avowed to him by the agents of great Irish landlords, and yet his +sympathy is wholly with the agents and against the occupiers. He tells +in one instance, with perfect delight, of a mean and vulgar exhibition +of triumphant malice which he says an agent, a friend of his, paraded +for the humiliation of an evicted and contumacious tenant. The +"Spectator" asks in wonder whether it can be possible that "Mr. Froude, +an English gentleman by birth and education, an Oxford fellow, is not +ashamed to relate this act as an heroic feat?" Indeed, Mr. Froude seems +to associate in Ireland only with the "agent" class, and to take all his +views of things from them. His testimony is therefore about as valuable +as that of a foreigner who twelve or fifteen years ago should have taken +his opinions as to slavery in the South from the judgment and +conversation of the plantation overseers. The "Spectator" observed, with +calm severity, that Mr. Fronde's unlucky accounts of his Irish +experiences were "a comical example of the way in which an acute and +profound mind can become dull to the sense of what is manly, just, and +generous, by the mere atmosphere of association." Let me say that I am +convinced, however, that all this blind and unmanly prejudice is purely +literary; that it is taken up and laid aside with the pen. As I have +already said, some of Mr. Froude's closest friends are Irishmen--men who +are incapable of associating with any one, however eminent, who really +felt the coarse and bitter hatred to their country which Mr. Froude in +his wilder moments allows his too fluent pen to express. In fact Mr. +Froude is nothing of a philosopher. He settles every question easily and +off hand by reference to what Stuart Mill well calls the resource of the +lazy--the theory of race. Celts are all wrong and Anglo-Saxons are all +right, and there is an end of it. If he has any philosophy and science +of history, it is this. It explains everything and reconciles all +seeming contradictions. Nothing can be at once more comprehensive and +more simple. But there is still something to be added to this story of +Mr. Froude's Irish experiences; and I mention the whole thing only to +illustrate the peculiar character of Mr. Froude's emotional temperament, +which so often renders him untrustworthy as a historian. In the +particular instance on which the "Spectator" commented, it turned out +that Mr. Froude was entirely mistaken. He had misunderstood from +beginning to end what his friend the agent told him. The agent, the +landlord (a peer of the realm), and others hastened to contradict the +historian. There never had been any such eviction or any such offensive +display. Mr. Froude himself wrote to acknowledge publicly that he had +been entirely mistaken. He seemed indeed to have always had some doubt +of the story he was publishing; for he sent a proof of the page to the +agent "to be corrected in case I had misunderstood him." But the agent's +alterations, "unluckily, did not reach me in time;" and as Mr. Froude +could not wait for the truth, he published the error. Thus indeed is +history written! This was Mr. Froude's published version of a statement +made _viva voce_ to himself; and his version was wrong in every +particular--in fact, in substance, in detail, in purport, in everything! +I venture to think that this little incident is eminently +characteristic, and throws a strong light on some of the errors of the +"History of England." + +Mr. Froude has taken little or no active part in English politics. I do +not remember his having made any sign of personal sympathy one way or +the other with any of the great domestic movements which have stirred +England in my time. I presume that he is what would be generally called +a Liberal; at least it is simply impossible that he could be a Tory. But +I doubt if he could very distinctly "place himself," as the American +phrase is, with regard to most of the political contentions of the time. +I cannot call Mr. Froude a philosophical Radical; for the idea which +that suggests is of a school of thought and a system of training quite +different from his, even if his tendencies could possibly be called +Radical. It is rather a pity that so much of the best and clearest +literary intellect of England should be so entirely withdrawn from the +practical study of contemporary politics. No sensible person could ask a +man like Mr. Froude to neglect his special work, that for which he has a +vocation and genius, for the business of political life. But perhaps a +better attempt might be made by him and others of our leading authors to +fulfil the conditions of the German proverb which recommends that the +one thing shall be done and the other not left undone. Mr. Froude has +taken a more marked interest in the quasi-political question lately +raised touching the connection between England and her colonies. Of +recent years a party has been growing up in England who advocate +emphatically the doctrine that the business of this country is to +educate her colonies for emancipation. These men believe that as time +goes on it will become more and more difficult to retain even a nominal +connection between distant colonies and the parent country. The Dominion +of Canada and the Australian colonies, both separated by oceans from +England, are now practically independent. They have their own +parliaments, and make their own laws; but England sends out a governor, +and the governor has still a nominal control indeed, which in some rare +cases he still exercises. Now what is to be the tendency of the future? +Will this practical independence tend to bind the colonial system more +strongly up into that of the central empire, as the practical +independence of the American or the Swiss States keeps them together? Or +is the time inevitable when the slight bond must be severed altogether +and the great colonies at last declare their independence? Would it, for +example, be possible always to maintain the American Union if several +thousand miles of ocean divided California in one direction from +Washington, and several thousand miles of another ocean lay between +Washington and the South? This is the sort of question political parties +in England have lately been asking themselves. One party, mainly under +an impulse once given by a chance alliance between the Manchester school +and Goldwin Smith, affirm boldly that ultimate separation is inevitable, +and that we ought to begin to prepare ourselves and the colonies for +it. This party made great way for awhile. They said loudly, they +announced as a principle, that which had been growing vaguely up in many +minds, and which one or two statesmen had long before put into actual +form. More than twelve years ago Mr. Gladstone delivered a lecture on +our colonial system which plainly pointed to this ultimate severance and +bade us prepare for it. Mr. Lowe, the present Chancellor of the +Exchequer, himself an old colonist, had talked somewhat cynically in the +same way. Mr. Bright was well known to favor the idea; so was Mr. Mill. +With the sudden and direct impulse given by Mr. Goldwin Smith, the +thought seemed to be catching fire. England had voluntarily given up the +Ionian Islands to Greece; there was talk of her restoring Gibraltar to +Spain. Mr. Lowe had spoken in the House of Commons with utter contempt +of those who thought it would be possible to hold Canada in the event of +a war with the United States. Governors of colonies actually began to +warn their population that the preparation for independence had better +begin. Suddenly a reaction set in. A class of writers and speakers came +up to the front who argued that the colonies were part of England's very +life system; that they were her friends, and might be her strength; that +it was only her fault if she had neglected them; and that the natural +tendency was to cohesion rather than dissolution. This party roused at +once the sympathy of that large class of people who, knowing and caring +nothing about the political and philosophical aspects of the question, +thought it somehow a degradation to England, a token of decay, a +confession of decrepitude, that there should be any talk of the +severance of her colonies. Between the two, the tide of separatist +feeling has decidedly been rolled back for the present. The humor of the +present day is to devise means--schemes of federation or federative +representation for example--whereby the colonies may still be kept in +cohesion with England. Now, among the men of intellect who have +stimulated and fostered this reactionary movement, if it be so--at all +events, this movement toward the retention of the colonies--Mr. Froude +has been a leading influence. He has advocated such a policy himself, +and he has instilled it into the minds of others. He has formed silently +a little school who take their doctrines from him and expand them. The +colonial question has become popular and powerful. We have every now and +then colonial conferences held in London, at which everybody who has any +manner of suggestion to make, or crotchet to air, touching the +improvement or development of our colonial system, goes and delivers his +speech independently of everybody else. In the House of Commons the +party is not yet very strong; but if it had a leader there, it would +undoubtedly be powerful. There is even already a visible anxiety on the +part of cabinet ministers to drop all allusion to the fact that they +once talked of preparing the colonies for independence. We now find that +it is regarded as unpatriotic, un-English, ungrateful, and I know not +what, to say a word about a possible severance, at any time, between the +parent country and her colonies. In one of Mr. Disraeli's novels a +political party, hard up for a captivating and popular watchword, is +thrown into ecstasies when somebody invents the cry of "Our young Queen +and our old Constitution." I think the cry of "Our young colonies and +our old Constitution" would be almost as taking now. It is curious, +however, to note how both the movement and the reaction came from +scholars and literary men--not from politicians or journalists. Many +eminent men had talked of gradually preparing the colonies for +independence; but the talk never became an impulse and a political +movement until it came from Mr. Goldwin Smith. On the other hand, +countless vociferous persons had always been bawling out that England +must never part with a rock on which her flag had waved; but all this +sort of thing had no effect until Mr. Froude and his school inaugurated +the definite movement of reaction. Mr. Goldwin Smith sent the ball +flying so far in one direction, that it seemed almost certain to reach +the limit of the field. Mr. Froude suddenly caught it and sent it flying +back the way it had come, and beyond the hand which had originally +driven it forth. It is not often that the ideas of "literary" men have +so much of positive influence over practical controversy in England. + +For a long time Mr. Froude has been the editor of "Fraser's Magazine," a +periodical which I need not say holds a high position, and to which the +editor has contributed some of the finest of his shorter writings. He is +assisted in the work of editing by Mr. William Allingham, who is best +known as a young poet of great promise, and who is probably the closest +personal friend of Alfred Tennyson. "Fraser's" is always ready to open +its columns to merit of any kind, and is willing to put before the +public bold and original views of many political questions which other +periodicals would shrink from admitting. As a rule English magazines, +even when they acknowledge a dash of the philosophic in them, are very +reluctant to give a place to opinions, however honestly entertained, +which differ in any marked degree from those of society at large. The +"Fortnightly Review" may be almost regarded as unique in its principle +of admitting any expression of opinion which has genuineness and value +in it, without regard to its accordance with public sentiment, or even +to its inherent soundness. "Fraser," of course, makes no pretension to +such deliberate boldness. But "Fraser" will now and then venture to put +in an article, even from an uninfluential hand, which goes directly in +the teeth of accepted and orthodox political opinion. For example, it is +not many months since it published an article written by an English +working man ("The Journeyman Engineer," a sort of celebrity in his way) +to prove that republicanism is becoming the creed of the English +artisan. Now, in any English magazine which professes to be respectable, +it is almost as hazardous a thing to speak of republicanism in England +as to speak of something indecent or blasphemous. "Fraser" also made +itself conspicuous some years ago as a bold and persevering advocate of +army reform, and ventured to press certain schemes of change which then +seemed either revolutionary or impossible, but which since then have +been quietly realized. + +I think I have given a tolerably accurate estimate of Mr. Froude's +public work in England. I have never heard him make a speech or deliver +a lecture, and therefore cannot conjecture how far he is likely to +impress an audience with the manner of his discourse; but the matter can +hardly fail to be suggestive, original, and striking. I can foresee +sharp controversy and broad differences of opinion arising out of his +lectures in the United States. I cannot imagine their being received +with indifference, or failing to hold the attention of the public. Mr. +Froude is a great literary man, if not strictly a great historian. Of +course every one must rate Froude's intellect very highly. He has +imagination; he has that sympathetic and dramatic instinct which enables +a man to enter into the emotions and motives, the likings and dislikings +of the people of a past age. His style is penetrating and thrilling; his +language often rises to the dignity of a poetic eloquence. The figures +he conjures up are always the semblances of real men and women. They are +never wax-work, or lay figures, or skeletons clothed in words, or purple +rags of description stuffed out with straw into an awkward likeness to +the human form. The one distinct impression we carry away from Froude's +history is that of the living reality of his figures. In Marlowe's +"Faustus" the Doctor conjures up for the amusement of the Emperor a +procession of stately and beautiful shadows to represent the great ones +of the past. When the shadows of Alexander the Great and his favorite +pass by, the Emperor can hardly restrain himself from rushing to clasp +the hero in his arms, and has to be reminded by the wizard that "these +are but shadows not substantial." Even then the Emperor can scarcely get +over his impression of their reality, for he cries: + + + I have heard it said + That this fair lady, whilst she lived on earth, + Had on her neck a little wart or mole; + + +and lo! there is the mark on the neck of the beautiful form which floats +across his field of vision. Mr. Froude's shadows are like this: so +deceptive, so seemingly vital and real; with the beauty and the blot +alike conspicuous; with the pride and passion of the hero, and the +heroine's white neck and the wart on it. Mr. Froude's whole soul, in +fact, is in the human beings whom he meets as he unfolds his narrative. +He is not an historical romancist, as some of his critics have called +him. He is a romantic or heroic portrait painter. He has painted +pictures on his pages which may almost compare with those of Titian. +Their glances follow you and haunt you like the wonderful eyes of Caesar +Borgia or the soul-piercing resignation of Beatrice Cenci. But is Mr. +Froude a great historian? Despite this splendid faculty, nay, perhaps +because of this, he wants the one great and essential quality of the +true historian, accuracy. He wants altogether the cold, patient, stern +quality which clings to facts--the scientific faculty. His narrative +never stands out in that "dry light" which Bacon so commends, the light +of undistorted and clear Truth. The temptations to the man with a gift +of heroic portrait-painting are too great for Mr. Froude's resistance. +His genius carries him away and becomes his master. When Titian was +painting his Caesar Borgia, is it not conceivable that his imagination +may have been positively inflamed by the contrast between the physical +beauty and the moral guilt of the man, and have unconsciously heightened +the contrast by making the pride and passion lower more darkly, the +superb brilliancy of the eyes burn more radiantly than might have been +seen in real life? The world would take little account even if it were +to know that some of the portraits it admires were thus idealized by the +genius of the painter; but the historian who is thus led away is open to +a graver charge. It seems to me impossible to doubt that Mr. Froude has +more than once been thus ensnared by his own special gift. What is there +in literature more powerful, more picturesque, more complete and +dramatic than Froude's portrait of Mary Queen of Scots? It stands out +and glows and darkens with all the glare and gloom of a living form, +that now appears in sun and now in shadow. It is almost as perfect and +as impressive as any Titian. But can any reasonable person doubt that +the picture on the whole is a dramatic and not an historical study? +Without going into any controversy as to disputed facts--nay, admitting +for the sake of argument that Mary was as guilty as Mr. Froude would +make her--as guilty, I mean, in act and deed--yet it is impossible to +contend with any show of reason that the being he has painted for us is +the Mary of history and of life. To us his Mary now is a reality. We are +distinctly acquainted with her; we see her and can follow her movements. +But she is a fable and might be an impossibility for all that. The poets +have made many physical impossibilities real for us and familiar to us. +The form and being of a mermaid are not one whit less clear and distinct +to us than the form and being of a living woman. If any of us were to +see a painting of a mermaid with scales upon her neck, or with feet, he +would resent it or laugh at it as an inaccuracy, just as if he saw some +gross anatomical blunder in a picture of an ordinary man or woman. Mr. +Froude has created a Mary Queen of Scots as the poets and painters have +created a mermaid. He has made her one of the most imposing figures in +our modern literature, to which indeed she is an important addition. So +of his Queen Elizabeth; so, to a lesser extent, of his Henry VIII., +because, although there he may have gone even further away from history, +yet I think he was misled rather by his anxiety to prove a theory than +by the fascination of a picture growing under his own hands. Everything +becomes for the hour subordinate to this passion for the picturesque in +good or evil. Mr. Froude's personal integrity and candor are constantly +coming into contradiction with this artistic temptation; but the +portrait goes on all the same. He is too honest and candid to conceal or +pervert any fact that he knows. He tells everything frankly, but +continues his portrait. It may be that the very vices which constitute +the gloom and horror of this portrait suddenly prove their existence in +the character of the person who was chosen to illustrate the brightness +and glory of human nature. Mr. Froude is not abashed. He frankly states +the facts; shows how, in this or that instance, Truth did tell shocking +lies, Mercy ordered several massacres, and Virtue fell into the ways of +Messalina. But the portraits of Truth, Mercy, and Virtue remain as +radiant as ever. A lover of art, according to a story in the memoirs of +Canova, was so struck with admiration of that sculptor's Venus that he +begged to be allowed to see the model. The artist gratified him; but so +far from beholding a very goddess of beauty in the flesh, he only saw a +well-made, rather coarse-looking woman. The sculptor, seeing his +disappointment, explained to him that the hand and eye of the artist, as +they work, can gradually and almost imperceptibly change the model from +that which it is in the flesh to that which it ought to be in the +marble. This is the process which is always going on with Mr. Froude +whenever he is at work upon some model in which for love or hate he +takes unusual interest. Therefore the historian is constantly involving +himself in a welter of inconsistencies and errors which affect the +artist in nowise. Henry is a hero on one page, although he does the very +thing which somebody else on the next page is a villain for even +attempting. Elizabeth remains a prodigy of wisdom and honesty, Mary a +marvel of genius, lust, cruelty, and falsehood, although in every other +chapter the author frankly accumulates instances which show that now and +then the parts seem to have been exchanged; and it often becomes as hard +to know, by any tangible evidence, which is truth and which falsehood, +which patriotism and which selfishness, as it was to distinguish the +true Florimel from the magical counterfeit in Spenser's "Faery Queen." + +This is a grave and a great fault; and unhappily it is one with which +Mr. Froude seems to have been thoroughly inoculated. It goes far to +justify the dull and literal old historians of the school of Dryasdust, +who, if they never quickened an event into life, never on the other hand +deluded the mind with phantoms. The chroniclers of mere facts and dates, +the old almanac-makers, are weary creatures; but one finds it hard to +condemn them to mere contempt when he sees how the vivid genius of a man +like Froude can lead him astray. Mr. Froude's finest gift is his +greatest defect for the special work he undertakes to do. A scholar, a +thinker, a man of high imagination, a man likewise of patient labor, he +is above all things a romantic portrait painter; and the spell by which +his works allure us is therefore the spell of the magician, not the +power of the calm and sober teacher. + + + + +SCIENCE AND ORTHODOXY IN ENGLAND. + + + "The old God is dead above, and the old Devil is dead below!" + + +So sang Heinrich Heine in one of his peculiarly cheerful moods; and I do +not know that any words could paint a more complete picture of the utter +collapse and ruin of old theologies and time-honored faiths and +superstitions. Irreverent and even impious as the words will perhaps +appear to most minds, it is probable that not a few of those who would +be most likely to shudder at their audacity are beginning to think with +horror that the condition of things described by the cynical poet is +being rapidly brought about by the doings of modern science. Many an +English country clergyman, many an earnest and pious Dissenter, must +have felt that a new and awful era had arrived--that a modern war of +Titans against Heaven was going on, when such discourses as Professor +Huxley's famous Protoplasm lecture could be delivered by a man of the +highest reputation, and could be received by nearly all the world with, +at least, a respectful consideration. In fact, the delivery of such +discourses does indicate a quite new ordeal for old-fashioned orthodoxy, +and an ordeal which seems to me far severer than any through which it +has yet passed. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of +the struggle which is now openly carried on between Science and Orthodox +Theology. I need hardly say perhaps that I utterly repudiate the use of +any such absurd and unmeaning language as that which speaks of a +controversy between science and religion. One might as well talk of a +conflict between fact and truth; or between truth and virtue. But +orthodox theology in England, whether it be right or wrong, is certainly +a very different thing from religion. Were it wholly and eternally true +it could still only bear the same relation to religion that geography +bears to the earth, astronomy to the sidereal system, the words +describing to the thing described. I may therefore hope not to be at +once set down as an irreligious person, merely because I venture to +describe the war indirectly waged against orthodox theology, by a new +school of English scientific men, as the severest trial that system has +ever yet had to encounter, and one through which it can hardly by any +possibility pass wholly unscathed. + +In describing briefly and generally this new school of English science, +and some of its leading scholars, I should say that I do so merely from +the outside. I am not a scientific man professionally; and, even as an +amateur, can only pretend to very slight attainment. But I have been on +the scene of controversy, have looked over the field, and studied the +bearing of the leading combatants. When Cressida had seen the chiefs of +the Trojan army pass before her and had each pointed out to her and +described, she could probably have told a stranger something worth his +listening to, although she knew nothing of the great art of war. Only on +something of the same ground do I venture to ask for any attention from +American readers, when I say something about the class of scientific men +who have recently sprung up in England, and of whom one of the most +distinguished and one of the most aggressive has just been elected +President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. + +This school is peculiarly English. So far as I know, it owes nothing +directly and distinctly to the intellectual initiative of any other +country. Both in metaphysical and in practical science there has been a +sudden and powerful awakening, or perhaps I should say _renaissance_, +in England lately. Three or four years ago Stuart Mill wrote that the +sceptre of psychology had again passed over to England; and it seems to +me not too much to say that England now likewise holds the sceptre of +natural science. It is evident to every one that the leaders of this new +school stand in antagonism which is decided, if not direct, to the +teachings of orthodox theology. + +The recent election of Professor Huxley as President of the British +Association was accepted universally as a triumph over the orthodox +party. Professor Owen, who undoubtedly possesses one of the broadest and +keenest scientific intellects of the age, has lately been pushed aside +and has fallen into something like comparative obscurity because he +could not, or would not, see his way into the dangerous fields opened up +by his younger and bolder rivals. Professor Owen held on as long as ever +he could to orthodoxy. He made heavy intellectual sacrifices at its +altar. I do not quite know whether in the end it was he who first gave +the cold shoulder to orthodoxy, or orthodoxy which first repudiated him. +But it is certain that he no longer stands out conspicuous and ardent as +the great opponent of Darwin and Huxley. He has, in fact, receded so +much from his old ground that one finds it difficult now to know where +to place him; and perhaps it will be better to regard him as out of the +controversy altogether. If he had done less for orthodoxy, where his +labors were vain, he might have done much more for science, where his +toil would always have been fruitful. Undoubtedly, he is one of the +greatest naturalists since Cuvier; his contributions toward the facts +and data of science have been valuable beyond all estimation; his +practical labors in the British Museum would alone earn for him the +gratitude of all students. Owen is, or was, to my mind, the very +perfection of a scientific lecturer. The easy flow of simple, expressive +language, the luminous arrangement and style which made the profoundest +exposition intelligible, the captivating variety of illustration, the +clear, well-modulated voice, the self-possessed and graceful manner--all +these were attributes which made Owen a delightful lecturer, although he +put forward no pretensions to rhetorical skill or to eloquence of any +very high order. But while there can hardly have been any recent falling +off in Owen's intellectual powers, yet it is certain that he was more +thought of, that he occupied a higher place in the public esteem, some +half dozen years ago than he now does. I think there has been a general +impression of late years that in the controversy between theology and +science, Owen was not to be relied upon implicitly. People thought that +he was trying to sit on the two stools; to run with the theological +hare, and hold with the scientific hounds. Indeed, Owen is eminently a +respectable, a courtly _savant_. He does not love to run tilt against +the prevailing opinion of the influential classes, or to forfeit the +confidence and esteem of "society." He loves--so people say--the company +of the titled and the great, and prefers, perhaps, to walk with Sir Duke +than with humble Sir Scholar. All things considered, we may regard him +as out of the present controversy, and, perhaps, as left behind by it +and by the opinions which have created it. The orthodox do not seem much +beholden to him. Only two or three years ago an orthodox association for +which Owen had delivered a scientific lecture, refused on theological +grounds to print the discourse in their regular volume. On the other +hand, the younger and more ardent _savans_ and scholars sneer at him, +and refuse to give him credit for sincerity at the expense of his +intelligence. They believe that if he chose to speak out, if he had the +courage of his opinions, he would say as they do. He has ceased to be +their opponent, but he is not upon their side; he is no longer the +champion of pure orthodoxy, but he has never pronounced openly against +it. Flippant people allude to him as an old fogy; let us say more +decently that Richard Owen already belongs to the past. + +"Free-thinking" has never been in England a very formidable rival of +orthodox theology. Perhaps there is something in the practical nature of +the average English mind which makes it indifferent and apathetic to +mere speculation. The ordinary Englishmen understands being a Churchman +or a Dissenter, a Roman Catholic or a no-Popery man; but he hardly +understands how people can be got to concern themselves with mere +sceptical speculation. Writings like those of Rousseau, for example, +never could have produced in England anything like the effect they +wrought in France. Of late years the effects of "free-thinking" (I am +using the phrase merely in the vulgar sense) have been poor, feeble and +uninfluential--wholly indeed without influence over the educated classes +of society. A certain limited and transient influence was once +maintained over a small surface of society by the speeches and the +writings of George Jacob Holyoake. Holyoake avowed himself an Atheist, +conducted a paper called (I think) "The Reasoner," was prosecuted under +the terms of a foolish and discreditable act of Parliament, and had for +a time something of notoriety and popular power. But Holyoake, a man of +pure character and gentle manners, is devoid of anything like commanding +ability, has no gleam of oratorical power, and is intellectually +unreliable and vacillating. Under no conceivable circumstances could he +exercise any strong or permanent control over the mind or the heart of +an age: and he has of late somewhat modified his opinions, and has +greatly altered his sphere of action, preferring to be a political and +social reformer in a small and modest way to the barren task of +endeavoring to uproot religious belief by arguments evolved from the +depth of the moral consciousness. Holyoake, the Atheist, may therefore +be said to have faded away. + +His old place has lately been taken by a noisier, more egotistic and +robust sort of person, a young man named Bradlaugh, who at one time +dubbed himself "Iconoclast," and, bearing that ambitious title, used to +harangue knots of working men in the North of England with the most +audacious of free-thinking rhetoric. Bradlaugh has a certain kind of +brassy, stentorian eloquence and a degree of reckless self conceit which +almost amount to a conquering quality. But he has no intellectual +capacity sufficient to make a deep mark on the mind of any section of +society and he never attempts, so far as I know, any other than the old, +time-worn arguments against orthodoxy with which the world has been +wearily familiar since the days of Voltaire. Indeed, a man who gravely +undertakes to prove by argument that there is no God, places himself at +once in so anomalous, paradoxical and ridiculous a position that it is a +marvel the absurdity of the situation does not strike his own mind. A +man who starts with the reasonable assumption that belief is a matter of +evidence and then goes on to argue that a Being does not exist of whose +non-existence he can upon his own ground and pleading know absolutely +nothing, is not likely to be very formidable to any of his antagonists. +Orthodox theologians, therefore, are little concerned about men like +Bradlaugh--very often perhaps are ignorant of the existence of any such. + +I only mention Holyoake and Bradlaugh at all because they are the only +prominent agitators of this kind who have appeared in England during my +time. I do not mean to speak disparagingly of either man. Both have +considerable abilities; both are, I am sure, sincere and honest. I have +never heard anything to the disparagement of Bradlaugh's character. +Holyoake I know personally, and esteem highly. But their influence has +been insignificant, and cannot have any long duration. I only speak of +it here to show how feeble has been the head made against orthodoxy in +England by professed infidelity in our time. There was, indeed, a book +written some years ago by a man of higher culture than Holyoake or +Bradlaugh, and which made a bubble or two of sensation at the time. I +mean "The Creed of Christendom," by William Rathbone Greg, a well-known +political and philosophical essayist, who wrote largely for the +"Edinburgh Review" and the "Westminster Review" and more lately for the +"Pall Mall Gazette," and has now a comfortable place under government. +But the "Creed of Christendom," though a clever book in its way, made no +abiding mark. It was read and liked by those whose opinions it +expressed, but I question if it ever made one single convert or +suggested a doubt to a truly orthodox mind. I mention it because it was +the only work of what is called a directly infidel character, not +pretending to a scientific basis, which was contributed to the +literature of English philosophy by a man of high culture and literary +reputation during my memory. It will be understood that I am speaking +now of works modeled after the old fashion of sceptical controversy, in +which the authors make it their avowed and main purpose to assail the +logical coherence and reasonableness of the Christian faith by arguments +which, sound or unsound, can be brought to no practical test and settled +by no possible decision. Such works may be influential among nations +which are addicted to or tolerant of mere religious speculation; it is +only a calling aloud to solitude to address them to the English public. +Even books of a very high intellectual class, such for example as +Strauss's "Life of Jesus," are translated into English in vain. They are +read and admired by those already prepared to admire and eager to read +them--the general public takes no heed of them. + +I have ventured into this digression in order to show the more clearly +how important must be the influence of that new school of science which +has aroused such a commotion among the devotees of English orthodoxy. +There is not, so far as I know, among the leading scientific men of the +new school one single professed infidel in the old fashioned sense. The +fundamental difference between them and the orthodox is that they insist +upon regarding all subjects coming within the scope of human knowledge +as open to inquiry and to be settled only upon evidence. I suppose a day +will come when people will wonder that a scientific man, living in the +England of the nineteenth century, could have been denounced from +pulpits because he claimed the right and the duty to follow out his +scientific investigations whithersoever they should lead him. Yet I am +not aware that anything more desperately infidel than this has ever been +urged by our modern English _savans_. + +Michel Chevalier tells a story of a French iconoclast of our own time +who devoted himself to a perpetual war against what he considered the +two worst superstitions of the age--belief in God and dislike of +spiders. This aggressive sage always carried about with him a golden box +filled with the pretty and favorite insects I have mentioned; and +whenever he happened to be introduced to any new acquaintance he +invariably plunged at once into the questions--"Do you believe in a God, +and are you afraid of spiders?"--and without waiting for an answer, he +instantly demonstrated his own superiority to at least one conventional +weakness by opening his box, taking out a spider, and swallowing it. I +think a good deal of the old-fashioned warfare against orthodoxy had +something of this spider-bolting aggressiveness about it. It assailed +men's dearest beliefs in the coarsest manner, and it had commonly only +horror and disgust for its reward. There is nothing of this spirit among +the leaders of English scientific philosophy to-day. Not merely are the +practically scientific men free from it, but even the men who are +called in a sort of a contemptuous tone "philosophers" are not to be +accused of it. Mill and Herbert Spencer have as little of it as Huxley +and Grove. Indeed the scientific men are nothing more or less than +earnest, patient, devoted inquirers, seeking out the truth fearlessly, +and resolute to follow wherever she invites. Whenever they have come +into open conflict with orthodoxy, it may be safely assumed that +orthodoxy threw the first stone. For orthodoxy, with a keen and just +instinct, detests these scientific men. The Low Church party, the great +mass of the Dissenting body (excluding, of course, Unitarians) have been +their uncompromising opponents. The High Church party, which, with all +its mediaeval weaknesses and its spiritual reaction, does assuredly boast +among its leaders some high and noble intellects, and among all its +classes earnest, courageous minds, has, on the contrary, given, for the +most part, its confidence and its attention to the teachings of the +_savans_. We have the testimony of Professor Huxley himself to the fact +that the leading minds of the Roman Catholic Church do at least take +care that the teachings of the _savans_ shall be understood, and that +they shall be combated, if at all, on scientific and not on theological +grounds. + +No man is more disliked and dreaded by the orthodox than Thomas Huxley. +Darwin, who is really the _fons et origo_ of the present agitation, is +hardly more than a name to the outer world. He has written a book, and +that is all the public know about him. He never descends into the arena +of open controversy; we never read of him in the newspapers. I know of +no instance of a book so famous with an author so little known. Even +curiosity does not seem to concern itself about the individuality of +Darwin, whose book opened up a new era of controversy, spreading all +over the world, and was the sensation in England of many successive +seasons. Herbert Spencer, indeed, has lived for a long time hardly +noticed or known by the average English public. But then none of +Spencer's books ever created the slightest sensation among that public, +and three out of every four Englishmen never heard of the man or the +books. Herbert Spencer is infinitely better known in the United States +than he is in England, although I am far from admitting that he is +better appreciated even here than by those of his countrymen who are at +all acquainted with his masterly, his unsurpassed, contributions to the +philosophy of the world. The singular fact about Darwin is that his book +was absolutely the rage in England; everybody was bound to read it or at +least to talk about it and pretend to have understood it. More +excitement was aroused by it than even by Buckle's "History of +Civilization;" it fluttered the petticoats in the drawing-room as much +as the surplices in the pulpit; it occupied alike the attention of the +scholar and the fribble, the divine and the schoolgirl. Yet the author +kept himself in complete seclusion, and, for some mysterious reason or +other, public curiosity never seemed disposed to persecute him. +Therefore the theologians seem to have regarded him as the poet does the +cuckoo, rather as a voice in the air than as a living creature; and they +have not poured out much of their anger upon him personally. But Huxley +comes down into the arena of public controversy and is a familiar and +formidable figure there. Wherever there is strife there is Huxley. Years +ago he came into the field almost unknown like the Disinherited Knight +in Scott's immortal romance; and, while the good-natured spectators were +urging him to turn the blunt end of the lance against the shield of the +least formidable opponent, he dashed with splendid recklessness, and +with spearpoint forward, against the buckler of Richard Owen himself, +the most renowned of the naturalists of England. Indeed Huxley has the +soul and spirit of a gallant controversialist. He has many times warned +the orthodox champions that if they play at bowls they must expect +rubbers; and once in the fight he never spares. He has a happy gift of +shrewd sense and sarcasm combined; and, indeed, I know no man who can +exhibit a sophism as a sophism and hold it up to contempt and laughter +more clearly and effectively in a single sentence of exhaustive satire. + +It would be wrong to regard Huxley merely as a scientific man. He is +likewise a literary man, a writer. What he writes would be worth reading +for its style and its expression alone, were it of no scientific +authority; whereas we all know perfectly well that scientific men +generally are read only for the sake of what they teach, and not at all +because of their manner of teaching it--rather indeed despite of their +manner of teaching it. Huxley is a fascinating writer, and has a happy +way of pressing continually into the service of strictly scientific +exposition illustrations caught from literature and art--even from +popular and light literature. He has a gift in this way which somewhat +resembles that possessed by a very different man belonging to a very +different class--I mean Robert Lowe, the present English Chancellor of +the Exchequer, who owes the greater part of his rhetorical success to +the prodigality of varied illustration with which he illumines his +speeches, and which catches, at this point or that, the attention of +every kind of listener. Huxley seems to understand clearly that you can +never make scientific doctrines really powerful while you are content +with the ear of strictly scientific men. He cultivates, therefore, +sedulously and successfully, the literary art of expression. A London +friend of mine, who has had long experience in the editing of high-class +periodicals, is in the habit of affirming humorously that the teachers +of the public are divided into two classes: those who know something and +cannot write, and those who know nothing and can write. Every literary +man, especially every editor, will cordially agree with me that at the +heart of this humorous extravagance is a solid kernel of truth. Now, +scientific men very often belong to the class of those who know +something, but cannot write. No one, however, could possibly confound +Thomas Huxley with the band of those to whom the gift of expression is +denied. He is a vivid, forcible, fascinating writer. His style as a +lecturer is one which, for me at least, has a special charm. It is, +indeed, devoid of any effort at rhetorical eloquence; but it has all the +eloquence which is born of the union of profound thought with simple +expression and luminous diction. There is not much of the poetic, +certainly, about him; only the occasional dramatic vividness of his +illustrations suggests the existence in him of any of the higher +imaginative qualities. I think there was something like a gleam of the +poetic in the half melancholy half humorous introduction of Balzac's +famous "Peau de Chagrin," into the Protoplasm lecture. But Huxley as a +rule treads only the firm earth, and deliberately, perhaps scornfully, +rejects any attempts and aspirings after the clouds. His mind is in this +way far more rigidly practical than that even of Richard Owen. He is +never eloquent in the sense in which Humboldt for example was so often +eloquent. Being a politician, I may be excused for borrowing an +illustration from the political arena, and saying that Huxley's +eloquence is like that of Cobden; it is eloquence only because it is so +simply and tersely truthful. The whole tone of his mind, the whole +tendency of his philosophy, may be observed to have this character of +quiet, fearless, and practical truthfulness. No seeker after truth could +be more earnest, more patient, more disinterested. "Dry light," as Bacon +calls it--light uncolored by prejudice, undimmed by illusion, +undistorted by interposing obstacle--is all that Huxley desires to have. +He puts no bound to the range of human inquiry. Wherever man may look, +there let him look earnestly and without fear. Truth is always naked +and not ashamed. The modest, self-denying profession of Lessing that he +wanted not the whole truth, and only asked to be allowed the pleasing +toil of investigation, must be almost unintelligible to a student like +Huxley; and indeed is only to be understood by any active inquirer, on +condition that he bears in mind the healthy and racy delight which the +mere labor of intellectual research gave to Lessing's vigorous and +elastic mind. No subject is sacred to Huxley; because with him truth is +more sacred than any sphere of inquiry. I suppose the true and pure +knight would have fearlessly penetrated any shrine in his quest of the +Holy Grail. + +Professor Huxley's nature seems to me to have been cast in a finer mould +than that of Professor Tyndall, for example. Decidedly, Tyndall is a man +of great ability and earnestness. He has done, perhaps, more practical +work in science than Huxley has; he has written more; he sometimes +writes more eloquently. But he wants, to my thinking, that pure and +colorless impartiality of inquiry and judgment which is Huxley's +distinguishing characteristic. There is a certain coarseness of +materialism about Tyndall; there is a vehement and almost an arrogant +aggressiveness in him which must interfere with the clearness of his +views. He assails the orthodox with the temper of a Hot Gospeller. +Perhaps his Irish nature is partly accountable for this warm and eager +combativeness: perhaps his having sat so devotedly at the feet of his +friend, the great apostle of force, Thomas Carlyle, may help to explain +the unsparing vigor of his controversial style. However that may be, +Tyndall is assuredly one of the most impatient of sages, one of the most +intolerant of philosophers. If I have compared Huxley to the pure +devoted knight riding patiently in search of the Holy Grail, I may, +perhaps, liken Tyndall to the ardent champion who ranges the world, +fiercely defying to mortal combat any and every one who will not +instantly admit that the warrior's lady-love is the most beautiful and +perfect of created beings. His temper does unquestionably tend to weaken +Tyndall's authority. You may trust him implicitly where it is only a +question of a glacial theory or an atmospheric condition; but you must +follow the Carlylean philosopher very cautiously indeed where he +undertakes to instruct you on the subject of races. The negro, for +example, conquers Tyndall altogether. The philosopher loses his temper +and forgets his science the moment he comes to examine poor black +Sambo's woolly skull, and remembers that there are sane and educated +white people who maintain that the owner of the skull is a man and a +brother. In debates which cannot be settled by dry science, Huxley's +sympathies almost invariably guide him right: Tyndall's almost +invariably set him wrong. During the American Civil war, Huxley, like +Sir Charles Lyell and some other eminent scientific men, sympathized +with the cause of the North: Tyndall, on the other hand, was an eager +partisan of the South. A still more decisive test severed the two men +more widely apart. The story of the Jamaica massacre divided all England +into two fierce and hostile camps. I am not going to weary my readers +with any repetition of this often-told and horrible story. Enough to say +that the whole question at issue in England in relation to the Jamaica +tragedies was whether the belief that a negro insurrection is impending +justifies white residents in flogging and hanging as many negro men and +women, unarmed and unresisting, as they can find time to flog and hang, +without any ceremony of trial, evidence, or even inquiry. I do not +exaggerate or misstate. The ground taken by the advocates of the Jamaica +military measures was that although no insurrection was going on yet +there was reasonable ground to believe an insurrection impending; and +that therefore the white residents were justified in anticipating and +crushing the movement by the putting to death of every person, man or +woman, who could be supposed likely to have any part in it. Of course I +need hardly tell the student of history that this is exactly the ground +which was taken up, and with far greater plausibility and better excuse, +by the promoters of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. They said: "We +have evidence, and are convinced, that these Huguenots are plotting +against us. If we do not put them down, they will put us down. Let us be +first at the work and crush them." The Jamaica question then raised a +bitter controversy in England. Naturally, John Bright and Stuart Mill +and Goldwin Smith took one side of it: Thomas Carlyle and Charles +Kingsley and John Ruskin the other. That was to be expected: any one +could have told it beforehand. But the occasion brought out men who had +never taken part in political controversy before: and then you saw at +once what kind of hearts and sympathies these new agitators had. Herbert +Spencer emerged for the first time in his life, so far as I know, from +the rigid seclusion of a silent student's career, and appeared in public +as an active, hard-working member of a political organization. The +American Civil War had drawn Mill for the first time into the public +arena of politics; the Jamaica massacre made a political agitator of +Herbert Spencer. The noble human sympathies of Spencer, his austere and +uncompromising love of justice, his instinctive detestation of brute, +blind, despotic force, compelled him to come out from his seclusion and +join those who protested against the lawless and senseless massacre of +the wretched blacks of Jamaica. So, too, with Huxley, who, if he did not +take part in a political organization, yet lent the weight of his +influence and the vigor of his pen to add to the force of the protest. +During the whole of that prolonged season of incessant and active +controversy, with the keenest intellects and the sharpest tongues in +England employing themselves eagerly on either side, I can recall to +mind nothing which, for justice, sound sense, high principle, and +exquisite briefness of pungent sarcasm, equaled one of Huxley's letters +on the subject to the "Pall Mall Gazette." The mind which was not +touched by the force of that incomparable mixture of satire and sense +would surely have remained untouched though one rose from the dead. The +delicious gravity with which Huxley accepted all the positions of his +opponents, assumed the propositions about the high character of the +Jamaica governor and the white residents, and the immorality of poor +Gordon and the negroes, and then reduced the case of the advocates of +the massacre to "the right of all virtuous persons, as such, to put to +death all vicious persons, as such," was almost worthy of Swift himself. + +On the other hand, Professor Tyndall plunged eagerly into the +controversy as a defender of the policy and the people by whose +authority the massacre was carried on. I do not suppose he made any +inquiry into the facts--nothing of his that I read or heard of led me to +suppose that he had; but he went off on his Carlylean theory about +governing minds, and superior races, and the right of strong men, and +all the rest of the nonsense which Carlyle once made fascinating, and +his imitators have lately made vulgar. I think I am not doing Tyndall an +injustice when I regard him as a less austere and trustworthy follower +of the pure truth than Huxley. In fact Tyndall is a born +controversialist. Some orthodox person once extracted from Huxley, or +from some of his writings, the admission that "the truth of the miracles +was all a question of evidence," and seemed to think he had got hold of +a great concession therein. Possibly the admission was made in the +spirit of sarcasm, but it none the less expressed a belief and +illustrated a temper profoundly characteristic of Thomas Huxley. With +him everything is a question of evidence; nothing is to be settled by +faith or by preliminary assumption. I am convinced that if you could +prove by sufficient evidence the truth of every miracle recorded in +Butler's "Lives of the Saints," Professor Huxley would bow resignedly, +and accept the truth--wanting only the truth, whatever it might be. But +I think Tyndall would rage and chafe a great deal, and I suspect that he +would use a good many hard words against his opponents before he +submitted to acknowledge aloud the defeat which his inner consciousness +already admitted. And yet I think it would be at least as difficult to +convince Huxley as it would be to convince Tyndall that Saint Denis +walked with his head under his arm, or that Saint Januarius (was it not +he?) crossed the sea on his cloak for a raft. + +I do not know whether it comes strictly within the scope of this essay +to say much about Herbert Spencer, who is rather what people call a +philosopher than a professionally scientific man. But assuredly no +living thinker has done more to undermine orthodoxy than the author of +"First Principles." I have already said that Spencer is much more widely +known in this country than in England. During the first few weeks of my +sojourn in the United States I heard more inquiries and more talk about +Spencer than about almost any other Englishman living. Spencer's whole +life, his pure, rigorous, anchorite-like devotion to knowledge, is +indeed a wonderful phenomenon in an age like the present. He has labored +for the love of labor and for the good it does to the world, almost +absolutely without reward. I presume that as paying speculations Herbert +Spencer's works would be hopeless failures; and yet they have influenced +the thought of the whole thinking world, and will probably grow and grow +in power as the years go on. It is, I suppose, no new or unseemly +revelation to say that Spencer has lived for the most part a life of +poverty as well as of seclusion. He is a sensitive, silent, self-reliant +man, endowed with a pure passion for knowledge, and the quickest, +keenest love of justice and right. There is something indeed quite +Quixotic, in the better sense, about the utterly disinterested and +self-forgetting eagerness with which Herbert Spencer will set himself to +see right done, even in the most trivial of cases. Little, commonplace, +trifling instances of unfairness or injustice, such as most of us may +observe every day, and which even the most benevolent of us will think +himself warranted in passing by, on his way to his own work, without +interference, will summon into activity--into positively unresting +eagerness--all the sympathies and energies of Herbert Spencer, nor will +the great student of life's ultimate principles return to his own high +pursuits until he has obtained for the poor sempstress restitution of +the over-fare exacted by the extortionate omnibus-conductor, or seen +that the policeman on duty is not too rough in his entreatment of the +little captured pickpocket. As one man has an unappeasable passion for +pictures, and another for horses, so Herbert Spencer has a passion for +justice. All this does not appear on first, or casual, acquaintance; but +I have heard many striking, and some very whimsical, illustrations of it +given by friends who know Spencer far better than I do. Indeed I should +say that there are few men of great intellect and character who reveal +themselves so little to the ordinary observer as Herbert Spencer does. +His face is, above all things, commonplace. There is nothing whatever +remarkable, nothing attractive, nothing repelling, nothing particularly +unattractive, about him. Honest, homespun, prosaic respectability seems +to be his principal characteristic. In casual and ordinary conversation +he does not impress one in the least. Almost all men of well-earned +distinction seem to have, above all things, a strongly-marked +individuality. You meet a man of this class casually; you have no idea +who he is; perhaps you do not even discover, have not an opportunity of +discovering, that he is a man of genius or intellect; but you do almost +invariably find yourself impressed with a strong individual +influence--the man seems to be somebody--he is not just like any other +man. To take illustrations familiar to most of us--observe what a +strongly-marked individuality Charles Dickens, John Bright, Disraeli, +Carlyle, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Salisbury have; what a strongly-marked +individuality Nathaniel Hawthorne had, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, +William Cullen Bryant, Horace Greeley have. Now, Herbert Spencer is the +very opposite of all this. All that Dr. Johnson said of Burke might be +conveniently reversed in the case of Spencer. The person sheltering +under the hedge, the ostler in the yard, might talk long enough with him +and never feel tempted to say when he had gone, "There has been a +remarkable man here." A London _litterateur_, who had long been a +devotee of Herbert Spencer, was induced some year or two back to go to a +large dinner-party by the assurance that Spencer was to be there and was +actually to have the chair next to his own at table. Our friend went, +was a little late, and found himself disappointed. Next to him on one +side was a man whom he knew and did not care about; on the other side, a +humdrum, elderly, respectable, commonplace personage. With this latter, +for want of a better, he talked. It was dull, commonplace, conventional +talk, good for nothing, meaning nothing. The dinner was nearly over when +our friend heard some one address his right-hand neighbor as "Spencer." +Amazed out of all decorum, he turned to the commonplace, dull-looking +individual, and broke out with the words "Why, you don't mean to say +that you are Herbert Spencer?" "Oh, yes," the other replied, as quietly +as ever, "I am Herbert Spencer." + +I have wandered a little from my path; let me return to it. My object is +to illustrate the remarkable and fundamental difference between the +nature of the antagonism which old-fashioned orthodoxy has to encounter +to-day, and that which used to be its principal assailant. The sceptic, +the metaphysician, the "infidel" have given way to the professional +_savant_. Nobody now-a-days would trouble himself to read Tom Paine; +hardly could even the scepticism of Hume or Gibbon attract much public +attention. Auguste Comte has been an influence because he endeavored to +construct as well as to destroy. I cannot speak of Comte without saying +that Professor Huxley seems to me grievously, and almost perversely, to +underrate the value of what Comte has done. Huxley has not, I fancy, +given much attention to historical study, and is therefore not so well +qualified to appreciate Comte as a much inferior man of a different +school might be. Moreover, Huxley appears to have a certain +professional, and I had almost said pedantic, contempt for anything +calling itself science which cannot be rated and registered in the +regular and practical way. To me Comte's one grand theory or discovery, +call it what you will, seems, whether true or untrue, as strictly a +question of science as anything coming under Huxley's own professional +cognizance. But I have already intimated that the character of Huxley's +intellect seems to me acute and penetrating, rather than broad and +comprehensive. Perhaps he is all the better fitted for the work he and +his compeers have undertaken to do. They have taken, in this regard, the +place of the Rousseaus and Diderots; of the much smaller Paines and +Carliles (please don't suppose I am alluding to Thomas Carlyle); of the +yet smaller Holyoakes and Bradlaughs. Those only attempted to destroy: +these seek to construct. Huxley and his brethren follow the advice which +is the moral and the sum of Goethe's "Faust"--they "grasp into the +present," and refuse to "send their thoughts wandering over eternities." +They honestly and fearlessly seek the pure truth, which surely must be +always saving. Let me say something more. This advance-guard of +scientific scholars alone express the common opinion of the educated and +free Englishmen of to-day. The English journals, I wish distinctly to +say, do not express it. They do not venture to express it. There is a +tacit understanding that although it would be too much to expect an +intelligent journalist to write up old-fashioned orthodoxy, yet at least +he is never to be allowed to write it down. It is not very long since +one of the most popular, successful and influential of London journals +sneered at the Parliamentary candidature of my friend, Professor +Fawcett, M. P., on the ground that he was a man who, as an advocate of +the Darwinian theory, admitted that his great-grandfather was a frog. +Yet I know that the journal which indulged in this vapid and vulgar +buffoonery is written for by scholars and men of ability. Now, this is +indeed an extreme and unusual instance of journalism, well cognizant of +better things, condescending to pander to the lowest and stupidest +prejudices. But the same kind of thing, although not the same thing, is +done by London journals every day. You cannot hope to get at the +religious views of cultivated and liberal-minded Englishmen through the +London papers. "The right sort of thing to say," is what the journalists +commit to print, whatever they may think, or know, or say as individuals +and in private. But the scientific men speak out. They, and I might +almost say they alone, have the courage of their opinions. What educated +people venture to believe, they venture to express. Nor do they keep +themselves to audiences of _savans_ and professors and the British +Association. Huxley delivers lectures to the working men of Southwark; +Carpenter undertook Sunday evening discourses in Bloomsbury; Tyndall, +with all the pugnacity of his country, is ready for a controversy +anywhere. Sometimes the duty and honor of maintaining the right of free +speech have been claimed by the journalists alone; sometimes, when even +the journals were silent, by the pulpit, by the bar, or by the stage. In +England to-day all men say aloud what they think on all great subjects +save one--and on that neither pulpit, press, bar nor stage cares to +speak the whole truth. The scientific men alone are bold enough to +declare it, as they are resolute to seek it. I think history will +hereafter contemplate this moral triumph as no less admirable, and no +less remarkable, than any of their mere material conquests. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Modern Leaders: Being a Series of +Biographical Sketches, by Justin McCarthy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN LEADERS *** + +***** This file should be named 39298.txt or 39298.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/2/9/39298/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Martin +Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned +images of public domain material from the Google Print +project.) + + +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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