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1 4
PREFATORY NOTE.
MOST of the articles in this volume are reprinted
from the critical and other periodical papers of the
day. They have no arbitrary connection with each
other, but they sufficiently indicate the point of view
of a writer whose opinions are somewhat independent
of current criticism.
Some of these opinions will doubtless awaken
animadversion in quarters self-considered authori-
tative ; but the literary Inquisition, like its religious
prototype, will soon be a thing of the past, and, in
the meanwhile, I am fortunately not alone in refusing
to accept all literary religions merely because they
are based on good historical evidence, and possess
quasi-miraculous pretensions. At the same time, I
have quite as great a distrust of my own discernment
as of that of any of my contemporaries. I simply put
down my impressions for what they are worth, and
leave the rest to the common-sense of the reading
public in general.
R. B.
LONDON, October, 1886.
Dedication.
To THE QUARTERLY REVIEWER.
"Ave Ciesar, te saluto tnoritttnttn."
SIR, Permit me to inscribe these Essays to you, as a slight ex-
pression of the estimation in which I hold you. if you survive long
enough to read them (for the booksellers report that you are fast
sinking, with a circulation so languid as to be hardly perceptible in
the pulsation) they may perhaps do you a little good ; at any rate,
they will so far gratify and serve you as to remind the world of your
existence ; and when you are dead and buried, they may perhaps
help to preserve your name from unmerited oblivion.
I know that you have many enemies, who rejoice at your de-
cadence and downfall. I shall do nothing of the kind, for I hold
you have clone good public service by bringing pedantic criticism into
discredit. When you were young and strong and clever, you had the
courage of your opinions, and cordially hating every form of literary
revolt, you served the cause of retrogression with no little success.
Later on, even, your very audacity in evil-doing made you amusing.
But that is all over now. Your time has come, and in your last sick-
ness you have this one consolation that you have been evenly and
triumphantly malicious, thoroughly and roundly unintelligent, from the
first to the last of your career. You have never said a generous word
to help a rising reputation ; you have never failed to crawl obsequiously
on the ground before every form of mediocrity. You have seen a
poetaster in Mr. Tennyson, and a brilliant poet in the writer of the
" Lays of Ancient Rome." You have hated progress, derided origin-
ality, insulted every honest spirit of your period. It may comfort you
a little on your deathbed, to know that even your opponents admit
your consistency.
It is sad to reflect that the doom of dotage has fallen upon a spirit
that once seemed so playful. The day appears to have passed when
public interest could be awakened by the appearance of some half-
dozen ill-natured pamphlets in a paper cover, or by the phenomenon of
an antiquated literary watchman rushing out into publicity, months
after the henroost is robbed or the house burnt down, with cries of
" fox ! " and " fire ! " The spitefulness you once expanded into a long
article, is now concentrated by your successors into half a newspaper
column. You affected to be scholarly ; they pretend only to be plain-
spoken. Other times, other manners. When I read the journals which
have superseded you, I almost regret your extinction. Be comforted,
however, by the assurance that no critic of the future will ever surpass
you in the sincerity of his endeavours to promote the science of mis-
construction and the art of nepotism, or exhibit a more splendid record
of literary mistakes.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
ROBERT BUCHANAN.
DOX, January, 1887.
CONTENTS.
FROM ^SCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO :
i. PROMETHEUS i
n. GILLIATT 10
III. AESCHYLUS 20
iv. THE ONE GOD 29
v. VICTOR HUGO 32
vi. THE PROMETHEAN MYTH 40
vn. SUMMARY 48
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE:
i. THE AMOURS 54
n. GOETHE'S TORYISM 69
in. SOURCES OF AGITATION 83
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS 96
FREE THOUGHT IN AMERICA:
i. ROBERT INGERSOLL 135
n. OCTAVIUS FROTHINGHAM 140
in. THE HOPE OF THE HUMAN RACE , . .148
x CONTENTS.
PAGE
A NOTE ON DANTE ROSSETTI .... 152
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK; A PERSONAL RE-
MINISCENCE 162
SYDNEY DOBELL, AND THE " SPASMODIC
SCHOOL"; A SOUVENIR 185
THE IRISH "NATIONAL" POET .... 204
HEINE IN A COURT SUIT 210
A TALK WITH GEORGE ELIOT .... 218
THE LITERATURE OF SPIRITUALISM; "POST
MORTEM" FICTION 227
THE MODERN STAGE :
i. NOTES IN 1876 239
n. A NOTE IN 1886 281
in. THE DRAMA AND THE CENSOR . . . 297
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM :
i. A NOTE ON EMILE ZOLA 303
w n. CHARLES READE ; A SOUVENIR . . . 308
v_ in. GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE 314
iv. EPICTETUS 322
v. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE PRINTER'S
DEVIL 330
vi. "L'ExiLEE" IN ENGLISH 333
vii. THE CHURCH AND THE STAGE . . . 338
viii. THE AMERICAN SOCRATES . . . .341
CONTENTS. xi
PACK
FROM POPE TO TENNYSON 347
A LAST LOOK ROUND :
i
i. CIRCUMSPICE 359
II. FIRST, HEAR THE CARDINAL . . . .361
in. THE ATTITUDE OF SCIENCE . . . .365
iv. MINOR RESULTS AND INFLUENCES . . .370
v. THE NEW GIRONDE 374
vi. THE OUTCOME IN SOCIETY . . . .377
vii. CONCLUSION 382
LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
FROM /ESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO.
" Look on this picture ) and on this"
I.
PROMETHEUS.
THE scene is Mount Caucasus, a craggy desert, silent,
inaccessible ; the clouds come and go silently above,
the Euxine glimmers faintly far away. All the eye
beholds is sombre, terrible, colossal, shadowed with
the mystery of some awful event. Three gigantic
Shapes rise, leading a fourth in chains. The first is
the god Hephcestos, accompanied by two formless
and awful figures, Kratos and Bia.* He whom they
lead is Prometheus, called the Fire-bringer, because
he has brought fire to men, and thus incurred the
wrath and avenging hate of Zeus, the " new tyrant "
of Olympus. He is silent, while Kratos speaks.
" Bind this crafty one to these rocks, and so fulfil
the behests of the Father." Reluctantly, tenderly,
* Generally, with an unpleasant allegorical flavour, translated
" Strength " and " Force ; " but they are entities, not abstrac-
tions, and it would be as reasonable to introduce Prometheus
simply as " Foresight," or " Forethought."
2 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
as beseems a god, Hephoestos performs his duty,
uttering at the same time a prophecy of almost
inconceivable suffering.
And thou shalt here behold
Nor face nor form of any living man,
But scorching in the fiery breath o' the sun,
Shalt lose thy skin's fair bloom ; and thou shalt joy
To see the spangled night devour the day,
And yet again to see the sun return
Scattering the dews of dawn ; and evermore
The ever-present ill shall crush thee down.
The crucifixion is complete ; arm?, legs, ribs,
every joint and thew, are fast bound, and to com-
plete all, the sharp tooth of the adamantine wedge
is driven right through the Titan's chest. At last the
servants of Zeus withdraw, leaving the sufferer alone
with Nature ; and now, but not till now, the pent-up
agony of his heart bursts forth in one great wail, one
passionate appeal of immortal pain : " O holy ether,
and swift-winged winds, O springs of rivers and in-
numerable laughter of the ocean waves, O earth,
mother of all you I invoke, and the all-beholding
circle of the sun." This, in the most wonderful of
untranslatable iambics, followed by a scream of indig-
nant anapaests equally untranslatable : " O see by
what pitiful bonds worn away, I shall wrestle through
aeons of pain \" His call is quickly answered. A
music and odour are blown to him from the far-off
sea, and soon the air trembles with the stir of won-
derful wings. The Chorus rises beautiful ocean
spirits hovering over him with soft and soothing song.
As they float above him, fixing their gentle eyes on
the lineaments of his sorrowful countenance, he tells
them who and what he is, his story, and the story of
his offence against Zeus.
When confusion and anarchy arose among the
FROM sESCHYLUS TO VICTOR IICGO. 3
god.% some wanting to depose Kronos that Zeus
might reign, others striving that Zeus might n
reign, Prometheus was the only Titan who stood on
Zeus's side ; and by his help Zeus conquered.
But this disease exists in sovereignty,
Never to trust one's friends.
No sooner was Zeus seated on the ancestral throne,
than he began to persecute the race of men, with a
view to their utter annihilation and the creation of a
new order of creatures. But Prometheus interposed
on behalf of humanity ; firstly, by teaching men to
be less fearful of the supernatural, to cease, in other
words, from "dwelling on their doom;" and secondly,
by teaching them the use of fire, parent of innume-
rable arts. The Titan has arrived at this point of his
narration, when the Chorus alight on the ground,
surrounding him, and simultaneously Okeanos their,
father arrives, riding on a gryphon. The ancient sea-
god comes to proffer counsel, which is gloomily
received, for he recommends a certain amount of
submission to the powers that be. He will himself,
he suggests, intercede with Zeus. For reply, Prome-
theus reminds him of the fate of the other Titans
Atlas and Typhon :
And by the fortunes of my brother Atlas
My soul is troubled ; he who stands i' the west
Upbearing on his shoulders silently
A burden borne not easily by arms,
The pillar of the heaven and of the earth.
And troubled was my soul when I beheld
The earth-born dweller in Sicilian caves,
The hundred-headed Typhon, fierce as fire,
Crushed down ; for he, the foe of all the gods,
Rose hissing horror with terrific jaws,
And from his eyes a gorgon fury glared,
Threat'ning red havoc on the rule of Zeus.
But on his head flashed Zeus's fiery levin,
B 2
4 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
The burning and unsleeping thunderbolt,
Which clave him even as he threatened.
Smit to the vitals, to a cinder burned,
His force devoured by lightning, prone he fell ,-
And now a corse effete, outstretch'd he lies
Close to that ocean strait prest down between
The leaden weights of Aetna ; and Hephcestos
Forgeth the liquid mass of glowing flame,
Seated above him on the mountain heights,
Whence in the time hereafter shall outspring
Rivers of flame with fiery mouths devouring
The furrow'd fields of fruitful Sicily.*
Finding his task hopeless, Okeanos withdraws. The
Chorus surround the Titan, uttering music of infinite
tenderness. His voice trembles as he tells them of
his gentle deeds, his love for humanity. It was not
enough to give men fire ; he gave them living souls.
Before his beneficence, they had been as " phantoms
seen in dreams " (ovfipdraw dXiyKiot jzop<atcn). They dragged
their weary lives along. Houses they had none
whether of wood or stone, but they dwelt, numerous
as gnats, in the sunless hearts of caverns ; and they
knew not how to distinguish the seasons, until Prome-
theus instructed them in the risings and the settings
of the stars. He then taught them Number (apifyioi/),
and the arrangement of letters (ypa^ar^v a-wOeo-us), and
Memory, handmaid and Mother of the Muses. Nor
was this all. He instructed them in horse-taming
and horsemanship, and in navigation of the ocean ;
what medicines to use in sickness, where to find, and
how to combine them ; how to divine auguries and
omens, both ordinary and extraordinary ; and how,
delving in the deep earth, to discover the precious
metals. He concludes
Summed in one little sentence hear the truth,
All arts to mortals from Prometheus came !
* This and the other renderings in the text are original. R. B.
FROM .-ESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 5
The dialogue now touches on divine Mysteries. Pro-
metheus prophesies. After thousands upon thousands
of years, he is to find a deliverer. The thing is fated,
and even Zeus is the creature of fate. " What, then,
shall be the fate of Zeus ?" ask the Okeanides ; but
Prometheus refuses to answer, the time being not yet
ripe. An unconscious answer comes, however, through
a sudden apparition. lo, in the shape of a white
heifer, enters, rolling her wild eyes round and wailing
loudly. In a frantic song, she bewails her miserable
fate, and calls upon Zeus to pity her. She is still
moaning, when Prometheus utters her name " lo,
daughter of Inachos, who filled the heart of Zeus
with love, and who is now, through the hate of Here",
driven from land to land." Presently, while her soul
is soothed for a time by the sympathy of Prometheus
and the Maidens, she tells the whole story of the
divine love and persecution.
But now in clear narration you shall know
All of these things ye crave ; but ah, I grieve
Ev'n while of that same heaven-sent storm 1 tell,
And of the cruel changing of my form,
The way it came upon me miserable !
For ever thronging in my virgin bovvers
Came nightly dreams with smooth and honeyed words
Beguiling me : " O maiden, triply blest,
Why linger on in cold virginity
When most exalted wedlock waits for thee !
For shafts of love outshooting from thine eyes
Are burning in the breast of highest Zeus,
Who now would mingle with thee amorously.
Wherefore, O child, disdain not Zeus's bed,
But hie thee forth to Lerna's deep green mead,
Where feed thy father's oxen, flocks and herds,
That so the Eye Divine from its desire
At last may cease." At voices such as these
I wretched trembled nightly, t : ll at last
I dared to whisper in my father's ears
My visions. Then did he send messengers
To Pytho and Dodona frequently,
6 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Seeking to know how best to please the gods
In words or deeds ; and ever they returned
With numberless ambiguous oracles,
Most dim of meaning and most dark to read.
At last there came a clearer oracle
Charging upon my father Inachos
To thrust me from his threshold and his land
That I might wander homeless, desolate,
On the remotest limits of the earth ;
And threatening if he failed in this dark deed,
That fiery lightnings should be sent from Zeus
To sweep away the remnant of his race.
So, overawed by Loxias' oracle
Unwilling he drave me unwilling too
Out of his house, since Zeus's cruel curb
Constrained him to this deed in love's despite.
Then suddenly my senses and my shape
Became transformed, and even as ye behold,
Horned as any beast and driven on
By the fierce pricks of the sharp stinging fly,
With maniac leaps I rushed until I came
To the soft stream Kerchneian and the fount
Of Lerna. And the Herdsman born of earth,
The fierce and headstrong Argus, followed me,
Watching my track with eyes innumerable.
Him sudden accident surprised and slew,
But I abide, by maddening pangs impelled
From region into region of the earth.
The Okeanides utter their pity in loud wails. Then
Prometheus describes to lo the whole of her future
fortune ; and to prove the truth of his prophetic
powers, he follows with a recital of her wanderings
past, describing point by point, and picture by
picture, the whole extent of her toilsome journey.
Midway in his recital, he comes to a more explicit
prophesy concerning the fall of Zeus. A day shall
come when a child of Zeus, mightier than himself, as
Zeus was mightier than Kronos, shall hurl him down
from heaven ; before or about the occurrence of this
event, a child of lo, the third generation after her,
shall release Prometheus from his bonds. Not to be
misunderstood by too dark an augury, the Titan
FROM sESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 7
concludes by recurring to the end of lo's wanderings
and the birth of the Deliverer :
Remotest of the land, a City stands,
Canopus, at the very mouth of Nile ;
There verily shall Zeus restore thy soul
Smoothing thee only with his outstretched hand,
Touching, not terrifying thee ; and lo !
Of that same touch thou shall conceive and bear
The dark-skinned Epaphos, "Touch-born ; " and he
Shall gather in the fruit of every land
Whose fields are watered by broad-bosom'd Nile.
There in the generation fifth from him
Shall fifty children come of female seed,
And these against their will shall journey back
To Argos, flying nuptials with their kin,
These kin their cousins ; and these last, as kites
Not lingering long behind the doves they seek,
Shall come pursuing evil marriages,
But God shall grudge to yield unto their arms
The bodies of the virgins. And at last
In bloody woman-watches of the night,
Those men shall perish, stab'd and smit to death,
Darkly, within the land Pelasgian ;
For by his bride shall every husband die,
Staining with his red blood the two-edged sword.
But love shall soften one of those fierce maids,
And trembling, hesitating, choosing rather
To be deemed weak than to turn murderess,
This one shall spare the sharer of her bed ;
And from her seed shall spring the royal race
At Argos. Long and tedious 'twere to tell
These things at length and clearly ; but i' the end,
Of this same seed a hero shall be born
Mighty to bend the bow and hurl the dart,
And he it is who from my sufferings
At last shall set me free ! This oracle
The Titan Themis, my ancestral mother,
Rehearsed unto me darkly long ago ;
But how and when the thing shall come to pass
Tedious it were to tell, tedious to hear,
Nor could ye gain at all by hearkening.
As he ceases, lo bursts into renewed lamentations,
and stung* again by her grief, rushes onward down
* It is rather puerile to render the oiovpos of v. 567 and 880
literally, as most of our translators do, as if this oi<rrpos were
8 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the mountain side. In a low monotonous song, the
Okeanides sing, while Prometheus falls into a gloomy
trance ; awakening from which, with a bitter smile,
he repeats his awful threats against the King of
Heaven. His words are wrapt in mystic darkness,
trenchant and terrible though they be. One point is
certain Zeus is to fall. The Okeanides, again sur-
rounding him, look on him sadly, for the frightful
power of the Deity has terrified them, and they
regard the Titan, still with the old pity, but with a
new despair. Their terror and submission irritates
him anew, and he exclaims :
Worship then, flatter him, the King of the Hour !
For me, I care for Zeus, yea less than nought.
Let him abide this little while, and rule
Even as he pleases, long he shall not rule
O'er the immortal gods !
As he speaks, he beholds, brightly approaching, the
god Hermes. The terrible threat has been heard in
Olympus, and the messenger of Zeus has been sent
to demand, in no measured language, the full ex-
planation of when and by whom Zeus is to be over-
thrown. In the angry scene that follows, Prometheus
still preserves his dignity, coldly refusing to gratify
his persecutor with one syllable of the awful truth,
but still defying him to do his worst. That worst is
soon to come. Horror is to be heaped on horror,
torture on torture. Even as Hermes speaks, the
earth begins to tremble, the heavens to flash fire.
the ouorojiof /xvo)^ of v. 674. Still more ridiculous does it
seem to conceive tli.it the Spectre of Argus of which lo raves
in v. 568 was actually present on the stage. Professor Plump-
tree, in his excellent translation, falls into this error of stage
direction " Enter lo," etc., followed by the Spectre of Argus
as if he were glaring in the background, like Banquo's ghost,
and rolling his hundred eyes to affright the groundlings.
FROM AESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 9
While the Okcanides cower and moan, Hermes with-
draws, and on the Titan's head falls the full thunder-
bolt of Zeus. To the very last the mighty voice is
heard intoning :
Yea, now, in very deed,
No longer only in word,
The earth is shaken and stirr'cl,
The fiery levin is freed.
The thunder rolleth by,
Storms whirl the dust on high.
Downward with madden'd motion
The mighty whirlwinds leap,
The sky is blent with the ocean,
And deep is mingled with deep.
Such is the horror huiTd
From Zeus's terrible hand,
In dark confusion whirl'd
I tremble and shake, yet stand.
O holy Mother, see;
O all-encircling air,
Light of all things that be,
Behold what wrongs I bear !
With the immortal appeal, the voice ceases ; all is
silence and darkness.
Such is a brief sketch of the "Prometheus Bound"
of ^schylus, a work so familiar to students that a
detailed description of it would be superfluous, were
such a description not absolutely necessary for the
purpose of the comparisons to be instituted in the
present article. This immortal piece bears the same
relation to tragedy that the " Laocoon " does to
sculpture ; it is absolutely solitary and supremely
great.* In the depth and infinity of its suggestions,
* Thirty pages of close print would contain this masterpiece.
It is about as long as a single book of " Paradise Lost," and
not very much longer than Mr. Tennyson's "Enoch Arden."
The whole trilogy, of which it was a part, could have been
included in the i.p.u:e of one of the volumes of an ordinary
three volume novel !
io A LOOK POUND LITERATURE.
it is even more pregnant now than it was to the con-
temporaries of its author ; every century adds to its
significance, every literary remove heightens its
grandeur. It has no equal because it has no rival.
It deals with shapes so colossal, with ideas so sublime,
that we still tremble before them in wonder akin to-
superstition. If the Bible overshadows us like a cloud,.
the Prometheus overawes us like a mountain. Its
peaks touch the stars, its base is rooted deep in
human soil ; wind, rain, and snow abide upon it, and
mystery dwells upon it ; it stirs with the blind motion
of supernatural powers Zeus slipping like an ava-
lanche to his doom, the Titan towering far above in
the beauty of unimaginable power. A Voice comes
from it, with such music as shall be never heard
again, for " that large utterance of the early gods "'
is dead for ever.
II.
GILLIATT.
I HAVE given one picture. Let me turn now to the
other.
The scene is scarcely less wild and desolate than
was the Scythian Caucasus. It is a lonely reef of
rocks in the midst of the ocoan ; nothing is seen
but the cloud, rock, and the water, no sound is heard
save the sound of sea-birds, the plash of the silent
sea. Suddenly the eye becomes conscious of two
things that it had not seen before of a large vessel,
sESCIIYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. n
wrecked and sucked up between two mighty masses
of rock, where it hangs suspended, and of a sol
figure which stands behind it, looking upward the
figure of a man. This man, too, is Titanic ; so at
least he seems in the dim low light that surrounds
him. This form too is in revolt, not against a cruel
and malignant Deity, but against those powers of
Nature which are even more cruel and malignant ;
and he too will endeavour to conquer, but by active
resistance, not sublime endurance. His work lies
before him. If, in defiance of the elements, he can
detach that suspended wreck from its niche, piece it
again into a goodly vessel, set it again afloat upon
the sea, and all this by the unaided craft of his own
brain, and the strength of his own arm, why then,
the Tyrant is conquered, and the human Spirit rises
irresistible and supreme. The man, however, has a
lower end in view he hopes, by his miracle of
salvage, to win to himself the love of a woman, the
daughter of the man whose wealth has been lost in
that missing vessel. For this being in mid-ocean is
no Titan, no colossal comrade of gods and demigods,
but only a poor Toiler of the Sea, dwelling in a poor
home in the island of Guernsey, and earning his
subsistence by the work of his own hands. " Tel
etait Gilliatt. Les filles le trouvaient laid. II n'etait
pas laid. II etait beau peut-etre. II avait dans le
profil quelque chose d'un barbare antique. Au repos,
il ressemblait a une Dace de la colonne trajanc." He
was thirty years old, but he appeared five-and- forty ;
for he "wore the dark mask of the wind and the
Gilliatt, then, is here on the Douvres, a desolate reef
of rocks out in mid-channel, resolved upon a work
which, to all intents and purposes, is impossible the
rescue of a steam-ship, which, instead of sinking to
12 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the bottom as is the usual fate of wrecks, has been
suspended miraculously in mid-air.
La coque dtait perdue, la machine etait intacte. Ces
hasards sont frequents dans les naufrages comme dans les
incendies. La logique du ddsastre nous e'chappe.
Les mats cassds e'taient tombe's, la cheminee n'etait pas
meme ployee ; la grande plaque de fer qui supportait la meca-
nique 1'avait maintenue ensemble et tout d'une piece. Les
revetements en planches des tambours e'taient disjoints a peu
prcs comme les lames d'une persienne ; mais a travers leurs
claires-voies on distinguait les deux roues en bon e'tat. Ouelque
pales manquaient.
Outre la machine, le grand cabestan de I'arriere avait
rdsistd. II avait sa chaine, et, grace a son robuste emboitenient
dans un cadre de madriers, il pouvait rendre encore des ser-
vices, pourvu toutefois que 1'effort du tournevire ne fit pas
fendre le plancher. Le tablier du pont fle'chissait presque sur
tous les points. Tout ce diaphragme dtait branlant.
En revanche le trongon de la coque engagd entre les
Douvres tenait ferme, nous 1'avons dit, et semblait solide.
Cette conservation de la machine avait on ne sait quoi de
ddrisoire et ajoutait 1'ironie a la catastrophe. La sombre malice
de 1'inconnu eclate quelquefois dans ces especes de moqueries
ameres. La machine etait sauvde, ce qui ne Tempechait point
d'etre perdue. L'Ocdan la gardait pour la demolir a loisir.
Jeu de chat.
His first care is to find a place of shelter for himself
while he remains on the reef, and this he at last finds
in a sort of hole in the rock. As he prepares his
lodging, multitudes of sea-birds hover above him.
" C'etaient des mouettes, des goelands, des fregates,*
des cormorans, des mauves, une nuee des oiseaux de
mcr, etonnes." A week passes away. This first week
* It is as consistent to introduce the " frigate-bird " here as to
write of the sea-serpent. The mistake is trifling, but it points
to a general want of veracity, which would be repelling in a
writer of less genius. Further on, he describes a purely im-
possible flight of cormorants. Here as elsewhere, he writes
like a man who has got his notion of the sea from books, and
had never seen a sea-bird. \Vhodoubts the genius? but it is
genius reckless of all consequences and indifferent to all
verification.
/7v'(W AESCHYLUS TO VlCTOk HUGO. 13
is employed in gathering together .ill the flotsam and
jetsam of the wreck ropes, chains, pieces of wood,
"broken yards," blocks and pulleys. Then
A la fin de la semaine, Gilliatt avait dans ce hangar de
granit tout 1'intbrme bric-a-brac de la tempete mis en orclrc. II
y avait, le coin des dcouets et le coin des ecoutes ; !es boulines
nVtnient point melees avec les dresses ; les bigots dtaient
ranges selon la quantitd de trous qu'ils avaient ; les embou-
dinures, soigneusement ddtachdes des organeaux des ancres
brisdes, dtaient roulees en echeveaux ; les moques, qui n'ont
point de rouet, dtaient sdparees des moufles ; les cabellots,
les margouillets, les pataras, les gabarons, les joutereaux, les
calebas, les galoches, les pantoires, les oreilles d'ane, les racages,
les bosses, les boute-hors, occupaient, pourvu qu'ils ne fussent
pas completement derigurds par 1'avarie, des compartiments
difterents ; toute la charpente, traversins, piliers, dpontilles,
chouquets, mantelets, jumelles, hiloires, etait entassde a part ;
chaque fois que cela avait etd possible, les planches des frag-
ments de franc-bord embouffetd avaient etd rentrdes les unes
dans les autres ; il n'y avait nulle confusion des garcettes de ris
avec les garcettas de tournevire, ni de araigndes avec les toudes,
ni des poulies, ni des morceaux de virure avec les morceaux de
vibord,un recoin avait etc reserve' a une partie du trelingage
de la Durande, qui appuyait les haubans de hune et les gambes
de hune. Chaque debris avait sa place. Tout le naufrage
dtait la, classe et dtiquete. C'dtait quelque chose comme le
chaos en magasin.
These disjecta vianbra were arranged in one great
hollow of the crag which he used as a storehouse.
Another hollow close by he determines to use as a
forge. The preparation of the forge need not be
described in detail, but it is successfully accomplished.
With forge and magazine all prepared, Gilliatt sets to
work in earnest, with a " fierte de cyclopc, maitre de
Fair, de 1'eau, et de feu." It is necessary, however, to
nourish himself while so doing, and he therefore
spends a certain portion of the day in searching for
crabs and other shell-fish. While so doing, he pene-
trates, through a narrow fissure, into a mighty water-
cavern situated in the very heart of the rocks. The
water therein is of " molten emerald " (de I'cmeraudc
14 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
en fusioii], a cloud of delicate beryl covers the
shadowy walls and overhanging arches, pearls drop
momently from the long water-mosses that cluster
overhead, and through all the dimness the sea
shudders like a palpitating heart. Beautiful as this
cavern appears, it is fatal. Empty of all life as it
seems, it is nevertheless a habitation. An evil spirit
dwells within it, a monstrous and horrible Ocean-
form. Of this master of the mansion, Gilliatt, during
his first visit, got only a glimpse.
Tout a coup, h. quelques pieds au-dessous de lui, dans la
transparence charmante de cette eau qui e'tait comme de la
pterrerie dissoute, il apergut quelque chose d'inexprimable.
Une espce de long haillon se mouvait dans 1'oscillation des
lames. Ce haillon ne flottait pas, il voguait, il avait un but, il
allait quelque part, il e'tait rapide. Cette guenille avait la forme
d'une marottede bouffon avecdes pointes ; ces pointes, flasques,
ondoyaient ; elle semblait couverte d'une poussiere impossible a
mouiller. C'dtait plus qu'horrible, c'e'tait sale. II y avait de la
chim6re dans cette chose ; c'dtait un etre, h. moins que ce ne fut
une apparence. Elle semblait se diriger vers le c6td obscur de
la cave, et s'y enfongait . Les dpaisseurs d'eau devinrent som-
bres sur elle. Cette silhouette glissa et disparut, sinistre.
This is Gilliatt's first glimpse of the " Pieuvre," or
Poulp, a creature to which gorgons and chimeras
were trifles, and which, scientifically speaking, is simply
a ridiculous exaggeration of the octopus. For the
time being, Gilliatt withdraws, attaching little im-
portance to the apparition. By a series of manoeuvres,
in themselves impossible from first to last, he releases
the vessel from its perilous position, pieces it together,
fixes the engine again in its proper place, and softly
deposits the whole in the sea beneath. It would be
tedious indeed to linger over the details of this
miracle ; enough to say, the deed is done, and all by
the unaided might of one man. The weather is calm,
and little more remains to do but to depart to
FROM sESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 15
Guernsey. The elements, however, have de-tern,
not to let Gilliatt depart without a struggle.
"L'Abime se decidait a livrer bataillc." It is the
period of the equinox, and Nature is gathering her
powers. Gilliatt has not long to wait. The wind is
arising " le vent, c'est tous les vents ; toute cctte
horde arrivait; d'un cote, cette legion de 1'autre,
Gilliatt ! " The tempest comes, the battle between
Man and Nature. Fortunately, Gilliatt, at the first
warning of danger, has fashioned a rude sort of
breakwater, by which the full force of the sea is
broken, and the vessel preserved from destruction.
Now roars and shrieks a tempest as awful as that
other which Zeus hurled upon the head of Prome-
theus. It is superfluous to repeat in detail how the
fight proceeds, till finally Man conquers. For twenty
hours lasts the Titanic strife. Then suddenly the
heavens turn blue, and Gilliatt, overcome by his
efforts, drops like a stone and sleeps. When he
awakens, all is calm, but he is famishing for food.
Stripping himself to his " pantalon," and taking with
him a large knife to detach stray shell-fish, he creeps
down to the nether-caves seeking cray-fish (langoustes)
and crabs. While in pursuit of a large crab, he enters
that very cave which he discovered weeks before.
Thrusting his hand into a fissure, he suddenly feels
his arm seized. An indescribable horror seizes him-
" Quelque chose qui etait mince, apre, plat, glace,
gluant et vivant venait de se tordre dans 1'ombre
autour de son bras nu. Cela lui montait vers la
poitrine." As he stands stripped, tentacle after
tentacle (lanicrc) slips round him, till he is embraced
on every side, in every limb. He shrieks in horror.
" Brusquement une large viscositd ronde et plate sortit
de dessous la crevasse. C'etait le centre ; les cinq
1 6 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
lanieres s'y rattachaient comme des rayons a un
moyen ; en milieu de cette viscosite il y avait deux
yeux qui regardaient. Ces yeux voyaient Gilliatt.
Gilliatt reconnut la Pieuvre." *
Now begins the second combat, between Man and
the Execrable. It is quickly decided in Man's favour,
and the "viscosity," with its head hacked off, tumbles
into the water, dead. Directly after his victory,
Gilliatt explores the lair of his enemy, and finds,
among other horrible evidences of its predatory habits,
an entire human skeleton, having around it a brazen
belt containing a large sum of money lost by the
owner of the wrecked vessel. Fortune has indeed
been favourable to the mighty Toiler. The vessel
saved, a lost fortune discovered, miracles of achieve-
ment done, and mountains of difficulty overcome, he
points the steamer's bow for Guernsey "homeward
ho ! " The rest of the tragedy for a tragedy it is
though told in modern prose may be given in a few
words. The prize for which he has wrought through-
out is not to be his. Deruchette, the dream of his
desire, loves incarnate weakness in the shape of a
Protestant priest. For Gilliatt, when he appears
before her in all the glory of his triumph, " tel qu'il
etait sorti, ce matin meme, de 1'ecueil Douvres, en
haillons, les andes perce"s, la barbe longue, les cheveux
hausses, les yeux brules et rouges, la face e"corchee,
les poings sanglants, les pieds nus," Gilliatt, thus
* " Pour croire k la Pieuvre," the author here naively
remarks, " il faut 1'avoir vue ! " Everybody has now seen the
Octopus, which distinct anti-social creature may be taken as
the ''Pieuvre's" representative. In some Japanese pictures of
.tic cuttle-fish, lately published in the Field, there is a
parallel to Victor Hugo's exaggeration. One monster is de-
picted embracing and overthrowing a large sailing-vessel ; its
tentacles are as long as the mast.
:
FROM AESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 17
returning, is simply an object of horror. The father
may exclaim " c'cst mon vrai gendre," but the woman
looks on with sickening despair. The end of all is
very sad ; for here one misses that Titanic will which
overcame the tempest, tore a fortune out of the very
teeth of the winds, and slew the Poulp, or " Chimaera."
Nobly indeed does Gilliatt resign Deruchette to him
she loves, nobly does he join their hands, concealing
his own ill-fated passion. But his heart is broken.
As the pair sail away from Guernsey, Deruchette
accompanying her husband to the far-off scene of his
gentle pastoral labours, as they sit on the deck of a
sailing vessel hand in hand, they pass close by the
sea-cliffs, and standing out from these a detached rock
in which is a stone seat, called Gild-Holm-'Ur.
Now, at high water this seat is entirely covered by
the tide, and in this seat Gilliatt sits, and the tide is
rising. With his eyes fixed on the vessel as it glides
away, he sits awaiting his doom. The tide rises to
his waist. An hour passes, and it rises to his neck.
Slowly the vessel fades away on the far horizon line.
At the moment it entirely disappears from view, the
head of Gilliatt is submerged. " II n'y eut plus rien
que la mer." The Titan, then, is no Titan after all.
All the glory of his victory, all the beauty of his
victory, has ended in the basest of all self-abnegation
suicide. To the " anarchy " of Nature he was
equal, but he is far too weak for the " anarchy of the
human heart." He is utterly fallen.
Such, then, is the " Travailleurs de la Mer " of
Victor Hugo, a work in many respects the writer's
asterpiece, and' well known to many who have not
ad it by its exaggerations about the "pieuvre," or
poulp. To convert this work into a masterpiece
worthy to rank with " Prometheus " would be im-
c
1 8 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
possible, for its form and music alike belong to a
lower art ; but if its imperfections were obliterated by
the simple process of reducing its bulk to one-third
or one-fourth, its literary worth would be far higher
than it is. It contains ideas and creations of un-
equalled grandeur forms worthy of Greek sculpture
a sublime certainty of power which leaves all other
contemporary fiction far behind indeed a colossal
imagery which has perhaps not been surpassed since
^Eschylus lived and died, and which has certainly not
been rivalled by any poet but the one who painted
the wondrous picture of Nimrod in the " Inferno."
Though written in splendid prose, it is intrinsically a
poem ; and because it is a poem in essence, one
wishes it had been a poem in fact. I am not so
blind to the wonderful advantages of its prose form
as to wish that it had been written in verse; that is
quite another matter; I merely regret those portions
which owe their inspiration to Alexander Dumas,
just as I regret those portions in " Les Miserables "
which catch the inspiration and follow the style of
Eugene Sue. These deductions made, the "Tra-
vailleurs de la Mer " remains a marvellous work ; to
be read not merely once but many times ; yet once
read, never to be forgotten. Despite its faults, it
approaches nearer to the yEschylan ideal than any
other modern work not written by its author.
The preface to " Les Travailleurs de la Mer " is as
follows :
La religion, la socidtd, la nature ; telles sont les trois luttes
de 1'homme. Ces trois luttes sont en meme temps ses trois
besoins ; il faut qu'il croie, de la le temple ; il faut qu'il crie, de
la la citd ; il faut qu'il vive, de la la charrue et le navire. Mais
ces trois solutions contiennent trois guerres. La mysterieuse
difficultd de la vie sort de toutes les trois. L'homme a affaire
a 1'obstacle sous la forme superstition, sous la forme prejuge', et
FROM JESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO.
sous la forme e'le'ment. Un triple anantre p6se sur nous,
1'anantre des dogmes, 1'anantre des lois, 1'anantre des
choses. Dans Notre Dame de Paris 1'auteur a de'nonce' le
premier ; clans les MiseVables, il a signal^ le second ; dans ce
livre, il indique le troisitnne.
A ces trois fatalites qui enveloppent Phomme, se mele la
fatalite interieure, 1'anantre supreme, le coeur humain.
Whether or not this idea is, as some expect, an after-
thougjit of the author, frequently over anxious to
fashion his works into imaginary unity, it is not for me
to decide ; but if the idea be admitted and found
penetrating the three works in question, it simply
renders conclusive the measureless despair of the
author's moral teaching. Centuries upon centuries
have passed since ^Eschylus wrote his Promethean
trilogy, and only the gloomiest part of that trilogy
remains ; since that masterpiece was lost and found,
Christianity has been, with its lights and its awful
shadows ; not a god of the old mythology remains,
not a shadow of the lost superstition abides ; empires
have risen or fallen upon this truth, that Zeus is not,
but that Christ, whether in the flesh or the spirit,
is and shall be a truth which, nowadays, is as
much the spirit of Mr. Spencer's teaching as of that
of the late Mr. Maurice ; and yet, for all this, for all
the lapse of centuries and the roll of opinion, that
sculptured "Prometheus" remains a more enlightened
and enlightening thing than the figure of this other
Toiler, working in all the illumination of the modern
" idea." If the greatest poet of our generation has
read upon the page of modern history only this
one word " avdy<," or fatality, and if this miserable
word is the centre of his creed and ours, then well
may we wish that we, like ^Eschylus, had been Pagans,
4t suckled in a creed outworn." I shall endeavour
to show, further on, that the defects of Victor Hugo
c 2
20 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
are not necessarily those of his generation, and that,
for those who read between the lines, even his most
hopeless utterances are far removed from sceptical
despair ; but his fault is, that while his reason is illu-
minative and propagandist to a degree, his imagina-
tion, for reasons partly national and partly literary,
is to a deplorable extent retrospective and over-
shadowed with gloom. Feuerbach in his darkest
mood is as cheerful as this poet in his brightest. He
preaches a breezy doctrine of democracy, as if he were
opening one of the seals of an Apocalypse. His ideas
are often divine, his creations are more frequently
devilish. At his highest he is a dark angel, moving
in the shadow of his own wings ; at his lowest, he is
a nightmare. From a literary point of view even he
is alarming. Two-thirds of his words are about as
valuable as the contents of the daily journals. The
remaining third is more precious than any other
imaginative utterance now heard in Europe, and yet,
though its power of putting great and vague ideas
into colossal forms is unexampled, it contains a
philosophy of mere misery, a morality to be surpassed
even among the sweepings of those sophists Mr. Grote
loved " not wisely but too well/'
III.
^SCHYLUS.
LET us turn back to ^Eschylus, and examine a
little closer into his altitude as a poet and his claims
as a teacher. Every one knows that he remained
throughout his life what Victor Hugo began by being
FROM AESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 21
an aristocrat, a worshipper of the ancient order.
He was a Eupatrid, a member of the proud old
nobility; and he preserved to the end the dignity,
the hauteur, and the prejudice of his class. More
noteworthy still is the fact that he was born at
Eleusis. It is no part of my purpose to enter into
the controversy as to whether or not he was actually
" initiated " into the Mysteries ; certain it is he
preserved for them a holy and deep-seated awe, and
that they had a mystic influence upon his intellect
and on his style ; so that even Aristophanes, in the
" Frogs," makes him invoke Demeter :
Afjp.r]Tp f) Qptyao-a rrjv fp.T)i> Qpeva,
eva
It would be more to the point to examine what
these Mysteries eventually were, had I leisure and
erudition for such an inquiry ; the truth, however,
is involved in hopeless darkness, and scholars are
hopelessly disagreed, some seeing in the Mysteries a
solemn and sublime preservation of primitive theology,
while others find in them only Phallic symbols and
debasing orgies. With the last-named opinions,
however, only pedants could agree. The grandeur of
the very temple itself, the style of its architecture, the
solemnity of its surroundings, were alone enough to
dispel merely debasing associations; and when we add
to the testimony of ^Eschylus himself that of such men
as Sophocles and Pindar, we cannot but believe that the
Mysteries, whatever some of their external forms may
have been, had a deep and beautiful meaning, and a
purifying influence. This much being conceded, we
have little or no difficulty in comprehending the right
* v. 886, 887.
22 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
character of ^Eschylus himself. He is a veritable
Priest of Eleusis, uttering his oracles in mighty verse.
He accepts the ancient myths without doubt and
without hesitation. The overthrow of Kronos by
Zeus is as truly a fact to him as the creation of the
world in six days is a fact to an orthodox English
bishop. He believes in the old theogony, and he
knows every one of its members as a Roman Catho-
lic knows his saints. His faith is mighty within him.
To regard these wondrous shapes as mere symbolism,
as mere abstract attributes idealised into divine per-
sons, to think of Prometheus as mere " Forethought," in
the spirit of a didactic essay by a modern philologist,
would be as much heresy in his eyes as to accept the
Bible simply as " supreme literature " is heresy in the
eyes of the editor of the Record. The order of things
has been told him, and by that order he abides. But
the very law of that order, he perceives, is constant
change. The better displaces the worse, in heaven as
on earth. Zeus has reigned, but Zeus must fall.
Here a difficulty interposes. It is clear that the
poet uses the word " Zeus " in two ways using it
sometimes to describe the personality of the tyrant
who deposed Kronos and tortured Prometheus; but
at other times, and more frequently, to denote ( " in a
mystery," as John Bunyan would express it) the
supreme and divine Idea which, through all human
and superhuman interpositions, works for righteous-
ness. Nothing could be more explicit and tremen-
dous in its abuse of the Olympian INDIVIDUAL than
the whole of the "Prometheus." Zeus is the synonym
for everything that is treacherous, lecherous, inces-
tuous, suspicious, tyrannous, loveless, hopeless, and
diabolical. Milton is far kinder to the devil than
,/Eschylus is to the Father such a Father ! as con-
FROM &SCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 23
temptible in the Greek fragment as in the lovely
English poem of Shelley. There can be no mistake
about it, and the vituperation is given all round. But
who can imagine for a moment that yEschylus, in the
following passage of the " Agamemnon," is singing
of the same Being ?
Zeus, whoe'er he be,
Whether that name be pleasing in his ear
By which I call him now :
For, weighing well all other names, I fail,
When seeking from my soul
To cast away all care,
To fathom any but this name of Zeus.
For One who reigned of old,
Full of the might of war,
Is fallen, and is no more ;
And one who followed him
Hath fallen in his turn.
But Zeus abides, and he who woos him well
Shall surely reap the wisdom of the wise.
Yea, Zeus is he whom we must woo with prayer,
And with ovations, would we prosper well
He who to wisdom leads us, making sure
Sad teachings wrought from pain ;
For in the dead of night
Come conscience-waking cares and agonies,
And mortals then against their wills grow wise.
Such grace, I trow, is shed by the Immortals,
Seated above on their eternal thrones.*
No, this is not the Divine Tyrant, but the Divine
Idea which has displaced him, and taken the name of
which he is unworthy.
* Above is part of the extraordinary first chorus of the
"Agamemnon," afterwards alluded to again. No attempt is
made to translate it literally or rhythmically ; it is quite un-
translatable, and I merely attempt to convey its spirit. The
confusion of Zeus himself with the Sat/ioces (here, however,
translated "Immortals") is an example of the poet's per-
plexing way of mingling modern Athenian conceptions with the
old theogony,
24 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Again, in the " Suppliants " :
Calm, without effort, is the work of Zeus :
Thron'd loftily, he works, we know not how,
His perfect will.
Again in " Eumenides " :
All things he rules, unwearying, with no toil.
This is the one God that abides, though the many
change and pass ; this is the supreme Spirit, far more
akin to the r6 'Kp&pcvov of Aristotle, and the eternal
"Ich" of Fichte, than to the colossal Constitutional
Monarch overthrown by Demogorgon. This more
resembles the " stream of tendency that works for
righteousness," than the wicked Impostor who carried
into divine life the indecency of a Nero and the
cruelty of a Tiberius. In a word, the poet, half un-
consciously, is intoning the music of that monotheism
which interpenetrates all polytheistic systems, and of
which he is as certain as Plato himself. Zeus, thus
conceived, is not merely " mighty of the mightiest/'
as the same poet, indeed, calls him ; he is the " secret
force destroying wrong, as water weareth stone ; " he
is the everlasting Principle by which truth is vindi-
cated from generation to generation, and through
which suffering becomes self-compensating and di-
vine ; he is the Quiet Waters that receive the virgin
corpse of lo in the end, and he is the Peace that
broodeth like a dove in heart of the triumphant Titan.
But, far more than this, he is Supreme Justice, Lord
and Master of the Erinnyes, ever urging them on to
righteous vengeance, until (as in the "Orestes"),
Nature is vindicated, and they drop to sleep.
If, as is believed, ^Eschylus designed the masks
for many of his characters, as well as assisting other-
FROM AESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 25
wise in the artistic and scenic decorations ; and if
these masks of bronze answered, as they must have
done, to the tragic ideas of their creator, his heart
must often have ached in their fashioning. Well
might the Greek Theatre be formed on a mighty
scale, with the quiet heavens overhead, figures of
superhuman height moving on the stage, masks of
mysterious awe glimmering far away. No human
face could have borne throughout a play the fixed
expression of monotonous pain of an CEdipus, an
Orestes, or, above all, a Clytemnestra ; no living actor
could have personated these characters in what is
now known as the natural style without emotion
bordering on madness. In assisting at their show,
we are passing, as it were, under the very shadow of
God. The infinite sibilations of the " Inferno " are
not more real than the cries we hear from those
brazen throats ; yet we take comfort from the very
mistiness and vagueness of the forms. Lear's thin,
human cry tears our heart-strings, but the wild groan of
Orestes comes to us subdued into a prayer. We
hide our faces from the sight of the " pretty princes
smothered in the Tower/' from little Arthur's plead-
ing face held up to Hubert
Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes ?
This is too common pitiful ; we cannot bear it ; but
the slaughter of Agamemnon, and the torture of
Prometheus, and the murder of Cassandra, and the
death of Clytemnestra by the fruit of her own womb,
all these we can bear, because they are less realities
than symbols, seen in a shrine, of natural laws vindi-
cated despite unnatural passions, and of the Divine
Justice and Pity which is ever awaiting to redeem the
deeds of guilt. To read the " Agamemnon " or the
26 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
"Prometheus" alone, is like ending at the murder
scene in Macbeth, or stopping at the early
books of "Paradise Lost." Each play bears the
same relation to its group that each act of Shake-
speare bears to a complete drama. We must read on
until the end if we wish to receive the sacrament of a
Greek Trilogy. In the Orestean group, fortunately
preserved for us intact, we get the whole picture
complete, with all its issues and its compensations.
In the case of the " Prometheus," we have to guess
the beginning and the end ; and fortunately we can
do so with ease and pleasure ; but it is not too much
to say that we could better spare three or four of the
plays of Shakespeare, or, better still, one entire half
of the Elizabethan dramas, than the lost " Prometheus
Purophoros" and " Prometheus Luomenos " of ^Eschy-
lus. The loss of the play last named, commonly
known as the " Prometheus Solutus," is simply in-
commensurable. Not even the lovely lyric drama of
Shelley, which we owe to it, can make that loss
endurable. Nay, for that one lost masterpiece, one
would freely exchange any existing masterpiece, with
two exceptions, King Lear t and the " Inferno."
Only less wonderful than the " Prometheus " is
the " Agamemnon." Here, as in the other, the spirit
is wrathful, religious, and terrible. It is not my pur-
pose to recapitulate its features, as I did those of
the " Prometheus ; " such a recapitulation is unneces-
sary for the purposes of this paper. In some re-
spects, the "Agamemnon " is unequalled. The first
chorus of Argive elders is, without any exception
whatever, the weirdest, most wonderful, soul-over-
whelming piece of melody to which the human ear
ever listened. It is, even apart from those solemn
religious suggestions in which it abounds, a sacred
FROM JESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 27
oratorio without any parallel ; and delivered in the
Greek amphitheatre, with all due pomp of accompani-
ment and gesture, it must have been as awe-inspiring
in its rapid, mysterious imagery, as the very intona-
tions of Eleusis itself. Unfortunately, it is unti
latable. Other Greek choruses may be rendered with
a dim approach to the reality, but this chorus il
simply impossible to render at all. It has all the
volume of the Psalms of David, with all the music of
the ancient world. As one reads it, one cannot help
believing that its melody was found in' some old
oracle, which caught it from the murmur of the
neighbouring sea. It comes like a conjuration.
aikivov, *u\ivov ewre, TO &' ev i/ucaro).
And no sooner has it ended, than there rises up, \
terrible, crowned, with a mask fixed into one white
gleam of murderous resolve, the shadowy figure of
Clytemnestra. But God, in that deep music, ha-;
been invoked, is with us, is watching, and we do not
fear. That awful woman may move on to her revenge
the bath is prepared wherein the corse of Agamem-
non will soon be lying all will be fulfilled as has :
fated from the beginning (since crime breeds crime,
and of Agamemnon's own sowing springs the bloody
seed) ; but still, God is with us, with the spectators as
with the actors, and we gaze on. Thus fortified, \ve
can bear even Cassandra's piteous wail, which is soon
heard rising to the very heaven of heavens. For we
are not met merely beholding a play ; we are par-
taking in a holy ceremony, by which God will be
surely justified. Far different, here observe, is th
of Shakespeare. He, too, wrote his "Agamemnon,"
calling Clytemnestra Lady Macbeth, and Ae-isthus
Macbeth, and his work, far inferior as it is, parades
28 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
these humanising touches which in a purely divine
tragedy are incidental. Supreme pity is his last
word, not supreme justice and religion. As we see
the bloody Thane staggering across the stage in
his last infirmity, crying,
I have lived long enough my way of life
Has fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf ;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have !
we almost forget his crimes, in the utterness of our
pity for his poor humanity. There is pity too, but of
a sublimer sense, in the " Agamemnon. " When in
the " Libation-pourers/' Clytemnestra falls at her
son's feet seeking mercy and crying,
I reared thee I would fain grow old with thee !
and when, after slaying her, Orestes cries,
May the Great Sun, beholding all we do,
Bear witness for me, that I justly wrought
This doom upon my mother !
we are too awe-stricken for pity. Fate is speaking
through the very lips of the Avenger, and Zeus is
approving. Yet even as we hear we know, from
vague murmurs of the Chorus and from certain sub-
lime expressions of Orestes himself, that all is not yet
well, that Orestes has violated a natural law even in
avenging his own father, and that vengeance is not
man's, but God's. We do not weep, as in Shake-
speare ; we pray. We do not turn away sadly con-
scious of human problems, tenderly stirred by human
voices, as we do when we close a play of the great
feudal poet ; we come away as from a Temple, not
wholly comforted, but reverent, and resolved.
FROM AESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 29
IV.
THE ONE GOD.
THE great Greek masterpieces owe no small part
of their inconceivable splendour as exercises of re-
ligion to the existence of the Chorus. The Chorus
is, as it were, the idealised human spectator, ever
prepared with comment on events too strange for
comprehension. Its members, from their position
round the Thymele, midway between actors and
audience, are enabled, as the play proceeds, to give
expression to the emotions which are disturbing the
bosom of every spectator who possesses a particle of
human nature. In a modern performance, we must
repress our pleasure and pain, no matter how strongly
they are excited. In forming actually or in imagi-
nation part of the audience at a Greek play, we are
perpetually entering our fiery protest against iniquity,
and calling aloud to God for His retribution. The
moment our emotion masters and suffocates us, the
Choragus finds voice in our name. Our human na-
ture is vindicated. It is we ourselves, so to speak, no
mere person of the drama, who conduct that fierce
dialogue with the contemptuous Aegisthus at the
end of the "Agamemnon." We hiss at, deride,
insult, mock, and defy the obnoxious character.
Thrive on, stuff, gorge thy fill, polluting right !
we shriek ; and when he threatens us, we cry
tauntingly,
Boast on, and crow like a cock beside his hen !
Our hootings and exclamations follow him as he
retires, led off by Clytemnestra, and the curtain falls.
30 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Again in the " Prometheus " when the Okeanides
uplift their voices against the iniquities of the Olym-
pian tyrant, we are the Okeanides. We call aloud,
that the heavens and the earth may hear us,
\
Of all the gods, what god is there so cruel
That he rejoiceth in thy sufferings !
We cling around him, soothing and comforting him,
and even when Hermes threatens us with the fiery
levin if we remain, we do not go. Nay, we are even
those fierce Erinnyes, hounding Orestes from land to
land for our human nature sickens at matricide, and
we are not appeased until we receive full atonement,
in utter contrition and devotion of sacrifice ; then,
as the Eumenides, our cries are still.
Thus, as I have indicated, the spectator of a
Greek play is assisting at a religious service, in which
he joins when the emotion masters him not wildly
and madly, but in a solemn spirit befitting the
tragedy of great human issues. He who reads his
Bible and finds it holy, and yet can read his
" ^Eschylus " and call it pagan, has much to learn as
to what is and what is not edification. If Isaiah and
Ezekiel are prophets, Prometheus and the rest are
prophets too. The voice of one crying in the wilder-
ness never uttered solemner warning to man than do
the Argive Elders of the divine chorus. If the Lord
God of the " Psalms " is terrible and overwhelming,
the Lord God of the " Suppliants " is beautiful and
wise :
Our sire is He, creator of our being,
Monarch whose right hand worketh well His will,
Lord of our race and ruler of our line,
In counsels deep recording ancient things,
Planning and ordering all, the great Taskmaster !
It is something also to know that this Being, unlike
FROM AESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 3'
that other beloved of King David and dear to the
Jews, is not to be entreated on our side when our
thought is of battles and our sign is a Sword ; that
He will not utterly annihilate our enemies and de-
liver them into our hands, even when those enemies
are Philistines and unbelievers ; that He will avenge
crime and punish sin, even after the lapse of a thou-
sand years ; and yet withal, that He is gentle and
will bless us, if we only have the heart to suffer and
be strong. To suffer ! This, then, is the spirit of
Greek tragedy in its highest examples : the triple
''anarchy" of Victor Hugo attacking Man on all
sides, Man suffering at all points, yet above and
beyond all, the reality and ever-abiding presence of
divine compensations. More than this, the surety
that suffering, though persistent and patience-slaying,
is not eternal that only one thing is Eternal, the
Supreme Idea, the Infinite Pity and Justice of God.
Nor does it matter much in partaking this tragic
sacrament, on what God we call : whether we are
addressing and thinking of the vovs of Anaxagoras,
Plato's Idea of the Good, Aristotle's irpurov KIVOW,
King David's Jehovah, Comte's Grand Etre, or Mr.
Spencer's great Unknowable, it matters not, so long
as we are agreed that this God is, as Mr. Arnold
might express it, the one fixed Law and Intelligence
which works for righteousness. Two vital principles
are forced upon us Nemesis from without, Endu-
rance from within. The victory of the latter prin-
ciple over the former, is the triumph of the human
Will.
Two thousand three hundred and forty years
have elapsed since the death of <#schylus, which
took place two years after the representation of his
masterpiece, the Orestean Trilogy. In that mighty
32 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
interval many poets have arisen, but (setting aside
Dante, whose genius, however, was too exclusively
personal and lyrical) not one poet, so far as I know,
has dared to take upon himself the ^Eschylan
mantle ; until, in our own day, a great genius has
so dared, with results too extraordinary, perhaps, for
a hasty contemporary estimate. The comparison
may seem exaggerated, especially in the eyes of
those worthies to whom no fame is first-rate that is
not centuries removed in time, and who simply can-
not conceive that demigods were ever contemporary.
It is no exaggeration, however, to say that Victor Hugo
is the ^Eschylus of this generation the heir, doubt-
less, of a meaner time, and the inheritor of a lower
art but the prophet, too, in his turn, of miracles to-
come.
V.
VICTOR HUGO.
As headstrong as yEschylus, and as grim ; as solemn
in his presentation of archetypal forms and pictures,
as musical sometimes in his conjuration of these
forms into life ; not one whit less credulous than that
other, though he inherits all the knowledge of the
ages, all the science of the age ; sceptic, too, as to
God the Constitutional Monarch, but adoring as to
God the Infinite Idea; a prophet, a poet, who has
never been known to smile, scarcely to weep, and
therefore master neither of smiles nor tears (which
were Shakespeare's birthright) ; physically resem-
bling y^Eschylus, as any one may see by comparing
FROAf AESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 33
the photograph of one with the traditional likeness
of the other; morally and intellectually resembling
him, to a degree which suggests a transmigration of
souls ! Such, then, is Victor Hugo, last of those
sublime Frenchmen who have been, ever since the
Encyclopedia, our intellectual spendthrifts, enriching
all Europe with ideas, and receiving scanty gratitude
in return. Even here in England, where intellectual
fashions are so supremely " respectable," his genius is
admitted, with the qualification that it lacks sobriety,
calm, artistic finish, and that it offends too often
against constitutional religion and conventional
virtue. The British Matron reads him expurgated,
and admits his power; "but, then," she adds, "his
ideas are most alarming, and give me the shivers."
Even Mr. George Lewes, in some respects an admir-
able critic, reviewed the " Travailleurs de la Mer,"
on its first appearance, without enthusiasm, and
chiefly devoted himself to emphasizing its exaggera-
tions. Again, he has the misfortune to be, politically
speaking, " red." He began by singing paeans to the
Bourbon ; but advancing step by step, and book by
book, he has ended by applauding the Commune,
and by adoring one king of men who is worth a thou-
sand kings of peoples Garibaldi. His literary career
has been peculiar. Many years have elapsed since
his advent as the leader of the Theatre Romantique
filled the aged Goethe with horror, and led him to
predict a poetic Deluge. With De Vigny and Dumas
for his lieutenants, he began a theatrical campaign in
the Spanish fashion, and Romanticism was a nine
days' wonder. Brilliant and clever as his dramas are,
they are only dramas of purely ephemeral worth.
The poet was to find his true tongue in the language
of his own time, not in the language of Francois
D
34 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Premier or Charles Quint. But in " Notre Dame de
Paris," a novel which belongs to the romantic period,
he began, while still attitudinising in hat and feather,
to conjure in the name of Nature ; and there arose,
in answer to his conjuration, with the pet word
" anarchy " written on his brow, Quasimodo. This
shapeless Earth-geist, full of all the tenderness and
passion of the earth, unbeautiful, patient, enduring,
powerful, tender, was seen at war with all those evil
forces which were once named Religion, and by his
side there blossomed the flower of revolt, Esmeralda.
The story is a lovely one, despite its pitiable gloom-
almost approaching true tragedy in some of its issues ;
but there has passed across it the sickly breath of
Balzac, and it droops into third or fourth rank as
fiction.
The Spectre, the Earth-geist, once thus invoked,,
was not soon to be appeased. He who, in the spirit
of Doctor Faustus, calls up the secret forces of the ele-
ments, and compels them into some attendant shape,
has generally some difficulty in "laying" them again;
and Victor Hugo, from the hour of his creation of
Quasimodo, has been at the mercy of that type.
Jean Valjean, Gilliatt, and the Laughing Monster in
"THomme qui rit," are so many repetitions and
amplifications of Quasimodo, engaged at the same
old hopeless business fighting Zeus, in all his hor-
rible forms and execrable disguises. Nor is the poet
less faithful to his own fragile type of woman. Cosette,
Deruchette, and Dea are merely pseudonyms for
Esmeralda. And here it may be remarked, in passing,
that Victor Hugo, like nearly every modern, fails
miserably as a painter of female character. His
women, when they are not mere animals, with the
passions of brewer's draymen, are so many inanities
FROM &SCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 35
washed in water-colours. The secret of their failure
is not far to seek, lying as it does in the over-strong
virility of the poet's imagination. His masculine
conceptions being types of exaggerated power, his
feminine conceptions naturally become types of
exaggerated weakness. They are pretty, they bloom,
and they die. Compared with the divine female
creations of Greek tragedy, they are as poor as the
"beauties of Byron " engraved in an old Annual. In
the ancient theatre, all the power was not reserved
for man, nor all the suffering. Woman, too, was to
become sublime by bearing sublime burthens ; woman,
too, was to rise supreme above the malignity and
cruelty of Zeus, and to turn to eternal marble in the
glory of her accomplished and triumphant will. A
Niobe remains in stone, a thing of deathless woman-
hood. Electra, Antigone, and Alcestis also remain,
certain of their immortality as the stars of heaven ;
for of their very womanhood was wrought their
glory, and they were as strong to resist as Gilliatt
himself, though, unlike him, they did not become
hideous by aggression.
Victor Hugo, then, cannot paint women ; it is
almost doubtful whether he paints men ; but for pro-
ducing in colossal cipher the abstract forms of mascu-
line forces, he is without a rival. He is the Franken-
stein of the democratic Idea, the humaniser of the
wild elements of anarchy ; and the figures he uses,
though of human likeness, and full of appeals to the
human soul, are simply superhuman types like those
of Greek tragedy, elevated like them on the cothurnus,
and speaking like them through the mask. They
move to and fro on a mighty stage, with a back-
ground of the mountains and the sea. They contend
with monsters and with phantoms. The "Pieuvre"
D 2
36 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
is as horrible, to all intents and purposes, as the three
swan-shaped Phorkides, with only one eye and tooth
between them all. The skeleton of Clubin is more
appalling than the ghost of Clytemnestra. The
Winds of the Douvres are as frightful as the Eume-
nides. The evil genius of "Les Miserables," Thenar-
dier, is more diabolical than the " Gorgons, serpent-
tressed, hating men." Again, even as to the number
of performers, he never, at the utmost, exceeds the
third actor. He himself is the Choragus, and a very
bad Choragus ; for his eternal volubility, though
seeming in the name and interests of the spectator,
goes far to spoil the play. For example, instead of
the mighty music from around the Thymele, we get
such reflections as the following :
Essayez de vous rendre compte de ce chaos, si enorme qu'il
aboutit au niveau. II est le recipient universel, reservoir pour
les fecondations, creuset pour les transformations. II amasse,
puis disperse ; il accumule, puis ensemence ; il devore, puis
cree. II regoit tous les egouts de la terre, et il les thesaurise.
II est solide dans le fangeux, liquide dans le flot, fluide dans
1'effluve. Comme matiere il est masse, et comme force il est
abstraction. II egalise et marie les phenomenes. II se simplifie
par 1'infini dans la combinaison. C'est a force de melange et
de trouble qu'il arrive a la transparence. La diversite soluble
se fond dans son unite. II a tant d'elements qu'il est Pidentite.
Une de ses gouttes. c'est tout lui. Parce qu'il est plein de
tempetes, il devient 1'equilibre. Platon voyait danser les spheres ;
chose etrange a dire, mais reelle, dans la colossale evolution
terrestre autour du soleil, 1'ocean, avec son flux et reflux, est le
balancier du globe," etc. etc.
Protracted over innumerable pages, this sort of thing
becomes distracting. It is more like Euripides than
^Eschylus, but it is far below even Euripides. It is
worthy, in fact, of "Monte Cristo;" still more
worthy of M. Louis Figuier, who popularises science
for the unscientific in illustrated volumes of rubbish.
It is certainly not worthy of the master-poet of this
FXOM J-:SC/IYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 37
generation. It is not merely worthless in itself, but it
has a most demoralising influence on inferior artists.
A few remarks may naturally be made here on
the character of the modern novel, and its relation to
other works of Art. There is no absolute reason,
that I perceive, why the novel should not be
infinitely more perfect than our greatest novelists
choose to make it, why it should not take artistic
rank just under the very highest poetry; and there is
this much to be said for it against all other finer
products, that it appeals to all classes of the com-
munity alike, and carries broadcast seeds which our
poets lock up in the ivory caskets of mystic and
rhythmic speech. In our own days we have seen
some half-dozen novel-poems, of the finest and most
delightful workmanship Canon Kingsley's " Hy-
patia " and " Westward Ho," Reade's first version of
the " Cloister and the Hearth," Hawthorne's " Scarlet
Letter," Thackeray's " Esmond," and Dickens' " Cop-
perfield." None of these excellent works, however,
are so distinctly and emphatically poetic as the novels
of Victor Hugo. Most perfect and finished as works
of Art are the novels of the late Nathaniel Haw-
thorne, most finished of all "The Scarlet Letter,"
an effusion of terrible and stupefying gloom, but
wonderfully finely wrought. If Victor Hugo had
been fettered by an art as rigid as that of Hawthorne,
and had restricted his canvas accordingly, he would
have escaped all those mad splashes of the brush
which disfigure his best painting. Confined to the
compass of the " Scarlet Letter," " Les Travailleurs de
la Mer " would have been of double its present value.
We want all its gold, but not any particle of its dross.
" Les Miserables," too, might be curtailed one-half
with tremendous advantage. As for " L'Homme qui
38 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Rit," I am not so sure that it might not have been
curtailed altogether, for one third of it is hideous,
another third of it is nasty, and the remaining third
is only a repetition of what its author has said better
elsewhere. Each of these works, despite its prose form,
is a poem a work which could have been expressed
as well, or better, in verse. Why then did Victor
Hugo, whose command of metrical effects is so con-
summate, abandon them in composing his greatest
works ? Because, the truth must be admitted, he
perceived that the Novel, with all its limitations,
bears the same relation to this generation that the
Tragic Drama did to the generation of yEschylus, in
so far as it is the resource and study of the entire
reading world. During the annual period of the
dramatic performances, it was the simple duty
of every Athenian citizen to attend and behold
them ; they were produced for the delight and edifica-
tion of the Many, not for the aesthetic gratification of
the Few ; and although their poetic claims were
privately adjudicated by delicate critics, their general
appeal was to the public. It would be going too far
to compare the productions of what was essentially a
religious festival with modern productions created
only for the pleasure of the hour ; but the Novel
bears at least this resemblance to Greek tragedy it
gratifies, when successfully written, an enormous as-
semblage of people. Its literary form may be loose,
its influence ephemeral, its appeals undignified ; but
surely these are results which have nothing to do with
the question whether or not a prose story may not
be as perfect in its way as a Greek tragedy ? or at
any rate, to reduce the question to a closer issue,
infinitely more perfect than any novelist, with the ex-
ception, perhaps, of Hawthorne, chooses to make it ?
FROM sESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 39
I know scarcely ahy modern fiction in three volumes,
for example, which would not have been infinitely
better if restricted to one volume ; always excepting,
of course, those collections of humorous sketches
which constitute a story by Thackeray or Dickens,
and in which an infinity of diverting characters
are introduced almost at haphazard, with no very
special adherence to a serious chain of interest.
Examine, for example, that very elaborate work of
art, George Eliot's " Romola." No contemporary
work is better conceived, with more admirable cha-
racters and a more tragic plot ; yet, has any student
ever read it through with anything but weariness, due
to the masses of unemotional verbiage by which the
ideas are wrapt, disguised, and overclouded ? This,
however, is an example of a novel without sponta-
neity, rather than of inordinate length, and it is
doubtful if any mere compression could make
" Romola" the tragedy it ought to have been. Turn
to a work of far humbler pretensions, but of infinitely
higher successes the " Vicar of Wakefield." Here
is a poem, simple, spontaneous, hearty, beautiful, and
brief. This, however, is a mere genre picture; and
for any parallel in fiction to the mighty creations of
the Attic stage, we must return to Victor Hugo.
Hugo has attempted, with more or less success, as we
have been endeavouring to show, to use the novel, as
yEschylus used the drama, as a vehicle for the highest
poetry of which the age is capable. The splendour
of his achievements has justified a perilous experi-
ment, and the question is no longer one of mere Art,
in which his inferiority and that of the novel is seen
and admitted, but of intellectual grasp and moral
teaching, concerning which there will doubtless be an
infinity of diverging opinions.
40 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
VI.
THE PROMETHEAN MYTH.
ONE characteristic must strike at once the most
superficial reader of Hugo's novels their unutterable
despair. This also is the characteristic of the stories
of George Eliot, but while her despair is unpleasantly
suggestive of the Feuerbach she translated in her
literary youth, that of Hugo is the despair of a Poet
His colossal masculine types, while they triumph
invariably more or less over the triple anarchy of
Religion, Society, and Nature, double up like houses
of cards before the anarchy of their own sentiments
or, as the writer expresses it, " of the human
heart." The ocean closes over Gilliatt because he
cannot with courage endure the contemplation of a
rival's happiness, not because the nobler part of his
life has been a failure. Jean Valjean dies broken-
hearted, not because he has failed to redeem himself
utterly from the shadow of crime and degraded in-
stinct under which he was born, but because he misses
the individual filial love which his own conscience
assures him is not worth the winning. For Quasimodo
there is justification he is utterly and cruelly crushed
down at all points but for these others there is none
whatever ; they fail, despite their inexorable will, for
want of a higher and solemner purpose than could
ever be consecrated by the lips of a woman or the
embraces of a child. They stalk on the stage like
Titans they creep off the stage like Liliputians.
They win our pity in the end, but not the right sort of
pity. We expect the sacrament of true tragedy, and
it is not given. That one word, " Anarchy/' which
.KSCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 41
repelled us at the beginning, is whispered again to us
at the end.
It is a solemn thing to discuss a Poet's religious
belief; a solemn, and often a useless, thing. Here,
however, the question being forced upon me, let me
ask, in all humility before the mind of a Master,
whether the gloominess of his religious faith does not
leave him, so to speak, in intellectual and moral dark-
ness ? It would be difficult to state definitely what
Victor Hugo believes, nor would what he believed
matter if the nature of his belief were a little brighter.
In no man's pages does the name of " God " appear
so often, and he uses it in the same way as ^Eschylus
to express two ideas, one very execrable, the other
very divine ; but whether he regards this God as the
Personal One of theologians, or the pantheistic Spirit
of Spinoza, or the mysterious Unknowable of the
doctrine of Evolution, one thing is certain he ap-
proaches Him too much in a mood of despairing
gloom. Nor is it Divinity alone that he approaches
in this manner. Nature herself, he regards, or seems
to regard, as something horrible, alien, treacherous,
and forbidding. There is no love in his fear, as there
was in Shelley's ; for it is not her awful beauty that
dazzles him, it is not her mystic voice that awes him,
it is not her divine touch that thrills him. No poet
of equal rank was ever so obtuse to her mere beauty.
The peace of Wordsworth, the passion of Keats, the
tender pang of Shelley, are far from his bosom. He
folds his arms upon his bosom, and without quailing,
gazes upon the Abyss (L'Abtme). The Abyss fas-
cinates him till he becomes light-headed, and raves
about it till its name becomes a catchword. He sees
Monsters, Portents, Shadows, Terrors, Horrors in-
conceivable all entities like Gorgon, all abstractions
42 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
like the Chimaera. He thinks, because he is gloomy,
there shall be no more cakes and ale. He knows the
names of all the Winds, but he is indifferent to all the
"flowers. He walks abroad only in the twilight, when
bats fly and owls cry. His creations are hideous as the
forces with which they fight Quasimodo, Jean Val-
jean, the nameless one who Grins, are alike hideous.
"" Quand Dieu veut," he observes, " il excelle dans
Pexecrable." Victor Hugo himself, however, and not
God, is responsible for the " Pieuvre ! " When Victor
Hugo wills, he excels in the execrable, and unfortu-
nately, he wills very often. His pictures are deficient
in the all-purifying daylight. He gives us sun, moon,
stars, earth, clouds, man, woman, bird, and beast all
in colossal silhouette.
It is hardly conceivable, then, that gloom so
monotonous can co-exist with a bright and happy
faith. The gloom of ^Eschylus is different ; it is
solemn more than terrifying. One does not shiver in it,
in fear of cold unseen phantoms that " uplift the hair."
Through it, star-like presences shine at intervals, and
the presence of Zeus is ever felt. Above all, the
final word is one of blessing, and the spectator is dis-
missed as with a divine benediction of hands. With
Victor Hugo, this benediction is missed ; nay, our
own faith is shaken by what we have seen and heard ;
for if the last word of mighty natures is to be despair
and suicide, what are we to hope whose natures are
not mighty ? This persistent dwelling in gloom has
other results. It makes the poet wild, uncertain, and
unsteady. It confuses his vision, so that he is apt to
mistake very harmless human faces for awful portents,
and to be startled by events which, to the world in
general, might seem cheerful. He loses clearness of
judgment, and falls into superstition. There is a
.-KSCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 43
character in one of Mr. Reade's novels, Jael Dence,
who sees omens in everything, down to pins and
needles. Victor Hugo is a literary Jael. Fortified
with all the culture of the nineteenth century, deep in
all its science, and strong in all its poetry, he cannot
move about the earth in peace, or take his place
among the creatures of gladness, even for a single
moment. Very characteristic, for example, is his way
of looking at the ocean. He has no joy in it, no
mighty exultation such as Byron felt when he sang
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow,
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests : in all time,
Calm or convulsed in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving ; boundless, endless, and sublime
The image of eternity, the throne
Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers ; they to me
Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was, as it were, a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane, as I do here.
He knows not its loveliness, he comprehends not its
serenity, as Shelley did, as all beauty-loving poets
have done. He thinks of the monsters in its depths,
not of the " fairily-wrought " shells upon its shore. He
regards it as an enemy, not as a mighty friend. For
these and for many reasons, he does not understand
the sea ; indeed, it is doubtful if any Frenchman ever
will. As it is with the great waters, so it is with all
44 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the rest to him. He could have conceived Prome-
theus, perhaps, but not the Okeanides, with the bright
sea-light shining on their wings, the love and free-
dom, and av^pi6p.ov ye'Xao-na of the waves sparkling in
their eyes. He is the Rembrandt, not the Correggio,
of novelists. In stature and strength he is an ancient
Greek, but the Greek "joy" is an unknown gleam to
him.
So, when I seek the last word of that divine
trilogy which yEschylus wrote twenty -three hun-
dred years ago, I have to turn, not to him who
is most like ^schylus in shadowy power and colossal
imagery, but to our own English poet of the dreamy
eyes and the silvern-ringing voice. The missing
" Prometheus Luomenos " is not wholly lost to us,
so long as we can hear the wonderful voice of Shelley
singing aloud his solemn and impassioned sequel.
The " Prometheus Unbound " is, of course, a pro-
duction far too thin and emotional in character to be
classed quite in the same rank as the marble work of
./Eschylus ; but it is a poem of surpassing modern
beauties, and its choric portions form a fit paean of
triumph and victory for the ^Eschylan Titan. Its
early passages are merely a free paraphrase of the
" Prometheus Bound," and the appeal to " earth,
heaven," and " all-beholding sun," is the immortal
o> dios alOrjp ......
7iap.fJ.r)Top TC 777,
KVK\OV f]\LOV
done into wonderful blank verse ; just as the line,
6 v 7 f ireXayos drrjpas dvrjs,
is the original of Hamlet's "sea of troubles," and
a-v p.vf]po(nv fiArois (ppwwv" contains Hamlet's
FROM AESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 45
" tablets of my memory." Much that follows is too
transparently propagandist to be quite pleasing, and
in the scene of the Furies there is too much of Lord
Byron ; but the conception of Demogorgon, and the
scene in Demogorgon's cave, and the characters of
Asia and Panthea, are magnificent beyond com-
parison. It is with the ethic flavour of the poem,
however, that I have at present to deal en passant,
and this is chiefly revealed in the noble melodies of
the fourth and last act. Here, in her exultation at the
freedom of Prometheus, the Earth prophesies the
triumph and regeneration of man
Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul,
Whose nature is its own divine control,
Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea ;
Familiar acts are beautiful through love ;
Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove,
Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they could be.
His will, with all mean passions, bad delights,
And selfish cares, its trembling satellites,
A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey,
Is as a tempest-winged ship, whose helm
Love rules, through waves which dare not overwhelm,
Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign sway.
All things confess his strength. Through the cold mass
Of marble and of colour his dreams pass ;
Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their children
wear.
Language is a perpetual orphic song,
Which rules with Daedal harmony a throng
Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shapeless were.
The lightning is his slave ; heaven's utmost deep
Gives up her stars, and, like a flock of sheep,
They pass before his eyes, are number'd, and roll on !
The tempest is his steed, he strides the air ;
And the abyss shouts from her depths laid bare,
" Heaven, hast thou secrets ? Man unveils me ; I have none."
Prometheus, then, has not wrought in vain ; his suf-
ferings have not been without their reward. The
46 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
creature of his sublime and never-ceasing love, Hu-
manity, has become strong, beautiful, and free, and
the " shadow of white death " has passed from the
path of liberated Nature.
In this extraordinary lyric poem of Shelley there
is a variegated light and sweetness, a continual flow
of lovely and soul-soothing images, which redeem a
certain indefiniteness and hollowness of meaning. We
are comforted by sheer excess of light. Our path is
rainbowed with a thousand flowers, our heavens are
throbbing with innumerable stars. A pulse of happi-
ness throbs through Nature, and we feel it. Now it
is this abundant joy that we miss in Victor Hugo.
He altogether lacks Shelley's divine faith a faith
born of sheer exultation in the Beautiful. While
Victor Hugo is ever brooding on the shadowy side of
Nature, Shelley is ever singing on the ethereal side.
He has none of the strong earthly joy of Shakespeare,
of the deep solemn enjoyment of Wordsworth. He
soars, like his own skylark, through the heart of a
shower ; and such " harmonious madness " flows from
his lips, that the world is constrained to listen. His
" Prometheus," therefore, is, as it were, the choric
portion of the last act of the ^Eschylan trilogy ; to
construct the play completely, as ^Eschylus would
have done, is naturally beyond him. If we could con-
ceive the faculties of Victor Hugo and Shelley blent
together Hugo creating the mighty forms and images
of the drama, while Shelley supplied the music we
might imagine what the lost " Prometheus " was, or
ought to have been.
I cannot dismiss the Promethean myth without
briefly chronicling its influence on the mind of
another English poet, the scholastic Milton. In the
" Paradise Lost " of this author, we have an extra-
FROM sESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 4?
ordinary version of the same story, Prometl
appearing- under the character of " Satan," and /
under the name of the Lord God of the Hebrews.
The parallel holds in minute particulars. The story
of the angelic war, in which many of the archangels
side with God, and many others revolt with Satan, is
identical with the story of the rebellious Titans. But
Satan, with all his power of diatribe, is a degraded
Prometheus. His malignity is that of a petulant
schoolboy, and his hatred of humanity is irrational
and uninteresting.
Farewell, remorse : all good to me is lost :
Evil, be though my good ; by thee at least
Divided empire with Heaven's King I hold,
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign ;
As man ere long and this new world shall know.
This Devil is so morally foolish in his didactic wicked-
ness, that we have little or no interest in him. But
the idea of a titanic Human Spirit, loving humanity
at large, leading them from darkness into the sun,
instructing them in purifying arts, teaching them all
knowledge from pharmacy up to augury, this is a
sublime idea, and therefore it is imperishable.
Founded also on eternal truth is the idea of a
Supreme Evil with whom this Being is at war the
personification of terrible and cruel Power, adminis-
tering and dominating, to damnable issues, the
elemental anarchy of which he is the awful fruit.
This Supreme Evil, however, is to fall ; above him
and beyond him " darkening his fall with victory," is
that other Supreme Good, the divine incomprehen-
sible " God " of all divine poets, from ^Eschylus to
Shelley. Nothing is more wonderful in yEschylus
than his foreshadowing of problems which have been
48 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the delight of modern science. Primaeval man lives
again in such lines as these :
Through all their days, like phantoms seen in dreams,
All things they mixed at random, knowing not
Dwellings of stone that catch the summer sun,
Nor yet the useful work of carpentry ;
But deep they dwelt, like swarms of gnats, within
Dark sunless caverns, with no sign to show
Frost-laden winter, flower-bearing spring,
Or summer with her fruits," etc. etc.
Such a race as yEschylus pictured needed the
Prometheus who surely came. For the Spirit of Man
is ever far in advance of humanity at large, and might
thus be justly typified in a titanic " Forethought/'
Moderns hungry for meanings may also discover in
the figure of lo, a type of oppressed Womanhood,
tortured, polluted, outcast, and utterly at the mercy
of the Supreme Evil in its earliest and most hateful
form of unbridled passion. The Voice that comes
thronging into lo's " virgin chambers,"
e'y irapQfvaivas TOVS epovs,
was the despair and misery of Woman since the
beginning ; and not until Zeus has fallen, and the era
of pure knowledge begins, shall the vestal creature
walk abroad upon the earth in peace.
VII.
SUMMARY.
I HAVE thus endeavoured to sketch, briefly yet dis-
cursively, the connection of the great Greek tragic
poet with modern writers, but especially with Victor
Hugo. The poetry of the world constitutes one great
FROM sESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 49
and, as yet, uncompleted Poem, the last utterance of
which shall not be heard until Humanity has reached
the final point of divine knowledge and consummate
literary expression ; and the rank and worth of every
poet is to be determined, earlier or later, by his rela-
tion to the cosmic music of which his song is to form
a part. If these facts be admitted, as they must
unquestioningly be by every student of literature, it
follows that the criterion of poetry is its religious
truth its agreement or discord, in other words, with
the sum of knowledge which Humanity has been dili-
gently accumulating from time immemorial ; and
criticised under such conditions, many singers fall
into comparative insignificance whom we have been
accustomed to regard as irreproachable bards. Thus,
Milton falls into second or third rank, while ^Eschylus
rises to the very first. Dante stands firm, filling the
darkest and saddest chapter of the book ; while
Virgil survives chiefly in the illumination of Dante's
page. Goethe is sure of some consecration ; but per-
haps he will be deemed, when the final classification
comes, less beloved and bright than our own Shelley,
less colossal than this other descendant of the demi-
gods, Victor Hugo. One can hardly conceive an
epoch, however far advanced in time, when the
" Prometheus " of /Eschylus, the " Inferno " of Dante,
the "Prometheus Bound" of Shelley, and " Les
Miserables " of Victor Hugo (as divinely real a poem
this as any of the rest), will become as tedious from
all but a purely literary point of view as the
" /Eneid " of Virgil became with the first breath of
the Renaissance, and as the " Paradise Lost " of
Milton has become in the last light of modern
thought. That mere style, however wonderful, will
not save a poem, is proved by these examples. Style
E
50 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
is all-important, but it will not avail alone. The//
criterion of a poem is its eternal truth to history o/ a
human nature. A work hopelessly fettered to am
effete superstition, or to a weary and uninteresting
tradition, cannot, however exquisitely wrought in the
details, be classed with first-rate literature. To bring
the question to an issue, if the gloom of Victor Hugo
were less complete, if his moral teaching were less
persistently suicidal, his certainty of immortality
would be greater than it is. He fails to represent
his generation in so far as he fails to image forth its
happiness and its hope, together with those ideal
aspirations which constitute in all generations what
is termed " religion ; " and in this respect he is far
inferior, for example, to Shelley. The charge of
atheism has been brought against both these poets,
and with equal justice and consistency. But the
atheist is he who disbelieves in light altogether,
utterly repudiates that mystic Zeus of whom ^Eschylus
sang, and believes that human nature is going
headlong to ruin and despair. The atheist is he who
cries with Schopenhauer that life is ' f a cheat, and a
uselessly interrupting episode in the blissful repose of
nothing." The atheist is he who grimly affirms with
Feuerbach that " Der Mann ist was er isst." An
atheistical poet is an anomaly, an impossibility ; and
Shelley, so far from being an atheist, is, of all modern
poets, with the exception of Wordsworth, the most
religious so constantly in a white heat of divine
ecstasy and worship, that his music becomes almost
monotonous. Victor Hugo, on the other hand, is
atheistic just in so far as he fails to perceive the
triumph of human nature over all the conditions
which mar it, and drag it down. He himself, in one
of the finest poems of " L'Annee Terrible/' has
.ESCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 51
expressly vindicated himself against the charge of
atheism brought against him by \mirabiU dictu /) a
French Bishop ! No charge is easier to bring, or
harder to bear. As I write, I see it, in several
journals, brought against a distinguished living poet,
Mr. Algernon Swinburne. The present writer cannot
certainly be accused of sympathising unduly with the
school Mr. Swinburne represents, but he takes this
opportunity of saying that Mr. Swinburne is an
atheist in the sense that Shelley was one, and in no
other. The wealth of his vocabulary of abuse should
not mislead us. He utters the truth as he feels and
sees it; he utters it, now and then, too madly; but the
very strength of his invective is a proof that he is in
earnest. He fights his adversaries with a flail, and
the weapon too often rebounds, as such weapons will
even in powerful hands, upon his own head. But for
all that, he is one of the army of God, and we forgive
him all his outrageousness when he speaks, as he
so often can and will, the lovely language of
Sion. There are far too many real atheists in the
world men who hate truth, and have no faith in
beauty. Let us not class among them any one
authentic poet, however much his non-poetical utter-
ances may offend our prejudices, and even amaze our
reason.
And finally, turning back to Victor Hugo, let us
remember, what perhaps I have been rather for-
getting, the utterness of his love and charity for all
the created world, and especially for Humanity.
There are words in his pages, syllables of divine
tenderness, sweet enough to wake a soul under the
very ribs of Death ; inexpressibly sad perhaps, but
most fond and pitiful. Read the story of " Fantine,"
an episode repeated a thousandfold in every city
E 2
52 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
and in every street ; read that narrative of miserable
sin and divine maternal tenderness, and feel the
blinding tears stream down your cheeks in sym-
pathy and love. " The pity of it, the pity of it,
lago!" Turn again to the history of the good
Bishop Myriel, remembering as you read that there
were some diabolical enough to call even him
" atheist ! " Was ever a picture more benignly
soul-assuring? What "anarchy" could long resist
the seraphic sweetness of the good Bishop's smile ?
Victor Hugo's faith is firm in goodness, in human
love, in Democracy. Dark as many of his premoni-
tions have been, he believes in the world's regenera-
tion. His canvas maybe too full of Pieuvres, horrors,
and chimaeras dire ; of evil monsters, and of evil men ;
of cruel elements incarnated in titanic forms ; but
over and beyond these, he paints the sunrise dim,
cold, far-off, cheerless as yet, but slowly creeping up
from the eternal gates of morning. His defects are
those of his country and of his race too much faith
and too little ; too much faith in human strength and
pride, too little faith in the Eternal Calm. Only the
other day he seemed caught in the whirlwind of a
national passion, mingling with those who still would
conjure up the insatiable devil of Battle ; this was
only for a moment ; and soon his voice was heard
above the storm, preaching chanty and peace. It
would be pitiable if Victor Hugo were only a
Frenchman; it would be horrible if the sentiment of
nationality had eclipsed that sentiment of cosmopoli-
tanism, which sooner or later will slay the Wai-
Monster for ever. Out of all the mist of contem-
porary wrath and passion, out of the very darkness of
his own creed, the great poet emerges, beautiful and
wise. No nobler figure is to be seen among living
FROM &SCHYLUS TO VICTOR HUGO. 53
men. His greatness is without question, his immor-
tality is sure. When he passes to the Immortals, his
place will be close to ^Eschylus, if not at his side.
NOTE. This article was written before the death of Victor
Hugo. Since it was written, Mr. I. A. Symonds has published,
in the Corn/till Magazine, an article in which he argues that
the lost " Prometheus," if restored to us, would show the poet's
vindication of Zeus himself as Divine Wisdom. Everything
that comes from the powerful pen of the author of the " Renais-
sance," must bear literary weight, but in the present instance I
fancy the arguments overstrained. It is almost impossible to
regard the threats and taunts of Prometheus asmerely dramatic
utterances, with which the poet has little or rib sympathy, and
if Mr. Symonds is right, what shall we say of Prometheus'
prophecy of the Divine downfall, which is assuredly to come?
R. B.
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE.
i.
THE AMOURS.
IN selecting out of Goethe's enormous list of literary
productions the one or two absolute masterpieces,*
and in studying the great man's biography step by
step, one is constantly doubting, in spite of oneself,
whether Nature in the beginning really meant Goethe
for a genius at all ; and even his very masterpieces
are so spoilt by barbarous foreign matter, by writing
which is absolutely depressing in its intellectual
vapidity, that one sometimes questions if even they
could not have been produced, by enormous cultiva-
tion, on a soil naturally fruitful of merely frivolous
material. Even as it was, Goethe, with a little less
animation, would have made a very popular Parson.
But the Amours turned the scale, decided the genius,
* Besides the books which are best known to English
readers, "Faust," " Iphigenia," " Tasso," " Gotz," " Egmont,"
"Werther," "Elective Affinities," " Wilhelm Meister," etc.,
Goethe is the author of forty-four dramas, melodramas, and
farces, and any amount of travel and criticism ; and even his
poetical writings constitute a sort of enormous dumpling, with
very few currants indeed in proportion to the dough.
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 55
and the world became the richer for " Clarchcn,"
" Ottilic," "Gretchen," and, above all, " Mignon."
Certainly Goethe was not a man of genius in the
same sense that Novalis, or Jean Paul Richter, or
John Keats, were men of genius. His insight was a
slowly-acquired thing, not a veritable flash from the
spirit, such as gleams out of the dying eyes of poets
41 whom the gods love," or as lightens the strangely
divine face of the author of " Titan." He was a man
of high mettle, lively, animated, yet without any signs
of purely poetic temperament. He had little or no
humour of either sort Shakespeare's and Richter's
divine humour, or Fielding's and Moliere's earthly
humour. As a child, when he " reared an altar to the
Lord," on a music-stand of his father's, and burnt
thereon a pastil, as a sort of patriarchal sacrifice, he
was not only, as Mr. Hutton suggests, without "awe,"
he was instinctively theatrical, carried away by the
prettiness of the effect, but quite incapable of true
religious emotion. His oracular manners in child-
hood, which his mother has described to us, were no
signs of genius or of power; such manners, on the
contrary, are very usually found in artificial children,
who are pampered at home, and who shoot up into
most commonplace men and women. Providence,
however, had by no means arranged that Goethe
should grow up into a parson or a burgomaster, and
so, when her pet was about twelve years of age, she
sent a company of French players to perform at
Frankfort, and so arranged matters that the little
fellow had constant access behind the scenes. Here,
Mr. Hutton thinks,* the natural delicacy of his mind
was first rubbed off. "Certainly he was not too
* Essays, vol. i.
$6 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
young for that morbid curiosity about evil, which is
often more tainting than evil itself." But I am by
no means sure that mere curiosity of any kind is con-
taminating, and am inclined to believe that Goethe
got more moral harm in the front of the house than
in the green-room, and confirmed there the artificial
personal and moral manner, both of thought and ex-
pression, which was his characteristic through life.
Fit nutriment for " egoism " was to be found in the
theatre. The rest was decided by Gretchen, his first
boyish sweetheart. Then came the love affair at
Leipzig, then the tremendous business with Frederika ;
then this passion, then that; affinity following close
upon affinity, until Goethe was seventy years of age.
And only these affinities, as I have suggested, finally
manufactured Goethe into a fine literary genius.
The mystery of sex was at the bottom of it all.
Yes ; but I have scarcely spoken of that one
quality of Goethe's mind, which was so closely allied
to spiritual perception as scarcely to be separable from
it in his works I mean its marvellous steadfast-
ness in retaining, and clearness in receiving, impres-
sions of all sorts from the world without. Surely
this was genius; genius which, left to itself, would
almost under any circumstances have produced great
work ? Great, good, or useful work, probably might
have issued from Goethe's mind independent of the
disturbing element ; but without the very weakness
which disfigured the man, that mind would never
have planned high literature. Bad, wretched, and
contemptible as was Goethe's superficial habit of fall-
ing in love, it was the light, a real spiritual light,
temporarily illumining a mirror a mirror of won-
derful clearness and power, but lying so deep in the
nature that neither the white ray of faith, nor the
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 57
bright gleam of moral rapture, nor the soft corus-
cating radiance of human pity, nor the moonlight of
religious awe, could reach it at all. For nature,
Goethe had never the kindling enthusiasm and fervid
love of unsuccessful poets Shelley for example. Of
that deepest of all pathos, the pathos of human tics,
he never had any inspiration. He had a calm and
perfect perception of great literature, but masterly
work never mastered him. He believed in God,
chiefly as a useful and interesting " sentiment." But
of Nature, Humanity, Literature, and God, as seen in
the illumination of a new affinity, what man's soul
ever offered a better reflection ? His lyrics, his
11 Werther," his " Wilhelm Meister," his " Faust," all
are autobiographical ; in each we have the lover's
apotheosis into a bold literary form always a femi-
nine form ; and just, perhaps, for the reason that
women like to be preached to, especially by a
favourite of the other sex, and love to carry solemnity
into matters by no means solemn in themselves, did
Goethe gradually expand into the TITANIC TUTOR of
modern literature, strongly resembling the insufferable
person in " Sandford and Merton," who is for ever
"turning the occasion to advantage "in the way of
disquisitions on Providence, morality, life, death, and
the musical glasses. For the spell which holds all
criticism yet, and which makes us all, in spite of our-
selves, criticise as if we were born in professorial wigs
and had academic gowns for swathing-clothes, we are
thus indirectly indebted to Goethe's sweethearts to
Frederika, to Annchen, to Lili, and even to little
Bettina. Modern criticism thus arose, and has natu-
rally been so extremely merciful to its parent. If
Goethe had been discouraged a little oftener by his
favourites, we might not have got more, but we cer-
58 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
tainly should have been spared much. As it is, he
is ever resembling, even in his finest passages, the
"Bourgeois Gentilhomme" of Moliere, and talking
" prose " (for the world's edification) without know-
ing it.
The affair with Frederika may be described as the
decisive point in his career. Had he hesitated then,
and married the poor girl, his aphrodital impulses
might have exhausted themselves at the outset, and
we should never have had " Wilhelm Meister " and the
other cerebellic autobiographies. Frederika, as every
one is supposed to know, was the daughter of Pastor
Briou, who lived at Drusenheim, near Strasbourg,
and in whose little circle Goethe detected a strong
resemblance to the family of Dr. Primrose in the
"Vicar of Wakefield," a book which, at Herder's insti-
gation, he had just then been reading. His theatrical
instincts were clearly displayed in his connection with
this family. He first appeared in the character of a
poor student in theology ; then he " dressed up " as
the " innkeeper's boy ; " and finally he appeared as
Dr. Goethe himself. Be that as it may, the pastor's
youngest daughter, in whom he thought he saw a
resemblance to Goldsmith's Sophia, fell passionately
in love with him. Then ensued the same result as in
the case of Annchen, in Leipzig, with the exception
that in the first case his treatment had quite alienated
the lady. Directly he had won this poor girl's heart
Goethe began to repent, and the more her passion
deepened the more he drew back and trembled. It
was clear that he did not love her ; but it was also
clear that he had wilfully won her heart. He deter-
mined to say "good-bye," and he gives us quite a
pretty artistic picture of the " situation," which he,
with his everlasting double identity, seemed to enjoy
THE CHARACTER OF GO ETUI.. 59
as spectator as well as actor. It was quite an effec-
tive stage-parting 1 , quiet, but powerful. " I reached
her my hand from my horse ; the tears stood in her
eyes, and I felt very uneasy. yt Much as he fretted
over the injury he had done (for Goethe could never
bear to be troubled even with his own conscience, and
it reproached him often enough), he rejoices in his
triumph over his first inclination for the maiden, and
calculates with delight that, by stifling it thus early,
he prevented himself from losing " two years of his
time."
The first decided step was taken, as I have said,
and the preacher of the " Gospel of Economy/' as
Novalis calls it,* saved his soul for literature. This
was his first hardening. He was never after that
inclined to let his passion get the better of him, much
as he enjoyed the foam and fury of it, and its dainty
flavour. The usual criticism on the whole situation
is that Goethe was already resolved to make any
sacrifice in order to bear " higher the pyramid of his
existence." My own belief is that this pyramid-
building was an after-thought^ used by Goethe in
fighting with his own sense of moral littleness. The
simple truth, as I believe it to have been, is that
Goethe's conduct was far less owing to tremendous
calculations of self-culture than to simple want of
earnestness in any of the concerns of life, added to a
tremendous aesthetic horror of that most unpicturesquc
of all things matrimony, as practised in modern
Germany. Throughout his whole career he never
allowed any one feeling to strike deep root. He care-
fully watered his sentiments, trained his virtues (such
* See " Aesthetik und Literatur," p. 183, vol. i. of Tieck and
Schlegel's edition of Novalis.
60 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
as they were), daintily enjoyed his tastes made, in
fact, a sort of back-garden of his affections, whither
he could retire without any danger of being bored by
the world, and where all was fine weather and perfect
shade. He had celebrated his affair with Annchen
in "Die Launedes Verliebten," where he is personified
under the affected title of Eridon, and he adopted a
similar theatrical attitude after the Frederika episode,
took Nature into his confidence, and wrote, besides
many less affected lyrics, the wild "Wanderers
Sturmlied," of which the two marked characteristics
are inordinate self-satisfaction, and utterly heathen
affectation :
Wen dunicht verlassest, Genius,
Nicht der Regen, nicht der Sturm
Haucht ihm Schauer iiber's Herz.
Wen du nicht verlassest, Genius,
Wird die Regengewolk,
Wird dem Schlossensturm
Entgegen singen,
Wie die Lerche,
Du da droben !
And so on, with a great deal of Goethe, Anacreon,
Theocritus, and Jupiter Pluvius, with plenty of writing
which shows the animal spirits and conceit of a very
young man anxious to vindicate bad conduct on the
plea of genius, but not one note of genuine feeling
throughout, or even a word indicative of conscious
"pyramid-building." Nor is there much feeling in
the " Farewell," * supposed to be written about the
same time. The fact is, Goethe's very liquid feelings
ran always readily into the lyrical glass, and sparkled
* These musical verses are to be found among Goethe's
lyrics, and begin :
Let mine eyes the farewell utter
Which my lips attempt in vain ! etc.
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 61
there, with ever so light an inspiration. However,
he had decided for himself against Frederika and
matrimony. The poor clergyman's daughter's real
rivals were Clara, Gretchen, Adelaide, Mignon, and
the rest of that shadowy troop already existing in
embryo. From first to last he hated everything
unpicturesque and slovenly, and he knew well, and
ever remembered with quite a comical horror, how
matrimony takes the bloom even off the freshest cheek,
destroys the charming mystery which surrounds a
woman as with angelic drapery, and renders even
passion tawdry with repeated indulgence. More than
most men he loved to sip his honey, and pass on.
Cordially would he have enjoyed the criticisms of
Balzac on married people, apropos of the nuptial life
of Madame and Monsieur Jules : " A 1'amour d'un
mari qui bailie, se presente alors une femme vraie, qui
bailie aussi, qui vient dans un desordre sans elegance,
coiffee de nuit avec un bonnet fripe, celui de la veille,
celui du lendemain/ 7 * etc.; for he had Balzac's own
love of mysterious elegance and rose-coloured light.
When he describes Wilhelm Meister's feelings of
lurking dissatisfaction at the personal untidiness of
Mariana, whose bower of bliss was adorned with
" articles appropriated to personal cleanliness
combs, soap, and towels," and " with water and flowers,
needle-cases, hair pins, rouge pots, and ribbons," and
when he describes how at one time she would " put
aside her boddice that he might approach the piano,"
and at another, " place her gown on the bed, that he
might provide himself with a chair," Goethe himself,
in all these details, is evincing his own morbid horror
of the revelations of domesticity. He loved pretty
* " Histoire des Treize."
62 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
women and light women he would even go to the
length of temporarily adoring them to distraction
but his appetite was satisfied with sipping, and he
never seemed to desire, like rasher lovers, for full
possession. Marriage thus repelled him on the
aesthetic side, and we scarcely wonder, seeing what
sort of wives would have been made of any of these
women typified in his heroines. Fancy Goethe
wedded to Mariana, or to Ottilie, or even to Mignon !
He had far too curious and fastidious an eye. He
would have wearied of Lili's liveliness, and sickened
of Frederika's sentiment. Then again he had ascer-
tained at a preternaturally early age (and this, by the
way, is a fact so unusual and strangely unnatural,
that it looks not only like genius, but diablerie), that
every additional human tie, however delightful in the
forming, is a source of anxiety and irritation. He
feared responsibility, not because he lacked strength,
but because he was a moral coward. He had a
morbid horror of anything which disturbed his
equanimity. By what series of bunglings and con-
fusions he resigned himself at last, after full fruition,
into the arms of Christiane Vulpius, is a mystery to
this hour.
Being naturally of Brother Noyes' way of think-
ing, and altogether holding that man cannot " exhaust
his power of loving in one honeymoon,"* he soon
steeled his heart sufficiently to get the very largest
amount of pleasure out of the least possible amount
of responsibility. He did not often insist on fruition
indeed, he avoided it as dangerous ; and he enjoyed
a love affair on paper with a woman he never saw,
quite as much as his flirtations with fair creatures in
* " Modern Socialism."
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 63
the flesh videlicet his Wertherian epistles to the
young Countess von Stolberg.
If we are to trust his own account in the " Wahrhcit
und Dichtung," he really did love Lili. He describe-
her as his "first real love, and probably his last, for
he was afterwards a stranger to such raptures as he
then knew." This young lady was Friiulein Anna
Elizabeth Schonemann, daughter of a fashionable
widow in Frankfort, a lady who received a great deal
of society, and was supposed to occupy a far higher
sphere than Goethe, although he had then an enor-
mous reputation as the author of " Gotz von Ber-
lichingcn " and the " Sorrows of Young Werther."
After a great deal of trouble, owing to the social
pride of the Schonemann family, Goethe was be-
trothed to Lili ; but he appears to have been much
frightened by the warnings of Lili's married sister,
who predicted all sorts of wretchedness, and, indeed,
gave the young lovers clearly to understand, on the
score of her own enormous experience, that wedlock
was a mistake ! All Goethe's old scruples and terrors
of responsibility arose, and he behaved like a verit-
able coward. " First real love " sounds comically in
connection with his own narrative. The excitable young
gentleman who had composed fiery " Sturmlieder,"
and was the author of all the frothy sentimentalism
and Wertherism of the period, was of so unromantic
a disposition as to shrink with horror when Lili pro-
posed that he should fly in her company to America.
Instead of doing anything so desperate, he adopted
the remedy he had discovered in poor Frederika's
case, and withdrew from the scene of his attachment,
accompanying the Counts Stolberg to Switzerland, in
order to break off the engagement. \Yhile en route,
on the margin of the lake of Zurich, he composed the
64 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
beautiful lines entitled, "Auf dem See." Hutton's
version of this poem is so lovely that I cannot
neglect the opportunity of transcribing it here, ex-
pressing at the same time a hope that the translator
will some day gather together his incidental transla-
tions from Goethe and Heine, since they are beyond
all comparison faithfuller and finer than any others
with which I am acquainted :
I draw new milk of life, fresh blood,
From the free universe ;
Ah, Nature, it is all too good,
Upon thy breast, kind nurse !
Waves rock our boat in equal time
With the clear splashing oar,
And cloudy Alps with head sublime
Confront us from the shore.
Eyes, have ye forgot your yearning ?
Golden dreams, are ye returning ?
Gold as ye are, oh, stay above !
Here, too, is life here, too, is love.
Host of stars are blinking
In the lake's crystal cup,
Flowing mists are drinking
The tow'ring distance up.
Morning winds are skimming
Round the deep-shadow'd bay,
In its clear mirror swimming
The ripening harvests play.
Dainty as this poem is, it contains nothing indica-
tive of special emotion ; it is one of those masterly
pictures in which Goethe excelled, and which he most
excelled in when perfectly tranquil. " I allow objects,"
he used to say, " to impress themselves peacefully
upon me ; afterwards I observe the impression, and
endeavour to reproduce it faithfully ; in this lies the
secret of what men are accustomed to call the gift of
genius." Judging from all the poems supposed to be
addressed to Lili, I should conceive his passion
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 6$
never mastered him ; they are very lovely and very
calm, full of nice pictures of that " Love in a cottage "
which the writer dreaded so much in reality. The
lines called " Neue Liebe, neues Leben," bear the
very slightest traces of excitement, and are for that
reason inferior ; but nothing can excel the calm and
gentle beauty of such poems as the " Wanderer,"
written and published in the Gottingen MUSCH
Almanack, and expressive of his "sorrow" on leaving
Frederika. Just after he had cast aside the gentle
girl because he was morbidly afraid of marrying her,
he could exclaim passionately in the person of the
"Wanderer":
Farewell !
O Nature, guide my steps !
Oh, guide the wanderer
While over sepulchres
Of holy bygone times
He passes !
Guide him to shelter,
Screened from the North,
And where the sunlight falls,
Subdued through poplar trees.
And when I couic,
At evening, home
To my cottage.
Made golden by the sun's last rays,
Let me embrace a wife like this,
Her infant in her arms*
The poems to Lili are occupied with similar senti-
ments. Of the two sets of lyrics, those occasioned
by Frederika are the most passionate, take the " \Yil-
kommen und Abschied " as an example ; but both break
into false notes wherever the real language of fervid
love is to be imitated. Goethe exhausted his true
enthusiasm very early, quite as early as Wilhelm
* Goethe's " Gedichte," vol. n. p. 129 (Kunst).
F
66 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Meister exhausted his, and possibly through a similar
circumstance. However, after parting with Lili, and
flying to Switzerland, he got no further than the top
of Mount St. Gothard, where he suddenly became
home-sick. He returned to Frankfort, was forgiven
by Lili at once, and seemed about to resign himself
to matrimony, when suddenly the old nervous dread
came back upon him, and, coupled with the want of
enthusiasm on the part of the Schonemann family
(who appear to have been quite as inaccessible and
high-minded as the " family" of Mrs. Micawber),
made him slowly but surely attempt to escape. The
engagement was broken off, and, instead of enjoying
the honeymoon, Goethe began to write " Egmont."
It would be scarcely worth while to recapitulate
these very tawdry love affairs, if my object was
merely to repeat the old savage charges against
Goethe ; but my object is far different. It seems,
nevertheless, inconsistent on the part of Goethe's
admirers to defend his conduct for one moment, save
on the score that no other sort of conduct could pos-
sibly have preceded the composition of his great
works. If his life was necessary to his works, well
and good ; only eulogise the works, and admit that
his life was bad. So far from being a creature of
inexorable will and tremendous perseverance, Goethe
was about the most plastic piece of clay that ever
came out in the rough shape from Nature's manu-
factory. His power was the passive power of allow-
ing the world to work upon him, and in him, and out
of him, pretty well as it pleased. Susceptible to
every impression, he was specially possessed by
none. No better illustration of this truth could be
found than the episode with Lili. He raves and
sings of "love in a cottage," yet he has a morbid
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 67
dread of living with his wife in her father's comfortable
house. He enjoys Lili's society tremendously, while-
he is in it. He goes to Switzerland, and Nature
almost obliterates love, until suddenly, in the Mount
St. Gothard, a furious impulse induces him to return
home. He hies home to Frankfort, is welcomed
passionately, and immediately his mind is driven back
into doubt by Lili's relations. Goethe took the im-
pression of the moment like wax, and kept it till
another impression obliterated it ; and it was this
very liability to many influences that constituted his
strength against each influence in particular.
Wax is wax, clay is clay; and Goethe's mind
was composed of this, not of marble. He had mighty
perseverance in moving from one emotion to
another. The same character is illustrated in his
literary productions and studies. Their variety was
caused by Goethe's eternal vigilance in changing his
objects of sympathy, in order that none might grow
stale and wearisome. His powers of concentration
were so fleeting that he never could manufacture a
connected plot or write a dramatic whole, and that it
took him a lifetime to patch "Faust" into a great
poem. He wandered from one idea to another, from
this subject to that, as the slow wind travels over a
plain in summer. He was subject to false enthusiasm
of Wertherism, of" Sturmliedism," of medievalism,
of classicism; but all these moods were trivial while
they lasted, and brief in duration.
His belief in Art was the nearest approach to a
belief that ever lingered with him long ; yet even
about Art he was sceptical ; he never loved it as it
was loved by the weather-beaten, ethical, scrap-of-
knowledge-crammed soul of Schiller. He went on
and on, and up and up, chiefly because the wave of
F 2
68 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the world floated him up and on. By just a slight
change of circumstances we can conceive him desert-
ing literature altogether. He would have made an
excellent business man, a first-class artist, a tolerable
parson, a successful actor, or a good dancing-master.
In either of these professions he would have found
a certain play for his flexible genius, and would
have succeeded in adapting himself to circumstances.
It was, however, specially arranged by that Pro-
vidence which had charge of him, that he should go
to Weimar, on the invitation of the young Duke ;
and go he did, at twenty-seven years of age, and re-
mained there, more or less, for the rest of his days.
We know a little, but not much, of his life there ; he
would never publish a description of it, but to all
requests that he would do so, replied, " The world
may know what I have been, and what I have done,
but how it fared with the man Goethe individually,
will ever remain my secret." Far better that it should
remain a secret, if, as I surmise, its "tranquil hap-
piness " was a mere succession of selfish indulgences
and aesthetic ponderings. We all know what the life
of Weimar was how, as Schiller said, every woman
had had a liaison, and how the young Duke's madcap
freaks alarmed even Goethe, who liked to enjoy his
wickedness quietly, and never frothed his champagne
in the pouring out. In his conversations with Ecker-
mann, the German Boswell, he confessed that he
indulged in many love-affairs during his first years
at Weimar. Lionised by all, treated as a veritable
prince, he had secured the summit of his personal
ambition. Henceforth all ran smoothly with him.
He had fashioned his heart to supreme polish, so that
it reflected all things perfectly, as on a mirror of
burnished steel. Few scruples were likely to trouble
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 69
him now. He was beyond the reach of annoyance
from any future Frederika or Lili. The " pyramid of
his existence" now occupied his entire attention,
and kept him busy till the day of his death, when, in
spite of all his pains, it tumbled into pieces like a
house of cards.
II.
GOETHE'S TORYISM.
" THE cultivation of my own mind," writes Wilhelm
Meister to Werner, " has been secretly, from youth
upwards, my wish and my design. This purpose
still possesses me ; and the means of compassing it
are constantly growing more definite. I have seen
more of the world than you believe, and have profited
by it more than you think. Therefore, take some
notice of my words, though they may not quite chime
in with your way of thinking. If I were a Nobleman,
then would our dispute be at once over ; but since I
am a Citizen only, I must go my own way, and I
only hope that you will comprehend me. I know
not how it may be in foreign lands, but in Germany a
truly liberal, and, if I may so express it, personal y
education is possible to a Nobleman only. A Citizen
can become distinguished, and, with tremendous
labour, cultivate his mind (Geist) ; but his personality
is lost to him, do what he may. Since the Nobleman,
by constant association with the well-born, necessarily
cultivates a well-born manner ; which manner of his,
seeing no door is shut against him, becomes perfectly
70 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
natural, and since his figure and his person are valued
alike in court and in camp, he naturally learns to
think something of himself, and to show that he
thinks something of himself. A certain stately grace
in performing trifles, and a certain easy eloquence In
grave and weighty matters, clothe him well, because
he ever lets the world feel that he is thoroughly at
ease. He is a public character, and the more culti-
vated his movements, the more sonorous his voice,
the more grave and reserved his whole manners, the
more consummate he becomes. He may be cold, but
he is sagacious ; he may be cautious, but he is wise."*
And Wilhelm, with that stupendous high-pressure
tutorial power which so distinguishes him, goes on to
argue that being, unhappily, only a citizen, he has no
course open to him consistent with what he calls " the
harmonious cultivation of his nature " but to go upon
the stage ! Into these further considerations I cannot
follow him ; but is it not clear that the above pas-
sage contains, as in a nut-shell, pretty much Goethe's
own way of thinking on the subject of which he is
treating ?
He was a Tory by temperament, by intellect, by
culture, by all save birth ; a man who conceived him-
self born in a higher and calmer sphere than that of
his fellows, and who resented any disturbance of that
sphere as a very odious piece of rudeness and vio-
lence, to be serenely "put down." The harmonious
culture of his nature, on the most aristocratic prin-
ciples, was the sole aim of his life, the sole subject
of his literature. He was never a vain man, in the
sense of being hungry for popular applause ; so far
from that, he walked far over the heads of the multi-
* Wilhelm Meister's " Lehrjahre," vol. II. chap. iii.
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 71
tude, smiled at their criticism, and took their
homage as very interesting and very natural in in-
ferior beings ; but the man Goethe, the princely
creature who walked in the gardens of Weimar, was
to him a far more interesting subject than any of his
works. He was for ever posing before the intel-
lectual mirror, with a view to the improvement of his
personality. For rank of all sorts he had the
highest reverence, and no passages in his writings
are more nauseous than those exhibiting his aristo-
cratic predilections.
His manner as a literary Jupiter became, by dili-
gent cultivation, truly great, though verging on
pomposity. Here, as elsewhere, in his life as in his
works, the tiniest pinch of Shakespearian humour
would have made him a nobler figure and a mightier
poet If he had but once got a peep at himself from
the truly divine point of view, that of human Comedy,
he might have been saved. But he was incapable
of true humour. As a play-writer he wrote tra-
gedies and farces ; never comedies. There is the
very tiniest gleam of the true light in the little
passage in his Autobiography where he speaks of the
stars which presided over his nativity, but even this
dies away in a pompous smile ; he was not altogether
sure but that Jupiter and Venus, or the principles
those planets represented, had something to do with
the matter ! Yet Goethe, building up his pyramid,
was a sight to make Shakespeare smile and angels
weep.
Forsaking the bourgeoisie for ever, he became a
member of the society at Weimar, selling his birth-
right of genius for a place at the Duke's table and a
share of the Duke's pleasures. He speedily completed
his aristocratic vocation, and became a veritable
72 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Petronius Arbiter Goethe, tutor and master of the
Revels. In course of time, his naturally theatrical
nature had finally decided on the part he was to play
for the remainder of his life that of Literary Prince
and when he was ennobled, in 1782, he was already
the living mirror of dilettante aristocracy.
It seems to me quite confusing confusion to at-
tempt, as all Goethe's apologists attempt, and as even
Mr. Hutton, otherwise unsympathetic, is led to at-
tempt, to divide Goethe's character into fragments
to say, for example, that he had the pride of power,
but not the pride of ostentation, and that he was
generous outside the sacrifice of his own individuality.
A man's nature is a man's nature, and cannot in any
possible critical crucible be transformed into an-
other metal. Goethe, like all other selfish men, was
generous in everything which caused him no serious
personal sacrifice; he could give away money liberally,
for example, and he was seldom jealous of contempo-
raries. He had a heart easily moved by suffering of
any sort ; so easily moved that he steeled himself
carefully from the contemplation of all human pain,
and gradually, I believe, conquered his natural
sensitiveness altogether. He was, in plain words, by
nature and by habit, a Pagan, the creator of modern
Paganism. So far as he was concerned, the leading
lesson of Christianity that sacrifice for others is a
bliss in itself, and the noblest of all human ends
might never have been taught at all.
To all these charges, of course, there is a ready
and a trenchant answer a silent reference to Goethe's
great services to humanity as a literary creator; and
although this answer has been used so often, it will
be used again and again. And naturally Humanity
is grateful. But, setting altogether aside, in the
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 73
meantime, that other argument, tremendous in its
strength, of Goethe's literary offences against Humanity
of the pernicious influence, as one may think, of the
whole Goethe-system of literature and aesthetics let
us ask ourselves whether Goethe did actually sacrifice
honestly to Art, and whether, if he had been less of a
courtier, if he had blurred the mirror of his mind less
by over-polish, he might not have produced far higher
literary work, and lived an infinitely nobler life. Here,
again, I am compelled to revert to my former defi-
nition, and remind the reader that Goethe's nature
was a plastic and a theatrical nature, almost always
attitudinising to receive the new impressions. Natu-
rally ready to take one impression after another, he
was suffered to harden in the bad atmosphere of
Weimar until his temporary aristocratic impressions
became fixed for life. He isolated himself thence-
forward, and the world scarcely reached him else
I can conceive his views indefinitely widening. Note
how instantaneously, when he ran into Italy out of
Weimar, and beheld the great monuments of antiquity,
he changed all his ideas of Art, cast off his Medi-
aevalism in one moment, and embraced Classicism.
" I perceive," he wrote, " after many years, that I am
like an architect who endeavours to rear a structure
on a bad foundation." Indefatigable in fashioning
his thought into form, he wrote his " Iphigenia."
Yet this, indeed, was not increasing width of view ;
it was rather the cat-like faculty of contracting the
eye-ball to gain a more microscopic power of vision.
From Wertherism to classicism was a step in literature,
perhaps a step higher, but certainly not a step broader ;
and there is far more genius in " Gotz," with all its
disjointedness, than in the statuesque and almost life-
less imitation of Greek tragedy. What Goethe wanted
74 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
was not the classicism of Italy, nor the medievalism
of Germany ; it was something far more startling and
chaotic the daimonic Liberalism of the French Revo-
lution. This might have possessed him, had he ever
come truly under its influence ; and, had it done so,
it would at least have blown his Toryism to the
winds, and enabled his soul not only to feel for
humanity, as he often was capable of doing, but to
feel with it, as he never did till the day of his death !
He had no decided political views, but on the whole
inclined to believe in Despotism, beneficent Despotism
of his own sort, embellished with all the graces of life,
and diligently fostering the Arts. The great wail of
the world would never reach his ear. His ear, like
his eye, was microscopic; he saw nothing en masse;
he heard no large volumes of sound. Minister of Art
and Science at Weimar, Governor of the Institute,
the Library, and the Botanical Garden, what had he
to do with Revolutions, save only the revolution of
the world on its axis and the revolution of fair faces
round his own soul ? Politics was a disturbing ele-
ment, and he waved it aside. " Weak men," he said,.
" have often revolutionary ideas ; they fancy they
would be better off ungoverned, and never feel that
they are incapable of governing themselves ; " and,
again, "All men, on attaining liberty, exaggerate
their weaknesses the strong become savage, the
weak cowardly." To him, authority was in itself
beauty, order of any kind almost sacred. In child-
hood ;his hero had been Frederick the Great the
immortal Fritz but in later years, when he was
frozen to dilettanteism, force of any kind repelled him.
When Madame de Staiil spoke to him of the treason
of Moreau, he hurriedly requested her to change the
subject, and talk about something more pleasant-
THE CHARACTER OF GOET1IK. 75
" You young people/' he observed, " recover quickly
when a tragic explosion has filled you with momentary
terror ; but we old fellows are right to protect our-
selves from impressions which affect us powerfully,
and only interfere with the even tenor of our activity."
On another occasion, he wrote in his correspondence :
" It matters little in what degree a noble man finds
himself, as long as he understands it exactly, and
knows how to fill it. All precipitation is fatal ; I
don't see that we have ever gained anything by leap-
ing over the barriers of degree, and yet nowadays all
is precipitation ; everybody seems trying to perform
only somersaults. Do your best in your place, without
troubling yourself about the confusion which, near or
far, only wastes time in a deplorable way." This
is teaching, unfortunately, very familiar to modern
readers, from the savage pessimism of Mr. Carlyle,
the sweetness and light of Mr. Arnold, and the
aesthetics of Mr. Ruskin ; and it has a certain founda-
tion in common sense, in so far as mere frothy agita-
tion is useless and disturbing, and as every man should
cultivate his own nature as diligently as he can. But
Goethe forgot, and Goethe's disciples forgot, that the
world would have made small progress indeed if all
men had been of their way of thinking. They assume
that all men are students, or ought to be ; whereas
the curse of modern civilisation is the growth of the
purely Student-class, which threatens, with its isolated
Toryism, its narrowness of critical criterion, its in-
difference to complex human ties, to become as huge
an ulcer on the mind of humanity as the Priesthood
has ever been. Goethe never went very deep in his
criterion of beauty ; he was far too " economical " of
his thought. As a man he was characterised by false
enthusiasm for forms of life, particularly in their most
76 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
superficial aspects ; but he never penetrated no micro-
scope can ever penetrate to the lovely significance
cf all life.
His pictures of ordinary humanity are full of false
touches e.g. how theatrical is the attitudinising of
every character in " Hermann and Dorothea!" Here
is a true genre-picture ; but the pose, though natural, is
thoroughly a pose. During that memorable picnic,which
is interrupted by the appearance of the robbers, who
seriously wound Wilhelm, and awaken the reader's
eager hope that they have silenced the Bore for ever,
how instantly does Wilhelm Meister seize on the
theatrical side of the situation and " imagine" himself
and his companions a wild company of wanderers
with (of course !) himself for their leader. " With
this feeling he addressed each member of the party,
and coloured the momentary fancy as poetically as
he could." * Goethe, like Wilhelm, was ever " imagin-
ing himself" some one else ; but he never went pro-
foundly into that some " one's " nature. What struck
him in life was not its pathos and piteousness, not its
subtle means of happiness, not its solemnity, not,
indeed, its higher beauty ; he was fascinated by its
picturesqtieness ; and we, too, in our turn, so long as
we are reading Goethe, share this fascination. Goethe
has been called a great philosopher : and so he may
be, if a philosopher can be called great who judges
the world only by the aesthetic criterion. I rather
prefer to believe that Goethe was the greatest Stage-
Manager of the literary sort that ever lived ; a man
whose worldly knowledge was wonderful, whose
sagacity was endless, whose power of taking pains
has scarcely ever been equalled, but whose chief claim
* Vol. I. book iv. chap. v.
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 77
to distinction was his power of grouping his company
of performers and economising, as Novalis would say,
the resources of his establishment. His philosophy is a
philosophy of the theatre, his ethics are the ethics of
the picturesque,his religion is the religion of the denoue-
ment. With all his wondrous resources he never quite
completes the illusion of the spectator. We are for ever
reminded that the exquisite scenery is only painted,
that the characters who utter the most moral plati-
tudes may be the most immoral and unpleasant
people in reality, and that a great deal is being
sacrificed to the demands of the " situation/' There
is no chaos, of course ; everything is " rehearsed " to
perfection ; we, nevertheless, grow weary of the
elaborate completeness of every detail, of the " so
romantic " tone of the leading performers, and we
acquire a certain suspicion that even the actresses
who fascinate us most are only actresses Philinas
playing tender parts and careful to conceal their
mischievousness. It is fine art, and good art; but it
is Art only. We long once again to meet with
characters whose life is " being," and not " seeming,"
and who are less conscious of the effectiveness of
their parts and attitudes. Goethe is to Shakespeare
what Goethe is to Nature ; and against Goethe,
Nature or Shakespeare is the only antidote. How
fresh blows the summer wind of As You Like It,
after the close " hot-house " air of Egmont and Tasso!
How gladly does not one escape from Faust to
Hamlet, from Mephistopheles to Falstaff, from Philina
and even Mignon to Rosalind and Cordelia !
This, however, is anticipating. My present object
is simply to suggest that Goethe was far too closely
closeted in his Weimar days to be affected by the
shock of the volcano which was shaking all Europe.
78 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
The Revolution impressed him as a horrible tempest
from which it was his first concern to screen himself
entirely. He would as soon have thought it his duty
to go to sea in a storm and be thoroughly sea-sick
as to venture into the wild ocean of contemporary
politics, and lose one day of his precious time in
rocking up and down on the billows. Yet I doubt
not that the change, though unpleasant, would have
done him good in the end. It never struck him that
his conduct was selfish, any more than it might occur
to a seaman that stopping in harbour in windy
weather was selfish. His business in life, as he con-
ceived, was to compose pictures, and the elements
then disturbing the world were too chaotic to supply
him with any material. He embodied his first feelings
concerning the Revolution in a play, the Great
Cophta* and then quietly turned to other matters.
His general feelings concerning the revolutionists of
the period are best expressed in the course of the
Intermezzo of Faust, where the "Massive Ones"
come stamping down everything, and are sharply
rebuked by Puck :
Die Massivcn. Platz und Platz ; und ringsherum !
So gehn die Graschen nieder.
Geister kommen, Geister auch,
Sie haben plumpe Glieder.
Puck. Tretet nicht so mastig auf,
Wie Elephantenkalber !
Und der Plumpst' an diesem Tag
Sey Puck, der derbe, selber.
At all events, Goethe would not permit the "young
elephants " to dance in his garden. When the
* Founded on the tale of " Cagliostro and the Diamond
Necklace." Goethe, when at Italy, took the pains to visit the
parents of Cagliostro, and to interrogate them in his own quiet,
searching way.
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 79
Revolution broke out in all its fury, he was far too
busy with the management of the Weimar theatre
to have much time to spare for politics. In 1792,
however, when the Prussians began their wretched
invasion of France, the Duke of Saxe Weimar
accompanied them, and was followed by his privy
counsellor. Goethe has left an account of the cam-
paign. He appears to have been busily engaged,
during all the horrors of the war, in elaborating his
prismatic theory of colours, and paying far less atten-
tion to the signs of the times than to the " Physics"
of Fischer. Pursued from place to place by the
"plague of microscopes," as Emerson calls it, he
was not likely to take a bird's-eye view of the vast
plain of Europe, then the scene of the direst calamity
and mightiest commotion. Not that he was blind
to the horrors of war ; he was far too easily moved
for that ; and no man has photographed better than
he the sorrowful details of War, bit by bit, figure by
figure. In his own calm way, too, like all close-
seeing men, he deplored its waste and worthlessness.
But the idea of a Great War, such as Fichte put
before the students of Berlin, was beyond his sym-
pathy ; it seemed to him like the horrible Earth-
Geist conjured up by Faust formless, hideous,
awakening only terror; and, as a titanic Tory,
engaged constantly in detaching the discordant ele-
ments from his own soul, he believed that men would
do better to occupy themselves in a similar manner,
and to weed their natures of false growths of cen-
turies of ignorance, than to shatter the thrones of
Europe, and imperil the entire fabric of things. He
quite forgot, and wilfully forgot for no man was
better capable of a scientific estimate of Revolu-
tion than Goethe that this detaching of discordant
8o A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
elements and weeding out of false growths is only
possible after a people or an individual has gone
through the preliminary stage of tremendous emo-
tional agitation ; after, in fact, the whole soil has been
loosened by the shock of moral earthquake. The
days when Goethe loved not wisely, but too well,
when he was passing from puberty into Wertherism,
and lived a life wherein passion was scarcely distin-
guishable from affectation the days when the author
of "Werther" swaggered into salons clinking his
spurs and carrying his riding-whip in his hand, and
wearing his green jerkin buttoned up to the throat
the days of dissipation, folly, affectation, excitement
these were not the days of pyramid-building,
weeding, and detaching, but they prepared his some-
what over-burthened nature for what was to come.
Goethe, having once emerged from a crisis, had no
mercy for it afterwards. It was not quite true, though
he said it, that Anarchy had always been more hate-
ful to him than "even Death." He said so when he
had imbibed into his soul the social atmosphere of
Weimar, when he had Tasso in his mind, and when
he was standing amazed, so to speak, before the
ancient art of Italy. He had never been constantly
a " Massive One ; " all his parts were chosen for their
theatrical effect, and that part did not tempt him ;
but he had been an "Elephant Calf" for all that,
and had trampled down everything in his way quite
in the revolutionary spirit. When the social crash
came he was beyond its reach, so he heard it com-
paratively unmoved.
Morally speaking, Goethe was by this time in-
curable. The habit of " preferences " for women had
become his sole inspiration, without which his faculty
would scarcely act at all. Never did Fichte, in his
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. Si
glorious Transcendental scheme, make a greater
blunder than when he exclaimed that " the One
Eternal Idea assumes a new and hitherto unknown
form in each individual in whom it comes to life, and
this by its own power and under its own legislation,
and quite independently of physical nature ; conse-
quently in no way determined thereto by sensuous
individuality ; but, on the contrary, abolishing such
individuality altogether, and of itself alone moulding
the ideal individuality, or, as it may more properly be
called, originality." Goethe's life alone is enough to
upset the entire theory. Without preliminary sensuous
agitation, the One Eternal Idea seemed to have no
legislation over him at all, and his Soul was entirely
at the mercy of his physical nature. In his case, as
in that of Rousseau, Science alone could have ex-
plained the secret of his genius, if Science had been
sufficiently advanced to explain sensuous cerebellic
action, and consequent cerebral activity. God could
not move Goethe, nor could Nature, nor revolution,
nor aspiration, nor intellectual love. None of these
could directly move him ; but put him in the society
of a fair woman of the Fraulein Stein, of Fraulein
Schonemann, of Frederika Briou ; titillate him ever
so slightly by sensuous means and Goethe moved at
once, expanded, soared, found a thousand ways of
expending his activity on the world at large. In so
far as this activity broke forth sensually, it impaired,
paralysed, and limited his mental activity; but where
it excited without fruition, where the homunculus, so
to speak, agitated the back part of the brain, and the
back part of the brain in its turn moved the mighty
cerebral mass behind what the hero-worshippers
called "that impassive Jupiter-like brow" this
activity so engendered took an absolute form, begot
82 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
issue as thoroughly in the way of nature as if the
actual body had performed its part and directly
engendered offspring. To think what puppets we
are, and what a slender string it is that moves the
mightiest of us ! Out of the total virility of that
wonderful mechanism called Goethe, not merely out
of Goethe's brain, were born Mignon, and Faust, and
Clarchen, and Lothario, all the troop of intellectual
offspring, good, bad, and indifferent, just as certainly
as was born Goethe's only son in the flesh by
Christiane Vulpius. This is not so trifling or so
obvious a fact as it seems, and it will have to be
borne specially in mind by all who would estimate
the true nature, extent, and operation of this man's
genius.
But to form a Revolutionist out of an individuality
like this was obviously out of the question. His
Toryism was the direct consequence of his mode of
intellectual action. He needed a minute influence,
such as can be exerted by woman only, and only by
women under the most favourable circumstances ;
not a massive or turbulent influence, which would
quite have destroyed the true source of his strength
that of conceiving calmly, and tranquilly shaping his
conceptions into endless forms of positive creation.
This, and not coldness of heart, is the true secret of
Goethe's eternal Toryism.
THE CHARACTER OE GOETHE. 83
III.
SOURCES OF AGITATION.
ROUSSEAU'S seed had borne its fruit at last ; and
men, in France at least, had gone back to the state of
nature, only taking with them, unfortunately, all the
passions and all the follies which had been accumu-
lated for them through centuries of unnatural civilisa-
tion. A million nameless voices had raved, a hundred
famous voices had spoken. Every king in Europe
was shaking in his throne ; and a cloud, no bigger
than the prophet's hand, was threatening even the
Czar. The seed which, under Washington's care,
had sprung to fiery flower, had been brought from
America by Lafayette ; in one night (so to speak) it
had overshadowed France, and its leaves were falling
as red as blood on the banks of the Rhine. Contem-
porary with the discovery that all monarchs were
shams, that most institutions were abominable, that
the priesthood were the instruments of a vile and
degrading superstition, had arisen the philosophical
formula that the whole theory of the world is
exhausted in personal existence, that experience is
the only criterion of knowledge, and that religious
faith is a false thing, because it is reducible to no
experience whatever.* Fichte, from the professorial
chair, defined his age as "the third epoch in the
history of the world, the epoch of liberation, directly
from the external ruling authority, indirectly from the
power of reason or instinct, and generally from reason
* We get the old dish stewed up nowadays piping hot, as
if quite novel ; but it is only the " hash " of yesterday's idea.
G 2
84 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
in any form :" the epoch, in other words, of absolute
indifference to all truth, and of entire and unrestrained
licentiousness ; the epoch, in short, as Transcenden-
talism called it, of " completed sinfulness."
Almost contemporaneously had Philosophy been
revolutionised, and the seed of Locke had sprung into
a plant of gigantic dimensions and double nature.
In France, the school of Condillac had apotheosized
Locke's criterion of Sensation, and had wandered to
the very confines of despair through Materialism to
the glorification of physical science only, and thence
to the open denial of the existence of the Deity ;
while in England, on the other hand, Berkeley's amaz-
ing genius, by simply turning the doctrine of experi-
ence inside out, had resolved all experience into mere
Idealism, a form of procedure which Hume, in the
notorious " Essay on Human Nature," revenged by
applying Berkeley's method of analysis to Berkeley's
ideal phenomena, and cunningly establishing that
thought, reflection, consciousness, being no more than
the fleeting fabric of a vision, that higher life of man,
which we call Religion, had not the faintest plea for
existence. When the so-called Scotch school had
contributed their quota of "common sense" philo-
sophy, Kant arose in Germany with his gigantic
system of " Categories," building up the system which
iMchte was to complete, and which may be said to
have revolutionised the whole theory of human
responsibility.
Both these great waves of progress the wave of
political reorganisation, and the wave of philosophical
ulation passed by Goethe without seriously
affecting his development, unless as sources of dis-
turbance and agitation, varying more or less the first
business of his life. We have seen how he withdrew
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 85
himself as much as possible from the noise of the
Revolution, and how throughout his career he felt a
certain repugnance for all sorts of violent political
action. " We are justly told," he once said to
Eckermann, " that the cultivation in common of
human capacities is desirable, and also the most im-
portant of aims. But man was not born for that ;
properly, each one must develop himself as a particular
individual, but also endeavour to gain an apprehen-
sion of what all are collectively." It was precisely
this idea of collective Humanity, and of the aims
which all human beings have in common, that Goethe
was all his life losing sight of more or less, not with-
out injury to his moral nature. But of a narrower
human sentiment, that of mere nationality^ which we
men of the latter half of the nineteenth century have
seen apotheosized as perfectly unselfish, although it
obliterates the highest political thought of all of
this lower sentiment Goethe was quite capable
capable, that is to say, of party Deutschthum, or
Germanism, which Frederick the Great had begun,
which Lessing and Klopstock in the higher literature,
Stein in politics, Arndt in poetry, and Jahn in prac-
tical life, were creating, fostering, and magnifying,
and which Goethe therefore, in a half serious, half
comic manner, distinctly stamped with his approval.
As Brander sings :
Em achter Deutscher Mann mag keinen Franzen leiden !
is a phrase containing this lofty political feeling in a
nutshell ! Judged relatively to Goethe's culture,
however, even this must be regarded as a disturb-
ing influence : his heart was not quite with Dcutsch-
t/iiuti, and he was driven into it by the contagion of
personal friendship.
86 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Then, again, as to the other disturbing influences
that of philosophy and philosophers.*
Pure abstract speculation was repugnant to
Goethe's mind, and he openly, again and again,
expressed his distrust of all forms of such specu-
lation, especially when they wandered in the theo-
logical direction. Personally, indeed, his sympathies
were with the glorification of Science, in the widest
significance of that word ; but he declined to com-
mit himself even there, as the slightest error in
phraseology would have brought upon him the
charge of mere Materialism. More than once in his
life he appeared to feel a positive detestation of
philosophy, and it was, as we know, the object of his
unsparing satire ; and in the " Intermezzo," for ex-
ample, which he at first intended to publish as
a direct contemporary squib in 1798, Orthodoxy,
* Spinoza fascinated him, and he welcomed the first gleams
of Fichte's spiritual mind. The latter sent him the u Wissen-
schaftlehre " and received this reply :
" What you have sent me contains nothing which I do not
understand or at least believe that I understand nothing that
does not readily harmonise with my accustomed way of thinking
and I see the hopes which I had derived from the intro-
duction already fulfilled.
" In my opinion you will confer a priceless blessing on the
human race, and make every thinking man your debtor, by
giving a scientific foundation to that upon which Nature seems
long ago to have quietly agreed with herself. For myself, I
shall owe you my best thanks if you reconcile me to the philo-
sophers, whom I cannot do without, and with whom, notwith-
standing, I never could unite.
" I look with anxiety for the continuation of your work to
adjust and confirm many things for me, and I hope, when you
are free from urgent engagements, to speak with you about
several matters, the prosecution of which I defer until I clearly
understand how that which I hope to accomplish may har-
monise with what we have to expect from you."
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 87
Idealism, and Scepticism, came in equally for his
abuse :
Prophete rechts, Prophete links,
Das Welt-kind in der Mitten !
This was the situation : and the prophets were a
subject of annoyance to the " world-child " Goethe.
With him conception was synonymous with creation.
His thought was a Form, his feeling an Image. Science,
History, Society, even Politics, were capable of a con-
crete reflection in the mirror of that still and mighty
mind ; but Philosophy, since she cast but a vague
shadow, only disturbed and overclouded his natural
powers of reflection and understanding.
The famous passage in " Faust," thus translated
by Mr. Bayard Taylor in his remarkable trans-
lation, has been accepted by the world of critics
at large as fairly representing " Goethe's Creed : "
Faust. My darling, who shall dare
" I believe in God ! " to say ?
Ask priest or sage the answer to declare,
And it will seem a mocking play
A sarcasm on the asker.
Margaret. Then thou believ'st it not ?
Faust. Hear me not falsely, sweetest countenance !
Who dare express Him?
Who dare profess Him,
Saying, " I believe in Him ! "
Who feeling, seeing,
Deny His being,
Saying, u I believe Him not ! "
The All-unfolding,
The All-upholding,
Folds and upholds He not
Thee, me, Himself?
Arches not there the sky above us ?
Lies not beneath us, form, the earth ;
And rise not, on us shining
Friendly, the everlasting stars ?
Look I not, eye to eye, on thee,
88 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
And feel'st not, thronging
To head and heart, the Force,
Still weaving its eternal secret
Invisible, visible, round thy life,
Vast as it is, fill with that force thy heart,
And when thou in the feeling wholly blest art,
Call it then what thou wilt
Call it Bliss ! Heart ! Love ! God !
I have no name to give it !
Feeling is all in all :
The name is sound and smoke,
Obscuring Heaven's clear glow.
Margaret. All that is fine, and good to hear it so ;
Much the same way the preacher spoke,
Only with slightly different phrases.
Faust. The same thing in all places,
All hearts that beat beneath the heavenly day,
Each in its language, say ;
Then why not I in mine as well.
Margaret. To hear it thus, it may seem passable,
And yet, some hitch in't there must be,
For thou hast no Christianity.
Faust is here expressing the " Immanence " of
Spinoza in very loose although beautiful language ;
but Goethe, although he found much in Spinoza
to satisfy the cravings of his nature, was not the
man to rest contented merely with Spinoza's theo-
logy. Very finely, in 1813, he expressed himself to
Jacobi : " As poet and artist I am Polytheist ; on
the other hand, as a student of Nature, I am
Pantheist ; and both with equal positiveness. When
I need a God for my personal nature, as a moral and
spiritual man, He also exists for me. The heavenly
and the earthly things are such an immense realm,
that it can only be grasped by the collective intel-
ligence of all human beings." It is needless, how-
ever, to observe that this was not the language of a
man who had any strong religious cravings. Goethe,
in fact, approached religion from the outside, accept-
ing it gratefully as a subject, and so far it minis-
THE CHARACTER OF GOETJIJ-. 89
tered to his moral development ; otherwise, when
it forcibly broke upon him in any shape, it became a
hindrance and a source of disturbance.*
A still more constant source of disturbance arose
from his private personal relations. His habit of cold
impassiveness and stately reserve grew upon him at
Weimar; and repelled many of his friends who were
not slow to express their irritation in words. " Out-
side relations," he said, "make our existence, and at
the same time devastate it; nevertheless, one must
withdraw oneself occasionally from study, for I
don't think it healthy to be completely isolated
like \Vieland." Schiller, faithful to him as he was
faithful in all things, was rewarded by a certain
amount of confidence ; much the same as Goethe
would have vouchsafed to a clinging mistress,
Lili or Frederika ; and when Schiller died, the
blow went straight home to Goethe's heart. When
the aged and noble-minded Klopstock thought fit to
remonstrate on the disorderly living encouraged by
* Note also the following from the " Confessions:" " Jacobi's
book has deeply grieved me; and how, indeed, can I have any
pleasure in finding so dear a friend supporting this thesis: that
Nature veils God from our view! Penetrated as I am, by a
pure, deep, and innate method, through which I have ever seen
God in Nature and Nature in God, and to such an extent, that
this conviction is the base of my entire existence, must not so
narrow and absurd a paradox separate me for ever, spiritually
speaking, from a man whose venerable heart I cherish so
deeply? Well! I take care not to be overcome altogether by
such discouragement, and have returned again with double
ardour to my old refuge the ' Ethics of Spinoza.'" And still
more beautifully Goethe writes elsewhere, that " No being can
foil into nothingness. The Eternal stirs in all things. Thou
art, be happy in that idea. Being is eternal, for the laws of
being protect the treasures of life with which the universe
clothes itself." Compare with these remarks the weird chorus
of the Earth-Spirit in " Faust: "
u In Lebensfluten, in Thatensturm?" etc.
90 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Goethe at Weimar, the " privy councillor's " reply was
cold and keen as ice. He solicited no confidence
and he tolerated no interference. His affectations
for they were affectations alienated his best friends.
" What the devil possesses this Wolfgang ! " cried
Mark, a friend of his childhood ; " why on earth will
he play the courtier and the valet-de-chambre ?
Has he nothing better to do?" And the same
excitable person said to Goethe himself, " Look
here, Goethe 1 when I compare what you are with
what you might have been, all that you have written
seems to me contemptible ! " But his most trouble-
some relations appear to have been with Herder.
The great ideal philosopher and the great poetic
image-former possessed a strange attraction for each
other, by virtue of the individual strength of each ;
yet they never perfectly comprehended one another,
and on one side, at least, there was a great deal of
irritation. They met for the first time at Strasburg,
when Herder was twenty-two years of age, and
Goethe seventeen. This was in 1766. Twenty
years afterwards, when both were at the zenith of
fame, when Goethe's name was a household word
with young Germany, and Herder's gigantic vX/
was delighting all philosophers of the old school,
Herder had not yet abandoned the air of patronage
which he had affected to his junior student, and
Goethe, on his side, had not forgotten Herder's
epigram on his name :
Than I descendant of Gods^ or of Goths, or of Gutters ! (Koth.)
There was no love lost between the two ; and
their mode of intercourse was rather that of two rival
swordsmen than of affectionate friends. On the
whole, Goethe seemed rather afraid of Herder's
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 91
mighty mind, knowing well that its great scheme of
the Universal Idea, with all its practical tendencies
towards Optimism and the regeneration of Humanity,
was exactly the scheme which refused admittance to
so shallow and slight a theory as that of mere self-
culture and " pyramid building." " It is doubtful,"
Herder once cried passionately, apropos of Goethe's
cold-bloodedness and affectation " it is doubtful if
a man has any right to raise himself to a sphere where
all suffering, true or false, real or merely imaginary,
becomes equal to him ; where he ceases to be a Man,
if he does not cease to be an Artist ; and whether this
right, once admitted, does not imply the absolute
negation of human character. No one cares to envy
the gods their eternal tranquillity ; they may regard
everything on earth as a mere game, the chances of
which they direct as they please. But we are men,
men subject to all human wants, and we do not care
to be amused for ever with theatrical attitudes. You
study Nature in all her phenomena, from the hyssop
to the cedar of Lebanon. But I should not like you,
for all that, to conceal from me the most beautiful
phenomena of them all Man, in his natural and
moral grandeur." To the same effect, though with
less success, protested others Wieland, Jacobi, even
Schiller. But Goethe, though the criticism struck
home, was not to be moved. Affectation and indiffer-
ence, two elements quite contrary in themselves, had
blended together to form the one pose that he kept
for the rest of his life : a pose thoroughly theatrical,
as Herder's keen eye at once detected, but so long
used as to become natural at second hand. An
earthquake would not have changed it. The statue
stood, in courtier's costume, calm, holding a micro-
scope. A thunderbolt might have dashed the statue
92 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
to the ground ; but it would have altered nothing.
To alter Goethe now, God would have had to oblite-
rate him altogether.
So the volcanoes of Europe thundered, and the
philosophers of Europe reillumined the universe of
thought, and mistresses wept, and friends protested
and sneered, but still the statuesque Titan stood
smiling on his pedestal. From the Revolution,
Goethe turned to his " Theory of Colours ; " from
philosophy, to the microscope ; and passing friend-
ship aside as a source of constant disturbance,
and avoiding a true union for the same reason, he
solemnised his marriage with Christiane Vulpius, just
as the great battle of Jena was taking place hard by.
"In order to cheer these sad days with a festivity,"
he wrote to Meyer, " I and my little home-friend
(Hausfreundiri) yesterday resolved to enter with full
formality into the state of holy matrimony, with
which notification I entreat you to send us a good
supply of butter and other provisions that will bear
carnage." Poor Christiane had been his mistress for
seventeen years, and had borne him several children,
all of whom died, even the only son and heir. She
was very pretty when Goethe first saw her. Latterly
she yielded greatly to habits of intemperance. " What
is this relation ? " wrote Goethe to the Frau von Stein
when she remonstrated with him on his liaison ; "who
is beggared by it ? Who lays any claim to the feel-
ings I give to the poor creature ? Who to the hours
I pass with her? " His friends despised and insulted
her, and he allowed his friends to despise and insult
her. Schiller never alluded to her. Wieland called
her son the son of the servant (der So/in der Magd).
Yet she was never weary of waiting on and loving
the " privy councillor/' as she ever called Goethe.
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE. 93
"Who would think/' he said, " that this person had
already lived with me twenty years ! What pleases
me in her is that no change takes place in her nature ;
she remains as she was." One day as they were
driving in the country, Christiane had an apoplectic
stroke, and lay as if dead in the vehicle. Goethe
ordered the coachman to drive himself home, murmur-
ing to himself, " What an alarm there will be at the
house when we draw up, and they see this person
dead in the carriage ! "
During the great conference of powers at Erfurt,
Napoleon Bonaparte made himself acquainted with
most of the great men of Weimar. The meeting of
the Emperor and Goethe is thus alluded to by the
present writer in the " Drama of Kings : "
But yestermorn the old man Wieland stood
Knlarging his weak vision for an hour
Upon the demigod, who of Greece and Rome
Talk'd like a petulant schoolboy ; and this day,
I beheld Goethe with a doubtful face,
Part dubious and part eager, proof of thoughts
Half running on ahead, half lingering,
Enter the quarters of the Emperor ;
But when he issued forth his features wore
Their pitiless smile of perfect self-delight,
His lips already quivered with a pa?an,
His stately march was quicken'd eagerly,
And all his face and all his gait alive
With glory that the sun of Corsica
Had shone upon him to his heart's content.
Goethe was much fascinated by the daimonic
power of Napoleon, and from that day forward had a
firmer faith in Despotism ; nor can we wonder at the
fact, when we remember his Napoleonic treatment of
politics, philosophy, friendship, and the domestic
idea all alike, sources of disturbance to be reprc
at all hazards. He was a Napoleon on a small scab-,
94 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
without the soldier's plea, or the excuse of national
necessity. Bonaparte was the child of the Revolution,
welded hard and unchangeable by very fire, and
pushed upward and onward less by sheer volition
than by the vast European wave of political change ;
he had mounted the popular Monster, and although
he seemed to curb and drive it, it took him pretty
much where it pleased ; and finally, in mercy to
the man's immortal soul, God made England pitiless
and consigned him to St. Helena. Goethe had less
excuse for becoming what he was ; indeed, sheer con-
tractedness of soul kept him what he was a subtle
rather than a great European literary power, and of
doubtful value to the world. Unfortunately, there
was no St. Helena in store for him. He died with a
demand for " more light."* Alas ! had light been
given in full and just measure, it would have withered
and blinded him. His life is a melancholy subject
for human contemplation, so sadly here and there
does it force upon us the truth that growth is not
always gain, and that Art works less by giving than
by hardening and cruelly taking away.
Here I must pause, not without an apology to
the hero-worshipper for the form of some of my
remarks on this subject a subject involving in its
treatment not only a critical estimate of the lead-
ing literary man of modern times, but an examina-
tion of the whole critical theory of modern life. If
Goethe was wrong, then much in modern life is
wrong ; if Goethe's mind was physiologically defec-
tive, then is such defect noticeable everywhere in
modern society and literature. But let it not be
* Goethe's last words, " Dass mehr Licht hereinkomme."
THE CHARACTER OF GOETHI.. 95
hastily assumed that I am ungrateful to Goethe's
work or insensible to Goethe's charm. Before that
mighty figure, that "Jupiter-like brow/' before the
total result of that vast literary life, I bow again and
again in homage. I honour Goethe as the greatest
literary " worker " of modern times. The character
of Goethe I do not honour, as I have shown. But
I do not forget nay, I would emphatically point
out at parting that the last work of the man Goethe's
hand was to point in dying acknowledgment at the
figure of the man Jesus, the ideal of Christian
Altruism. The crowning human joy was at last
recognised as self-abnegation or, as it is expressed
in the sublime last pages of the second Faust, " The
draining of the Marsh ! " Let the reader now turn to
those pages, and perceive how at last even he, Goethe,
the would-be Apostle of Egoism, was compelled to be
absorbed, as every human force is absorbed soon or
late, into the divine tendernesses of a sacrificial
gospel.
NOTE. This article, in its first publication some years
ago, was vigorously assailed by a certain portion of the press,
and my old friend George Henry Lewes made it the subject of an
especially severe animadversion. The truth perhaps lies mid-
way between the aggressive Jacobinism of my criticism and the
exaggerated Goethe- worship of modern men of letters. It should
be remembered, however, that the foregoing does not pretend
to be an exhaustive estimate of Goethe as a poet. As a poet,
Goethe comes to us, not like Shakespeare in native strength
and majesty, but like a first-class master of the ceremonies with
excellent credentials. His poems, with the exception of " Faust"
and certain of the ballads, have been accepted because they
have been strongly "recommended" by the best judges. "Faust"
alone has mastered the popular heart by the sheer strength of
genius, and "Faust" alone, when all the rest is forgotten, will
entitle its author to a place in the world's literary Pantheon.
R. B.
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS.
" INSTEAD of God, the whirlwind reigns" ('Ai/rl
Ali/oy ao-tAe'ue), says Aristophanes, in the " Clouds ;" to
which may be added, in the words of a sadder and
sublimer thinker, "Wo keine Gotter sind, walten
Gespenster." * According to the philosophers who
plume themselves on having annihilated the Deity,
Matter is come again, but in the very midst of Matter
strut our modern " spectres " of the scientific lecture-
room the ATOMS. What a " whirlwind " ! We hold
our breath and stop our ears; we shut our Bibles, if
we have any, and prepare our instruments ; we look
this way and that through a great darkness, and
watch the fluent Tyndall declaiming, the otiose
Huxley intoning, the silent Spencer musing finger to
forehead and smiling knowingly at the Unknowable.
There is darkness, and a great explosion of gases.
The wise ones are imperfectly agreed among them-
selves. Peripatetic and epicurean dispute on points
of detail, as they did long ago. Theologians rush in
where laymen fear to tread, and call incontinently on
the Unconditioned. Amid the clamour of names and
* Novalis.
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 97
things, amid the whirlwind which already threatens
to blow the roofs off all our churches and carry away
one-half of our libraries, one word we hear distinctly
pronounced with reverence again and again, one
name we hear, almost forgotten by all save students,
until eager scientific dreamers recalled it in order to
give its owner his apotheosis one name of a dead
poet LUCRETIUS, the singer and expounder of the
Cosmic " Nature of Things."
Just as Democritus has dethroned Plato, Lucre-
tius is dethroning whom shall we say, when our
choice of pagan theogonists is so limited ? well,
^Eschylus. We have discovered that the real poet
after our own hearts is not one who can sing to us in
noble numbers of superhuman endurance and the
wrath of gods, of mighty ideals shattered or up-
raised by divine destroyers and demi-divine inter-
cessors ; nay, that we infinitely prefer a poet who can
tell us in voluminous numbers how " nothing was
ever begotten out of nothing by divine aid," how flesh
is grass, and all things, like the flowers, must dis-
appear; how and in what measure we may conduct
the breed of the human species ; and how, finally and
chiefly, we can give the liliputian ATOMS their just
due as the creators of both protoplasm and poetry,
substance, sense, and Soul. We wanted just such a
poet for this period, and so, going back to B.C. 99, we
find him ready made a "cosmic creature," as musical
as need be to ears unattuned to the hexameters of
Virgil, and as explicit in his physiological explanations
as Walt Whitman ; a great, indeed, and an eminently
sincere poet, with the splendid qualification of never
even having heard of that " obstruction," Christianity ;
just, in fine, such a singer as our own Tyndall would be,
if the Professor would only put his ornate periods into
H
98 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the flowery fetters of rhyme. Of course, and as the
reader may conceive, he could not be always right,
living as he did before the birth of Science, but his book
is universally admitted to be wonderfully "correct" in
essentials, and a sublime specimen of what is now
termed the "scientific" imagination. We know now that
the ATOMS, which he dreamed of, are acknowledged
facts ; and if we only bridge over the gulf between
his two first books and the other four by a few scien-
tific links, such as " protoplasm/' we shall find in the
" De Rerum Natura " an admirable exposition of the
History of Creation, as far as we can at present under-
stand it. If the end of the fourth book is expurgated,
the book will do to read even in young ladies' colleges.
For those who find a poem fatiguing which contains
no imaginative pictures of the supernatural, we may
point out the memorable dedication to Venus,
./Eneadum genetrix, hominum divumque voluptas,
as an admirable substitute (somewhat out of place, it
is true, in so precise a production) for any of those
absurd religious conceptions with which we are
familiar.
It is time to be serious ; and lest the critic of the
period, ever on the look-out for heresy against the
spirit of the laboratory, should accuse me of treating
a great and influential poet with irreverence, let me
confess at once my deep and profound admiration
for the poet in question. So far from grudging him
his apotheosis, in which even Bishops cordially assist,
I rejoice over it as another token that justice, poetic
or non-poetic, is done to all great thinkers sooner or
later. I welcome even the Atoms, and the volu-
minous literature the little semina have created.
I cordially agree with Dryden, who criticised
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 99
nothing that he did not illuminate, and who has left
us the best criticism of this author extant, that
Lucretius possessed a "sublime and daring genius," to
which, let me add, no amount of study can do too much
honour. Who that remembers the lovely glimpses
of nature so frequently given as we traverse the arid
track of Materialism over which he leads us, can
doubt the " genius/' or deny that it is " sublime " ?
Sometimes, indeed, when I remember such pictures,
I am inclined to place Lucretius higher than a final
judgment may prove warrantable. As I behold the
clouds above me,
Dant etiam sonitum patuli super sequora mundi ;
and the "ccerulean of the great universe" and the
vast tract of the ocean at my feet,
Maxima qua nunc se ponti plaga ccerula tendit;
and the " daedal Earth yielding up her flowers,"
Tibi suaves dasdala* tellus
Submittit flores ;
and in dark solitary places beneath the " shadows of
Orcus and hateful pools,"
An tenebras Orci visat vastasque lacunas ;
and the " flaming walls of the world,"
Flamantia moenia mundi ;
and beyond that even, the "divine shores of light,"
Dias in luminis oras ;
so I know by these and many other tokens, beautiful
* Mr. Munro translates this into " manifold of works," but
surely he might have adopted the actual equivalent so repeatedly
used by Shelley. Thus :
Through thee the daedal Earth
Brings forth fresh flowers.
H 2
100
A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
and musical exceedingly, that a Poet is guiding me,
not a peripatetic Pedant pale with joy of the dis-
covery that the moon is not green cheese. Nay, I
forget, amid such glimpses, that a Lucretius leads me
and not a Virgil, and that I am being guided dare
I say it under the new scientific Inquisition ?
through an Inferno. It is only when my foot falls
on the dark graves beneath it, when my breath
inhales the lowest atmosphere of a poem which begins
with a parody and ends with a pestilence ; it is only
when the ATOMS darken the vision and perplex the
judgment, that I know I am visiting an Inferno
indeed, and cry pitifully with Dryden, our guide "is
so bent on making us a materialist, and teaching us
to defy an invisible power in short, he is so much an
Atheist, that he sometimes forgets he is a Poet! 3
It is perhaps too much to assume in the ordinary
English reader, for whom I write, any special
acquaintance with Lucretius and his writings ; and it
has seemed to me likely that a short sketch of the
poem, with a few remarks en passant on its bearing
towards modern thought, may not be unacceptable.
Far be from one, whose scientific pretensions are
infinitely modest, to wear and tear the reader with
another disquisition on the Atomic Theory; even
were I armed and ready for such work, I should
not attempt it under the Inquisition, when the next
unpardonable sin to believing in a Deity is to offer
any reasons for so believing, and when even a semi-
scientist like Mr. Lewes is listened to with ill-disguised
contempt, simply because he has not spent even his
suckling-time in a laboratory. My attempt is much
humbler on the present occasion. I shall be very
respectful to the Atoms, and accept any explanation
of their existence which their disciples I was
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 101
going to say their creators ! are willing to give me :
I shall touch very delicately on Evolution, and not
at all, perhaps, on Protoplasm ; and when I have
given my brief account of Lucretius and his poem,
1 shall only suggest, in the most reverential manner
jjossible, that good poetry was never wasted on a
worse subject, and that, if this is the most poetic
solution of Creation that MATERIALISM has to offer
us, the world will feel itself justified, pace Professor
Tyndall, in resuscitating some Poet of SPIRITUALISM
as soon as possible !
Our poet begins, as I have said, with a parody
the memorable address to Venus ; and the picture he
draws of her power is very beautiful. She is the
divine spirit of things ; all follow her and obey her,
the winds, the clouds of heaven, the flowers of earth,
the waves of ocean smiling at her advent, and heaven
rejoicing in her light. That his picture may not be
too insubstantial, he describes her with Mars lying
at her feet, looking up at her in passion, while his
breath is lingering on her lips ; and O si sic omnia !
he begs her, in her own lovely language, to buy
peace for Rome, that he may quietly sing to Memmius
of the wonderful Nature of Things. The style of this
invocation is at once Homeric and Virgilian ; it is
both simple and ornate ; but it is, in the highest
sense, a parody, because it is the mere imitative con-
juration of a divine entity in whom the singer has no
faith. What he really means by Venus, despite all
his beautiful prelude, is made explicit enough in
Book IV. :
Sic igitur Veneris qui delis accipit ictus,
Unde feritur, eo tendit gestitque coire, etc.,
Haec Venus est nobis ! hinc autem est nomen Amoris ;
Hinc illaec primum Veneris dulcedinis in cor
Stillavit gutta et successit frigida cura.
102 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
This " alma Venus/' observe, remembering the epi-
gram of Novalis, is the first of the Lucretian " Spec-
tres." We are now at the portals of Chaos ; passing
which rapidly, we at once see the darkness gather-
ing, but are detained for a moment while the Poet
tells us of the curses of religion and the blessings of
Epicurus :
When human life lay foully desolate,
Crush'd 'neath Religion, who with hideous head
Lower'd horribly from all the gates of heaven,
A man of Greece dared to uplift his eyes,
And braved the dreadful Phantom to her face !
Him neither fables of the gods could tame,
Nor thunderbolts, nor the deep roar of heaven.
These only raised fresh hunger in his soul
To be the first to break with mortal hands
The bars of Nature's yet unopen'd gate.
He conquered, therefore, by the living will
Within his soul ; and lo ! he swiftly passed
Far out beyond the flaming walls o' the world,
Traversing with unconquerable mind
The most immeasurable universe ;
From whence returning victor, he expounds
What can, what cannot, be, explaining clear
The principles and boundaries of things.
Thus, in her turn, Religion is cast down
And trampled underfoot, and up to heaven
We soar, exalted by his victory !
Thus singing I am haunted by a fear
That thou* may'st deem we walk unholy ground,
And tread upon the wicked ways of sin ;
Quite otherwise ! for 'tis Religioris self
Who is the mother of most damned deeds.
Thus once at Aulis gather'd mighty chiefs,
The flower of Danai and the first of men,
Staining with Iphianassa's gentle blood
The thirsty altars of the Trivian maid.
Soon as the fillet clasped her virgin hair,
And dropt in equal length down each pale cheek,
And she beheld her sire stand sorrowing
Close to the arch-priests with the hidden knife,
Memmius.
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 103
And all around her weeping countrymen,
Then, dumb with horror, dropping on her knees,
She sank upon the ground ....
What could it then avail the luckless Maid
That first her lips had prattled to the king
The name of ' Father ? ' Shrieking, shivering,
Uplifted in the cruel hands of men,
She straight was borne, not with sweet bridal song
And solemn rites of Love's first sacrifice,
But stain'd while stainless, in her bridal prime,
There on the bloody altars to be slain
By that safe father's sacrificial stroke
That gods might give the Greeks a favouring wind,
And prosper well the sailing of the fleet.
Such evils evermore to mortal men
Religion teaches ! *
This passage, perhaps the most striking in the whole
poem, is the prelude to the poet's avowal of simple
and unvarnished materialism. Beginning with his
first and cardinal principle, that nothing was ever
begotten out of nothing by Divine intervention,
Nullam rem e nihilo gigni divinitus unquam,
he proceeds to pile illustration upon illustration of this
solemn discovery. I need not follow him through
his long catalogue ; enough to say that he is entirely
at one with Professor Tyndall on such points as the
efficacy of prayer. That the laws of Nature are un-
alterable, that it is absolutely decreed what each
thing can do and what it cannot do, that phenomena
of all sorts are produced by natural laws, and that
nothing whatever can happen without a natural cause,
* This and the other metrical renderings in the text make
no pretence to constant literal correctness, though they are
often pretty close for a free translation. Mr. Munro's unpunc-
tuated prose, though admirable from certain points of view, is,
as a rule, very hard to follow, and too full of attempts to get an
esoteric and laboured meaning out of single words.
104 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
are propositions on which I cordially agree with
him, and so, we presume, would any decently-culti-
vated Bishop. He proceeds forthwith to prove the
imperishability of matter ; next, the existence of Void
(namque est in rebus inane], without which Motion
would be impossible ; and next, that Matter and Void
compose Nature, and that nothing beyond these exists.
All this is expressed very admirably, with as much
poetry as the subject is capable of bearing, and more-
over, melodiously the lines making the hard, regular,
metallic music of the blows of a smith's hammer on his
anvil. We are now face to face with the Atoms, or
first beginnings, out of which all other bodies, how-
ever simple, are fashioned ; no force can affect them,
they are indestructible ; while all things we behold
around us even iron, stone, brass, marble are de-
structible, consisting, as they do, of Matter and Void.
Thus, the Atoms are solid, being without void. While
ever entering into fresh combinations, they remain
the same for ever. They are perfectly hard, inde-
structible, eternal. To paraphrase Goethe, " the
wonderful eternal Atoms are great as in Creation's
day." Nevertheless, they are invisible lying "far
beneath the ken of sense ; " and yet for all that, they
have parts each part being so small that it has never
existed and can never exist by itself, being by its very
nature a part of the Atom.*
* These first beginnings have parts, but their parts are so
small as not to admit of existence separate from the atom.
The atom, therefore, has not been formed from a union of
these parts, but they have existed in it unchangeably from
eternity. Such parts, then, are but one more proof that the
first beginnings are of everlasting singleness. Again, without
such ultimate least things, the smallest and largest things will
alike consist of infinite parts, and thus will be equal. Again,
if Nature went in division beyond the atom, such least things
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 105
With all the recent literature of the Atomic Theory,
newly set before us, with Tyndall's Address, Clark
Marshall's Essay on Molecules, Professor Jenkins'
" North British Review " Essay on the Atomic Theory
of Lucretius, and Professor Veitch's bright little
brochure under the same name all, doubtless, fresh
in the minds of our readers it would be superero-
gatory to describe the Atoms further in detail.
Enough to say that the theory of Lucretius, averring
the existence of ultimate and indivisible particles of
matter, is now universally admitted by modern
chemists. It is admitted, too, that there is a limited
number of different Atoms, out of each of which is
composed an elementary chemical substance. " And
therefore," in the words of Newton, " that nature may
be lasting, the changes in corporeal things are to be
placed only in various separations, and new associa-
tions and motions of these permanent particles." This
is the secret which keeps Nature for ever fresh and
new, this is the unchangeable law of never-changing
change ; by this the sun shines, and the flowers grow,
and the bosoms of love rise and fall ; and the world
of things, despite its innumerable transformations, is
the same world of Genesis, as fresh and fair now as
ever.
This, so far as I have described it, is a satisfactory
as these parts of the atom could not have the qualities which
birth-giving matter must have weight, motion, power of
striking, and clothing, and combining. A passage necessarily
obscure, because dealing with one of those questions which
utterly elude the grasp of human reason. Epicurus, building
up his dogmatic system, and hating all scepticism of first prin-
ciples, determined that his atoms should have size, shape,
weight in his own words, /zcyedo? <rxipa fiapos and therefore
extension. But, if extension, then parts ; and how can that
which has parts be indivisible ? MUNRO'S NOTES.
io6 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
creed, and by no means naturally connected with the
poet's other theories.
The One remains, the Many change and pass ;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity.
Towards the end of Book II., however, we get a
glimpse which would satisfy Dr. Gumming. The
fruit ripens and falls in its season, man grows and
decays in his season, and in its season the earth shall
perish for want, Lucretius explains, of sustenance.
And in this wise, so storm'd, the walls o' the world
Shall crumble into ruins and decay.
E'en now the age grows frail, and mother Earth,
Out of whose womb all mighty races came,
With all the bodies of gigantic beasts,
Grows sick, and scarce can bear her pigmy forms.
For ne'er methinks by any chain of gold
Let down from Heaven upon the nether fields
Came down the races of humanity,
Nor out of ocean and rock-rending waves
Were any mortals born, but the same Earth
Which bare them in her womb, now with her milk
Feeds them and suckles them !
With this end of Book II. the reader finds a great dark-
ness growing upon him : and, in fact, such a darkness
is necessary, unless he prefers to be led blindfold.
Dazzled with the mystery of the Atoms, he moves on,
in humble expectation of having the whole further
process of Being explained.
No explanation is vouchsafed him. Book IIL
opens with another eulogy of Epicurus, who, by
teaching men that the world was not formed by a
Divine Power, but by a fortuitous concourse of Atoms,
relieved men from supernatural dread of the gods,
of death, and of post-mortem punishments. It is a
great jump from the fortuitous concourse of chemical
elements to the mind and soul of man a jump which
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 107
could never be forgiven in a theologic poet, but is
highly eulogised in one whose "scientific imagi-
nation " favours modern Materialism. Animus, or
mind, resides in the heart, while anima is diffused
throughout the whole body ; and both animus and
anima are simply combinations of minute atoms.
We are thus gradually led to the main argument
of the book, that what is called the soul perishes with
the body :
Quid dubitas, tandem quin extra prodita corpus
Imbecilla foras, in aperto, tegmine dempto;
Non modo non omnem possit durare per aevum,
Sed minimum quodvis nequeat consistere tempus ?
This position, that the soul is born and dies with the
body, is sustained in a style of argument worthy, not
of a supreme poet, but of the late Mr. Winwood Read
or Dr. Draper of New York.*
Death, therefore, I opine, concerns us not,
Since the mind is but mortal, and will perish !
For consolation, we are reminded that the best men
die as well as the worst even Epicurus being turned
to dust. This may be comfort to Professor Tyndall,
who can look forward cheerfully, in his sweet poetic
way, to " melting like a streak of morning cloud into
the infinite azure of the past." Unfortunately,
neither the prospect nor the arguments would satisfy
ordinary mortals who are not professional chemists.
So far as our human guide is concerned, he has, I
repeat it, led us into an Inferno, and already we
seem to hear the wail of the lost an infinite ululation.
For all that, the poet contains such an abundant
* This, however, is not the position sustained by Dr. Draper
in his "Physiology."
io8 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
happiness within himself, that he sings figuratively to
dispel our fears :
The pathless tracks of the Pierian springs
I tread, before untrodden, and with joy
Approach the waters, stooping down to drink.
Gladly I pluck fresh flowers, and for my brow
Enweave a chaplet from those secret spots
From whence the Muses never yet have given
A wreath to cover any mortal head !
His task it is, he adds, to free the mind from super-
stition, and to set forth a dark subject in the most
lucid verses possible. He proceeds, still following
the ideas of Epicurus, to treat of Images how they
are discharged from the surfaces of things, how these
images affect the eyes, and are in a certain subtle
sense corporeal, as well as taste and sound. After a
variety of striking illustrations, he comes back to
Venus, and treats very physiologically of the nature
of love and desire.
Book V. is chiefly devoted to proofs that the
world is not eternal, because as the chemic elements
are changeable and perishable, the world is change-
able and perishable too. The world began and the
world will end.
Therefore, not closed is the gate of Death
Against the sun, the skies, the earth, and sea,
But ever yawning with wide open'd maw
It looketh on them, waiting for their coming !
He proceeds, as explicitly as possible, to explain the
world's beginning; and to show, recurring here to his
main point, that nothing was originally done by Divine
Wisdom or Understanding. " The first beginnings of
things, many in number in many ways impelled by
blows for infinite ages back, and kept in motion by
their own weights, have been wont to be carried along
and to unite in all manner of ways, and thoroughly to
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 109
test every kind of production possible by their mutual
combinations ; therefore it is that spread abroad
through great time, after trying unions and motions
of every kind, they at length meet together in these
masses, which suddenly brought together become
often the rudiments of great things, of earth, sea,
heaven, and the race of living things." * He then
describes creation according to the cosmogony of
Epicurus- the birth of the earth, the uprising of the
fiery ether, and of the sun, moon, and stars ; and of
course he is not to be censured for placing the earth
in the middle of the world. Of day and night, of
eclipses, of plants, animal life, and man, he discourses
with " scientific " eloquence. Here certainly he gives
us an inspired fore-glimpse of the doctrine of Evolu-
tion and the survival of the fittest :
And many living things have died away,
Too weak to procreate and save their seed.
For wheresoe'er the breath of life is drawn,
By cunning or by courage or by speed
Each race has saved itself from the beginning.
And many things, through use to mortal men,
By us protected, prosper and endure.
By courage, lions fierce and savage races
Have been protected ; foxes by their craft ;
And by their flight, swift stags. But faithful dogs,
Light-sleeping, and all seed of burthen'd beasts,
And all the woolly flocks and horned herds,
Have thriven, O Memmius, by the help of man.
He proceeds to describe the early state of Nature,
and soon, in a passage of surprising eloquence, he
describes the condition of primitive Man himself:
Then was the race of men a hardier race,
Like to the hard, strong earth from which they sprang,
And on the ground- work of their mightier bones
Strong thews and sinews knit the frame of flesh.
* Munro's translation.
no A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Not then, by quick extremes of heat or cold,
Or food unfit, or any malady,
Did mortals sicken. While the sun thro' heaven
Rolled on thro' many lustres, they prolonged
A life as roving as the life of beasts.
No hand then guided the sharp crooked plough,
Or dug the fields, or sowed i' the earth new seeds,
Or cut old boughs away with pruning-hooks ;
What had been given by the sun and showers,
What green Earth freely on her bosom bore,
Was ample then to satisfy their needs.
Mostly on acorn-bearing oaks they fed,
Or berries of the wild arbutus-trees,
Which now thou seest in winter-time grow red,
And which were then more large and plentiful ;
And many wholesome fruits and foods beside,
More than enough for miserable men.
The flowery freshness of the green earth bare.
Then rivers and soft fountains called to them
To come and quench their thirst ; as, nowadays,
The torrent waters rushing from their hills
With bubbling murmur echoing far and wide,
Summon the thirsty tribes of savage beasts.
Within the silvery temples of the nymphs
Then, too, they rested after wandering,
And watched the quiet waters creeping forth,
Bathing with limpid flow the dripping rocks,
Trickling all silvery o'er the emerald moss,
Or bubbling brightly o'er the level plain.
And yet they knew not how to work with fire,
To tan wild hides, or clothe about their frames
With skins of beasts ; but deep in glades they dwelt,
In hidden forests, under mountain caves,
Sheltering their rugged limbs among the boughs
From the wild beating of the winds and rains.
They knew no common use nor common weal,
No common law nor custom ; for himself
Each struggled, taught to think of self alone,
And whatsoever he by fortune found
Each to his own lone cavern bore away.
And, marvellously swift of hands and feet,
W T ith stones and great clubs fashioned out of trees,
They hunted down the forest-ranging beasts ;
And some they conquered, and from some they fled,
Crouching and hiding ; and when night-time came,
They rolled themselves like swine upon the ground,
And cover'd up their limbs with boughs and leaves.
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. in
Yet never wailed they for the day to come,
Nor wandered through the shadows of the night
With terror stricken ; silent, sunk in sleep,
They waited, till the sun with flaming torch
Illumed the heavens ; for they had ever known
Such alternations of the light and dark,
And so no wonder fell upon their souls,
Nor any fear that an eternal night
Might come upon the earth and cover it,
Veiling the golden sun for evermore !
This is quite in the spirit of Sir John Lubbock, and
yet it has also a flavour of Rousseau. What follows
is much in the same vein, and quite en rapport with
modern science. How men learnt the uses of fire,
and sheltered themselves from the cold ; how men
softened, and leagues of friendship were formed ; how
speech was learned, and human intercourse increased ;
how more and more every day those who excelled in
intellect kindly showed men new methods till, at
last, kings were elected, towns built, wealth accumu-
lated, and the worship of the gods began. Finally,
civilisation came. " Ships and tillage, walls, laws,
arms, roads, dress, and all such things, all the prizes,
all the elegances, too, of life without exception, poems,
pictures, and the chiselling fine-wrought statues, all
these things practice, together with the acquired
knowledge of the untiring mind, taught men by slow
degrees as they advanced on the way step by step.
Thus Time by degrees brings each several thing forth
before men's eyes, and Reason raises them up into
the borders of light ; for things must be brought to
light one after another and in due order in the dif-
ferent arts, until these have reached the highest point
of development."* So ends the fifth book.
Book the sixth and last opens with an eulogium
* Munro.
ii2 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
of Athens, first teacher of agriculture and useful arts
to suffering men, and the thrice-honoured birthplace
of Epicurus. Lucretius then elaborately explains the
nature of thunder, and of those luminous portents
which from time to time affright the world. He
shows that thunder is simply the collision and clash-
ing of clouds, and that lightning is the fire struck out
by such collisions. Recurring again to his main
point, he heaps derision on those who attribute storms
to the instrumentality of gods.
If Jupiter and other gods above
Can shake the glittering regions of the sky
With awful sound, and wheresoe'er they will
Hurl down avenging fires, why spare they those
Who fear not to commit atrocious crimes ?
Why scorch them not with lightning thro' and thro',
Making a sign to teach us mortal men ?
And why is he whose conscience knows no sin,
Tho' he be stainless, wrapt about with flame,
Ari caught into the fiery arms of heaven ?
Why aim the gods at solitary spots,
Wasting their labours and their thunderbolts ?
Is it to exercise their arms and thews ?
Why does the Father suffer this Himself,
And not reserve it for His enemies ? etc.
In the same spirit he explains earthquakes, the
secrets of the sea, the volcanic flames of Etna and the
inundation of the Nile, the temperature of wells and
springs ; and, finally, coming to the loadstone or
magnet, he recapitulates all that he has said, in the
first part of his poem, on the rarity of bodies. " It is
necessary to establish that nothing comes under sense
save body mixed with void. For instance, in caves,
rocks overhead sweat with moisture, and trickle down
in oozing drops," etc. This being understood, mag-
netism is a stream of atoms being pulled back to fill
the vacuum in the middle of the loadstone. By a
somewhat abrupt transition, Lucretius next treats of
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 113
diseases " and, from what causes the force of disease
may suddenly gather itself up and bring death, deal-
ing destruction on the race of man and the troops of
wild beasts." The air is full of seeds, some salubrious,
some noxious to man ; and as these predominate in
the air, health or sickness prevails. This last part of
the poem resolves itself less into an explanation of
diseased phenomena than a mere catalogue of dis-
eases. We are told of the Egyptian leprosy, of the
Attic gout, and, finally, as a crowning picture, of the
Athenian plague. No detail is spared us of the horrors
of that pestilence. The poet, as if determined to deepen
into horrid certainty the mental dread within us, and to
save us from mad belief in Divine Beneficence, piles
horror upon horror, mingles a hospital with a
shambles, and shames the Muse out of her own
natural joy. These are the last lines of the entire
poem
And some were seized with such forgetfulness,
Themselves they knew not ; and though corpses lay
Piled upon corpses tombless on the earth,
No bird or beast of prey came nigh the stench,
But hovered far away ; and if by chance
One came and tasted, it grew sick and perish'd.
Yea, wild birds hung aloof, and savage beasts
Hid in the dark recesses of the woods.
Many dropped down in death ; hounds in the street
Lay stretch'd, scarce struggling, and turn'd o'er and died.
Then silently passed hurried funerals,
Followed by none that mourn'd. And mortal men
Knew for this evil thing no certain cure ;
For what to one man gave new life and health,
And suffered him again to see the sun,
Struck down another into fatal death.
In these sad days this was most pitiful,
Most quick to rend the heart : when any man
Found himself prisoned in the fatal folds,
He struggled not, but, lost to life and use,
Lay on the ground awaiting certain death,
And yielded up his spirit as he lay.
ii 4 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Ever and ever, like to flocks and herds,
They caught the direful plague from one another !
And death was heaped on death, for those that fled,
Fearing to tend their kinsmen stricken down,
Were dreadfully pursued in turn and slain,
To direful death condemned by dread of death,
Unpitied, doomed, and in their turn forlorn.
******
Then every herd and shepherd in the hills,
And every mighty guider of the plough,
Sickened, and in their huts were left to rot,
Dead, slain by poverty and fell disease !
And so dead parents over their dead young
Lay scattered, and upon their parents dead
Dead children ; and from country into town
The peasants, driven by the fatal plague,
Came ever, bringing horror in their train,
In all the public places sheltering,
Until Death drifted them in direful heaps
One on another ; and impell'd by thirst,
Many crept forth, and crawled along the street,
Until they reached the fountains, stooped to drink.
And even in drinking died ! * *
And all the blessed sanctuaries of the gods
Were piled with corpses, and the heavenly shrines
Were brimful, for the guardians of the places
Had thrown them open to the coming guests.
And no man worshipt now to any god,
For each man's heart was full of present ill.
And gentle rites of burial were forgotten
Which all that pious town had used before,
And men ran hither and thither wringing hands,
And burying their dead as best they might.
And out of horror and of poverty
Were born dark deeds ; for many, shrieking loud,
Upon the funeral pyres of strangers placed
Their kinsfolk, setting torches to the same.
And there they fought, with flowing streams of blood,
Sooner than quit their places by their dead !
It is veritably the last circle of the Inferno, whence
emerging at last, to our infinite relief, we " again be-
hold the stars/'*
Brief and insufficient as my glimpse has been of a
* Dante, "Inf."xxxiv.
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 115
work which stands solitary in the literature of an-
tiquity, as the one great poem explaining the phe-
nomena of nature, I have sufficiently expressed its
spirit to show what attraction it has for modern
materialists. Utterly in revolt against the Alex-
andrian philosophy and poetry, then so fashionable,
Lucretius determined to be terribly non-ideal and
realistic. t( His poem is indeed," as Professor Veitch
has admirably expressed it, " a type in the world of
thought of the irrepressible Roman spirit of absolute
sovereignty, and love of orderly rule in the world of
practical life and action/' He himself stands sovereign
and centre of things, with no doubts and prevarica-
tions, but with a precision of conception which sup-
plies the place of actual verification. Yet they have
learned little of Lucretius, they have penetrated but
little into his arcana, who aver, like many modern
writers who would fain make him a mere enemy of
the ancient polytheistic religion, that this poet had
a divine consciousness of " something more than
Matter." To hint as much is to misconstrue Lucre-
tius completely. He is a materialist pure and simple,
solemn and staunch ; as bigoted in his creed and as
certain of his gospel as the veriest divine that ever
thumped a cushion ; as anxious to proselytise as any
other more popular Apostle ; with all the zeal of a
missionary, and all the pomposity of a Bishop. He
leaves no room whatever for that Unknowable in
which our later prophets, such as Mr. Spencer, have
so much faith. His individual knowledge may be in-
adequate, but all things are ascertainable by the
human mind and why ? because there is so little
to ascertain. A Void and a fortuitous concourse of
Atoms; a Creation and a Change ; a march of elements,
for ever destroying and for ever renewed this is what
I 2
ii6 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
he has to show us, pointing upward. Pointing down-
ward, the earth rolling on to some fiery end, and ever
growing weaker and weaker ; Man in countless gene-
rations passing from primaeval simplicity to stages of
degeneracy, decay, and death ; gods fading away like
wreaths of morning cloud, while pestilence and famine
complete the doom of each benighted race. His ideas
and pictures, like his language, are vivid and grandiose.
One feels a certain sense of vastness, of expanse,
of duration. I cannot, however, agree with his
warmest admirers, that his highest characteristic is
an extraordinary feeling for the Limitless. On the
contrary, I am acquainted with no poet who con-
fines our conceptions so specifically within a given
area ; who so persistently weighs and appraises the
finite with so feeble a conception of the Infinite ;
who shocks us with so many prophecies of the scien-
tific lecturing-table and the medical dissecting-room ;
who is, in a word, so supremely and absolutely blind
to all the higher phenomena of Mind. His attitude
is Napoleonic; he is master of all things, and conquest
can no further go. He has the lowest possible con-
ception even of atomic forces, the vilest possible
estimation of the nature and destiny of Man. He is
courageous, for he can live ; he is not hopeless, for he
can die. He knows that God is a Phantom, that
Love is a physical desire, that Man is a creature of
matter, and that both Man and the world must perish.
This knowledge brings him no sweet assurance ; it is
a cup of hemlock, which only the wise may drink,
and which he therefore drinks with becoming pride,
but utterly without joy. He is a materialist, for he
believes the world is over-ripe, and is slowly hastening
to decay ; he is a pessimist, for he believes that civi-
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 117
lisation brings no bliss to ft miserable men/' Passing
out with Epicurus beyond the " flaming walls of the
world," he has only discovered that there is nothing
there. In truth, this passing the " flaming walls "
was only a dream. All the time he was standing at
his own door, contemplating the Necropolis, and
wondering when his time would come.
If modern Materialism had no more philosophy
to teach them than we find in the pages of the " De
Rerum Natura/' men should despair indeed ; but,
fortunately, nothing is more jubilant and self-satisfied
than the tone adopted by every demi-god of the
modern lecture-room. The " grand old Pagans," as
Professor Tyndall cheerfully calls them,* might de-
spair, but our contemporary Pagans mean to do
nothing of the kind. The condition of the world is
every day growing brighter, the happiness of man is
every day growing surer : these are formulas on
which they habitually insist; and the inevitable
amelioration of things is due, they add, not to Re-
ligion, but to Science. What they mean by Science
they have never quite explained, any more than
many of their opponents have explained what they
mean by Religion ; but some things are clear : for
example, that just as the religion of such men as
the Duke of Argyle and the Bishop of Carlisle is
scientific, so the science of such men as Mr. Darwin
and Mr. Spencer is religious. In the controversial
jargon of the day there is a strange confusion of
terms. For example, Dr. Draper (in that very super-
ficial book on the " Conflict of Religion and Science,"
which Professor Tyndall is so fond of rashly praising)
* " Crystals and Molecular Force."
n8 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
means by Religion chiefly the Roman Catholic
Church, and by Science many discoveries which we
might almost class as purely mechanical. " I have
said nothing," he cries, with a mental confusion which
would be fiercely reprobated in a theologian, " nothing
adequate about the railway system, or the electric
telegraph ; nor about the calculus, or lithography ;
the air-pump, or the voltaic battery ; the discovery of
Uranus or Neptune, and more than a hundred
asteroids ; the relation of meteoric streams to
comets ; nothing of the expeditions by land and
sea that have been sent forth by various Govern-
ments for the determination of important astro-
nomical or geographical questions ; nothing of the
costly and accurate experiments they have caused
to be made for the ascertainment of fundamental
physical data. I have been so unjust to our own
century, that I have made no allusion to some of
its greatest scientific triumphs ; its grand concep-
tions in natural history ; its discoveries in mag-
netism and electricity ; its invention of the beautiful
art of photography; its applications of spectrum
analysis ; its attempts to bring chemistry under the
three laws of Avogadro, of Boyle and Mariotte,
and of Charles ; its artificial production of organic
substances from inorganic material, of which the
philosophical consequences are of the utmost im-
portance ; its reconstruction of physiology by laying
the foundation of that science on chemistry ; its im-
provements and advances in topographical survey-
ing, and in the correct representation of the surface
of^the globe. / have said nothing about rifled guns
and armoured ships, nor of the revolution that has been
made in tJte art of war ; nothing of that gift to women,
the sewing-machine ; nothing of the noble contentions
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 119
and triumphs of the arts of peace the industrial exhi-
bitions and worUTs fairs" *
Nothing, let me add, about the Crystal Palace and
the Barnum Hippodrome of New York ; nothing of
the kaleidoscope and the magic lantern ; nothing
about the School Board and the workhouse, of the
treadmill and the penitentiary ! When a scientific
pedant writes nonsense like this, it is difficult to be
serious. Blindly oblivious of all those enormous
tracts of knowledge, both moral and physical, which
have been gained solely for us by the religious in-
stincts of man, he seems to be claiming all the
victories of Art for peripatetic chemists and quacks
of Nature's laboratory. The truth is, Religion and
Science cannot be separated on the off-hand assump-
tion, now so generally made, that the one is not
" religious/' and the other is not " scientific." To
my mind, for example, Mr. Spencer is an eminently
religious man ; not certainly in the sense which con-
fuses Dr. Draper, but as a man in whom, to paraphrase
Professor Tyndall's pompous remark concerning him,
" the ganglia are sometimes the seat of a nascent
poetic thrill." Professor Tyndall himself "goes to
church," in a building of his own uprearing ; and it
is in no irreverent mood, though the irreverent may
sometimes laugh at him, that he stands on a magnetic
stool, or experimentalises with a raw turnip. No one
familiar with his higher ideas can doubt that he is
a man capable of the most noble emotions, and as
beneficent in his social conceptions as any Christian
of this generation. It is unjust, therefore, to call
such men irreligious ; and it is, moreover, very con-
* "The Conflict between Religion and Science." By D .
Draper. International Scientific Series. (King and Co.)
120 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
fusing. They are doing missionary work of a very
fatiguing kind, and their efforts deserve our warmest
encouragement, however much we may quarrel with
their " ideas."
It was therefore in a truly proselytising spirit that
Dr. Tyndall, in his memorable Belfast address, while
rapidly surveying the history of the Atomic Theory
from Democritus downward, drew special attention
to the scientific forecasts of Lucretius. He first
called attention to the original propositions of De-
mocritus, that (i) From nothing comes nothing ;
nothing that exists can be destroyed ; all changes are
due to the combination and separation of molecules.
(2) Nothing happens by chance; every occurrence
having its cause, which it follows from necessity;
(3) the only existing things are atoms and void ;
(4) the atoms, infinite in number and infinite in
form, strike together, and the lateral motions and
whirling which thus arise are the beginnings of
worlds ; (5) the varieties of all things depend on the
varieties of their atoms, their number, size, and ag-
gregation ; (6) the soul consists of fine, smooth
round atoms, like those of fire, and in their motions
the phenomena of life arise. " The first five pro-
positions," added the Professor, " are a fair general
statement of the Atomic Theory, as now held ; as re-
gards the sixth, Democritus made his fine smooth
atoms to do duty for the nervous system, whose
functions were then unknown." Then, tracing the
opinions of Epicurus concerning death, he introduces,
by way of anecdote, a fallacy of his own, much in
favour at the present day, and used as a constant
argument by Mr. John Morley. "'Did I not be-
lieve/ said a great man to me once, "that an Intel-
ligence is at the heart of things, my life on earth
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 121
would be intolerable/ The utterer of these words
is not, in my opinion, rendered less noble, but more
noble, by the fact that it was the need of ethical
harmony here, and not the thought of perpetual
profit hereafter, that prompted his observations."
Now, I have already called Dr. Tyndall a re-
ligious man, a man of reverent and holy bearing
towards all the great mysteries of creation ; but here,
simply by passing beyond his depth, he is childishly
unjust to those who, not without mightier reasons
than any he can ever find among the atoms, believe
in the infinite possibilities of spiritual existence.
Surely the History of Religion, not as set forth by
a superficial pamphleteer, by Dr. Draper, but as con-
tained in that aggregation of individual history which
we call " Biography," should teach him that Hegel's
favourite joke is not worth this repeated reproduction.
The religious thirst for future life is quite another
thirst than that for the bonus for good conduct often
sought by so-called Christians, and seeing that it
exists most in those who are content to accept
life as an interminable labour darkened by sorrow
and by suffering, it should not be classed as alto-
gether a selfish hope of reward. From the mo-
dern utilitarian point of view, of course all effort is
selfish ; and from the same standpoint, there is no
particular nobility in struggling after truth before
astonished Belfast audiences, or experimentalising in
the interest of humanity on an electric stool !
Fame is the spur which the clear spirit doth raise,
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delight and live laborious days !
Noble as is the Professor's desire for fame, I ques-
tion his capacity for martyrdom, and his insinuations
concerning religion are more in the spirit of a bigoted
122 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
bishop than of a good philosopher. Would he not
consider it rather hard if an opponent say the Bishop
of Manchester were to say, "This publishing of
pamphlets is all very well, if it were not for the
thought of personal profit, whether in the shape of
fame or money, Jiere" The truth is, the Professor,
stirred into polemics by irritating opponents, does
himself the injustice to confound " hope of reward "
with " a love of service," which love, I am sure, is
the animating spirit of his own life. Now, the re-
ligious conception is simply this, that this life, with
all its hindrances and imperfections, is infinitely too
brief for that divine service, or supreme self-sacrifice,
which many creatures love to intoxication. It is not
pleasure that is solicited ; it is continual hard work,
even associated with pain ; and it is not too much to
say that this desire to enlarge the vital horizon is the
source of nobler sentiments than the conviction that
Death merely robs us of sensation. It is the Ma-
terialist here, not the Idealist, who clings firm to the
vulgar conception of Heaven and Hell. Dr. Tyndall
would doubtless affirm of the early Christian martyrs
that they were upheld by the conviction that God
would justify Himself after death and make them glad,
and so in truth they thought ; but it requires no very
close study of history to see that many of these meant
by heavenly gladness only a further series of personal
labours, a further purging and purification from
human impurity. The insinuations of the materialist
would be unjust even if urged against the best forms
of Mahomedanism ; as urged against the higher
Christianity, they are simply absurd and self-refuting
Religion, rightly understood, is the love of holy
service. In this sense, as I have suggested, a Ma-
terialist may be very religious ; but the state of mind
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 123
with him is generally this either that a brief life
satisfies his activity, or else that the constant contem-
plation of the infinitesimal destroys the power of his
capacity to generalise truly. With one to whom
poetic emotion is " the thrill of a ganglion," thought
" cerebration," life " molecular force/' creation " evo-
lution," crime "cerebral disease," Religion may well
become a question of " rewards and punishments ; "
but it is as unfair to dismiss Religion in this super-
ficial way, as it would be to treat modern science from
the point of view of the holy Congregation of the
Index.
I have no objection whatever to modern Ma-
terialism ; it is a vital and it may be an elevating
creed. I have the highest objection, however, to
its criticism of those ideas which it does not under-
stand, and which, if we accept its own showing, can
never be formulated. Doubtless, it is a far higher
and holier belief than the crude religions of Epicurus
and Lucretius, in so far as it preaches beneficence,
under certain limitations, to the inferior races of men
and to the inferior races of beasts. It is a creed of
continence, of health, of sobriety, of enduranre, and
perhaps self-sacrifice. But it is not, at least as pre-
sented to us by its leading teachers, the creed it pro-
fesses to be that is, a creed of Verification. A
Christian is more logical in believing his Christian
evidences than a Materialist in accepting his theory
of the Atoms; for the very existence of the last is
postulated as a theory, while the former, whether
false or true, are invariably valued in so far as
they are evidence that is, are verification. I ac-
company Dr. Tyndall through his Universe ; I seem
to see his atoms falling through infinite space; I
hear him crying, " I prolong the vision backward
124 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
across the boundary of the experimental evidence,
and discern in that Matter which we, in our igno-
rance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence
for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium,,
the promise and potency of every form and quality of
Life/'* Very good, I reply; but what right have
you to " prolong your vision across the boundary of
the experimental evidence " ? You laugh at others for
doing so. You are an experimental philosopher
you can tell us startling things about the phe-
nomena of light, heat, radiation, and magnetism but
neither you nor any of your school can tell us one
fact, can give us one idea, explaining the phenomena
of Life itself. Suppose we, in our turn, were to cry
to you, " This is our Universe ; we know we are,,
we see what is ; we prolong the vision forwards
across the boundary of the experimental evidence,
and discern in that Spirit of which you, in your igno-
rance, can give us no explanation, and notwithstand-
ing your professed reverence for the Unknowable, are
daily covering with opprobrium, the promise and
potency of every form and quality of Life/'
It is not right that I should be construed as
objecting to Science, or to its leading modern
doctrine, that of Evolution. On the contrary, I
quite agree with Mr. Darwin (who showed in all his
discussions a reverence of tone and a purity of pur-
pose in which he is almost unique) that " it is just as
noble a conception of the Deity to think that He
created a few original forms, capable of self-develop-
ment, into other and needful forms, as to believe that
He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids
caused by the action of His laws." (It is but just to-
add that Mr. Darwin is merely quoting with approba-
* Belfast Address.
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 125
tion an eminent " author and divine," not using his
own words.) Here, however, the pupil and the
master are hopelessly at war, Dr. Tyndall almost
accusing the great Apostle of Evolution of heresy to
his own creed. " The anthropomorphism, which it
seemed his object to set aside, is as firmly associated
with the creation of a few forms as with the creation
of a multitude. We need clearness and thoroughness
here. Either let us open our doors freely to the con-
ception of creative acts, or, abandoning them, let us
radically change our notions of Matter." In my
opinion, and doubtless in the opinion of Dr. Tyndall's
great master, no such alternative is necessary ; for it
is not necessary to discuss Creation at all, seeing that
all Science can tell us is that it knows nothing what-
ever on the subject ! All that it does is, passing the
boundary of the experimental evidence, to find the
Atoms a name given to numberless forces we can-
not understand. We reach these organisms which
Mr. Spencer compares to drops of oil suspended in
a mixture of alcohol and water ; we come to the
<" protogenes " of Haeckel, a type distinguishable
from a fragment of albumen only by its finely
granular character. We go further, thanks to the
Professor : we break a magnet into infinite pieces, and
we find that each of the pieces, however small, carries
with it, though enfeebled, the polarity of the whole.
This experiment is so conclusive to the Professor,
that he "at once closes with Lucretius," affirming
that Nature is seen " to do all things spontaneously
and without the meddling of the gods," and with
Bruno, that she is " the Universal Mother who brings
forth all things as the fruit of her own womb." What
then ? Surely these vague generalisations are un-
worthy of a physicist. Does the breaking of the
magnet, " even when we prolong the intellectual vision
126 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
to the polar molecules," bring us one whit nearer to
the Mystery we are investigating ? And if it does not,
which materialists themselves admit, why make it
the basis of an atheistic assumption ? In no single
instance have vital and physical forces been found
interchangeable on the principle of the correlation of
force. Protoplasm has never yet been developed
from inorganic matter, although Dr. Bastian's experi-
ments show that what he calls Archebiosis is possible
that is, spontaneous generation of life from dead
organic matter. Heterogenesis, or the production of
life from any form of inorganic matter, is admittedly
impossible. Only by doing what is forbidden to the
Spiritualist, only by " prolonging the line of the intel-
lect beyond the range of the sense," can Professor
Tyndall support Bruno's principle that from Matter
Life originates. In his " Fragments of Science," he
affirms that the polarity of magnetism gives a basis
for the conception that " atoms and molecules are
endowed with definite attractive and repellent poles,
by the play of which definite forms of crystalline
architecture are produced. Thus molecular force
becomes structural. It required no great boldness of
thought to expend its play into organic nature, and
to recognise in molecular force the agency by which
both plants and animals are built up." Elsewhere,
in language which all classes of thinkers must recog-
nise as beautiful, he pursues the same investigation :
I wish, however, to show you the molecules in the act of
following their architectural instincts, and building themselves
together. You know how alum, and nitre, and sugar crystals
are formed. The substance to be crystallised is dissolved in a
liquid, and the liquid is permitted to evaporate. The solution
soon becomes supersaturated, for none of the solid is carried
away by evaporation ; and then the molecules, no longer able
to enjoy the freedom of liquidity, close up together and form
crystals. My object now is to make this process rapid enough
to enable you to see it, and still not too rapid to be followed by
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 127
the eye. For this purpose, a powerful solar microscope and an
intense source of light are needed. They are both here.
Pouring over a clean plate of glass a solution of sal-ammoniac,
and placing the glass on its edge, the excess of the liquid flows
away, but a film clings to the glass. The beam employed to
illuminate this film hastens its evaporation, and brings it
rapidly into a state of supersaturation ; and now you see the
orderly progress of the crystallisation over the entire screen.
You may produce something similar to this if you breathe upon
the frost ferns which overspread your window-panes in the
winter, and permit the liquid to re-crystallise. It runs, as if
alive, into the most beautiful forms.
In this case the crystallising force is hampered by the adhe-
sion of the liquid to the glass ; nevertheless, the play of power
is strikingly beautiful. In the next example our crystals will
not be so much troubled by adhesion, for we shall liberate the
atoms at a distance from the surface of the glass. Sending an
electric current through water, we decompose the liquid, and
the bubbles of the constituent gases rise before your eyes.
Sending the same current through a solution of acetate of lead,
the lead is liberated, and its free atoms build themselves into
crystals of marvellous beauty. They grow before you like
sprouting ferns, exhibiting forms as wonderful as if they had
been produced by the play of vitality itself. The mechanism
of the process is rendered intelligible by the picture of atomic
poles ; but is there nothing but mechanism here? There is
something, in my opinion, which the mind of man has never
yet seized ; but which, so far as research has penetrated, is
found indissolubly joined with matter. I have seen these things
hundreds of times, but I never look at them without wonder.
And, if you allow me a moment's diversion from my subject,
I would say that when standing in the spring-time and looking
upon the sprouting foliage, the lilies of the field, and sharing
the general joy of opening life, I have often asked myself
whether there is no power, being, or thing, in the universe,
whose knowledge of that of which I am so ignorant is greater
than mine ? I have said to myself, Can it be possible that
man's knowledge is the greatest knowledge that man's life is
the highest life ? *
The Professor, we should think, is almost solitary in
seeing any resemblance between a crystal and a life
cell. The microscope instructs us that real living
germs have the power of motion and proliferation in
quite a different measure to that vouchsafed to a
* " Crystals and Molecular Force." By John Tyndall, F.R.S.
(Longmans.)
128 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
crystal ; and we should have " to prolong the in-
tellectual vision very far indeed " before we could
imagine a crystal transmuting itself into an organic
form.
And here, in view of that last quotation from the
Professor, I cannot help complaining of a certain
inconsistency. Nothing, it is clear, can be more
materialistic than the tendency of Dr. Tyndall's
general teaching, yet it does not prevent his ganglia,
like Mr. Spencer's, from begetting a nascent poetic
thrill. " I have said to myself/' he cries under such
an emotion, " can it be possible that man's know-
ledge is the greatest knowledge that man's life is
the highest life ? " Well, admitting for a moment
that the theory of Evolution is strictly correct, may
we not prolong the vision so far forward as to as-
sume the existence of beings as much our superiors,
as we, in our highest thoughts, are the superiors of
the primordial germs ? Dr. Tyndall, possibly, would
smile at this, and refer us to the evidence of the
senses; but such beings, if they existed, would be
no more apparent to ordinary sight or touch than the
primordial germs. Electricity is atomic, yet it is in-
visible, and moreover it is a force. Furthermore,
admitting the theory of crystallisation, would there
be a greater invisible leap between that form of
matter which is structural and that form of matter
which we might call spiritual, than there is between
that form which is crystalline and that other which
is structural ? If a life germ can be developed
out of a crystal, why may not a spirit (using that
term for want of a better) be developed out of a
body ? In another and clearer phraseology, made
clear to us by the teaching of a Seer whom Dr.
Tyndall utterly misunderstands, may not a spiritual
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 129
body issue in the course of Evolution from a body
corporeal ; and, further, seeing that the process of
evolution has been going on so long, may not such
spiritual bodies exist, although they are as unre-
cognised by us as we are unrecognised by the silk-
worm in its cone ?
Professor Tyndall is very sarcastic on what he
calls " psychic " conditions, " obviously connected
with the nervous system and the state of the health,
on which is based the Vedic doctrine of the absorp-
tion of the individual into the universal soul." He
cites Plotinus, Porphyry, Wordsworth, and Emerson
as being subject to such ecstasies ; and as if this con-
fusion of types were not sufficient, he carelessly joins
with the rest the name of Swedenborg. Now, in
Swedenborg he might have found, up to a certain
point, a most powerful ally, as he would discover in
a perusal of the " Mechanism of the Intercourse of
the Soul and the Body ; " where the great thinker
clearly shows that the Soul is finite, that it is one of
the Body's natural parts, that its seat is in the brain,
and that it resides particularly in the cortical sub-
stance of the cerebrum, and partly also in the
medulla, but is ubiquitous in all parts of the brain.
Again, we do not think that Swedenborg prolongs
his intellectual vision more unwarrantably than Dr.
Tyndall, when he affirms, in his " Economy of the
Animal Kingdom," that " should any one of the
external spheres of nature be dissolved, the internal
nevertheless remains unharmed ; thus, where Air
ceases Ether is found ; when the red blood dies its
animal spirits survive ; and though death destroys
the body the Soul escapes unscathed." It would be
wasting time to prolong this allusion to him whom
Mr. Emerson calls " one of the mastodons of litera-
I 3 o A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
ture," or specially to enlarge on his superficially
mystic but intrinsically scientific conceptions of the
Spiritual Body. Nor must I for a moment be
understood as preaching Swedenborgianism. I
am only suggesting that Dr. Tyndall's sneer at
Swedenborg was uninstructed, and that there are
some few quasi-scientific suggestions of the Swedish
seer which may, after all, come as close to a
solution of organic life as an explanation which
attempts to connect organic life with crystalli-
sation, and spiritual life with the phenomena of mole-
cular force.
On the whole, one is grateful that the Professor
sometimes believes in the possibility of higher types
than the human. May I then suggest to him that
perhaps that Matter in which he discerns the pro-
mise and potency of all earthly life, may in reality
be only a phenomenon of spiritual force? and though
it is admittedly impossible to tell whence that
spiritual force, or life, has emanated, that it is not
quite so impossible to guess whitherward it is to
grow ? The sum of force is indestructible and un-
changing, the forms of force are destructible and
ever-varying. We find Death universal, but Life
omnipotent. We are not so sure that we die, as that
Death cannot destroy, but can only change, the sum
of force within us. Unless Dr. Tyndall can prove
to us that this sum of force, including the basis of
consciousness itself, is so redistributed among the
elements that no possibility of future existence is
tenable, he should cut from his programme of Mate-
rialism his dogma of the mortality of the Soul. Unless
he can prove to us what consciousness is, we cannot
accept his dicta that consciousness dies. "Old de-
cays," sings the poet, " but foster new progressions ;
A NOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 131
and this may be as true of the cerebral forces as of
what the Professor calls a " hydrocarbon." Again,
since the atoms are imperishable, and Thought is
assumed as the highest evolution of the atoms,
Thought itself is atomic, Thought itself is a form
of force, Thought itself, despite its infinite fresh
combinations, is indestructible, possibly as much so
as any given gas.
In the course of his memorable address at Belfast,
Professor Tyndall gave an imaginary dialogue be-
tween a Lucretian and Bishop Butler, apropos of
the Bishop's position that " our organised bodies are
no more a part of ourselves than any other matter
around us." I wish I had space for the whole
argument, which I am compelled to condense. The
Lucretian commences thus :
" You speak of c living powers/ ' percipient or perceiving
powers,' and ' ourselves ; ' but can you form a mental picture of
any one of these apart from the organism through which it is
supposed to act ? . . . . The true self has a local habi-
tation in each of us ; thus localised must it not possess a form ?
If so, what form? .... When a leg is amputated the
body is divided into two parts ; is the true self in both of them
or in one ? . . . . What if you begin at the other end and
remove, instead of the leg, the brain ? . . . . Or, instead
of going so far as to remove the brain itself, let a certain por-
tion of its bony covering be removed, and let a rhythmic series
of pressures and relaxations of pressure be applied to the soft
substance. At every pressure the faculties of perception and of
action vanish; at every relaxation of pressure they are restored.
. . . Where is the man himself during the period of insen-
sibility ? You may say that I beg the question when I assume
the man to have been unconscious, that he was really conscious
all the time, and has simply forgotten what has occurred to
him I do not think your theory of instruments
goes at all to the bottom of the matter. A telegraph operator
has his instruments, by means of which he converses with the
world ; our bodies possess a nervous system, which plays a
similar part between the perceiving power and external things.
Cut the wires of the operator, break his battery, demagnetise
his needle ; by this means you certainly sever his connection
with the world ; . . . . but the operator survives, and he
K 2
I 3 2 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
knows that he survives. . . . Another consideration. . . .
the brain may change from health to disease, and through such
a change the most exemplary man may be converted into a
debauchee or a murderer. . . . Can the brain or can it not
act in this distempered way, without the intervention of the
immortal reason ? "
And the Bishop, whose arguments we also condense,
replies :
"You are a Lucretian, and from the combination and
separation of insensate atoms deduce all terrestrial things,
including organic forms and their phenomena. Let me tell
you, in the first instance, how far I am prepared to go with
you. I admit that you can build crystalline forms out of this
play of molecular force ; that the diamond, amethyst, and
snow-star are truly wonderful structures which are thus pro-
duced. I will go further and acknowledge that even a tree or
flower might in this way be organised. Nay, if you can show
me an animal without sensation, I will concede to you that it
also might be put together by the suitable play of molecular
force. . . . Now comes my difficulty. Your atoms are
individually without sensation, much more are they without
intelligence. May I ask you, then, to try your hand upon this
problem ? Take your dead hydrogen atoms, your dead oxygen
atoms, your dead carbon atoms, your dead nitrogen atoms,
your dead phosphorus atoms, and all the other atoms, dead as
grains of shot, of which the brain is formed. Imagine them
separate and sensationless, and observe their running together
and forming all imaginable combinations. This, as a purely
mechanical process, is seeable by the mind. But can you see,
or dream, or in any way imagine, how out of that mechanical
act, and from these individually dead atoms, sensation, thought,
and emotion are to arise ?....! am able to pursue to
the central organ the motion thus imparted at the periphery,
and to see in idea the very molecules of the brain thrown into
tremor. My insight is not baffled by these physical processes.
What baffles and bewilders me, is the notion that from these
physical tremors things so utterly incongruous with them as
sensation, thought, and emotion can be derived. . . . Your
difficulty, then, as I see you are ready to admit, is quite as
great as mine. You cannot satisfy the human understanding
in such demand for logical continuity between molecular
processes and the phenomena of consciousness."
All this is very admirable, if we can only imagine
any one admitting offhand, that " trees and flowers "
A XOTE ON LUCRETIUS. 133
mi-lit be organised out of the play of molecular force ;
and Professor Tyndall honestly exclaims, " I hold the
Bishop's reasoning to be quite unanswerable/' He
might, had he read his Svvedenborg, have constructed
for the Bishop a train of still more unanswerable
arguments ; or turning to a contemporary writer, he
may find in Mr. Allanson Picton's ingenious essays *
a still further series of proofs that Matter is in its
ultimate essence spiritual, and that we are certain of
one thing only, the existence of spiritual life.
I have left Lucretius far behind me, gazing still
with a sense of complete mastery on his primordial
universe, where there is no room, not even an inter-
mundia, where the gods, or a God, may dwell. In
investigating the creed of his representative modern
followers, of him to whom the torch of Lucretian
illuminative genius has been passed on, I have
found more comfort combined with far less coherence.
Professor Tyndall is certainly a materialist, though
he has no particular affection for the name, and he is
also, but in no offensive sense, an atheist, though he
refuses to put that word upon his banner. In days
when so much heat is still introduced into popular
controversy, his caution is perhaps necessary ; yet I
should admire him more if he showed more com-
pletely the courage of his convictions. His theory of
organic matter is destructive to any sort of Deism ;
indeed, so far as I see, it leaves no room whatever
for even the higher Pantheism, though it is full of
that Lower Pantheism which sees in every clod and
stone the potency of universal life. He disclaims
anthropomorphism, but he cannot free his " ganglia "
* "The Mystery of Matter." By Allanson Picton. (Mac-
millan.)
134
A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
altogether of mysterious " thrills." His tone is one
of quiet insinuation, rather than of formal avowal ;
but his highest mood is poetic, not scientific. If he
would only express his ideas in poetry, much of his
writing would be as valuable as much of Lucretius,
and he could soar to sublime flights of delicious
uncertainty by his admirable plan of "prolonging
the intellectual vision beyond the region of the
senses!"
FREE THOUGHT IN AMERICA.
ROBERT INGERSOLL.
THERE is a notion even in refined circles in America
that the influence of a man like Colonel Robert
Ingersoll may be an influence for good. I altogether
fail to see it. While doing full justice to the honesty,
the courage, and the good humour of this remarkable
orator, I am convinced that he is precisely the sort of
teacher I had almost written devil's advocate to
whom Americans should just now shut their ears.
Free thought should be distinguished from the of-
fences against common intelligence committed by a
Philistine of the Philistines. Ingersoll enters the
temples of religion with his hat on one side, a cigar
in his mouth, and a jest upon his lips. No matter
who the god may be Vishnu, Buddha, Apollo, or
Jesus he is ready to tackle him in his own peculiar
vocabulary. His philosophy may be summed up in
the words of Burns :
To make a happy fireside clime
To weans and wife
That's the true pathos and sublime
Of human life !
136 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
This philosophy is all very well in its way, just as
well as eating and drinking, dancing, marrying and
giving in marriage, and infant-dandling ; but if it
were all-sufficient, George the Third would have
been a great king, and Voltaire would have been a
great poet. To take Colonel Ingersoll seriously, of
course, would be like asking for reverence from Mark
Twain. He represents the natural reaction of
American Bohemianism against the Puritanism of
Boston and the overstrained Transcendentalism of
Brook Farm. But he is just the sort of person of
whom America does not stand in need. The pre-
dominant vices of America, especially as represented
by its great cities, are its irreverence, its recklessness,
its impatience in one word, its Materialism. A nation
in which the artistic sense is almost dead, which is
practically without a literature, which is impatient of
all sanctions and indifferent to all religions, which is
corrupt from the highest pinnacle of its public life
down to the lowest depth of its journalism, which is
at once thin-skinned under criticism and aggressive to
criticise, which worships material forces in every
shape and form, which despises conventional con-
ditions, yet is slavish to ignoble fashions, which, too
hasty to think for itself, takes recklessly at second-
hand any old or new-clothes philosophy that may be
imported from Europe, yet, while wearing the raiment
openly, mocks and ridicules the civilisation that wove
the fabric such a nation,! think, might be spared
the spectacle of an elderly gentleman in modern cos-
tume trampling on the lotus, the rose, and the lily in
the gardens of the gods. The exhibition can do no
good; it may do no little harm. If the science of
mythology did not exist, if the old gods or the new
had any bloody altars left, if the tongue of free
FREE THOUGHT IN AMERICA. 137
thought had not been loosened once and for ever, it
might be another matter ; but the danger now is, not
that men may believe too much, but that they may
believe too little; that in due time scepticism, which
has demolished all religions and fatally discredited
the divine religion of poetry itself, may turn the
Temple of Mystery into a bear-garden or a beer-
garden, exchange the language of literature for the
argot of the cheap press, and Americanise even the
sentiment of humanity. " I beg to remind honourable
gentlemen/' said Benjamin Disraeli, on a memorable
occasion, " that we owe much to the Jews." I beg to
remind the Colonel Ingersolls and Mark Twains of
that continent that we owe much to the gods, without
whom, when all is said and done,
The world would smell like what it is a tomb !
But for them, Europe would have been Americanised
long ago ; but for them, Europe would have arrived
centuries since at the blessed era of presidential elec-
tions, colossal public swindles, races for money-bags,
the torturing rack of the interviewer, and the in-
quisition of the newspaper ; but for them, but for the
divine tyrants and instructors of mankind, malignant
or benignant, terrible or beautiful, the pessimism of
Schopenhauer and Leopardi might have been ante-
dated a thousand years. For my own part, I should
prefer even to accept hell with John Calvin, rather
than to eat cakes, drint ale, and munch hot ginger
with Colonel Ingersoll. He is the boy in the gallery,
cracking nuts and making precocious comments
during the performance of the tragedy of life ; blind
to the splendour of the scenery, deaf to the beauty of
the dialogue, indifferent to the pathetic or tragic solici-
tations of the players ; seeing in Christ or Buddha or
138 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Jehovah only a leading man spouting platitudes, and
indifferently dressed for the part he is playing. A great
mythus is to him a great " lie," nothing more ; a great
poetical theology is only an invention of the arch-
enemy. Hugely does he enjoy the joke of the garden
of Eden or the tree of Iggdrassil ; clearly does he
perceive, having hung round the stage-door of the
world, that the goddesses are only ballet-girls, ex-
hibiting their nudity for so much a night. For him
^Eschylus has no terror, Sophocles no charm, the
author of the Book of Job no pathos ; everything is
leather and prunella, except the performance of
Harlequin.
That such a person should have a large following,
among a generation so much of his way of thinking,
is no matter for surprise ; a few centuries ago it might
have been a cause for joy ; but in the nineteenth
century it is truly sad, as showing how little Science
has done, after all, to elevate the intellectual condition
of the masses. The same uninstructed influence that
is thus brought to bear upon religion would speedily
be fatal, and already, as I have suggested, threatens
to be fatal, to all poetry, all true literature, all great
art, and, in the long run, all speculative science.
Colonel Ingersoll is very fond of proclaiming his ad-
miration for the great scientific teachers of the age ;
but in reality he is as far away in spirit from the
thought of Darwin as from the vision of Shakespeare,
as obtuse to the scientific problems as to the pathetic
poetic fallacy. Religion is the grave, elder daughter
of Poetry, and to understand religious questions a
man must have the heart of a poet. Science, too, is
the daughter of Poetry ; indeed, her youngest born ;
while calmer and colder than her mother, she has the
same far-away, rapt look into the heaven of heavens ;
FREE THOUGHT IN AMERICA. 139
and her teaching is for poetic hearts also, not for
those who confound her with her sordid and hard-
working handmaid, Invention. Science ranges the
universe, touches the farthest suns, reaches the farthest
cloud confines, and cries honestly and loudly, " Thus
far no farther here I pause;" and then even she
begins to dream. Invention squats on the ground,
sets her little water-wheel, lights her little lamp,
pieces her mechanical puzzles, does homely work,
delightful and useful to everybody. But Invention-
worship is fetish-worship, and Colonel Ingersoll is
a fetish-worshipper that is to say, an individual
exactly at the savage stage where neither religion nor
science begins. To go to him for religious guidance,
is like asking a native of the kingdom of Dahomey to
favour us with his ideas on Free-will, the Incarnation,
the philosophy of Plato, the art of Raphael, the
poetry of ^Eschylus, the music of Beethoven, and the
philosophy of Comte or Spencer.
The Christian stage, whatever objection we may
take to it, is higher than the fetish-stage, and the
lowest form of anthropomorphism is infinitely su-
perior to totem-worship. The mass of mankind
do not need to be told that it is well to fill
their bellies, to love their children, to live amicably
with one another, to accept no guidance but their
own very questionable " common-sense ; " all that
is taught to them of right and of necessity by the
conditions of that period of evolution which they
have already attained. What they require to learn
is, that life necessitates divine sanctions as well
as cheery conditions ; that the gods are not dead,
but living imperishable ideals fashioned by the
sublimest and supremest conceptions of mankind ;
that the truth of any religion lies not in its dogma,
i 4 o A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
but in its moral beauty or poetical imperishability,
because just so far as it is beautiful is it funda-
mentally and actually true ; that our sharpest hours
of suffering contain our clearest moments of insight;
and that human love and sympathy are born, not of
common junketing, but of common despair and sor-
row. The gospel of hot ginger, as preached by
Colonel Ingersoll, would soon make of New York
another Sodom. Fortunately, such a man as
Octavius Frothingham is hard by, to vindicate the
poetry of religion against the champions of cakes
and ale, and to prove that free thought, even in
America, does not necessarily imply free permission
to outrage your neighbour's most sacred convictions.
II.
OCTAVIUS FROTHINGHAM.
MR. FROTHINGHAM is well known to most readers
of religious literature as one of the most brilliant
and enlightened apostles of free thought or radical
religion in America. Until quite lately, I believe,
he preached every Sunday in New York ; with
the field of his present labours I am unacquainted ;
but my knowledge of him is altogether based on his
writings and on Mr. Stedman's little monograph
one of those admirably lucid bits of crystallisation
for which the writer is distinguished. Of course,
a man educated like myself in the school of Eng-
lish Jacobinism finds in Mr. Frothingham a not
very novel type of thinker, uttering sentiments with
FREE THOUGHT IX AMERICA. \\\
which the world of free thought has long been
familiar; but the author of "Transcendentalism in
New England " has a distinct individuality, often
perfervid, occasionally convincing, and never tire-
some. His style is admirable, even where his
matter is questionable, as it now and then is ; and,
on the whole, America is to be congratulated on the
privilege of listening to such a man. But does
America listen to him ? It would very much as-
tonish me to hear that it did. His faith is far too
filmy, his foothold much too unsteady, to carry
conviction to the hearts of a hasty generation. His
tolerance to all religions, all opinions, all orthodoxies
and heresies, is beautiful and welcome, but his infinite
patience lacks, to my mind, the shaping power of
conviction. He has set his soul free of every
bond and shackle, but he leaves it to beat the
empty air. With all this, it must be clearly un-
derstood that his written works have the highest of
all literary merits, that of directly stimulating thought
in the reader ; they are full of grave, wise, tender,
ven profound things, expressed in perfect language ;
they are reverent to the very extremes of their gentle
audacity; and there can be no doubt whatever that
they have had a deeply beneficent influence when-
ever and wherever they have been studied. But the
fatal spirit of a self-destructive latitudinarianism,
which has paralysed the will of every transcenden-
talist from Hegel downward, possesses Mr. Frothing-
ham also. His message to men carries no conviction,
for it has neither the hate of hate nor the love of
love ; it lacks the fertilising energy and superb
bigotry of a logical belief.
Mr. Frothingham, for example, utterly repudiates
Anthropomorphism. The universe, in his conception,
142 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
is, as it was to Spinoza, as it has been to every true
transcendentalist, a system of universal Law, entirely
divorced from personality. From one point of view,
this conception is rational and impregnable; from
another, it is inexpedient, not to say trivial. No sane
man doubts the profundity of the current ideas on
which Mr. Frothingham sails so cheerfully; of the
" stream of tendency " and the " power beyond our-
selves which works for righteousness;" but many
men doubt, as I do, the scientific necessity, or
the mental possibility, of divorcing the idea of
God from the idea of personality. The poetical
image of the magnified non-natural man at least hits
the mark better than the preposterous images of
" streams " and " tendencies " and impersonal work-
ing " powers " beyond humanity. Very instructive it
is to observe, in this connection, how the apostle of
blind law, taken off his guard, appropriates the
anthropomorphic metaphors :
The Radical has no definition ; he does not venture on a
written definition. He will not define or confine the infinite.
He has no interpretation which he can accept or impose upon
anybody else ; but the substance of the idea he holds in a
manner so transcendental, grand, vast, and beautiful that the
others dwarf themselves into utter insignificance. The Hebrew
Jehovah seems to him a fanciful and fantastical idea ; the
Christian's triune deity is limited ; and the theist's conception
of the personal God is bounded. The Radical believes in the
universal law, omnipotent, omnipresent, sweeping through the
world, administering the least things, controlling the greatest,
holding close relations between you and me, holding in the
hollow of its hand2\\ the affairs of all the nations of the globe.
This idea of law material, intellectual, spiritual compre-
hends everything, all the domain of reason, all the domain of
hope, so vast that no faith can scale its heights, so tender that
one can lie like a child on its bosom, so mighty and majestic
that nobody need be afraid that it cannot overcome every
obstacle in the way of the highest and noblest advance. (" The
Mission of the Radical Preacher." By O. B. Frothingham.)
FREE THOUGHT IN AMERICA. 143
Which, after all, is the most illogical and fantastic,
the idea of a Hebrew Jehovah, or of a Christian
triune deity, or the picture of a Universal Law that
" administers " and " controls/' holds affairs in " the
hollow of its hand," and is so " tender that one can
lie like a child on its bosom " ? Every one admits
that God, in the Absolute, is unknowable and incon-
ceivable ; but the consensus of human experience has
established that the only image that can represent
His relation to conditioned creatures is the human or
anthropomorphic one, though it has made modern
scientists so angry. After all, is not the rejection of
the popular image made in the most " crass " spirit
of transcendentalism ? Where is the wisdom of a
criticism that would endow blind law with " hands "
and a " bosom," and in the same breath object to the
terminology of the Lord's Prayer ?
Elsewhere in the same book from which I have
quoted, Mr. Frothingham's language becomes less
contradictory, but even more extraordinary so
extraordinary, indeed, that, if it came from any other
pen, one might presume that the writer had no
spiritual claim to speak in cathedrcl on religious
topics at all. In proclaiming his revolt from the
Christian religion, and his rejection of the Christian
idea, he admits, regretfully, that the Christian faith
still prevails, that it keeps alive the potent activities
that sustain the life of Christendom. Nevertheless,
he adds, " it is a superstition ; it is not grounded on
history, on knowledge, on science, on fact, but it is a
fancy, an imagination, a tradition ;" and now, in the
natural course of things, it is dissolving away before
the breath of science. People, he naively affirms,
reject it in the great centres of activity in Paris, in
Berlin, in London, in New York ! Among other
144 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
reasons for the long permanence of this false faith,
and its still surviving- power, he gives the following :
I. The exceeding antiquity of the system; 2. The
hindrances so long thrown in the way of Biblical
criticism ; 3. Mirabile dictu, the persistence with
which the faith is taught. The last reason is a
superb 11011 sequitur ; it is simply affirming that the
zeal with which an army fights its battles is in direct
ratio to the weakness of its cause ! But, not content
with so wonderful an affirmation, Mr. Frothingham
goes on to arraign Christianity because it is the
" religion of sorrow." He quotes both Jesus and Paul
in illustration of his statement. Then he adds, not
without eloquence :
Through the chinks we can see the light. The condition of
man becomes more comfortable, more easy ; the hope of man
is more visible ; the endeavour of man is more often crowned
with success ; the attempt to solve the darkest life-problems is
not so desperate as it was. The reformer meets with fewer
rebuffs; the philanthropist does not despair as he did. The
light is dawning. The great teachers of knowledge multiply,
bear their burdens more and more steadily ; the traditions of
truth and knowledge are becoming established in the intellec-
tual world. It is so ; and those of us who have caught a vision
of the better times coming through reason, through knowledge,
through manly and womanly endeavour, have caught a sight
of a Christendom passing away, of a religion of sorrow de-
clining, of a gospel preached for the poor no longer useful to a
world that is mastering its own problems of poverty and lifting
itself out of disabling misery into wealth without angelic assis-
tance. This is our consolation ; and while we admit, clearly
and frankly, the real power of the popular faith, we also see
the pillars on which a new faith rests, which shall be a faith
not of sorrow, but of joy. (" The Rising and the Setting Faith,
and other Discourses." By O. B. Frothingham.)
Is it necessary to demolish this cumbrous snow-
heap of misconception, to point out the fallacy that
confuses the Christian sentiment with the utilitarian
philosophy of loaves and fishes? If all that Jesus
meant was that the poor should become the rich in
FREE THOUGHT IN AMERICA. 145
another world, and the suffering become the joyful ;
if the kernel of His teaching was merely, as narrow
logicians have suggested, the notion that bad luck
here would of necessity ensure a bonus elsewhere,
Christianity would stand but a poor chance at the
hands of either the higher or the lower criticism.
What Jesus did teach, or what we have learned at
least by the Divine Ideal that He afforded, was, and is,
that worldly knowledge, worldly prosperity, worldly
success and happiness, are poor things compared with
the heaven of sin vanquished, the other world of
supreme love and insight. If the triumph of the
political economist were quite secure ; if the earth
were equally divided among men according to some
such scheme as that of Henry George ; if there
were no workhouses in it, and no prisons, the poor
would still inherit the kingdom of heaven ; for the
true poor of the Christian idea are those who despise
ignoble prizes, who are indifferent to vain knowledge,
who have found in the certainty of human failure the
sublimity of sympathetic love and insight. It must
be borne in mind, too, that Jesus could sit down with
the rich man as well as the poor, when the rich man
was poor " in spirit." To refute Mr. Frothingham
here would be to refute the whole argument of utili-
tarianism, which has already been done, or attempted,
and is of course far beyond the scope of this paper ;
nor am I in any way holding a brief for the Christian
religion, or speaking from the point of view of the
orthodox believer. But let us have fair play on both
sides, nor attempt to answer the proposition that one
may be multiplied into three by an assertion that two
and two are four. Elsewhere Mr. Frothingham clearly
expresses his conviction that perfect happiness is
simply impossible under mundane conditions, and
146 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
that mere knowledge and power may be, and gene-
rally are, in the nature of vanity. As long as these
things are true, there is room in our dialectics for the
Christian argument that the compensations of a
higher and nobler life are precisely what is needed for
the settlement of the complex human problem. It is
melancholy to find a thinker like Mr. Frothingham,
among Americans, of all people in the world, arguing
that there is to be a millennium of inexhaustible dry
goods and of physical prosperity, compared with
which the coming of the Messiah would be but an
ineffective performance.
Mr. Frothingham writes very eloquently on evolu-
tion ; accepts all its splendid suggestions, both in the
material and in the moral world ; shows clearly that
cause follows effect in the social 'as well as the
physical sphere, and that out of evil must come evil,
and out of good must issue good. He accepts, if I
understand him rightly, the Comtist notion of the
perfectibility of Humanity, and infinitely prefers the
Grand Etre, or divine adumbration of the genius of
man, to either Jehovah or Jesus, Buddha or Balder.
He does not, however, imitate Colonel Ingersoll in
treating any of these gods with disrespect, but he
nevertheless measures them with his free-thought
foot-rule, and finds them, at the best, only a cubit
high. What, after all, is this Grand litre of which we
hear so much? Not the Son of Man transubstan-
tiated, but the Spirit of Man glorified ; not the
Paraclete, the Redeemer, or the Divine Ideal, but the
vague, impersonal, stupendous, and overpowering out-
come of all human intelligence, effort, suffering, limit-
less struggle, and despair. His other names are l
Science, Knowledge, Intellectual Victory, Moral Su- jUS
premacy; his other name will be Happiness, or t j n
FREE THOUGHT IN AMERICA, 147
Summum Bonum, by-and-by. Well, when our Grand
Eire looks forward, what will be his prospect? A
reign of indefinite but not endless length, cut short
inevitably, sooner or later, by the cataclysm of our
solar system. In the far future, then, inevitable
Death. When he looks backward, what must be his
retrospect ? Far away as the first beginnings of life
he traces the progression from pain to pain, marks
the graves of the generations, from the tomb of the
pterodactyl in the chalk to the sepulchre of Franklin
among the Arctic snows. Far backward then, Death
too ; aeons of agony, vistas of the types that have
perished to fashion the Grand Eire for his short
ecstatic reign. Science may smile at the thought of
compensation ; but surely the Grand Etre, with his
supreme potentialities of pity, must say to himself,
" Alas and alas ! though my children now rejoice, like
motes in the sunbeam, what of those who have been
destroyed, tortured, and obliterated in the long dark-
ness that preceded this splendid dawn of day ? " And
so, after all, the Grand tre, with all his good inten-
tions, finds his poor feet slipping and sinking in the
arid sands of pessimism, and the only gospel left for
his v/orshippers to preach will be the old weary gospel
of the materialist, " Eat, drink, and be happy, for to-
morrow we die ! "
L 2
I 4 8 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
III.
THE HOPE OF THE HUMAN RACE.
BUT to do Mr. Frothingham justice, he is not a pes-
simist. In one of the very finest of his essays, the
sermon on " Immortality/' a piece of writing that
can be read and re-read for its marvellous clearness
of exposition and its consummate beauty of ex-
pression, he echoes, though somewhat half-heartedly,
the great hope of the human race for an individual
existence after death. But in scrutinising his argu-
ment closely, we perceive that, while he welcomes
with enthusiasm the conception of the Grand Etre,
and states that chimerical Being's case with splendid
eloquence, he is lost in amazement that Humanity
ever contained that other idea of a personal immor-
tality ; can see no rational excuse for it ; fears,
indeed, that it is altogether too shadowy to be at
all tangible. All he can venture to say in plea for
it is that its very audacity favours it, its very wild-
ness is its guarantee. Here, again, we get frank con-
fession, but bad logic. How a faith can be vindi-
cated by its own sheer improbability, how a belief
may be true because it goes in the teeth of all ex-
perience, I leave for the transcendentalists of free
thought to decide. I believe the evolutionists have
clearly explained how the notion of life after death
" developed " easily out of the first superstitions of
the human race, and how its permanence in all com-
munities and most individuals proceeds from the
permanence of other instincts seemingly imperishable.
But where I join issue with Mr. Frothingham is at
the one point where issue is possible that the idea of
FREE THOUGHT IN AMERICA. 149
immortality is irrational and opposed to common ex-
perience ; for if it were so, there can be no doubt that
it would have been " obliterated " long ago in the
process of evolution. It is not because it is pre-
posterous, but because it is probable, that it has kept
its strenuous hold on the hearts of mankind. Jesus, in
His supreme practical wisdom, in His relentless logic,
perceived this fully, perceived that this very idea was
the natural, indeed the only, escape from between the
horrors of our mundane dilemma. And forthwith (for
I hold that this Man, whatever His credentials, was
scientific or nothing) He proceeded to verification.
Opening the human heart, He found that it demanded
ampler life on account of the infinite possibilities of
love without it. Examining the social organism, He
saw that its structure was welded together by the blood
of human martyrdom, that every hope and every
aspiration within it were based upon the certainty that
consciousness, and all its consequent affections, must
be permanent, and therefore immaterial. The law of
growth was absolute, the indestructibility of force was
sure, and the permanence of force was the certainty of
the Soul. As for His creed being one of sorrow, that is
not strictly true ; it is the world that is sorrowful, not
the creed that redeems it, which, after all, has never
until now had a fair trial. Christianity in its essence,
apart from its miraculous pretensions, is, like the mind
of its founder, strictly simple and scientific. It may not
be feasible, we may be altogether unable to believe it, its
history is a long chapter of horrors and enormities, and
for some inscrutable reason its priests and paid pro-
fessors have almost invariably been the enemies of
human progress ; but, compared with any other creed
that has been offered in God's name to men, it has the
solitary merit of logical truth and common-sense. If
ISO A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
we admit its fundamental proposition, that spiritual
personality is permanent, and is at the same time
directly conditioned by unselfish love and brother-
hood, all the mystery and pain, all the struggle of the
ages, becomes clear. Moral salvation, being inde-
pendent of dogma or of worldly happiness, was as
possible for the first half-savage human product as it
is possible now for the highest and the meanest of
mankind. Knowledge is nothing, power is nothing,
material success is nothing; the insight of love is every-
thing, and looks right up into the heaven of heavens,
crying, " O grave, where is thy victory ? O death,
where is thy sting ? "
In saying so much, perhaps, concerning one or two
points of Mr. Frothingham's teaching, I may seem to
be carping at what I came to praise. Let me repeat,
then, that the said teaching is in the main as wise as it
is beneficent, as beautiful as it is just. For every
flower that grows in the gardens of the gods, Mr.
Frothingham has reverent admiration ; he is Pharisaic
to no creed, but tolerant toward all. With his faith in
the teaching of science I can find no fault, except that
it blinds him now and then to the subtler issues of life
and experience ; it is, indeed, a kind of faith that
must grow in the hearts of all men, and ultimately, I
believe, lead to the triumph of the Christian ideal.
The star of a holy purpose shines at all times, more
or less brightly, through the clouds of the writer's
transcendentalism . For with all his scientific leanings
he is of the race that produced Emerson and Theodore
Parker ; he possesses by temperament their vagueness
and haziness of logic, leading sometimes to that uni-
versal tolerance which makes religion blow neither
hot nor cold, but lukewarm. Mr. Frothingham has
done noble work in negativing the pretensions of still
FREE THOUGHT IN AMERICA. 151
rampant dogmatisms and special Providences, in
asserting the supreme right of private judgment, in
bearing testimony from the pulpit that the teachings
of Science, instead of narrowing, enlarge the heavenly
horizons, and in following the divine thread of
meaning to be found in all creeds and all theologies.
His teaching has the one cardinal defect, that it lacks
the consecrating touch of pathos that accompanies
the highest kind of spiritual solicitation, which we
feel as certainly in the Buddhist books as in the
Jewish Testament, in the tragedies of Sophocles as
well as in the moralities of John Bunyan, and in the
prophecies of Walt Whitman (despite all the
Emersonian leaven) as well as in the child-like songs
of Whittier. For this is the fatal tendency of
Transcendentalism to soften the lines of conviction,
and to strain the anguish out of sentiment. There is
no pathos in Emerson ; never once does his gentle
hand, grasping its soothsayer's wand, touch the
fountain of tears ; yet even such a man as Spurgeon
can stir that fountain, if only with the mere breath of
a phrase. And no creed without pathos will ever
justify the great human hope, or conquer the great
human heart. So I part from Mr. Frothingham with
no lack of respect and admiration, but with some little
sadness, feeling that the tale he has to tell is one
already twice told, and misses the charm of the fairy
stories of God, which will continue to add to human
happiness so long as the heart of man is as a child's
and some glimpses of a heavenly dream remain.
A NOTE ON DANTE ROSSETTI.
" Some positive, persisting fops we know,
Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so ;
But I, with pleasure, own my errors past,
And make each day a critic on the last."
POPE'S Essay on Criticism.
IN the early spring of the present year there
passed away at Birchington-on-Sea, in Kent, one of
the most original painters and most gifted poets who
was ever sent to lend light and leading to a perverse
generation. A man unique in this particular that
he passed through good and evil report with serene
indifference to mercenary reward or social successes ;
and that, while exercising an unusual influence on the
higher culture of his age, and living in the very midst of
a busy and somewhat pertinacious artistic circle, he re-
mained personally unknown to most of his contempo-
raries, as well as to the public at large. He painted
pictures, which I can neither blame nor praise, for I
know them too little, but which those well fitted to
judge have classed as masterpieces. He wrote poems,
which have been both lavishly praised and harshly
judged, and which remain, after all is said and done,
among the spiritual productions of the present genera-
tion. Even fairer than his artistic or literary fame
was the love and admiration he awakened in all who
knew him. He not merely founded a school, he
created a kind of artistic religion, which is fast spread-
ing, through the labours of loving disciples. A man
A NOTE ON DANTE ROSSETTL 153
remarkable for his intellectual gifts, he was still more
remarkable for his unique power of awakening artistic
faith and literary fervour. Missed now by his own
circle, he will ere long be missed more by the world
which least appreciated him while living; for, when
the true aestheticism has indicated itself, and the false
asstheticism, which still overshadows it, has withered
like an unwholesome weed, the name of Rossetti will
be sadly remembered, as that of one of those veiled
spirits who sometimes walk the earth to make men /
pure, and literally to " brighten the sunshine."
When I remember how truly great he was in"\
that best greatness of modesty and meekness of soul ;
when I think how patiently he laboured at his
beautiful art and how little golden praise men gave
to him ; when I contrast his gentle life with the
strenuous lives of noisier and more prosperous men,
it seems strange to think that, at any period of his
career, any writer could be found blind enough or
hard enough to criticise him adversely. Yet, that I fa
cruel things were written of him, and by one who I
should have looked longer and known better, we all r
know. He has been called a "fleshly" person, a >
sensuous, even a sensual poet ; he who, more than $V
perhaps many of his contemporaries, was the least
objective, the least earthly, and the most ideal. Not
even after his death is the cry suffered to abate ; and
a recent writer in a religious review,* takes occasion
to repeat at second-hand, for a wiser generation, all
the hasty expressions and uninstructed abuse that I
published in hot haste ten years ago, and have since,
as my readers know, repented. It is so easy to create,
a nickname that will stick; so difficult to write a
* The British Quarterly.
154 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
criticism that will endure ! Perhaps it may be worth
while to endeavour, in the short space at my disposal,
to show the readers of this book how false a judg-
ment it was, how conventional, and Pharisaic a criti-
cism, which chose to dub as " fleshly " the works of
this most ethereal and dreamy in many respects
this least carnal and most religious of modern poets.
But let me confess at the outset that, to under-
stand poems like these, the reader must bring some-
thing of the sympathy he receives. If he approaches
in the wrong mood, or in an antipathetic one, the
poems may at first repel him. The magnetism is for
magnetic people, under what the mediums call " test J>
conditions. I myself, being then in a non-receptive
mood, once regarded Rossetti's work balefully, dis-
liked his subjects and his workmanship ; even thought
him sensuous in the bad sense, and was capable of
" cutting him up" (how easy it is to "cut up " even
a rose or a lily !) when the occasion served. After-
wards, reading him again less coldly, I began to
understand the purity of his meaning and the delicacy
of his art. That art has been called mosaic, and so
it is ; but it is a mosaic made of precious stones of
speech, always radiant, and sometimes exquisitely
chosen, forming, indeed, an ornate style sui generis,
in which Latinisms are employed with rare felicity.
Some people may prefer simpler styles, though it
may be said in passing, that Rossetti could be simple
enough when he chose, as in his fine reproductions of
old ballads ; but that is neither here nor there ; the
\ fact being that Rossetti's style was his own, and
Vjyonderfully adapted to express his sibylline meaning.
His method, like that of Jacob Boehmen, was sym-
bolic; and he sometimes used a phrase, as Jacob
used a flower, to express whole worlds of recondite
A NOTE ON DANTE ROSSETTI. 155
mysticism. With such a writer, therefore, to com-
plain that he did not call a spade a spade, or carol
songs about buttercups and daisies, was to mistake
the whole drift of his meaning. He was one of those
who found, as many an old necromancer would have
found, an infinity of suggestion in the mere sound of
" Mesopotamia." So he came to love music for its
own sake, finding a luxury of delight in using sweet
sibilants, delicate elisions, and musical alliterations.
Proceeding further, he constructed a phraseology
quaint, archaic, involved, and involuted, yet only so
as are flowers, leaves, bells, and blooms, obeying some
intricate caprice of nature.
A primrose on the water's brim,
A yellow primrose was to him,
But it was something more ;
it was maiden modesty and virgin pallor, a star in
the earth's firmament, a letter in the golden Book of
Beauty, a symbol, an abstraction of something stranger
and fairer than itself. For the man was a magician, of
the tribe of Kubla Khan ; and at his bidding there rose
a stately pleasure dome, every precious stone of which
had a name and a mystery, and, when he entered it
to weave his strange verse, he was within his right in
using the language of incantation, and in conjuring
with such names as " Abracadabra." Those who
assert that he loved this Art " for its own sake," know-
nothing of his method ; he loved it because it ex-
pressed the almost inexpressible, and supplied him
with an occult terminology. If he was wrong, all the
mystics have been wrong ; Boehmen was a blunderer,
Richter was a proser, Novalis was no poet. There is
room, surely, in the world for Rossetti as well as
Burns, for the poetry of enchanted symbolism as well
156 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
I as for the poetry of kicking up one's heels and rolling
[jvvith milkmaids in the hay.
The adverse critic has complained that our
magician had no humour, was incapable of honest
laughter ; in other words, he never grinned through a
horse-collar, as even poor Heine could do; but neither
did Wordsworth or Shelley, nor many another man
whom the world calls great. He knew, in fact, that
life was no laughing matter. Yet grave humour, of a
celestial kind, he certainly possessed, if we are to
trust certain memoranda which have been handed
about, but never openly published. It was no fault
of his that God intended him for a Wizard ; it was his
destiny, and certainly our gain ; for, in these days of
garish daylight, of popular science, it needed such a
man to show us that geometry is occult as well as
simple, that the stars have " influences" as well as rays
to be dissolved in the spectrum, and that the flowers
may be put to other uses besides the manufacture of
cowslip-wine. You think that speech is current coin,
toj)e passed freely from hand to hand ; he knew that
it was magical, and, by a simple arrangement of
sounds, could be made to figure forth flowers, stars,
and astrological portents. Words of strange colour
coiled like snakes about his wand, turned into flowers
and leaves, turned again into precious stones, and
rained as pearls and emeralds on the grass beneath his
feet. He wore neither homespun cloth nor sober
black, but a robe wrought with Runic letters and
signs of the Zodiac a wizard's robe, in fact. It was
not the sort of dress to please prosy people, or to go
junketing in; but it suited his purpose and expressed
his extraordinary function. The style is the man ; and,
in this case, no style could possibly be better.
There are people in the world who imagine that
A NOTE ON DANTE ROSSETTI. 157
poetry should be easy as A B C, and who tell us that
it should deal only with the approven facts of life. In
this case, Shakespeare was a bad poet, and Hamlet's
soliloquy a vile, roundabout business as, indeed,
simple Goldsmith was eager to show on one occasion.
It does not seem to me, however, that poetry is neces-
sarily either simple or occult ; it either is or is not poetry,
ami may be as far off in its range as Saturn's ring, or
as near to us as cakes and ale. It is surely worth
while to strain tHe eyes a little in gazing at the
heavens, and to listen with some attention if we
expect to catch the music in the sea-shell. Those
who complain that certain great poets are incompre-
hensible, are simply lazy persons, who want to be
tickled with a straw companions, indeed, of our old
friend Bottom, who could conceive of no use for
Titania's fairies but to scratch his ears. All deep
thought is difficult, however expressed in the crystal-
line phrase of Dante, or in the jargon of Jean Paul ;
and there is no easy road to Parnassus. The right
question, indeed, to ask in taking up a poet's work,
is not whether it is easy, but whether it is difficult
enough whether it awakens that thought which con-
cerns the beauty and mystery of life, or whether it
goes down like a lollipop, and leaves us none the
wiser or the better. A more serious charge against
Rossetti's writing, if sustained, would be that it is
only of the lollipop or bonbon order a luscious thing
for very young people ; and it is curious that this
charge is made by the same critics who complain of
its difficulty, its artificiality. The inconsistency is
remarkable. If all Rossetti had to tell us was that
lollipops are sweet, and sensual pleasure agreeable,
and women kissable, why should he have gone in
such a roundabout way about it? Why should he
158 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
have used the language of the spheres, and the
machinery of all the necromancers, to express to us
the height of foolishness and the depth of apple pie ?
In simple fact, he does nothing of the sort. He uses
amatory forms and carnal images, just as he uses
mere sounds and verbalisms, to express ideas which
are purely and remotely spiritual ; and he takes the
language of personal love to express his divine
yearning, simply because that language is the most
exquisite quintessence of human speech. I do not
mean to imply that his forms and images represent
mere abstractions ; in that case, he would be a sort of
mathematician, not a poet. But flesh and blood, in
his eyes, are sacramental.
Is there any honest man that doubts that Love,
even so-called " fleshly Love," is the noblest pleasure
that man is permitted to enjoy ; or that the sympathy
of woman for man, and of man for woman, is in its
essence the sweetest sympathy of which the soul is
capable ? Only one thing is higher and better than
Love's happiness, and that one thing is Love's sorrow,
when there comes out of loss and suffering the sense
of compensation, of divine gain. Well, Rossetti's
poetry expresses at once the pleasure, the sympathy,
the happiness and the sorrow, the loss and the gain.
f It has been called the poetry of personal passion ; but
it is more than this it is passion transfused into
religion, into a religion which glorifies grief and
peoples the empty heavens with shapes of loveliness
and love. Take the opening of what is perhaps his
best, and best-known poem :
The Blessed Damozel leaned out
On the gold bar of Heaven :
Her eyes were stiller than the depths
Of waters still'd at even ;
She had five lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven !
A NOTE ON DANTE ROSSETTI. 159
Something vaguer might have contented other
poets, but this poet has a necromancer's precision,
can count each star and lily of the vision, with a sense
of their individual signification. The result is, we have
not merely a poetical image, but a painted picture ;
something dreamlike, but with the strange definition
only known in dreams. As he goes on, the picture
changes, but the realism remains we see the very
hues, and hear the very sound, of heaven ; and at each
wave of the grave wizard's wand, at each measured
cadence from his lips, the azure seems bursting open
further and further, until we see, in an extraordinary
image,
Time like a pulse shake fierce
Thro' all the worlds !
If this be not necromancy, I know none in poetry.
Pathos there is also in the poem, as when the Blessed
Damozel weeps, and we "hear her tears," a gentle
sound of rain on the parched universe. But the
magician is too sure of his power, too conscious of
the supernatural powers which are shaping the spell,
to break down and moan. A poet of the earth,
earthy, may do that, and set us weeping with him as
Burns does when he hears the bird-song from his place
in the ploughed field.
For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair,
Or else my heart is broken /
But the spiritual poet, with his eyes fixed on so
celestial a vision, is master of himself. He knows
that his glimpse is real, and that, sooner or later, the
enchantment will draw him upward to the Blessed
Damozel's embrace as, indeed, it has already done,
since such aspirations are truly sent of God.
The same mood of perfect vision and grave assu-
rance inspires all the best work of Rossetti. He has
160 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
no questions to ask, no problems to trouble him ; he
1 1 is sibylline, not from being puzzle-headed, but be-
ll cause he has looked behind the curtain of the Sibyl.
He sees the trees walk, he hears the flowers speak,
with a sober certainty of waking bliss. When an
angel passes him, he can feel the very texture of his
robe, and tell the colour of his eyes. He is as sure
of Heaven and all its white-robed angels as ordinary
men are of each other. Something of this certainty
< he doubtless learned from Blake, though he lacked
Blake's childish simplicity and sweet garrulousness.
So he " weaves his spell of strange device " in a way
bewildering to those who dislike being mesmerised,
and who would have sent Paracelsus to prison for
fortune-telling.
The finest of his finished works is the " House of
Life," which the British Quarterly Reviewer calls a
" House of 111 Fame." It is, to a certain extent,
monotonous, and the sacrament of flesh and blood
has a constant place in it ; but out of this sacrament
rises the ghostly vision of the Host, and ere we have
ended, we hear the voices of all the angels praising
the Lord of Heavenly Love. And of this strange
texture, of this starry woof, is the so-called " fleshly"
poetry. Is it a reproach to this poet that the divinest
thing he has seen and known, humanly speaking, is
the face and form of a living woman ; that out of her
eyes, and from her lips, he has learned to understand
the processions of the stars and the spheric music of
the world which, to so many, is unknown ? The stairs
of the earthly Love reach to the heavens ; he ascends
them step by step, that is all, hand in hand with his
sweet guide who is a bright, earthly maiden at the
beginning, then a bride, then a shining creature,
winged and marvellously transfigured ; the rest in.
A NOTE ON DANTE ROSSETTL 161
order ; last, an amethyst ! You can transfigure"?
Love, but you can never transfigure Lust ; this last
never made an angel, or inspired a true poem, yet. I
And so, when all is said and done, the friendly
criticism remains the best and wisest. Those who
have read Mr. Swinburne's eulogy of his master,
and thought it, perhaps, a little strained, may admit,
at least, that it was strained, like all eulogy of love,
in the right direction. My own abuse was and is,
like all hasty contemporary abuse, nothing. Mr. Swin-
burne's honest praise was, and is, like all honest
praise, something. The poet of the " House of Life "
is beyond both ; but his fame will remain, when all
detraction is forgotten, as a golden symbol, are
pcrcnnius, of much that was best and brightest in the
culture of our time.*
* I have given the above as my final and revised opinion on
a writer to whom I once stood in strong antipathy. The only
suspicious thing I know about some of Rossetti's poetry is the
facility with which it can be imitated. During a recent com-
petition for a prize given by the Pall Mall Gazette, a number of
sonnets by various hands was contributed, reproducing in a
striking manner the manner, or trick, of Rossetti's verbal style
and imagery. Generally speaking, I believe, the merit of a
style is in proportion to the difficulty of actual reproduction.
Great thought in great language cannot well be imitated.
Mannerisms of every kind can. The best of Rossetti's work
is beyond the re-rendering of the poetaster. R. B.
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK.
A PERSONAL REMINISCENCE.
IN the neighbourhood of the picturesque village
of Chertsey, close to which the Thames winds broad
and clear between deep green meadow-flats and quiet
woods, still stand the ruins of Newark Abbey. Situated
in a lonely field, eight miles from the village, and near
to the Weybridge canal, they lie comparatively un-
known and little visited ; a mill murmurs close at
hand, turned by a small fall ; and all around stretch
the level fields and meadows of green Surrey. Here,
at the beginning of the present century, when these
ruins stood as now, a young man and maiden, be-
trothed to each other, were accustomed to meet and ex-
change their quiet vows; and here, half a century after-
wards, a gray-haired old man of seventy, beautiful in
his age as the old Goethe, would wander musing
summer day after summer day. The lovers had been
parted ; the maiden had married and died young,
while the man had also married and become the father
of a household ; but that first dream had never been
forgotten by one at least of the pair, and that surviving
one was Thomas Love Peacock, known to general
English readers as the author of " Headlong Hall."
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 163
With a constancy and a tenderness which many more
famous men would have done well to emulate, he
clung to the scene of his first and perhaps his only
love : a love innocent, like all true love ; and far pre-
ferable, to quote his own words, to
" The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead,
which weighs on the minds of those who have never
loved, or never earnestly/' Looking on the face of
Peacock in his old age, and knowing his secret, well
might one remember in emotion the beautiful words
of Scribe : " II faut avoir aime une fois en sa vie, non
pour le moment ou Ton aime, car on n'eprouve alors
que des tourmens, des regrets, de la jalousie ; mais peu
a peu ces tourmens-la deviennent des souvenirs, qui
charment notre arriere-saison. Et quand vous verrez
la vieillesse douce, facile, et tolerante, vous puissez
dire comme Fontenelle L? amour a passe par-la ! "
Yes, Love had passed that way, and set on the old
man his gracious seal, which no other deity can
counterfeit ; so that, looking upon the old man's face,
one read of gentleness, high-mindedness, toleration,
and perfect chivalry. These may seem odd words to
apply to one whom the world knew rather as a retro-
grade philosopher and satirical pessimist than a lover
of human nature, as a scholar rather than a poet, as a
country gentleman of the old school rather than a
humanitarian of the new ; but they can be justified ;
and it may be questioned, moreover, whether he had
not learned of the eighteenth century certain
modest virtues which the nineteenth century has
incontinently forgotten. To children he was
gentleness itself, and all children loved him ; and
there could be no prettier sight in the world than
the picture of him, as I saw him first, and as in
M 2
1 64 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
my mind's eye I see him now, sitting one summer
day, seated on his garden lawn by the river, while a
little maiden of sixteen rested on his knees the great
quarto Orlando Innamorato o>i Bojardo, and, following
with her finger the sun-lit lines, read soft and low,
corrected ever and anon by his kind voice, the delicate
Italian he loved so well. Who that looked at him,
then, could fail to perceive, to quote Lord Houghton's
words, "that he had gone through the world with
happiness and honour"? But the secret of his
beautiful benignity lay deeper. " L'amour a passe
par-la ! "
While a student in Scotland, I had known him as
the friend of Shelley, and had read his delightful
works with pleasure and profit ; until at last I was
prompted to write to him, expecting (I remember) to
receive but a cold response from one who, to judge
him by his works, was too much of a Timon to care
for boy's homage. I was agreeably disappointed.
The answer came, not savage like a wrap on the
knuckles, but cordial as a hand-shake. Afterwards,
when I was weary "climbing up the breaking wave"
of London, I thought of my old friend, and determined
to seek him out. Mainly with the wish to be near
him, I retreated to quiet Chertsey ; and thence past
Chertsey Bridge, through miles of green fields basking
in the summer sun, and through delightful lanes to
Lower Halliford, I went on pilgrimage, youth in my
limbs, reverence in my heart, a pipe in my mouth, and
the tiny Pickering edition of Catullus (a veritable
" lepidum libellum," but, alas, far from " novum ! ") in
my waistcoat pocket. And there, at Lower Halliford,
I found him as I had described him, seated on his
garden lawn in the sun, with the door of his library
open behind him, showing such delicious vistas of
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 165
shady shelves as would have gladdened his own
Dr. Opimian, and the little maiden reading from the
book upon his knee. Gray-haired and smiling sat the
man of many memories, guiding the utterances of one
who was herself a pretty two-fold link between the
present and the past, being the granddaughter (on the
paternal side) of Leigh Hunt, and also the grand-
daughter (on the maternal side) of the Williams who
was drowned with Shelley. Could a youthful
student's eyes see any sight fairer ?
"And did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you ? . . .
How strange it seems, and new ! " *
And this old man had spoken with Shelley, not once,
but a thousand times ; and had known well both
Harriett Westbrook and Mary Godwin ; and had
cracked jokes with Hobhouse, and chaffed Proctor's
latinity ; and had seen, and actually criticised,
Malibran ; and had bought " the vasty version of a
new system to perplex the sages/'f when it first came
out, in a bright, new, uncut quarto ; and had dined
with Jeremy Bentham ; and had smiled at Disraeli,
when, resplendently attired, he stood chatting in
Hookham's with the Countess of Blessington ; and
had been face to face with that bland Rhadamanthus,
Chief Justice Eldon ; and was, in short, such a living
chronicle of things past and men dead as filled one's
soul with delight and ever-varying wonder. " How
strange it seemed, and new ! "
The portrait prefixed to the collected edition of
his works J conveys a very good idea of the man as I
* Robert Browning.
t Byron's description of Wordsworth's " Excursion."
I Peacock's Works, 3 vols. (Bentley, 1875.)
166 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
first saw him a stately old gentleman with hair as
white as snow, a keen, merry eye, and a characteristic
chin. His dress was plain black, with white neck-
cloth, and low shoes, and on his head he wore a
plaited straw hat. One glance at him was enough to
reveal his delightful character, that of his own Dr.
Opimian. "His tastes, in fact, were four: a good
library, a good dinner, a pleasant garden, and rural
walks." This was the man who, as a beautiful boy,
had been caught up and kissed by Queen Caroline ;
who, when he grew up to manhood, had been christened
" Greeky Peeky," on account of his acquirement in
Greek ; and who had been thus described, in a pas-
sage I have not seen quoted before, by Shelley, in the
" Letter to Maria Gisborne " :
You will see P , with his mountain Fair*
Turned into a Flamingo . . .
When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo,
His best friends hear no more of him ; but you
Will see him and will like him, too, I hope,
And that snow-white Snowdonian antelope,
Marched with the cameo-leopard. His fine wit
Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it!
Age had mellowed and subdued the " cameo-leopard,'*
but the " fine wit," as I very speedily discovered, was
as keen as ever. His life had been passed in com-
parative peace and retirement. He spoke French
with the good old-fashioned English accent, and he
had never been to Paris or up the Rhine ; Italy he
knew not, nor cared to know ; and much as he loved
the sea, he had sailed it little. His four tastes had
kept him well anchored all his life. In his youth he
had had a fifth, the Italian Opera, but the long
modern performances, and the decadence of the
* Peacock's wife.
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 167
ballet, had alienated him. He had his "good library,"
and it was a good one full of books it was a luxury
to handle, editions to make a scholar's mouth water,
bound completely in the old style in suits as tough as
George Fox's suit of leather. The " good dinner "
came daily. " He liked to dine well, and withal to
dine quickly, and to have quiet friends at his table,
with whom he could discuss questions which might
afford ample room for pleasant conversation, and
none for acrimonious dispute."* In the "pleasant
garden " he was sitting with the clear winding Thames
below him and his rowing-boat swinging at the garden
steps. And the " rural walks " lay all around him, on
the quiet river side, through the green woods of Esher,
down the scented lanes to Chertsey, by winding turns
to Walton and Weybridge scenes familiar to him
since boyhood and hallowed with the footprints of
dead relatives and departed friends. For the old
man was, so to speak, alone in the world his wife
and best-loved daughters lay asleep in Shepperton
churchyard, his son was somewhere abroad, and the
cries of the children around him were not those of his
own family. His gifted daughter Rosa, who died in
her prime, was gone before, but another daughter, not
of the flesh, had risen in her place. Many years
before, when she was grieving sorely for the loss of
a little child, Margaret, his wife had noticed, on Halli-
ford Green, a little girl in its mother's arms, and see-
ing in it a strange likeness to her own dead child, had
coaxed it into her own house, and dressed it in the
dead babe's clothes. Peacock, returning from the
India House, looked in through the dining-room win-
dow, and seeing the child within was almost stunned
*"Gryll Grange."
i6S A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
by its resemblance to Margaret. This little girl, Mary
Rosewell, had been adopted by the Peacocks ; and
now, when all the rest were dead, she remained a
bright, loving foster-daughter, whose baptismal name
of " Mary " had long ago been sweetened into "May."
I cannot describe her better than in Peacock's own
words when describing Miss Gryll : " The atmosphere
of quiet enjoyment in which she had grown up seemed
to have steeped her feelings in its own tranquillity ;
and still more, the affection which she felt for her
foster-father, and the conviction that her departure
from his house would be the severest blow that fate
could inflict on him, led her to postpone what she
knew must be an evil day for him, and might per-
adventure not be a good one to her." She has never
married, but she has fulfilled her woman's mission
perfectly, and the final years of Peacock owed much
of their tranquil sunshine to her tender and pathetic
care.
Knowing Peacock only from his books, I was not
prepared to find in him that delightful bonhomie which
was in reality his most personal characteristic, in old
age at least ; and when we became acquainted, and
read and talked together, I was as much astonished
at the sweetness of his disposition as amused and
captivated by his quaint erudition. In that green
garden, in the lanes of Halliford, on the bright river,
in walks and talks such as "brightened the sunshine,"
I learned to know him, and although he was so much
my senior he took pleasure (I am glad to say) in my
society, partly because I never worried him with
" acrimonious dispute," which he hated above all
things.
There was for the moment one dark cloud of mis-
understanding between us a cloud of smoke ; for,
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 169
like Hans Andersen's parson,* I " smoked a good deal
of tobacco, and bad tobacco," and to Peacock tobacco
was poison. He forgave me, however, on one con-
dition, that I never smoked within five hundred yards
of his house an arrangement which, I am ashamed
to say, I violated, for well I remember one night
stealthily opening the bedroom window in the house
at Halliford, and " blowing a cloud " out into the
summer night. I am not sure that much of his hate
of tobacco did not arise from his morbid dread of fire.
He would never have any lucifer matches in his house,
save one or two which were jealously kept in a tin
box in the kitchen. Morning after morning he arose
with the sun, lit his own fire in the library, and read
till breakfast, laying in material for talk which flowed
like Hippocrene as crystal, and as learned ! His
chief, almost his only, correspondent was Lord
Broughton, who had been his friend through life.
The two old gentlemen interchanged letters and
verses, and capped quotations, and doubtless felt like
two antediluvian mammoths left stranded, and yet
living after the Deluge that Deluge being typified
to them by the submersion of Whig and Tory in one
wild wave of Progress, and the long career of Lord
Brougham as a sort of political Noah. The old land-
marks of society were obliterated. Lord Byron was
a dim memory, and the stage-coach was a dream.
The poetry of Nature had triumphed, and the poetry
of Art had died. Germany had a literature, and it
was part of polite education to know German. Beards
were worn. Rotten boroughs were no more. The
Times, like a colossal Podsnap, dominated journalism,
but the Daily Tdegrapk was stirring the souls of
* At I'ccre eller ikke at :
i;o A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
tradesmen to the sublime knowledge of Lempriere's
Dictionary and Bohn's " Index of Quotations." Special
correspondents were invented, competitive examina-
tion was consecrating mediocrity, and a considerable
number of Englishmen drank bad champagne. What
was left for an old scholar, but, like the Hudibrastic
Mirror of Knighthood,
To cheer himself with ends of verse,
And saying of philosophers !
For the rest, the world was in a bad way ; best keep
apart, and let it wag. ^vgov TOV olvov, Api ! Quaff a
cool cup in the green shade, and- drink confusion to
Lord Michin Mallecho and the last Reform Bill !
It must be conceded at once that Peacock was no
friend to modern progress the cant of it, hoarsely
roared from the throats of journalistic Jews and
political Merry Andrews, had sickened him ; and he
was not for one moment prepared to admit that the
world was one whit wiser and happier than before the
advent of the steam-engine. The pessimism which
appears everywhere in his books was the daily theme
of his talk ; but to understand it rightly we must
remember it was purely satiric that, in truth,
Peacock abused human nature because he loved it.
Genial at heart as Thackeray, he delighted to con-
demn man aricTsoclely'in the abstract. Hence much
of his writing must be read between the lines. In
the clever little sketch of Peacock, prefixed to the
new edition of the works, Lord Houghton errs to
some extent in trying to construct Peacock out of
his books.* The "unreasoning animosity" Lord
* " In the same spirit he clung to the old religious ideas that
haunted all early Roman history, and indeed went far into the
Empire, and thus he liked to read Livy, and did not like to read
Niebuhr." LORD HOUGHTON'S PREFACE. The words in italics
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 171
Houghton speaks of was purely ironic. For example,
so far from having " an indiscriminate repugnance to
Scotland and to everything Scotch," he was very
fond of Scotchmen, having many correspondents
among them ; but he could not spare them for all
that, any more than Thackeray could spare the Irish,
whom he loved with all his heart. When, in " Gryll
Grange," he makes Dr. Opimian say of the Americans :
" I have no wish to expedite communication with
them. If we could apply the power of electric repul-
sion to preserve us from ever hearing any more of
them, I should think we had for once derived a benefit
from science ! " he is merely, in a mood of what
Lord Houghton felicitously called " intellectual
gaiety/' in an after-dinner mood, expressing a comic
prejudice with no deep root in reason. The ani-
mosity is Aristophanic. No one reverenced Socrates
more than his unmerciful "chaffer," and no man
knew the benefit of science better than Peacock. He
tried to shut out humanity, but he felt it very intensely.
He could fain have resembled the gods of Epicurus
thinking, feeling nothing, as Cicero expresses it, but
" Mihi pulchre est," and " Ego beatus sum " but in
reality, he felt for human suffering very acutely. He
would fain have had the world one vast Maypole,
with all humanity dancing round it, or one mighty
Christmas-tree, with all humanity waiting to get a
prize from it. Every year, on May Day, he crowned
a little May Queen generally one of his grand-
children as Queen of the May, and all the little
children of the village flocked in to her with garlands,
are put by Peacock into the mouth of a young lady in " Gryll
Grange," and by no means express his own sentiments ; indeed,
Niebuhr was regarded by him with the highest admiration, as
having almost unique intuition.
172 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
to be rewarded, as the case might be, with a bright
new penny or a silver coin. He loved the old times
for their old customs, and he loved the old customs
because they made men gentle and children glad.
" He had no fancy," he said, " for living in an express
train ; he liked to go quietly through life, and to see
all that lay in his way." His life, indeed, might be
described as one long rural walk, in company with
Dr. Opimian, occasionally diversified by a visit to
London, and a night at the Italian Opera. He
belonged, as Lord Houghton says, " to the eighteenth
century," and I may add that he had every one of its
virtues without one of its vices.
His literary tastes were very interesting; although
they, too, belonged to the eighteenth century. His
favourite classical authors were Aristophanes and
Cicero. His knowledge of the latter was extra-
ordinary ; there was scarcely a passage of any force
which he had not by heart. As to Aristophanes, he
simply revelled in that quaint satire so akin to the
keen writings of his own modern Muse. At a time
when he was reading "Pickwick," and delighting in its
extravagances, he cried characteristically, with a
delicious twinkle of his eye, at dinner, lt Dickens is
very comic, but not so comic as Aristophanes ! "
His mind was not so much attracted by the Greek
tragedians, though of course he knew them well, as
by the comic writers and the satirists ; and, on the
whole, I fancy he preferred Euripides to Sophocles,
for the very reasons which make critics like him less.
His sympathies, indeed, were less with the grand, the
terrible, and the sublimely pathetic, than with the
brilliant, the exquisite, and the delicately artistic.
Comedy fascinated him more than Tragedy awed him.
Although he was a profound student of the mystical
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 173
hymns of Orpheus, he read them more as a scholar
than as a mystic. It must be admitted, moreover,
that his mind was in itself a terrible " thesaurus
eroticus," and there was to be found in it many a
Petronian quibble and Catullian double entendre not
to be discovered in Rambach. To the last he loved
Petronius a writer who has never yet received
justice for his marvellous picture-painting and deli-
cate graces of diction, and who can be vindicated to
the moralist far more easily than Rabelais. Rabelais
he loved too, of course ; who does not ? Like Swift,
he preferred Plautus to Terence :
Despite what schoolmasters have taught us,
I have a great respect for Plautus,
And think our boys may gather there hence
More wit and wisdom than from Terence !
From these tastes of his in the classical direction, the
reader may readily guess what authors and what
books he selected from more modern fields. It will
readily be understood that he was partial to Moliere,
to Voltaire's satirical works, and to the dramatists of
the Restoration ; that he admired " Sir Roger de
Coverley " and the Spectator, and had by heart
" Clever Tom Clinch " and the other sardonic verses
of Dean Swift ; and that he did not care much for the
poetic transcendentalism of Coleridge. He esteemed
the poetry of Milton, but far preferred Milton's prose.
At the time I knew him, he could repeat by heart
nearly the whole of Redi's " Bacchus in Tuscany "
a bibulous masterpiece which had been admirably
translated by Leigh Hunt. Of modern non-poetical
works, I should say his three favourites were Mon-
boddo's " Ancient Metaphysics," DrummontTs " Aca-
demical Questions," and Home Tooke's " Diversions
of Purley " ; to which may be added, with a reserva-
174 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
tion, Harris's " Hermes." He was always very fond
of philosophic philology, and one of the last works of
his life was to issue to his private friends a new inter-
pretation of the Aelia Lcelia Crispis.
But the above brief catalogue of his favourites
affords no glimpse of his true attainment. In reality
he had not read so many books as many less
masterly men ; but his peculiarity was that he
had so read and re-read his favourite ones that
he had completely attained the interior of them.
Thoreau used to say that the Bible and Hafiz were
books enough for any one man's lifetime ; and cer-
tainly, a lifetime might be spent on the study of the
Bible alone. Peacock had some dozen authors
virtually by heart, and thus, the polyglott of his
delightful talk was really surprising. He never forgave
a false quantity; Browning's Avatar, in "Waring,"
would have driven him into a fever, and, in speaking
of America, he never forgot the fact that its most
popular poet, at that time, had committed the false
Latin of " Excelsior."* His tastes in poetry may be
presumed ; but I ought to mention to his honour that
he was one of the few early lovers of Wordsworth,
despite his personal dislike to the Lake School. He
was never, till the day of his death, quite en rapport
with Shelley's moonshine-genius; he far preferred
such a solid, flesh and blood poet as Burns, and of
Burns' poems his favourite was " Tarn o' Shanter ; "
and he had little or no appreciation for John Keats
Indeed, he never passed the portico of the green little
translation
the
is rendered by " the educated in the waves," etc. ? There are
several errors in the new edition, not to speak of the many
unaccentuated Greek quotations.
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 175
Temple erected by Keats to Diana, remembering with
indignation the barbarous fancies consecrated therein ;
for he could prove by a hundred quotations that the
sleep of Endymion was eternal, whereas in the
modern poem the Latmian shepherd is for ever
capering up and down the earth and ocean like the
German chaser of shadows.* The ancient conception,
as briefly incorporated by Cicero in the passage where
Diana is described as watching for ever the sleep of
"her beloved Endymion," is certainly very lovely.
And here I may remark incidentally that the influence
of Peacock on the lurid genius of Shelley, though
doubtless chilling on occasion, was certainly beneficial
and in the interest of Art. He checked a thousand
extravagances, and helped to form Shelley's later and
more massive style as exemplified in such pieces as
"Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude/' Peacock
sugggested the title for this poem, and was amused to
the day of his death by the fact that the public, and
even the critics, persisted in assuming Alastor to be
the name of the hero of the poem, whereas the Greek
word AXao-rwp signifies an evil genius, and the evil
genius depicted in the poem is the Spirit of Solitude.
Nothing can be more gentle, more guarded, than
Peacock's printed account of Shelley. His private
* For similar reasons, he was perpetually wroth with Byron.
He gives one frightful instance of incongruity in the notes to
" Nightmare Abbey." " In Manfred, the great Alastor, or
Kn*o? Am/zap, of Greece is hailed king of the world by the
Nemesis of Greece, in concert with three of the Scandin
Valkyrioc, under the name of the Destinies ; the astro),
spirits of the alchemysts of the middle ages ; an elemental
witch, transplanted from Denmark to the Alps ; and a chorus
of Dr. Faustus's devils, who came in at the last act for a sou).
It is difficult to conceive where this heterogeneous mythological
company could have met originally, except at a table d'hc>li\ like
the six kings in " Candide." " Nightmare Abbey," p. 332, vol. i.
of collected edition.
176 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
conversation on the subject was, of course, very
different. Two subjects he did not refer to in his
articles may safely be mentioned now Shelley's
violent fits of passion, and the difficulty Peacock
found in keeping on friendly terms with Mary
Godwin. Many were the anecdotes he told with a
twinkling eye, of Shelley's comic outbursts. One I
particularly remember. When the two friends were
rowing one day on the Thames, as it was their
constant custom to do, they came into collision with a
flat-bottomed boat moored in the centre of the
stream, in which an old tradesman and his wife were
contentedly seated, bottom-fishing. Remonstrances
and strong expressions from the " lady " ensued ; and,
as the friends pulled away from the scene of the en-
counter, Shelley shrieked out, in his peculiarly
unmusical voice, " There's an old woman angling for
unfortunate fishes, as the Devil will angle for her soul
in H - ! " As for Mary Godwin, I fancy Peacock
never really liked her ; and this fact, of course, must
be weighed in estimating his opinions relative to her
and her predecessors. On one occasion, at least, he
refused to enter Shelley's house while " she was in it,"
and was only constrained to do so by an entreaty from
Mary herself. On the whole he is just, even generous,
to her memory ; but he certainly preferred Harriett,
if only on the ground of her surpassing beauty.
It is well known that Peacock portrayed Shelley
in the " Scythrop " of " Nightmare Abbey," and it is
pleasant to remember that Shelley admitted the truth
of the portrait, and was amused by it. Specially
pointed was the passage wherein Scythrop, who loves
two young ladies at once, tells his distracted father
that he will commit suicide : There is no doubt that
if Shelley could have kept both Harriett and Mary he
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 177
would have been happy ; for he, more than most men,
needed the triple wifehood so amusingly described in
" Realmah." Seriously speaking, the picture of the
man Shelley, as depicted by Peacock, directly in his
" Memorials," and indirectly in the novel, is far more
lovable and fascinating than the "divine" characterless
humanitarian whom hero-worshippers love to paint.
I do not propose to attempt, on the present
occasion, any estimate of Peacock's novels, although
I believe they are entitled to a far higher place in
literature than Lord Houghton seems inclined to give
them; but they are full of opinions which he ex-
pressed even more admirably in conversation. His
detestation of the literary class lasted until the end.
"The understanding of literary people," he affirmed,
" is exalted, not so much by the love of truth and
virtue, as by arrogance and self-sufficiency; and there
is, perhaps, less disinterestedness, less liberality, less
general benevolence, and more envy, hatred, and un-
charitableness among them, than among any other
description of men." In his young days he had cut
and slashed at his brethren, especially at the Lake
Poets, whom he appreciated very much notwith-
standing. Latterly he was wont to affirm, as in
" Gryll Grange," that " Shakespeare never makes a
flower blossom out of season, and Wordsworth,
Coleridge, and Southey are true to nature in this and
in all other respects" He hated Moore as much as he
loved Burns. " Moore's imagery," he makes Mr.
MacBorrowdale say, " is all false. Here is a highly
applauded stanza :
"The night dew of heaven, though in silence it weeps,
Shall brighten with verdure the sod where he sleeps ;
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.
N
i;8 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
But it will not bear analysis. The dew is the cause
of the verdure, but the tear is not the cause of the
memory the memory is the cause of the tear." I
am sorry to say he could never be persuaded to
appreciate Tennyson. Specially offensive to him
was the laureate's picture of Cleopatra as " a queen
with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes, brow-bound
with burning gold." " Thus/' he writes, " one of our
most popular poets describes Cleopatra ; and one of
our most popular artists has illustrated the descrip-
tion by a portrait of a hideous grinning Ethiop
. . . . Cleopatra was a Greek, the daughter of
Ptolemy Auletes and a lady of Pontus. The Pto-
lemies were Greeks, and whoever will look at their
genealogy, their medals, and their coins, will see how
carefully they kept their pure Greek blood uncon-
taminated by African intermixture. Think of this
description and this picture applied to one who, Dio
says and all antiquity confirms him was f the most
superlatively beautiful of women, splendid to see, and
delightful to hear/* For she was eminently accom-
plished : she spoke many languages with grace and
facility. Her mind was as wonderful as her personal
beauty. There is not a shadow of intellectual ex-
pression in that horrible portrait." For the rest, the
Cleopatra of Shakespeare delighted him, as having
not one feature in common with that other abominable
" Queen of Bembo."
He was a great believer in Greek painting, with
its total absence of perspective ; nevertheless, he
abhorred pre-Raphaelism, though it loves perspective
as little as the Greeks ! But in fact, he was generally
* IlpiK.a\\((TTUT7) yvmuftSp . . . Xa/i7rpa re Idclv KOI a.KOva-6r]vat
ouo-a. DIO. xlii. 34.
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 179
inclined to cry with his own Gryllus, in " Aristophanes
in London" :
" All the novelties I yet have seen,
Seem changes for the worse."
New schools of painting and poetry attracted him as
little as new science. One of his prejudices was
amusing in the extreme, and it is foreshadowed, like
so many of his latter peculiarities, in " Gryll Grange."
Great as was his knowledge of Greek, Latin, Italian,
and French which Home Tooke calls " the usual
bounds of a scholar's acquisition " and considerable
as was his interest in Goethe and the Weimar
circle, he disliked everything German, and never
attempted to learn that wonderful language, which
may be said to be the key to the golden chamber of
modern poetry and philosophy. Mr. Falconer ob-
serves in " Gryll Grange/' quoting a dictum of
Person's, that " Life is too short to learn German ;
meaning, I apprehend, not that it is too difficult to be
acquired within the ordinary space of life, but that
there is nothing in it to compensate for the portion of
life bestowed in its acquirement,however little that may
be!" He used toquote with a chuckle Person's doggerel:
" The Germans in Greek
Are sadly to seek ;
Save only Hermann,
And Hermann's a German ! "
It is strange that he was not curious in this direction,
for his literary appetite was unbounded. When we
first met, and when he was approaching his eightieth
year, he was studying Spanish, in order to read the
Autos and other masterpieces of Calderon. Conceive
the literary vitality, in an old man of that age, which
would urge him on to the study of a tongue almost
new to him ! The task was a comparatively easy
one, of course, from his consummate knowledge of
N 2
i8o A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
other kindred tongues, but it still possessed difficulties
enough to daunt a less earnest lover of learning. His
cry for more light, like that of the old Goethe, was
heard till the very last.
As I write of him, and look again upon the photo-
graph of his genial features, I am reminded, by a
certain general resemblance to the portraits of
Thackeray, that the author of " Vanity Fair " was one
of his greatest admirers, and wrote to him several
pleasant letters, in one of which, which I saw, he
promised to pay a long visit to Lower Halliford. I
do not think the visit was ever paid; but it is
pleasant to think of those two men in company, for
they possessed many characteristics in common.
What evenings there would have been in the old
house at Halliford if Thackeray had come ! What
capping of quotations, what mellow music of eight-
eenth century voices, while these two kindred spirits
drank their after-dinner wine ! For Thackeray's
heart was with the eighteenth century too ; and either
one or the other of these two white-headed " old
boys" would have been quite at home, if suddenly
translated back in time, and set down by Temple Bar
with the Dean of St. Patrick's, or with Pope in his
villa at Twickenham, or in a Whitefriars hostelry
with Dick Steele. On such an evening, when the old
heart was warm with wine, and after Thackeray, per-
haps, had trolled out to his host's delight the ballad
of " Little Billee," or " Peg of Linavaddy," I can
conceive the author of "Gryll Grange" reciting, in
that rich, mellow voice of his, his own lovely verses
called " Love and Age : "
I played with you 'mid cowslips blowing,
When I was six and you were four ;
When garlands weaving, flower-balls throwing,
Were pleasures soon to please no more.
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 181
Through groves and meads, o'er grass and heather,
With little playmates, to and fro,
We wandered hand in hand together ;
But that was sixty years ago.
You grew a lovely roseate maiden,
And still our early love was strong ;
Still with no care our days were laden,
They glided joyously along ;
And I did love you very dearly,
How dearly words want power to show ;
I thought your heart was touched as nearly ;
But that was fifty years ago.
Then other lovers came around you,
Your beauty grew from year to year ;
And many a splendid circle found you
The centre of its glittering sphere.
I saw you then, first vows forsaking,
On rank and wealth your hand bestow ;
Oh, then I thought my heart was breaking,
But that was forty years ago.
And I lived on, to wed another :
No cause she gave me to repine ;
And when I heard you were a mother,
I did not wish the children mine.
My own young flock, in fair progression,
Made up a pleasant Christmas row :
My joy in them was past expression,
But that was thirty years ago.
You grew a matron plump and comely,
You dwelt in fashion's brightest blaze ;
My earthly lot was far more homely ;
But I too had my festal days.
No merrier eyes have ever glistened
Around the hearthstone's wintry glow,
Than when my youngest child was christened,
But that was twenty years ago.
Time passed. My eldest girl was married,
And I am now a grandsire gray ;
One pet of four years old I've carried
Among the wild-flowered meads to play.
In our old fields of childish pleasure,
Where now, as then, the cowslips blow,
She fills her baskets ample measure,
And that is not ten years ago.
182 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
But though first love's impassioned blindness
Has passed away in colder light,
I still have thought of you with kindness,
And shall do, till our last good-night.
The ever-rolling silent hours
Will bring a time we shall not know,
When our young days of gathering flowers
Will be a hundred years ago.
And we know that this was the very sort of music to
fill the great guest's eyes with tears, though it spoke
only, like his more sad prose muse, of "Vanity,
Vanity ! " Thackeray touched the same note re-
peatedly it was an habitual one with him but he
never touched it more delicately, or with a truer
pathos. A little longer, and both were at rest, the
veteran worn out with years, and the great good man
struck down in the prime of his powers.
Ignorant of the world as it is, circumscribed in his
vision like all students of books, narrowed to the know-
ledge of a good library and a few green walks, thus
Thomas Peacock passed away. He lived to see the
curious theories which he developed so wonderfully in
" Melincourt," and to many of which he was indebted
to Lord Monboddo, assuming an importance in the
history of science which fairly startled him. The
generalisations made by quidnuncs from Darwin's
facts, and which, rather than Darwin's own teaching,
constitute " Darwinism," were sufficiently portentous
to fill an eighteenth century satirist with comic
wonder. What Peacock's own views were as to the
origin and destiny of Man, I cannot tell : on such
subjects he was reticent ; but his sympathies were
with the antique world, and I dare say he would not
have discountenanced a proposal once entertained by
Mr. Ruskin, to revive the worship of Diana. At any
rate, he was quite pagan enough to astonish con-
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 183
ventional people. Miss Nichols, in her excellent and
thoroughly sympathetic little sketch of her grand-
father, prefixed to the collected works, tells a striking
anecdote illustrative of his pleasant paganism. Shortly
before his death, a fire broke out in the roof of his
bedroom, and he was taken to the library, which lay
at the other end of the house. " At one time it was
feared the fire was gaining ground, and that it would
be needful to move him into one of the houses of the
neighbourhood, but he refused to move. The curate,
who came kindly to beg my grandfather to take
shelter in his house, received rather a rough and
startlmg reception, for in answer to the invitation, my
grandfather exclaimed with great warmth and energy,
' By the immortal gods, I will not move ! ' ''
Smile as we may at the formality and pedantry of
the eighteenth century, there were giants in those
days ; and Peacock resembled them in intellectual
stature. His books will live, if only for their touches
of quaint erudition ; but they abound in delicious little
pictures, such as that of Mr. Falconer and his seven
Vestal attendants in " Gryll Grange," or those of
Coleridge and Shelley in " Nightmare Abbey." Sir
Oran Haut-ton is perfect, a masterpiece of characteri-
sation, and as for Dr. Opimian, he is as sure of im-
mortality as "my Uncle Toby" himself. But the
true glory of Peacock was his delicious personality.
To have known and spoken with such a man, is in
itself part of a liberal education. I shall not soon
forget that we sipped " Falernian " together, though
the " Falernian " was no stronger than May Rosewell's
cowslip-wine. Circumstances called me back to Scot-
land, and during the short period preceding his decease,
we did not meet. Only a few days before his death
he dreamed of his " dear Fanny," the maiden who had
1 84 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
been his first love, and for weeks together she came to
him in his sleep, gently smiling. Thus the Immortal
Ones, call them by what names we may, were good to
him until the very end ; and while that first and last
dream was bright within him, he sank to rest. Let
us fancy that, though life parted him from his first
love, in death they were not divided; nor shall be,
even when
The ever-rolling silent hours
Have brought a time they do not know,
When their young days of gathering flowers
Will be a hundred years ago !
SYDNEY DOBELL,
AND
THE " SPASMODIC SCHOOL."
A SOUVENIR.
IN the winter of 1860, as I sat alone, writing, in what
David Gray described as the " dear old ghastly bank-
rupt garret at No. 66," Lucinda from the kitchen
came panting upstairs with a card, on which was
inscribed the name of " Sydney Dobell ; " and in less
than five minutes afterwards I was conversing eagerly,
and face to face, with a man who had been my first
friend and truest helper in the great world of letters.
It was our first meeting. David Gray, whom Dobell
had assisted with a caressing and angelic patience,
never knew him at all, but was at that very moment
lying sick to death in the little cottage at Merkland,
pining and hoping against hope for such a meeting.
" How about Dobell ? " he wrote a little later, in
answer to my announcement of the visit. " Did your
mind of itself, or even against itself, recognise through
the clothes a man a poet / Has he the modesty and
makc-himself-at-home manner of Milnes?" What
answer I gave to these eager inquiries I do not re-
member, nor would it be worth recording, for I
1 86 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
myself at that time was only a boy, with little or no
experience of things and men. But even now, across
the space of dull and sorrowful years, comes the
vision of as sweet and shining a face as ever brought
joy and comfort this side of the grave ; of a voice
musical and low, "excellent" in all its tones as the
voice of the tenderest woman ; of manners at once
manly and caressing, bashful and yet bold, with a
touch of piteous gentleness which told a sad tale of
feeble physical powers and the tortured sense of bodily
despair.
I saw him once or twice afterwards, and had a
glimpse of that fellow-sufferer, his wife. He was
staying with some friends on the hills of Hampstead,
and thither I trudged to meet him, and to listen to
his sparkling 'poetic speech. I recall now, with a
curious sense of pain, that my strongest feeling con-
cerning him, at that time, was a feeling of wonder at
the gossamer-like frailness of his physique and the
almost morbid refinement of his conversation. These
two characteristics, which would be ill comprehended
by a boy in the rude flush of health and hope, and
with a certain audacity of physical well-being, struck
me strangely k then, and came back upon my heart
with terrible meaning now. Combined with this feel-
ing of wonder and pity was blended, of necessity, one
of fervent gratitude. Some little time previous to
our first meeting, I had come, a literary adventurer,
to London ; with no capital but a sublime self-assur-
ance which it has taken many long years to tame
into a certain obedience and acquiescence. About the
same time, David Gray had also set foot in the great
City. And Sydney Dobell had helped us both, as no
other living man could or would. For poor Gray's
wild yet gentle dreams, and for my coarser and less
SYDNEY DO BELL. 187
conciliatory ambition, he had nothing but words of
wisdom and gentle remonstrance. None of our folly
daunted him. He wrote, with the heart of an angel,
letters which might have tamed the madness in the
heart of a devil. He helped, he warned, he watched
us, with unwearying care. In the midst of his own
solemn sorrows, which we so little understood, he
found heart of grace to sympathise with our wild
struggles for the unattainable. At a period when
writing was a torture to him, he devoted hours of
correspondence to the guidance and instruction of
two fellow-creatures he had never seen. To receive
one of his gracious and elaborate epistles, finished
with the painful care which this lordly martyr be-
stowed on the most trifling thing he did, was to be in
communication with a spirit standing' on the very
heights of life. I, at least, little comprehended the
blessing then. But it came, with perfect consecra-
tion, on David Gray's dying bed ; it made his last
days blissful, and it helped to close his eyes in peace.
No one who knew Sydney Dobell, no one who
had ever so brief a glimpse of him, can read without
tears the simple and beautiful Memorials, now just
published, of his gracious, quiet, and uneventful life.
Predestined to physical martyrdom, he walked the
earth for fifty years, at the bidding of what to our
imperfect vision seems a pitiless and inscrutable
Destiny. Why this divinely gifted being, whose soul
seemed all goodness, and whose highest song would
have been an inestimable gain to humanity, should
have been struck down again and again by blows so
cruel, is a question which pricks the very core of that
tormenting conscience which is in us all. Ill-luck
dogged his footsteps ; sickness encamped wherever
he found a home. His very goodness and gentleness
i88 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
seemed at times his bane. At an age when other
men are revelling in mere existence he was being
taught that mere existence is torture. We have read
of Christian martyrs, of all the fires through which
they passed ; but surely not one of them ever fought
with such tormenting flames as did this patient poet,
whose hourly cry was of the kindness and goodness
of God. From first to last, no word of anger, no
utterance of fierce arraignment, passed his lips.
The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer
The first true Gentleman that ever lived.
And like that "best of men/' Sydney Dobell
troubled himself to make no complaint, but took the
cup of sorrow and drained it to the bitter dregs.
Such a record of such a life stops the cry on the very
lips of blasphemy, and makes us ask ourselves if that
life did not possess, direct from God, some benedic-
tion, some comfort unknown to us. So it must have
been. "Looking up," as a writer* on the subject
has beautifully put it, " he saw the heavens opened."
These pathetic glimpses seemed comfort enough.
Doubtless to some readers of this book the
very name of Sydney Dobell is unfamiliar. To all
students of modern poetry it is of course more or less
known, as that of one of the chief leaders of the
school of verse known by its enemies as " the Spas-
modic." With Philip James Bailey and Alexander
Smith, Dobell reigned for a lustrum, to the great
wonder and confusion of honest folk, who pinned
their faith on Tennyson's " Gardener's Daughter "
and Longfellow's " Psalm of Life." His day of
reign was that of Gilfillan's " Literary Portraits " and
* Matthew Browne, in the Contemporary Review.
SYDNEY DO BELL. 189
of the lurid apparition, Stanjan Bigg; of the mar-
vellous monologue, and the invocation without an
end ; of the resurrection of a Drama which had never
lived, to hold high jinks and feasting with a literary
Mycerinus who was about to die. It was a period of
poetic incandescence ; new suns, not yet spherical,
whirling out hourly before the public gaze, and
vanishing instantly into space, to live on, however,
in the dusky chronology of the poetic astronomer,
Gilfillan. The day passed, the school vanished.
Where is the school now ?
Where are the snows of yester-year ?
Yet they who underrate that school know little what
real poetry is. It was a chaos, granted ; but a chaos
capable, under certain conditions, of being shaped
into such creations as would put to shame many
makers of much of our modern verse. As it is, we
may discover in the writings of Sydney Dobell and
his circle solid lumps of pure poetic ore, of a quality
scarcely discoverable in modern literature this side of
the Elizabethan period.
Sydney Dobell was born at Cranbrook, in Kent, on
April 5, 1824. Both on the paternal and maternal
side he was descended from people remarkable for
their Christian virtues and strong religious instincts ;
and from his earliest years he was regarded by his
parents as having "a special and even apostolic
mission." The story of his child-life, indeed, is one
of those sad records of unnatural precocity, caused by
a system of early forcing, which have of late years
become tolerably familiar to the public. He seems
never to have been strong, and his naturally feeble
constitution was undermined by habits of introspec-
tion. It is painfully touching now to read the extracts
igo A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
from his father's note-book, full of a quaint Puritan
simplicity, and an overmastering spiritual faith.
Here is one :
I used frequently to talk to him of how delightful and
blessed it would be if any child would resolve to live as pure,
virtuous, and holy a life, as dedicated to the will and service of
God, as Jesus. I used to say to him that if one could ever be
found again who was spotless and holy, it was with me a pleas-
ing speculation and hope that such a character might even in
this life, be called as a special instrument of our Heavenly Father
for some great purpose with His Church, or with the Jews.
The seed thus sown by the zealous parent bore
fruit afterwards in a disposition of peculiar sweet-
ness, yet ever conscious of the prerogatives and pre-
judices of a Christian warrior. Out of the many who
are called Sydney Dobell believed himself specially
chosen, if not to fulfil any divine mission " with the
Church or with the Jews," at least to preach and sing
in the God-given mantle of fire which men call
genius. In his leading works, but especially in
" Balder," he preached genius-worship ; of all forms
of hero-worship, devised by students of German
folios, the most hopeless and the most hope-destroy-
ing. Thenceforward isolation became a habit, intro-
spection an intellectual duty. With all his love for
his fellow-men, and all his deep sympathy with
modern progress, he lacked to the end a certain
literary robustness, which only comes to a man made
fully conscious that Art and Literature are not Life
itself, but only Life's humble handmaids. He was
too constantly overshadowed with his mission. For-
tunately, however, that very mission became his only
solace and comfort when his days of literary martyr-
dom came. He went to the stake of criticism with a
smile on his face, almost disarming his torturers and
executioners.
SYDNEY DODELL. 191
When Sydney was three years old his father failed
in business as a hide merchant, and, removing to
London, started as a wine merchant. " About this
time," says the biographer, " Sydney was described
as of very astonishing understanding, as preferring
mental diversion to eating and drinking, and very
inventive with tales." Strange moods of sorrow and
self-pity began to trouble his life at the age of four.
At eight, it was recorded of him that he " had never
been known to tell an untruth." From seven years
of age he imitated the paternal habit, and used " little
pocket-books " to note down his ideas, his bits of
acquired knowledge, his simple questions on spiritual
subjects. For example : " Report of the Controversy
of Porter and Bagot. Mr. Porter maintains that
Jesus Christ lived in heaven with God before the
beginning of the world." At the age of ten, he was
an omnivorous reader, and the habit of verse-writing
was growing steadily upon him. I know nothing
more pitiful in literature than the story of his pre-
cocity, in all its cruel and touching details. At
twelve years of age he was sufficiently matured to fall
in love, the object of his passion being Emily Ford-
ham, the lady who only nine years afterwards became
his wife. By this time his father had removed to
Cheltenham, and had set up in business there.
Sydney and the rest of the children still remained at
home, and thus missed all the invigorating influences
of a public school ; for the father belonged to the
sect of Separatists which holds as cardinal the doctrine
of avoiding those who hold adverse, or different, reli-
gious views.
The account of that dreary life of drudgery and
over-work at Cheltenham may be sadly passed over ;
it is a life not good to think of, and its few gleams of
192 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
sunshine are too faint and feeble to detain the reader
long. From the date of his removal to Cheltenham
he acted as his father's clerk. The account of the
period extending from his twelfth year to the date of
his marriage is one of hard, uncongenial toil, varied
by scripture-readings of doubtful edification, and a
passion morbid and almost pedantic in the old-
fashioned quaintness of its moods. The biographer's
record may form, as we are told, " a one-sided and
painful picture," but we suspect that it is a true one,
truer, that is to say, than the idea in its author's
memory of " light, buoyant, various, and vigorous
activity." The truth is, the parents of the poet blun-
dered in blindness, a blindness chiefly due to their
remarkable religious belief. His father especially,
despite all his kindness of heart, was strenuous to the
verge of bigotry. One can scarcely remark without
a smile the inconsistency with which one who was " a
publican," and by profession a vendor of convivial
and intoxicating liquors, held aloof from the non-
elect among his fellow-creatures. " Business is not
brisk," he wrote ; " I can't account for it, except, as
usual, in our retired life and habits." The idea of a
sad-eyed Separatist dealing in fiery ports and sherries,
shutting out the world and yet lamenting when
" business was not brisk," is one of those grim, cruel,
heart-breaking jokes, in which Humanity is so rich,
and of which the pathetic art of the humourist offers
the only bearable solution.
At the age of twenty, Sydney Dobell was married
to an invalid like himself, and one like himself of a
strong Puritan bias. The humourist must help us
again, if we are to escape a certain feeling of nausea
at the details of this courtship and union, with its
odd glimpses of personal yearning, its fervent sense
SYDNEY DO BELL. 193
of the " mission," and its dreary scraps from the Old
Testament. The young couple settled down together
in a little house at Cheltenham ; and though for a
time they avoided all society and still adhered to the
tenets of the elect, this was the beginning of a
broader and a healthier life. All might perhaps have
been well, and the poet have cast quite away the
cloud of his early training, but for one of those cruel
accidents which make life an inscrutable puzzle.
Just as Sydney Dobell was beginning to live, just as
his mind was growing more robust, and his powers
more coherent and peaceful, he was struck by rheu-
matic fever, caught during a temporary removal to a
Devonshire farmhouse. As if that were not enough,
his wife, always frail, broke down almost at the same
time. From that time forward, the poet and his wife
were fellow-sufferers, each watching by turns over
the attacks of the other. It may be said without
exaggeration, that neither enjoyed one day of
thoroughly buoyant physical health. Still, they had
a certain pensive happiness, relieved in the husband's
case by bursts of hectic excitement.
By this time, when Dobell was four-and-twenty
years of age, the great wave of '48 had risen and
fallen, and its influence was still felt in the hearts of
men. It was a time of revolutions, moral as well as
political. Dobell, like many another, felt the earth
tremble under him ; watched and listened, as if for the
signs of a second advent. Then, like others, he
looked across France, towards Italy. Thus the
"Roman" was planned; thus he began to write for the
journals of advanced opinion. He had now a wine
business of his own, and had a pleasant country house
on the Cotswold Hills. Having published a portion
of the " Roman " in Taifs Magazine, he was led to
o
194 A LOOK POUND LITERATURE.
correspond with the then Aristarchus of the poetic
firmament, the Rev. George Gilfillan. Gilfillan
roundly hailed him as a poetic genius, and he, not
ungrateful, wrote : " If in after years I should ever be
called ' Poet,' you will know that my success is, in some
sort, your work." Shortly after this, he went to
London and interviewed Mr. Carlyle. "We had a
tough argument," he wrote to Gilfillan, " whether it
were better to have learned to make shoes or to have
written ' Sartor Resartus/ " At the beginning of
1850 he published the "Roman." This was his first
great literary performance, and it was tolerably suc-
cessful : that is to say, it received a good deal of
praise from the newspapers, and circulated in small
editions among the general public.
The subject of this dramatic poem was Italian
liberty, and the work is full of the genius and pro-
phecy of 1848. The leading character is one Vittorio
Santo, a missionary of freedom, who (to quote the
author's own argument) " has gone out disguised as a
monk to preach the cause of Italy, the overthrow of
the Austrian domination, and the restoration of a great
Roman Republic." Santo, in the course of the
poem, delivers a series of splendid and almost pro-
phetic sermons on the heroic life and the great heroic
cause. As an example of Dobell's earlier and more
rhetorical manner, I will transcribe the following
powerful lines :
I pray you listen how I loved my mother,
And you will weep with me. She loved me, nurst me,
And fed my soul with light. Morning and even
Praying, I sent that soul into her eyes,
And knew what heaven was, though I was a child.
I grew in stature, and she grew in goodness.
I was a grave child ; looking on her taught me
To love the beautiful : and I had thoughts
Of Paradise, when other men have hardly
SYDNEY DO BELL.
Looked out of doors on earth. (Alas ! alas !
That I have also learned to look on earth
When other men see heaven.) I toiled, but even
As I became more holy, she seemed holier ;
Kven as when climbing mountain-tops the sky
Grows ampler, higher, purer as ye rise.
Let me believe no more. No, do not ask me
How I repaid my mother. O thou saint,
That lookest on me day and night from heaven,
And smilest. I have given thee tears for tears,
Anguish for anguish, woe for woe. Forgive me
If in the spirit of ineffable penance
In words I waken up the guilt that sleeps,
Let not the sound afflict thine heaven, or colour
That pale, tear-blotted record which the angels
Keep of my sins. We left her. I and all
The brothers that her milk had fed. We left her
And strange dark robbers with unwonted names
Abused her ! bound her ! pillaged her ! profaned her !
Bound her clasped hands, and gagged the trembling lips
That prayed for her lost children. And we stood,
And she knelt to us, and we saw her kneel,
And looked upon her coldly and denied her.
* * * * *
You are my brothers. And my mother was
Yours. And each man amongst you day by day
Takes bowing, the same price that sold my mother,
And does not blush. Her name is Rome. Look around
And see those features which the sun himself
Can hardly leave for fondness. Look upon
Her mountain bosom, where the very sky
Beholds with passion ; and with the last proud
Imperial sorrow of dejected empire
She wraps the purple round her outraged breast,
And even in fetters cannot be a slave.
Look on the world's best glory and worst shame.
The " Roman " is full of this kind of fervour, and is
maintained throughout at a fine temperature of poetic
eloquence. Its effect on the ardent youth of its gene-
ration must have been considerable. Perhaps now,
when the stormy sea of Italian politics has settled down,
it may be lawful to ask oneself how much reality there
was in the battle-songs and poems that accompanied
or preluded the tempest. It is quite conceivable, at
O 2
196 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
least, that a man may sing very wildly about " Italy "
and " Rome " and " Freedom " without any definite
idea of what he means, and without any particular
feeling for human nature in the concrete. This was
not the case with Dobell ; every syllable of his stately
song came right out of his heart. For this Christian
warrior, like many another, was just a little too fond of
appeals to the sword ; just a little too apt to pose as
" an Englishman " and a lover of freedom. He who
began with sonorous cadence of the "Roman" wrote,
in his latter moods, the wild piece of gabble called
" England's Day." The "Roman," however, remains a
fine and fervid poem, worthy of thrice the fame it is
ever likely to receive. What Mazzini wrote of it in
1851 may fully be remembered at this hour, when it
is pretty well forgotten :
You have written about Rome as I would, had I been born a
poet. And what you did write flows from the soul, the all-loving,
the all-embracing, the prophet-soul. It is the only true source
of real inspiration.
Meantime the air was full of other voices. Carlyle
was croaking and prophesying, with a strong Dum-
friesshire accent. Bailey had amazed the world with
" Festus/' a colossal Conversationalist, by the side of
whom his quite clerical and feebly genteel " Devil "
seemed a pigmy. Gilfillan had opened his wonder-
ful Pie of " Literary Portraits," containing more
swarms of poetical blackbirds than the world knew
how to listen to. Mazzini was eloquent in reviews, and
George Dawson was stumping the provinces and
converting the bourgeoisie.
The world was waiting for that trumpet-blast,
To which Humanity should rise at last
Out of a thousand graves, and claim its throne.
It was a period of prodigious ideas. Every literary
SYDNEY DOB ELL. 197
work was macrocosmic and colossal. Every poet,
under his own little forcing glass, reared a Great
Poem a sort of prodigious pumpkin which ended in
utter unwieldiness and wateriness. No sort of pre-
paration was necessary either for the throne or the
laurel. Kings of men, king-hating, sprang to full
mental light, like fungi, in a night. Quiet tax-paying
people, awaking in bed, heard the Chivalry of Labour
passing, with hollow music of fife and drum. But it
was a grand time for all the talents. Woman was
awaking to a sense of her mission. Charlotte Bronte
was ready with the prose-poem of the century, Mrs.
Browning was touching notes of human pathos which
reached to every factory in the world. Compared
with our present dead swoon of Poetry, a swoon
scarcely relieved at all by the occasional smelling-
salts of strong aesthetics, it was a rich and golden
time. It had its Dickens, to make every home happy
with the gospel of plum-pudding; its Tennyson, to
sing beautiful songs of the middle-class ideal, and the
comfortable clerical sentiment ; its Thackeray, to
relieve the passionate, overcharged human heart with
the prick of cynicism and the moisture of self-pity.
To be born at such a time was in itself (to parody the
familiar expression) a liberal education. We who
live now may well bewail the generation which pre-
ceded us. Some of the old deities still linger with
us, but only " in idiocy of godhead," nodding on their
mighty seats. The clamour has died away. The
utter sterility of passion and the hopeless stagnation
of sentiment nowadays may be guessed when some
little clique can set up Gautier in a niche: Gautier,that
hairdresser's dummy of a stylist, with his complexion
of hectic pink and waxen white, his well-oiled wig,
and his incommunicable scent of the barber's shop.
198 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
What an apotheosis ! After the prophecies of '48 ;
after the music of the awakening heart of Man ; after
Emerson and the newly-risen moon of latter Plato-
nism, shining tenderly on a world of vacant thrones !
Just as the human soul was most expectant, just
as the Revolution of '48 had made itself felt wherever
the thoughts of men were free, the Sullen Talent,
tired of the tame-eagle dodge, perpetrated his cotip
d'etat, stabbed France to the heart with his assassin's
dagger, and mounted livid to his throne upon her
bleeding breast. It is very piteous to read, in Dobell's
biography and elsewhere, of the utter folly which re-
cognised in this moody, moping, and graceless ruffian
a veritable Saviour of Society. The great woman-
poet of the period hailed him holy, and her great
husband approved her worship. Dobell had doubts,
not many, of Napoleon's consecration. But Robert
Browning and Sydney Dobell both lived to recognise
in the lesser Napoleon, not only the assassin of France
political and social, but the destroyer of literary man-
hood all over the world. Twenty years of the Second
Empire, twenty years of a festering sore which con-
taminated all the civilisation of the earth, were destined
to follow. We reap the result still, in a society given
over to luxury and to gold ; in a journalism that has
lost its manhood, and is supported on a system of in-
decent exposure and black-mail ; in a literature whose
first word is flippancy, whose last word is prurience,
and whose victory is in the orgies of a naked Dance
of Death.
Be all that as it may, those were happy times for
Sydney Dobell. In one brief period of literary
activity, he wrote nearly all the works which are now
associated with his name. To this period belongs his
masterly review of " Currer Bell," a model of what
SYDNEY DO BELL. 199
such criticism should be. The review led to a cor-
respondence of singular interest between Miss Bronte
and Dobell. " You think chiefly of what is to be done
and won in life," wrote Charlotte ; " I, what is to be
suffered ... If ever we meet, you must regard me
as a grave sort of elder sister." By this period the
fountain of Charlotte Bronte's genius was dry ; she
knew it, though the world thought otherwise, and
hence her despair. She had lived her life, and put it
all into one immortal book. So she sat, a veiled
figure, by the side of the urn called "Jane Eyre."
The shadow of Death was already upon her face.
Dobell now began to move about the world. He
went to Switzerland, and on his return he was very
busy with his second poem, " Balder." While labour-
ing thus he first heard of Alexander Smith, and
having read some of the new poet's passages in The
Eclectic Review, wrote thus to Gilfillan : " But has he
[Smith] not published already, either in newspapers
or periodicals? Curiously enough, I have the strongest
impression of seeing the best images before, and I am
seldom mistaken in these remembrances." This was
ominous, of course, of what afterwards took place,
when the notorious charge of plagiarism was made
against Smith in The Athenceum. Shortly afterwards
he became personally acquainted with Smith, and
learned to love him well. He was now himself, how-
ever, to reap the bitters of adverse criticism in the
publication of his poem of " Balder." In this extra-
ordinary work, the leading actors are only a poet and
his wife, a doctor, an artist, and a servant. It may be
admitted at once that the general treatment verges on
the ridiculous, but the work contains passages of un-
equalled beauty and sublimity. The public reviews
were adverse, and even personal friends shook thei
r
200 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
heads in deprecation. At the time of publication he
was in Edinburgh, having gone thither to consult Dr.
(afterwards Sir James) Simpson on the illness of his
wife, and there he was to remain at bay during all the
barking of the journals. A little cold comfort came
from Charlotte Bronte.
" There is power in that character of Balder," she wrote,
" and to me, a certain horror. Did you mean it to embody,
along with force, many of the special defects of the artistic
character? It seems to me that those defects were never thrown
out in stronger lines."
Despite the ill-success of his second book, Dobell
spent a very happy season in Edinburgh. If not
famous, he was at least notorious, and was well enough
in health to enjoy a little social friction. Alexander
Smith, the secretary to the University, was his bosom
friend; and among his other companions were Samuel
Brown, Blackie, and Hunter of Craigcrook Castle.
" Smith and I," he wrote, "seemed destined to be
social twins." Just then there appeared in Black-
wood's' Magazine the somewhat flatulent satire of
" Firmilian, " written at high jinks by the local Yorick r
Professor Aytoun. The style of Dobell and Smith
was pretty well mimicked, and the scene in which
Gilfillan, entering as Apollodorus, was killed by the
friends thrown by Balder from a tower, was really
funny. The poets satirised enjoyed the joke as much
as anybody, but they little guessed that it was a joke
of a very fatal kind. From the moment of the ap-
pearance of the "spasmodic" satire, the so-called
spasmodic school was ruined in the eyes of the general
public. A violent journalistic prejudice arose against
its followers. Even Dobell's third book, " England
in Time of War," though full of fine lyrics, entirely
failed to reinstate the writer in public opinion. He
SYDNEY DOB ELL. 201
was classed, though in a new sense, among the " illus-
triously obscure," and he remained in that category
until the day he died.
Perhaps the plcasantest of all his days were those
days in Edinburgh, when, in conjunction with Smith,
he wrote a series of fine sonnets on the war, which
won the warm approval of good judges, like Mr.
Tennyson. There was something almost rapturous in
Smith's opening sonnet to Mrs. Dobell
And if we sing, I and that dearer friend,
Take thou our music. He dwells in thy light,
Summer and spring, blue day and starry night.
A friend wrote that he could love "Alexander"
for that sonnet ; and, indeed, who could not love
him for a thousand reasons ? The story of Smith's
martyrdom has yet to be told nay, can never be
told this side of the grave. But let this suffice it
was a martyrdom and a tragedy. How tranquilly,,
how beautifully, Smith took the injustice and the
cruelty of the world, many of us know. Few know
the rest. It was locked up in his great gentle heart.
When I have mentioned that, immediately after
the War Sonnets, Sydney Dobell issued independently
his volume of prose, " England in Time of War," his
literary history is told. Though he lived on for
another quarter of a century, he never published
another book. Three works, "The Roman," "Balder,"
and " England in Time of War/' formed the sum total
of his contributions to literature while alive ; and all
three were written at one epoch, in what Smith called
" the after-swell of the revolutionary impulse'of 1848."
For the last half of his life he was almost utterly
silent, only an occasional sonnet in a magazine, or a
letter in a journal on some political subject, reminding
202 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the public that he still lived. Of this long silence we
at last know the pathetic cause. Sickness pursued
him from day to day, from hour to hour, making
strenuous literary effort impossible. Never was poet
so unlucky. Read the whole heart-rending story in
his biography ; I at least cannot bear to linger over
these tortures. He had to fight for mere breath, and
he had little strength left him to reach out hands for
the laurel. How meekly he bore his martyrdom I
have already said.
When I met him he had the look of one who
might not live long, a beautiful, far-off, suffering look,
wonderfully reproduced in the exquisite picture by
his younger brother, an engraving of which faces the
title-page of his biography. Many years later, not
long indeed before his death, he sent me a photo-
graph with the inscription " Convalescent convalescenti'"
but all photographs reproduce the man but poorly,
compared with the picture of which I have spoken.
Even then, in the joy fulness of his eager heart, he
thought himself " convalescent/' and was looking for-
ward to busy years of life. It was not to be. No
sooner was his gentle frame reviving from one luck-
less accident, than Fate was ready with another.
" The pity of it, the pity of it ! " It is impossible to
think of his sufferings without wondering at the firm-
ness of his faith.
When Death came at last, after years of nameless
torture, only a few cold paragraphs in the journals told
that a poet had died. The neglect, which had hung
like a shadow over his poor ruined life, brooded like
a shadow on his grave. But fortunately for his fame,
he left relatives behind him who were determined to
set him right, once and for ever, with posterity. To
such reverent care and industry we owe the two
SYDNEY DOBELL. 203
volumes of collected verse, the exquisite volume of
prose memoranda, and lastly, the beautiful Life and
Letters. Thus, although only a short period has
elapsed since Dobell's death, though it seems only
yesterday that the poet lay forgotten in some dark
limbo of poetic failures, the public is already aware of
him as one of the strong men of his generation,
strong, too, in the sublimest sense of goodness,
courage, and all the old-fashioned Christian virtues.
He would have been recognised, perhaps, sooner or
later, though I have my doubts; but that he has been
recognised so soon is due to such love and duty as are
the crown and glory of a good man's life. The public
gratitude is due to those who have vindicated him, and
made impossible all mistakes as to the strength of his
genius and the beauty of his character. His music
was not for this generation, his dreams were not of
this earth, his final consecration was not to be given
here below.
Vex not his ghost : oh, let him pass ! He hates him much
That would upon the rack of this rough world
Stretch him out longer.
But henceforth his immortality is secure. He sits by
Shelley's side, in the loneliest and least accessible
heaven of Mystic Song.
THE IRISH "NATIONAL" POET.
ON Wednesday, the 28th May, 1879, the citizens
of Dublin, with that enthusiasm which so distinguishes
them in matters considered national, celebrated the
centenary of Thomas Moore. The house where the
poet was born was illuminated, perfervid speeches
were delivered by Lord O'Hagan and others, an ode
from the pen of Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy was
recited in public, a procession marched to the tunes
made familiar by "Moore's Melodies," and Moore's
words were sung with a spirit at once patriotic and
bacchanalian. It appeared to be agreed on all hands
that Moore was the representative poet of Ireland, and
that he occupied the same position in relation to his
country as that filled by Burns in relation to Scotland,
and Beranger in relation to France. If this be really
the case, so much the worse, in my opinion, for
Ireland and Irish literature. Thomas Moore was no
doubt what his countrymen would term an " iligant "
poet, and, he has written some verses which go bril-
liantly to music and are well adapted to the atmo-
sphere of drawing-rooms in all parts of the world. He
evinced, moreover, in his arrangement of words for the
exquisite national melodies, a most refined taste and a
THE IRISH "NATIONAL" POET. 205
well-nigh perfect judgment. To have seen him seated
at the piano, his white hands rambling over the keys,
and his voice warbling forth the best of his own com-
positions, must have been a treat of no common
order; as a refined entertainer, indeed, he seems to
have been without a peer. But seen at last in the
light of a popular apotheosis, in the rosy and some-
what alcoholic glare of a great nation's enthusiasm,
he seems as poor a literary figure as may well be con-
ceived. Nearly every line he wrote is pregnant with
platitude and literary affectations ; nearly every song
he sang is either playfully, or forlornly, or affectedly,
genteel ; and though he had a musical ear, he was
deficient in every lofty grace, every word-compelling
power, of the divine poetic gift. Above all, he lacked
simplicity that one unmistakable gift of all great
national poets, from Homer downwards. And the
cardinal defect of the verse was the true clue to the
thoroughly artificial character of the man. Beginning
in early life as the friend of Young Ireland, as the
born companion of Robert Emmett and other
martyrs of the hopeless days of the Rebellion,he ended
as the adored " musical wit " of London drawing-
rooms, the pet of London publishers, the " agreeable
rattle " of fashionable literary gatherings. Handsome,
agreeable, courteous, affable, even dignified, he lived to
become the friend and confidant of Byron, and most
other distinguished men of his age. At the height of
his popularity Mr. Murray gave him a princely sum
for " Lalla Rookh " a poem which, as Hazlitt wittily
remarked, "he should not have written even for a
thousand pounds/' There was a period when a
patient public found poetry in his " Veiled Prophet of
Khorassan," and saw pathos in his episode of " Para-
dise and the Peri." He was the biographer of Lord
206 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Edward Fitzgerald and of that infinitely greater Lord
who died at Missolonghi. Society tittered at his
epigrams, and politicians delighted in his political
satires on behalf of the Whigs. He dressed well,
went everywhere, knew everybody, and wherever he
went generally sang for his supper ; in a word, he
was the parvenu and fine gentleman. If we compare
this spruce little courtier, with his enthusiasm of
gentility and his sham revolutionary sentiment, with
the picture of Burns in his exciseman's coat, or that of
Beranger in his old, shabby dressing-gown, we may
see at a glance the difference between a playful singer
of the salons and a true poet of the people.
I have granted the merit of Moore's verses
and the amusing nature of his personality ; but I
must protest in the name of justice against his accept-
ance as the national poet of Ireland. If Irishmen
accept him and honour him as such, so much the
worse for Irishmen, since his falsehood of poetical touch
must respond to something false and unpoetical in
their own natures. I have said that a national poet
must be simple Moore was always ornate in the bad
sense. Listen to him when he is " patriotic : "
Forget not the field where they perished ;
The truest the last of the brave !
All gone and the bright hope we cherished
Gone with them, and quenched in their grave !
Or elsewhere when he cries in more ringing cadence :
Let Erin remember the days of old,
Ere her faithless sons betrayed her ;
When Malachi wore the collar of gold
Which he won from the proud invader ;
When her Kings, with standards of green unfurled,
Led the Red Cross Knights to danger ;
Ere the emerald gem of the western world
Was set in the crown of a stranger !
Compare any of this fustian with " Scots wha
THE IRISH "NATIONAL" POET. 207
hae," or the "Marseillaise," or " Les Gaulois et les
Francs ; " compare it even, which is more to the point,
with Curran's " Wearing of the Green/' or Thomas
Davis's "Green above the Red." Another cha-
racteristic of a truly national poet is what is termed
" local colour/' Beyond making a tautological parade
of the shamrock (the only trefoil he appears to have
ever seen), Moore never even attempts to depict the
common objects of the landscape of his country.
Even when he sings of Arranmore he can only tell us
of "breezy cliffs/' "flowery mazes/' "skiffs that
dance along the flood," "daylight's parting wing,"
and all the stock phenomena of the albums. His
" Vale of Avoca " might be situated anywhere be-
tween Ireland and Japan; there are a thousand
" sweet valleys " where " dark waters meet," but
surely an Irish poet might have conveyed by some
felicitous touch or image that the waters in question
met in the Wicklow Mountains ? As in his pictures
of nature, so in his renderings of the transports of
love. Who that has read Burns' " Highland Mary,"
or Tannahill's "Jessie, the Flower o' Dunblane," or
Beranger's " Lisette," can tolerate the affectations of
" Come rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer," or
" Lesbia has a beaming eye " ? Again, a national
poet should be pathetic. The high-water mark of
Moore's pathos is to be found in such lyrics as " She
is far from the land," which is the mere twaddle of a
keepsake compared with " Ye banks and braes," or
" Adieu, charmant pays de France," or (to come back
to Ireland again) with Clarence Mangan's "Dark
Rosaleen," or Banim's " Soggarth Aroon." Lastly, a
national poet should have humour. The humour of
Thomas Moore is not even good wholesome "blarney"
it is the mere fluent persiflage of a diner-out.
208 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
The question which occurs to me, apropos of the
present centenary, is not a merely literary one.
Criticism has long ago settled the poetical rank of
Thomas Moore, and no amount of local enthusiasm,
no association of that delightful melody to which his
falsest songs are set, will alter the supreme fiat of the
critical world. But I cannot help asking myself
again whether or not the choice of so shallow and
insincere a poet is an indication of shallowness and
insincerity in the Irish character itself? I am very
unwilling to think so. I would rather believe that
the apotheosis of Thomas Moore is the work of an
over-zealous minority, and that the great strong
heart of the people has no real response for such a
singer. A national poet represents his nation, as
Burns represents Scotland, as Beranger represents
France. I should be sorry to believe that Moore
represents Ireland sorry, I mean, for Ireland's
sake. I have heard Irishmen, quite alive to
Moore's defects, defend his fame by saying that he is,
if not a great poet, at any rate the greatest Ireland
has produced. This is a matter of opinion. Judged
by the voluminousness of his works, he is perhaps
paramount. But do not let us forget that Ireland
can boast of such poets as Thomas Davis, John
Banim, Gerald Griffin, Callanan, Curran, Samuel
Lover, Wolfe, Samuel Ferguson, Edward Walsh, and
Clarence Mangan. Where in Moore's tinsel poems
shall we find such a piece of wondrous workmanship
as Mangan's " Vision of Connaught in the Thirteenth
Century/' such a heart-rending ballad as Banim's
" Soggarth Aroon," such a torrent of native strength
as Ferguson's " Welshmen of Tirawley," such a bit of
rollicking vigour as Lysaght's " Sprig of Shillelah,"
or such a thrill of simple pathos as Gerald Griffin's
THE IRISH "NATIONAL" POET. 209
" The tie is broke, my Irish girl " ? John Banim
sleeps unhonoured, Clarence Mangan lies forgotten,
Gerald Griffin is best remembered for his masterly
piece of prose fiction. Yet these men were truly
national poets ; every word they wrote had an Irish
ring, and their simple and noble efforts in Irish
minstrelsy have gone right home to the spirits of the
people. I am sorry indeed for Ireland, if, with
such men for singers, she can persist in crowning as
her laureate the ghost of a parvenu gentleman in
tights and pumps, who spent his days and nights
among the Whigs in London, whose patriotism was
an amusing farce, and who, merely to make himself
look interesting, pinned a shamrock to the buttonhole
of his dress- coat, and warbled cheerful little dirges
about the sorrows of the country he had left behind
him.
HEINE IN A COURT SUIT.
IN all history there could hardly be two figures
more violently contrasted or diametrically different
than the blameless Prince Consort of England and
the inspired Gnome of German poetry ; and it goes
without saying that the biographer of the one was
ill fitted to become the translator of the other. I
can hardly conceive, therefore, what species of infatu-
ation possessed Mr. Theodore Martin * when he re-
solved to employ his leisure, lately so admirably
utilised in the editing and preparing dainty docu-
ments of the Court, in adapting Heinrich Heine's
" Poems and Ballads." I use the word adapting
advisedly, for when a Courtier, however refined and
cultivated, tries to handle a revolutionary Poet, the
result is certain to be adaptation, if not downright
misrepresentation and mutilation. As wild and agile
as Goethe's Flea, as tricksome as an Elf, as uncertain
and misleading as a Will-o'-the-Wisp, gamesome and
lachrymose by turns, by turns outraging all the con-
ventions and respecting all the proprieties, now the
most doleful German that ever spun ditties to his
mistress's eyebrow, and again (what Thiers called
him) the wittiest Frenchman that ever lived, Heine is
* Now Sir Theodore Martin.
HEINE IN A COURT SUIT. 211
the last spirit in the world to rise to the conjuration
of a respectable elderly English gentleman, armed
with a German dictionary, a quill pen, and an " ex-
purgating " apparatus. He who poked fun at all
authorities, human and superhuman, and was never
so happy as when sprinkling crumbs in the beds of the
little Kings of Teutonia, would have shuddered at
the mere prospect of such treatment. A large por-
tion, say at least a round third, of Heine, is sheer
naughtiness. He delights in mischief for mischief's
sake. He pushes irreverence to the verge of blas-
phemy, and he whips the galled jade of sensualism,
sometimes, with a vigour which makes one quite in
love with virtue. Yet this Gnome of impudence and
infidelity was capable of the most maudlin Wer-
therism. He could weep like any school-girl ; nay,
he would almost deluge you with sentimental milk
and water. Curiously enough, this contrariety of
mood constitutes his literary fascination. We never
know where to have him ; it is impossible to predict
his temper from one moment to another. Just as he
has posed like a philosopher, just as he has touched a
note worthy of Hegel in the dumps, a note planetary,
speculative, or universal, he " makes a mouth " like a
giddy hoyden, skips in the air, and bursts into silvery
laughter. In the very midst of his shrill laugh, out
comes the pocket-handkerchief, and down fall the
tears. Now he gibes at God Himself; anon, he slaps
your face for having joined in the gibe. He respects
nobody, not even the reader of his books. He intro-
duces the sepulchre and the lupanar as freely as the
lyre and the lute, and he is equally matter-of-fact in
singing of Herodias with John the Baptist's head
under her arm, and of Hortense dying in a Parisian
hospital. Nothing comes amiss to him except
"
212 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
obedience to authority. How should he admit the
authority of Morality, when he repudiates even that
of Art ? In the same spirit which makes him shock
and outrage social propriety, he now and then
deliberately spoils his own poems, wilfully deter-
mined not to say the right thing, just because criti-
cism insists that it is the right thing, and he ought to
say it !
Mr. Martin's translations appeared originally in
Blackwood's Magazine, and they doubtless amused
the old-fashioned readers of that somewhat eccentric
and antique periodical. Now that they are collected
together, one sees more clearly than ever how in-
adequate they are. It is not that they fail to repro-
duce Heine's wonderful melody that, no doubt, was
impossible ; and it is not that they wilfully misrepre-
sent the general features of their originals. But there
is a half-hearted, limping, wooden-legged manner
about their lyrical movement which is not rectified by
an occasional " hop-step-and-jump " into metrical
liveliness. I should do Mr. Martin gross injustice,
if I failed to recognise the abundant scholarship,
the great conscientiousness, and the busy earnestness,
which distinguish his work. He is as just to Heine
as he would be to a Prince Presumptive, and that is
saying a good deal. He is rigidly fair to him, even
too fair, in so much as he will suffer him to say
nothing unseemly. But somehow the result is not
satisfactory, and Mr. Martin's book is no more like the
" Buch der Lieder " than green cheese is like the moon,
or the postures of a dancing-master like the leaps of
Oberon on the starlit sward.
To descend from general to specific charges, I
have first to complain of a good deal of positively
bad workmanship. Take, for one example, the first few
IX A COURT SUIT. 213
verses of the weird poem beginning in the original,
" Was treibt uncl tobt mein tolles Blut : "
What sets my blood so mad a-spin?
\\"hy burns my heart with a tire within?
My blood // boils, it foams, it seethes,
And a ^nawin^ tlume my heart enwreathes.
My blood // foams and seethes so mad,
For I an evil dream have had :
The Son of Ni^ht came, swart and grim,
And took me away perforce with him.
He led me to a house was bright, etc.
Really, the " blood it boils " at such a perversion !
The awkward repetition of the pronoun is especially
disagreeable in its false resemblance to the idiom of
the original. Turn, then, to the rendering of the poem
beginning " Liebste, sollst mir heute sagen " a piece
certainly not in Heine's best manner, but like all his
lyrics, full of verbal felicities, and quite without any
affectations :
Say, love, art thou not a vision
Speak, for I to know am fain
Such as summer hours Elysian
Breed within the poet's brain ?
Nay, a mouth of such completeness,
Eyes of such bewitching flame,
Girl so garner'd round with sweetness,
Never did a poet frame.
Vampires, basilisks, chimasras,
Dragons, monsters, all the dire
Creatures of the fable eras,
( Hiicken in the poet's fire.
But thyself, so artful-artless,
Thy sweet face, thy tender eyes,
With their looks so fond, so heartless,
Never poet could devise.
This, surely, is not Heine, but our old friend, Laura
Matilda. Who does not recognise at once the cadence
of the immortal
Fluttering spread thy purple pinions,
214 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
of the " Rejected Addresses " ? In the German poem
there is nothing about " fain to know," nothing of the
poetaster's jargon about " hours Elysian," a mouth
of " such sweet completeness," "a girl garner'd round
with sweetness," or " all the dire creatures of the fable
eras." Heine merely says, in the simplest possible
language : " Dearest, you shall this day tell me, are
you not a dream-picture, such as in sultry summer
days fills the poet's brain ? But no, such a little
mouth (Miindchen), such a magic light of the eyes,
such a dear, sweet, little darling (Kindchen), was not
created by the poet. Basilisks and vampires, dragons
and monsters, such horrible fable-animals, these are
created by the poet's flame. But thee and thy slyness,
thy fair face, and the false true look, were not created
by the poet." Words and meaning are trifling in the
extreme, and only perfect simplicity (shown, for
example, in the charming use of diminutives) could
make them endurable. But it is precisely this sim-
plicity that enables Heine to produce his most
miraculous effects. Just imagine the poet of" Lorelei "
using the poetic terminology of the Family Herald, the
verbal splendours of a young ladies' cardephonia, the
gushing verbiage of Julia Mills ! Unfortunately,
however, one cannot imagine it, nor do I believe that
any one will be able to do so even at Windsor.
All this, perhaps, only amounts to saying that Mr.
Martin's translation is no complete representation of
Heine's lyrical achievements. In particular cases the
rendering is very good indeed, and I might cite the
sterling ballad of " The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar " as a
specimen of Mr. Martin at his best. He succeeds
better with the longer ballads than with the little
songs ; in the latter the poetic spirit is so volatile and
evanescent as altogether to evaporate in the crucible
HEINE IN A COURT SUIT. 215
of the translator. Take the tiny lyric beginning " Du
liebst mich nicht, du liebst mich nicht," and note
the odious transmutation of the first line :
My love you cannot, cannot brook !
I don't let that distress me ;
So I but on thy face may look,
For that's enough to bless me.
You hate, you hate, you hate me ! is
Your rosy-red mouth's greeting :
But let me have that mouth to kiss,
And I'm content, my sweeting.
" That's enough to bless me " is a poor substitute for
<( Bin ich froh wie'n Konig " ; and though the last line
of all may be considered a rather felicitous rendering
of " So trost ich mich, mein Kindchen," the general
effect is lost. All Mr. Martin's imperfections appear
most strongly marked in his version of the marvellous
lyric of the " Lorelei/'' a poem which for strange
sibylline charm and sibillant rhythm has never been
surpassed. Here are two stanzas :
With a comb of red gold she parts it,
And still as she combs it she sings ;
As the melody falls on our hearts, it
With power as of magic stings.
With a spasm the boatman hears it
Out there in his little skiff,
He sees not the reef as he nears it,
He only looks up to the cliff.
The original, literally translated, is as follows :
She combs it with golden comb,
And sings a song meanwhile ;
It hath a wonderful,
Powerful melody.
The boatman in his little boat
Hears it with wild pain,
He sees not the reef,
He looks only up to the cliff.
216 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
There is nothing about a " red gold comb," nothing
about "stinging the heart with magic," nothing about
the boatman listening " with a spasm." These are
mere verbal excrescences ; but, alas ! for the music,
for the liquid lapse of sweet syllables, all utterly for-
gotten or lost ! The reader of such a translation as
Mr. Martin's gets no idea whatever of Heine's magic
gift of music, but is set actively speculating what the
world can mean by calling Heine a great lyrical poet.
It is still worse, it is thrice hideous, when the trans-
lator, in his despair of simplicity, tries broad Scotch.
What provocation was there for such an outbreak as
this ?
My bairn, we ance were bairnies,
Wee gamesome bairnies twa ;
We creepit into the hen-house,
And jookit under the straw, etc.
If the original were written in anything but good
genteel German, if a patois of any kind had been em-
ployed, Mr. Martin would have had a certain excuse.
Heine's ballad tales depend chiefly on the excellence
of their story and on the quaint originality of their
manner, which no translation can altogether spoil.
Anything more tender and beautiful than " The Pil-
grimage to Kevlaar " can scarcely be conceived, yet
the idea is simplicity itself, and the treatment quite
free from tricks of style. It is curious to note, by the
way, how persistently Heine, as in this poem, broods
on the bitterness of life and the supreme piteousness
of death. Indeed, a more tautological poet never
existed. We really get tired of his repeated conjura-
tions with a wreath of roses, a nude female, and a
caput mortuum, and his ghosts and skeletons soon fail
to frighten us. The one great theme of his Muse,
that of Love uniting the quick and dead, and fre-
HEINE IN A COURT SUIT. 217
quently waking up the dead to join the quick, is that
of the " Danske Viser" and all kindred groups of
ballads. The wild and woeful music made in the
wonderful ballad of " Auge und Elsie/' which he read
in his youth, seems to have reverberated in his brain,
and he is never tired of echoing its theme and its
cadence.
That cadence and that theme are not for Mr.
Theodore Martin. They belong to the wild heart
and the wild mood ; their region is the lonely green-
wood and the dreary sea; and they are not to be
"adapted" to the Court or the drawing-room. He
who translates Heine must possess something of
Heine's nature free, wild, wicked even, and over
bold.
Heine himself carried his wickedness to the
extent of hating England and Englishmen with all
his heart. His cup of hate would have been full, if
he had lived to read Mr. Martin's translation.
A TALK WITH GEORGE ELIOT.
THE Priory, North Bank, Regent's Park, London,
is a largish, not uncommodious, house, enclosed in its
own grounds of about an acre and a half, with trees
and shrubs all round, a high front wall facing the
street, to which it communicates through a massive
doorway. The neighbourhood is quiet, abounding in
the cots of those soiled doves who haunt what have
been christened (for North Bank is a portion of St.
John's Wood) the shady groves of the Evangelist.
An actor, Mr. Wilson Barrett, now inhabits the
Priory ; he has enlarged and altered it to suit his
needs, and made it aesthetically resplendent with
dados, peacock-papers, and stained glass windows.
But in the old days when I haunted it, it was the
unpretentious abode of the most famous woman and
the cleverest man in England. " George Eliot "
dwelt there with her husband, George Henry Lewes ;
she, known far and wide as the bright genius whose
fine creations in fiction began with "Adam Bede" ;
he, distinguished in many ways as a litterateur, a man
of science, and a dilettante.
An afternoon at the Priory, beginning with a
modest lunch in the eastern chamber, half study, half
A TALK WITH GEORGE ELIOT. 219
drawing-room, and ending with a long chat and tea
in the pretty drawing-room, was surely a thing to be
remembered. As I look backward, I recall many
such afternoons ; but one particularly I remember,
when the full sunshine of success and happiness dwelt
in that little household, and when, to ears eager to
listen to me, and hearts full of sympathy, I first told
the story of the life and death of David Gray, the
young Scottish poet, who came with me to seek his
fortune in the great world of London, and on the very
threshold of his career was smitten down to die a
lingering death.
Conceive a little, narrow-shouldered man of
between forty and fifty, with long, straight hair, a
magnificent forehead, dark yet brilliant eyes, and a
manner full of alertness and intellectual grace. This
was George Lewes, whom Douglas Jerrold had once
stigmatised as " the ugliest man in London," averring
at the same time, that he had caused the chimpanzee
in the Zoological Gardens to die " out of jealousy,
because there existed close by a creature more hideous
than itself!" But George Lewes, though not an
Adonis, was certainly not ugly. The great defects of
his face were the coarse, almost sensual mouth, with
its protruding teeth partly covered by a bristly
moustache, and the small retreating chin ; but when
the face lighted up, and the eyes sparkled, and the
mouth began its eloquent discourse, every imper-
fection was forgotten. Conceive, next, the tenth
Muse, or Sibyl, lounging in an arm-chair and shading
her face idly with a hand-screen ; a powerful-looking,
middle-aged woman, with a noticeable nose and chin,
a low forehead, a fresh complexion, and full and very
mobile mouth. Dress, on this occasion, a plainly
cut, tight-fitting dress of blue cashmere, fastened at
220 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the throat with a cameo brooch. This was " Maw-
rian Evans," as Carlyle called her, the George Eliot
of the novels. She realised in face and form the
description I afterward gave to her in the " Session
of the Poets " :
George Eliot gazed on the company boldly
With the limbs of a sylph and the head of John Locke !
I had been particularly struck by her resemblance
to Locke's well-known portrait, engraved as a frontis-
piece to the famous u Essay." At that time her
figure was graceful to elegance. When I last saw
her, shortly before her husband's death, she stooped
painfully as she walked, and wore an old-fashioned
crinoline.
" Tell that story to the public, too," cried Lewes,
when I had finished my tale. " Poor fellow ! What
a pity he ever came to London ! "
" Lord Houghton says that your friend was very
like the busts of Shelley," said George Eliot, in her
deep contralto voice.
" Very like," I answered ; " he was curiously
feminine in form, and had the most wonderful eyes
in the world. Even Tito yonder was not more beau-
tiful," I added, pointing to one of the proof engrav-
ings of Du Maurier's illustrations to " Romola," which
hung framed over the mantelpiece.
" I don't think, by the way," observed Lewes,
" that David Gray can be classed among the true
victims of the Babylonian monster, London ; at any
rate, he was not exactly a literary struggler, at the
mercy of what his countryman, Alexander Smith,
called
The terrible city whose neglect is death,
Whose smile is fame!
He was struck down before he began the struggle at
A TALK WITH GEORGE ELIOT. 221
all ; indeed, I have no doubt whatever from your
description of him, that the strumous taint, or predis-
position, was in him from birth, and that, under any
circumstances, his fate would have been the same."
GEORGE ELIOT" Quern Di diligunt, etc. After
all, is not Ganymede to be envied ? Better to be
snatched up suddenly into the heaven of heavens, in
all the prime of youth and happiness, than to grow
old in a world which is full of sorrow, and in which
old age is the least beautiful of human phenomena."
LEWES "You are quite right there. It is the
exaggeration of sentiment which makes the poets
give old age a sort of moral halo. There is nothing
so pitiful, so horrible, as the slow and certain decay
of the human faculties."
MYSELF" But is not that decay beautiful too ? "
LEWES " Apart from the pathetic fallacy, as
Ruskin calls it, not at all. Your favourite Catullus
describes it perfectly :
Cana tempus anilitas
Omnia omnes annuit !
"In other words, and Scotch ones, 'a' nodding, nid-
nid-nodding' ; a condition, in short, of ever-increasing
inbecility, or vacuity."
GEORGE ELIOT (smiling) "We are wandering to-
wards deep waters. But it is quite true, I think, that
the gradual obliteration of the human faculties and
senses, one by one, is the strongest argument against
the popular conception of a personal immortality."
LEWES " Certainly."
GEORGE ELIOT " Not only do men, under cir-
cumstances of physical decay, become feeble and
imbecile ; when a moral sense remains, it frequently
becomes perverted. I have seen an old gentleman,
hitherto known as an immaculate and honest mer-
222 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
chant, gradually acquire habits of kleptomania, and
another, well <known for his benevolence, become
spiteful, almost homicidal. We are absolutely the
creatures of our secretions. So true is this, that the
slightest disturbance of the cerebral circulation, say a
temporary congestion, will pervert the entire stream of
moral sentiment."
MYSELF " All that is doubtless very correct. I
hold, nevertheless, that the soul, the Ego, is invul-
nerable, despite all temporary aberrations clouds
obscurirrg the moon's disc, so to speak."
GEORGE ELIOT " Say rather, disintegrations
within the very substance of the moon itself. Where the
very substance of the luminary is decaying, what hope
is there for the permanence of your moonlight ? "
MYSELF " The analogy is imperfect ; but to pur-
sue it, the lunar elements remain indestructible, and
after transformations, may cohere again into some
splendid identity."
GEORGE ELIOT" Moonlight is sunlight reflected
on a material mirror ; thought, consciousness, life
itself, are conditions dependent on the physical
medium, and on the brightness of the external en-
vironment. Cogito, ergo sum should be transposed
and altered. Sum materies, ergo cogito"
LEWES "And yet, after all, there are psychic
phenomena which seem to evade the material defini-
tion!"
GEORGE ELIOT "Not one. And science has-
established clearly that, while functional disturbance
may be evanescent, structural destruction is absolute
and irremediable. An organism, once destroyed, is
incapable of resurrection."
MYSELF " Then life is merely mechanism, after
all?"
A TALK WITH GEORGE ELIOT. 223
GEORGE ELIOT " Undoubtedly. It is very pitiful,
but absolutely true."
LEWES " But what mechanism ! How wonderful,
how perfect in its adaptation of means to ends ! Even
if we hold thought to be a secretion, does that lessen
the beauty of its manifestations ? "
MYSELF " Or the mystery of its origin ? "
LEWES" Humph."
GEORGE ELIOT "The mystery, doubtless, consists
only in our ignorance. There was a time, not very
long ago, when men knew nothing of that marvellous
truth, the circulation of the blood. In time, no doubt
we shall discover the precise process by which we
think."
So speaking, the Sibyl glanced, not without ad-
miration, at her husband, who was engaged at that
very period, as I knew, in experiments concerning
the mechanism of thought. He had long before
abandoned the metaphysicians, as bewildering and
misleading guides, and had completed, in the last
edition of his " History of Philosophy," his survey of
the progress of thought from its past stage of cre-
dulity to its last stage of verification. Now, my sym-
pathies were strongly in the other direction, tholigh I
had little or no enthusiasm for what may be termed
the ich and the nicht ich schools of metaphysics.
So I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders,
saying something to this effect that if thought was
simply mechanism, as they suggested, man was no
better than the " beasts that perish."
At this moment there appeared upon the scene
another individual, entering quietly through the draw-
ing-room door, which was partly open. The new-
comer was a dog, a splendid bull-terrier, who belonged
to George Eliot, and generally accompanied Lewes
224 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
in his walks about the neighbourhood. He came in
with a languid wag of the tail, and a general air of
importance, glanced patronisingly at me, yawned
lazily, and stretched himself on the hearthrug at the
feet of his mistress.
GEORGE ELIOT " ' The beasts that perish.' Here
is somebody who, if he could speak, would express a
strong opinion upon that subject ; for he is wise in
his generation, and magnanimous almost beyond
human conception. Do you know what he did once,
before he was given to us ? The friend to whom he
belonged had a little boy, who inherited in full
measure the predilections of the archetypal ape."
LEWES (parenthetically) "The true and only
substitute for Plato's archetypal Man ! "
GEORGE ELIOT " One day, our friend had some
acquaintances to luncheon. As they sat together
they were startled by a sharp cry of pain from under-
neath the table ; and lifting the edge of the table-
cloth, they saw the small human monkey squatted on
the carpet, in the act of slitting the dog's ear with a
large pair of scissors ! Out crept the dog, panting
and bleeding, followed by his little tormentor. Papa,
of course, was very indignant, and seizing the child,
who began to sob with terror, announced his inten-
tion of administering condign punishment, which he
would have done instantly had not the victim inter-
fered. Wagging his tail (just as he is doing now, for
he knows I'm telling about him !) the noble fellow
rose up, put his paws on the child's shoulders, and
affectionately licked his face; then looking at his
master, said plainly, in the canine deaf and dumb
alphabet, * Don't beat him ! please don't ! He's only
an undeveloped human being ; he knows no better,
and I love him ! ' Could human kindness and
A TALK WITH GEORGE ELIOT. 225
magnanimity go further ? Yet I don't suppose you will
contend that the poor dog's loving instinct was enough
to distinguish him from the other * beasts that perish/ '
MYSELF "I'm not sure. Why should not even a
dog have a soul like any other respectable Christian?"
LEWES " Why not, indeed ! I have known many
so-called Christians who have neither the amiability
nor the discrimination of this dog."
GEORGE ELIOT " Then here we halt on the
horns of a dilemma. Every one with a large ac-
quaintance among decent and 'gentleman-like' dogs
(as Launce would put it) must admit their share in
the highest humanities ; and what is true of them is
true, to a greater or less extent, of animals generally.
Yet shall we, because we walk on our hind feet,
assume to ourselves only the privilege of imperisha-
bility ? Shall we, who are even as they, though we
wag our tongues and not our tails, demand a special
Providence and a selfish salvation ? "
LEWES (laughing) " Buchanan, like all young
men, is an optimist ! His spiritual scheme embraces
every form of existence, as well as the whole human
race."
GEORGE ELIOT "And why, even, the whole
human race ? Go into the slums and dens of the
city, visit our prisons and inspect our criminals, not
to speak of the inmates of our lunatic asylums ; and
what do you find? Beasts in human likeness, monsters
with appetites and instincts, often even the cleverness,
of men and women. Are these immortal souls too,
independent of physical limitations, and journeying to
an eternal Home?"
MYSELF "Certainly. There is no form of hu-
manity, however degraded, which is beyond the possi-
bility of moral regeneration."
Q
226 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
LEWES " Optimism with a vengeance! Optimism
which leaves out of sight all the great physical factors
of moral conduct hereditary disease, cerebral mal-
formations, thought-perverting congestions, all the
endless ills that flesh is heir to. Pm afraid, after all,
that the dream of a personal immortality is a selfish
one. It would come, in the long run, merely to the
survival of the fittest, who would build their heavenly
mansion on a hecatomb of human failure. . . . But
there, we've talked enough of things at present in-
scrutable. Come out into the garden, and soothe your
mechanism with a cigar."
We left the Sibyl to her meditations, and walked
out into the open air. As we strolled smoking along
the garden walks, we heard faintly, as from a distance,
the murmur of the great city.
"Do you really believe," I said presently, "that
the divine thought of Shakespeare was a mere se-
cretion, and that the last word of Science will be one
of sheer negation and despair ? "
He looked at me thoughtfully, then watched the
wreaths of smoke as they curled from his mouth up
into the air.
" Man is predoomed to aspiration, as the smoke
flies upward. The last word of Science will not be
spoken for many a century yet. Who can guess what
it will be ? "
NOTE. Although the above sketch is based on memoranda
made at the time, I do not give it as a literal report of George
Eliot's words, but as a mere transcript from memory of an
interesting conversation. R.B.
THE
LITERATURE OF SPIRITUALISM.
"POST MORTEM" FICTION.
IT has been suggested by no less (or no greater) an
authority than Sir John Lubbock that the earliest
ideas of Religion are distinctly traceable to what
doctors call dyspepsia, and ordinary people indiges-
tion. During the violent nightmares following a
feast of "roasted enemy," our progenitors first saw
hideous shapes in dreams, and hence began to sup-
pose that there was a spiritual world surrounding this
one, peopled by those pale ghosts of whom even
Lucretius himself condescended to give us a glimpse,
in his picture of the twilight region of Orcus :
Quo neque permanent animae, neque corpora nostra,
Sed quaedam simulacra modo pallentia miris.
Sir John's playful and easy explanation of the great
question of the genesis of religious impressions is, of
course, only worthy of the young pundits of the
Fortnightly Review, wits who spell God with a small
g, and gladly exchange the poetry of the Old Testa-
ment for Holbach's " System of Nature." One of the
many answers to the explanation is the simple one
Q 2
228 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
that indigestion is a complaint more likely to assail a
city banker than a primaeval savage. Primitive man,
even when he outdid himself cannibalistically, in all
probability slept soundly, in supreme defiance of the
nightmare. But, although I am compelled to reject
Sir John's theory as an account of the dim beginnings
of natural piety, I hail it thankfully as supplying a
clue to the origin of at least two-thirds of historical
apparitions, from the Devil of Luther downwards.
Certainly, a large number of ghosts are due to over-
eating or over-drinking. "A slight disorder of the
stomach," said Mr. Scrooge to the grim ghost of
Marley, " makes the senses cheats. You may be an
undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of
cheese, a fragment of an underdone potatoe ! " It
would be curious indeed to inquire how far excess in
eating and drinking has been a factor in the forma-
tion of the phantom-world. Hunger and whisky
combined must have created in many Highland Seers
the startling phenomena of second sight. Most Irish
stories of the " fetches " positively reek of delirium
tremens. Indeed, it would require the art of a Cruik-
shank to depict the horrors which imagination can
body forth under temporary derangements of the
sensory apparatus. But it is in the region of what is
known as Spiritualism, in that dark morass where the
sad moonshine gleams vapidly through an eternal
intellectual fog, that I find Sir John Lubbock's
cynical suggestion most useful as a light and a guide.
How else explain the existence of apparitions which
bear the same relation to respectable, God-fearing
I had almost said church-going phantoms, that
pickled pork and peas-pudding do to wholesome
foo<! 5
In a spirit of penitence, clad in literary sackcloth
THE LITERATURE OF SPIRITUALISM. 229
and ashes, I have recently been going through a
course of Spiritualistic literature; and now, at its con-
clusion, I feel almost as dyspeptic as Schiller's
"Ghost Seer" himself, and ready to believe in any
hobgoblin the imminent festivities of Christmas may
devise. If the result is chiefly interesting to a local
medical practitioner, the spirits are not to blame ; for
I have really been most liberally entertained. I
now purpose to retail to my readers some of the
entertainment I have been taking wholesale. Out
of a superfluity of fine things, it is difficult to pick a
sample, but I believe I shall not go far wrong if
I select a little work which might fairly be entitled
" The Spiritualist's Vade Mecum," but which appears
with the less pretentious but more touching title of
"Rifts in the Veil." It is published, I believe, at the
office of the Spiritualist newspaper; it is sumptuously
got up, I presume under spiritual superintendence ;
and it is, as the title-page sets forth, " a collection of
inspirational poems and essays given through various
forms of mediumship, also of poems and essays by
spiritualists." A passing examination of some of
these "inspirational " productions may lead the reader
to discover the true nature of the "inspiration "specified,
and may enable him to decide if, after all, the theory of
dyspepsia is admissible.
" In the highest forms of inspiration," begins the
preface, "the communicating spirit is supposed to
give to the medium in a supersensuous state the
highest ideas he can then assimilate; presumably, these
ideas then flow from the lips of the sensitive, but
necessarily somewhat dwarfed and warped by the
channel through which they pass, and by the limited
powers of the mortal intellects to whose receptive
capacity they have to be lowered and adapted. The
230 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
trance poems given in this book," it is added, "were,
in the majority of cases, taken down in shorthand from
the lips of the sensitives, as the words were uttered."
The first specimen of a " trance " poem which must
by no means be confounded with a poem really " en-
trancing " is a splendid utterance by a certain Mr.
Thomas Lake Harris, " now the head of a religious
community in America." It is in blank verse, verse
so blank in its vague magnificence that it makes one
feel tenfold " the limited power of the mortal intellect
to whose receptive capacity" it has to be "lowered."
Here and there it reminds me of Tupper at his
highest ; more than once it soars to the empyrean of
eloquence occupied by the Rock newspaper. Take
the concluding passage :
God alone is great.
He is the primal splendour who illumes
The full-orbed intellect ; He gave the power
To plan and execute ; the work is His,
Its faults grew from our creature fmiteness.
Would it (*.*., the poem) were worthier of its origin.
'Tis but a wandering Voice, the harbinger
Of a great poem that, Messiah-like,
Shall tread down evil with its feet of fire,
And clasp all sufferers to its. heart of love
The latchets of whose shoes it may not loose.
Five years will lead their swift revolving dance
In choral music round the brightening world,
Before that Poem shall unfold its form,
And we will make the Medium worthy it,
And give it as his spiritual powers
Wake from their slumber. For the time, farewell.
An unbeliever might wonder why a " heart of love "
should wear " shoes " with " latchets," and an unre-
generate Fortnightly Reviewer might assert that a
Medium " worthy " of such a poem might readily be
found in the platitudinous person of Mr. Chadband.
But I am not so ill-disposed. What pleases in
such poetry is its soothing flow, so easy to follow, so
THE LITERATURE OF SPIRITUALISM. 231
innocent of vulgar mystery. So far, there is no trace
of the blue devils, no suspicion of dyspepsia. Ridge's
"Food for Infants" is not milder than Mr. Harris's
trance poem so much as I have yet quoted of it. But
Mr. Harris does not always remain on the ground ;
he can soar when he likes. In another specimen of
his Muse, entitled " The Translation of Shelley to the
Higher Life," he is simply gorgeous in his cloud-com-
pelling flights. Here, through Mr. Harris's trance-
mediumship, Shelley himself describes his death by
drowning :
We had gone forth, my friend and I, beguiled
By summer air and sunshine, and low tones
Of music from the crisped and crested sea.
A white flaw struck our barque, and she went down.
A gurgling, bubbling sound was in my ears.
White-armed I dipt with sinewy stroke the waves,
Sank, rose again and sank, and rose and saw
Returning smiles of sunshine on the sea,
Then left my languid form upon the deep,
Borne by its tides and rocking to their swell.
It is quite useless to object to trifling inaccuracies of
fact, such as the statement that Shelley and Williams,
on that memorable day, were " beguiled by summer
air and sunshine." It has been again and again ex-
plained by Spiritualists that Spirits, like mortal
creatures, are perilously given to lying. All I need
remark here is the perfectly Shelleyan movement of
this fine fragment. "The thought," says Mr. Harris,
" was his (i.e., Shelley's), the thought's word-clothing
mine." So perfectly is the nude thought covered,
however, that few readers will suspect the existence
of any thought at all.
There are more of these "trance poems," and
they all present the same characteristics the fine
tenuity of idea and beautiful confusion of images so
suggestive of ghostly musings. I should like to
232 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
quote " The Birth of the Spirit," a piece given through
the trance-mediumship of Mrs. Cora L. V. Tappan-
Richmond, but it is too splendid for a profane critic-
Far more suitable for such a setting is the following
" epigram," written, apropos of the Slade prosecution,
by Mr. Gerald Massey :
The Apostle bade us " try the spirits?
And judge them fairly, on their merits,
But did not clear instructions give
For catching things so fugitive
As spirits, in the Lawyer's sieve ;
And possibly, he might retort,
" / didn't mean at Bow-street Court ! "
We are not informed whether the above lines were
also given through trance-mediumship. If so, I am
at a loss which to admire most the poetry of the
Spirits, or their satire.
So far I have proceeded, and have not yet got
to the Spirits themselves at all. I have seen them
revealed in their " inspirational " poems and epigrams,
but that is only through a glass, darkly. I must
still linger a little over their works, while I direct
attention to their greatest achievement a post mortem
work by Charles Dickens. Towards the close of 1873,
great excitement was caused in Spiritualist circles by
the rumour that a Spirit, " claiming to be Charles
Dickens," was completing the unfinished novel of
" Edwin Drood." Inquiry showed that the rumour
was founded on fact, and that the medium a medium
is always a necessity in such case was a fore-
man in the printing office of the Vermont Recorder
and Farmer. It appears that the matter began
through the instrumentality of Dickens himself that
is, of Dickens's simulacrum. One evening, the in-
spired foreman, at a stance, wrote a message addressed
to himself, " requesting a sitting," and signed in a
THE LITERATURE OF SPIRITUALISM. 233
plain, bold hand, " Charles Dickens." Several other
communications followed, and at last one evening the
medium " exclaimed that a face was looking down
upon him from one corner of the room, with hands
outstretched towards him/' Strangely enough,
though the others could see nothing, he "rushed to the
spot," and " appeared to shake hands (!) with the
imaginary being/' On his relating the circumstance
next day to a gentleman, that gentleman stepped to a
bookcase, and took down a " Life of Dickens," con-
taining an excellent portrait, and showed it to him.
His face, we are informed, "instantly became blanched,
as he cried, ' Good God ! that's the man I saw last
night ! ' "
All this is ghostly enough in all conscience, but it
is so far suggestive rather of diablerie than of dys-
pepsia. If we could suspect a foreman compositor of
being a cheat and a liar, there would be room for
strong language, but, of course, such a medium was
impeccable. The upshot briefly was that Dickens
dictated to, or rather through, this individual twelve
hundred pages of manuscript, enough to make an
octavo volume of four hundred printed pages. Not
only did he do this, but he constantly sent brief notes
of encouragement and good cheer. These communi-
cations have all been preserved, but " are regarded as
of a private and personal nature, not for the public
eye." Nevertheless, the foreman compositor was per-
mitted to make some extracts. " We are doing finely,"
wrote Dickens on one occasion. " You have no idea
how much interest this matter is exciting here among
the hosts by whom I am surrounded. . . . When this
work is finished, you shall continue to be my amanu-
ensis. / shall write more after this ! " More astounding
still, the Spirit of Dickens gave full directions as to
234 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the manner of procedure to secure copyright, and on
one occasion sent this note :
In regard to English publishers : As soon as the first proof
sheet is done, address a letter to Sampson Low, Son, and
Marston, Milton House, Ludgate Hill, London, England. It is
very probable they will negotiate for advance sheets. Faithfully,
DICKENS.
The Spiritualists possess a sort of club, to which
ladies are admitted, and which is roundly entitled
" The British National Association of Spiritualists."
The club, it appears, was founded " for the purpose of
uniting Spiritualists of every variety of opinion in an
organised body." Attached to it is a library, con-
taining " a large collection of the best works in
Spiritualism and occult subjects," and a reading-room,
where Spiritualist newspapers and periodicals are
regularly supplied. As if this were not enough, well-
organised stances, to which " a limited number of
inquirers are admitted free of charge, are held weekly,
under strict test conditions." If privacy is desired,
suitable rooms for seances may be hired "on moderate
terms/' and these rooms are supplied with " cabinets."
Nay, to crown all, "light refreshments" in the
shape of the toothsome macaroon and the stimulating
Bath bun ? " are provided at moderate charges."
Connected with this festive place of meeting is a
suburban branch, called the Dalston Association of
Inquirers into Spiritualism, the "weekly experimental
stances" of which, I understand, "offer favourable
opportunities for the observation of some of the ele-
mentary phases of phenomena."
Now, the secretary of the British National Asso-
ciation is a Mr. W. H. Harrison, and it fortunately
happens that this gentleman, in one of a series of
manuals, called " The Spiritualist's Library," has
given us what he calls a " scientifically accurate " de-
THE LITERATURE OF SPIRITUALISM. 235
scription of the sort of performances which go on at
most seances. Seeing that he has been in the habit of
attending at least two or three seances every week,
41 for the purpose " (as he says) " of gaining practical
knowledge of the phenomena which take place in the
presence of most celebrated media," he may be said to
speak with a certain authority. His first experience
of Spiritualism was at a lecture given by Mr. D. D.
Home, the effect of which, he naively remarks, was
simply to " puzzle " the strangers present. Shortly
afterwards, he called upon Mr. Cromwell Varley, the
secretary, electrician, and engineer, to the North
Atlantic Telegraph Company, and the first step to
conversion seems to have been taken in his astonish-
ment to find that a "secretary, electrician, and
engineer," could be a proclaimed Spiritualist. His
first seance was at Mr. Varley's house. The Spirits
gave raps, spelt out sentences (the first of which was
" We are glad you are trying to investigate this
power ! "), and lifted heavy weights. Several other
seances followed, and at one Mr. Harrison first saw
what he calls " writing mediumship " in other words,
Mrs. Varley's hand scribbling messages " under spirit
inspiration," while the lady herself was looking at him
and talking. But the crowning experience did not
come till his introduction to the medium of mediums,
Mrs. Mary Marshall, " the younger/' then residing at
13, Bristol Gardens, Maida Vale, Paddington. I
will give the beginning of this stance in his own
words :
A TABLE FLOATING UNDER TEST CONDITIONS.
We had no sooner taken our seats than the table gave a
jump, and sent my note book and pencil flying over my
shoulder. The table then lay down on one side, till its edge
touched the ground ; it jumped up again ; then lay down on
236 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the other side ; after which it began to rotate upon its vertical
axis, and to travel about the room, jumping now and then.
This was startling ; I could not see that our hands were doing
it, but I asked Mrs. Marshall whether it was necessary that
our hands should touch the table at all. She replied, " Yes, to
let the electricity go through, but the slightest touch will do."
I did not quarrel with her about the word " electricity,'' but
suggested that we should each of us touch the table with the
tip of the middle finger only of each hand, bending up all the
other fingers, so that they should be well clear of its surface.
We did so. ... And I again bent down to see if anything
was touching the table underneath. Then I remarked, " Now,
I am quite satisfied that nothing is touching the table except
the tips of our six fingers." Directly I said this, the table rose
off the ground slowly to a height of about eighteen inches.
Then it fell from our fingers, and was dashed down on to the
floor, so that one of its claws was broken off at a place where
the solid wood was two or three inches thick ; then the table
turned itself bottom upwards, and stood rocking upon one of
its edges, with its broken foot moving up and down close before
my face, as I stood, with my hands on my knees, looking at it.
" There" said Mrs. Marshall, "they are showing you the broken
A little after, a sheet of paper and pencil was put
under the table, for the purpose of producing some
spirit-writing. " All our hands were on the top of
the table. I heard a scratch on the paper near my
feet, then the table, by tilts, signalled out, ' Mend the
pencil ! ' ' This being done, the scratching was re-
newed, lasting about a minute "when the table
began to jump about/' which Mrs. Marshall said was
a signal the Spirits had finished writing. Mr. Harri-
son picked up the paper, and found written upon it,
" God bless you ! " The table next told him that he
was a medium, a statement he himself believes to be
untrue. Whether or not he expressed his unbelief on
that occasion I do not know, but, at all events, the
table lost its temper ! " I heard a lumbering noise
behind me, and on looking round saw the great six-
foot table running up to us all by itself; after taking
a run of about four feet, it rested with its edge against
THE LITERATURE OF SPIRITUALISM. 237
the edge of the little table round which we were
sitting ! "
At this memorable stance, Mr. Harrison made the
acquaintance of the most refractory Spirit that ever
made darkness hideous ; a truculent, noisy, hectoring,
bullying Ghost of the name of "John King," who
announced himself "with a great bang which might
have been heard in the street." This is how the
ruffian of a Ghost conducted himself:
The first remark I ever heard in the direct voice from the
spirits of the departed, from the loved ones gone before, was a
bad pun. John King exclaimed : "Harrison, don't be harassed"
This remark was rather disappointing to one who supposed
that spirits were a kind of archangels, and I suppose my feelings
exhibited themselves in my face, for John King next remarked,
"You ought to look upon Spiritualism as a jolly thing. I'm
jolly enough ! Look here, now ! I'll sing you a song of my
own composition :
" I wish I had a bird,
I would stick it on a spit "
and so on ; I cannot remember the rest of the doggerel. I
asked John King "who he was," as I did not remember the
name to be that of any departed relative of mine. He replied
that he was a Welshman, a native of Carmarthen. I tried tc
get evidence that he had some local knowledge of Carmarthen,
as I knew a little about that town, but could draw nothing
further out of him.
On another occasion John King recommended
Mr. Varley's nephew, who was in bad health, to drink
bottled stout, and being asked, "What stout?" he
answered promptly, " Guinness's." Then, horrible
to relate, the patient took hold of a tube of papei
which John King was " using as a speaking tube."
" John King seized another, and began to fence with
it ; I could hear the noise of the two tubes striking
against each other." Then, most amazing of all, John
King wrested the tube from his adversary ; and then,
proceeding " to rumple his hair by rubbing the tubes
238 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
over his head," remarked, " This is hair-brushing by
machinery" The imagination which could invent and
the impudence which could perpetuate such a ghost
as " John King " must possess a strange and not alto-
gether sane physiological basis. Dare I hint at
dipsomania as a factor in John King's manufacture ?
Dare I suggest that John is a distant relation of
another touching spirit, " Old Tom " ?
There is a sad side to all this folly, to all this
pitiful ignorance and moral degradation. A number
of poor human creatures, craving for light of some
sort in the solemn issues which lie before them, weak-
ened by illness and mental trouble, devour the silly
and saponaceous literature of Spiritualism, and are
ready to believe, at a moment's notice, in any message
from another world. The wish is father to the thought,
and your Ghost is already half manufactured when
the eye is determined to behold him. If it were
otherwise, the existence of so much Spiritualistic
trash would be inconceivable. As matters stand, it is
the old story of the assumedly blind leading the ac-
tually blind. In the words of Mohammed, often
quoted by Spiritualists, " One darkness on another
darkness ; when a man stretcheth forth his hand he
is far from seeing it ; " and, finally, " he to whom
God doth not give light, no light at all hath he ! "
THE MODERN STAGE.
i.
NOTES IN 1876.
IT is said, on what I understand to be excellent au-
thority, that on any night during the run of Hamlet
at the Lyceum Theatre, the occupants of stalls and
boxes might be heard whispering between the acts
such queries as Does Laertes fight Hamlet? Is
Ophelia going to drown herself? Does the Queen
drink the poison ? And, does Hamlet succeed his
father on the throne of Denmark ? Thus, while some
gray veteran in the pit was scowling at Mr. Irving,
remembering with regret the days of Kean and
Macready, and watching with eager eyes and ears
for some blasphemous modern corruption of the
divine text, the great bulk of the intelligent audience
was possibly enjoying Hamlet's adventures with the
same sense of novelty they had found in the mis-
fortunes of the Ticket of Leave Man and the
sorrows of Formosa with this specific additional
enjoyment, that they were assured on all hands that
seeing Hamlet was a very intelligent and credit-
able thing to do. They had battened to the full on
the horrors of Mr. Irving's Matthias ; they had
wept for hours in sympathy with the sorrows of his
2 4 o A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Charles the Martyr ; and they were now ready to
follow, with the same enthusiasm, the equally interest-
ing and equally unfamiliar episodes in the life of the
Danish Prince. An enterprising management, diligent
in studying the hearts of audiences, encouraged this
disposition to the full ; the critics blew their trumpets
till the welkin rang again; Shakespeare flourished,
and the exchequer of one theatre at least was filled.
After all, it was no great drawback to the general
success that many of the intelligent audience arrived
late, after the first act, or farce, was over ; that some
few brought with them, as to an opera in some foreign
tongue, a " correct book of the words ; " that they
evinced a more or less decided ignorance of the " plot,"
and a very unmistakable indifference to the finer lights
and shades of the leading characters ; that they
betrayed a very curious tendency to emphasize by
applause the good and novel " sentiments," as they
would have done the " good things " of a new farcical
piece by Mr. Byron. The one real point was gained,
and a large number of blast Londoners flocked to
hear the new play of Hamlet with an eagerness which
seemed highly promising for the future of dramatic
art. And what was the general verdict? That
Hamlet was really a capital play to see, that its lead-
ing situations were, at any rate, equal to those of
most dramas of the day, and that Mr. Irving acted
the leading character in a really creditable and
diverting manner.
If the eagerness of these and similar audiences
meant little more than the flush of a temporary fashion,
having little or no connection with a genuine dramatic
taste, it would still afford reasonable hope for a
sanguine critic to build upon ; since, by due cultiva-
tion and fresh encouragement, the ephemeral feeling
THE MODERN STAGE. 241
might be developed into something like intelligent
sympathy ; but, in point of fact, the eagerness in
question is rooted far deeper in the character and
nature of the play-going English public. Ignorant as
London audiences are of Shakespeare's writings, they
have good reasons for believing that Shakespeare's plays
surpass most modern productions in continuous human
interest. The truth is that the public, though un-
instructed, are not unintelligent, and if they have
failed to show their sympathy with the highest
dramatic art, it is because they have had few oppor-
tunities of beholding it. So far as their knowledge
goes, their taste is admirable, and their desire to be
pleased inexhaustible. They like good strong plays
when they can get them, and they adore good strong
actors when they know them. They will not go to
see Shakespeare or any other author " murdered ; "
but when a clever actor appears in Shakespearean
characters, rendering fair justice to the spirit and
letter of the original, they will always encourage
him. What they want, and what they might readily
get if there were other managers in London equal in
energy to Mr. Irving, is a dramatic education. Amid
the chaos of London theatres, blinded by the flash
of tinsel and spangle, deafened by the noise of semi-
nude incapables, they stagger in moral intoxication,
not knowing whither to turn ; but no sooner do they
catch one glimpse of a true attraction than they seem
eager to support it. True, they want to be humoured
by some little specific peculiarity. Mr. Fechter's
fair wig, Mr. Jefferson's catchword about his " Dog
Schneider/' Mr. Robertson's realistic pumps and
tea-kettles, Mr. Boucicault's great water-jump, have
delighted them in turn. They have rushed to see
Mr. Phelps in gaiters and Mr. Irving in a fit. They
242 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
have enjoyed the weighing-scene in the Flying-
Scud, and the examination-scene in School. They
have relished Mr. Toole's grimaces and Mr. Lionel
Brought contortions. All these things, however,
have been good in their way, or good with a
qualification ; all the most popular entertainments,
even Mr. Burnand's burlesques, having had merit of
one kind or another ; and the public, with its insati-
able appetite for variety of all sorts, has done them
ample justice. It may dishearten a lover of the
drama to observe the success of a piece of sheer
imbecility and vulgarity, like Dundreary ; but, in
taking a bird's-eye view of dramatic affairs for the
last ten years, I can call to mind few altogether un-
deserved successes. The spectacles of Drury Lane
and the monstrosities of Mr. Farnie are exceptions to
a general rule that plays succeed on their merits if
adequately acted, and that playgoers are not in-
different either to good dramatists or good actors ;
but Drury Lane is managed under peculiar and
disheartening conditions, while the stragglers who
support such a theatre as the Gaiety, can hardly be
said to belong to the legitimate class of playgoers at
all.
It is certainly not my purpose in the present paper
to repeat the old stale cry about the decadence of the
drama. I believe that people go to the theatre now
for the same reasons which took them in Shake-
speare's time: they go, primarily, for amusement;
and, secondly, for edification. At no period, I believe,
did they patronise performances which were edifying
and not amusing. In answer to those quidnuncs who
wish to apotheosize the drama as the pedagogue of
virtue, it can easily be demonstrated that the drama
never was, and never has been, a direct educational
THE MODERN STAGE. 243
instrument* Its chief function is to entertain to
entertain nobly, if possible, but certainly to entertain
at all costs. Far from us be the period when it is
degraded to the level of a bourgeois Academy pre-
sided over by the British Matron, and inspected at
regular intervals by the Lord Chamberlain. We have
had some pretty specimens of late of how govern-
ment from above would debase and pauperise the
drama. The virtuous functionary who represents an
enlightened Court, the leading members of which
derive their subtlest theatrical pleasures from the
acting of coarse comedians, thought fit, in the in-
terests of respectability, to forbid the performance
of the most original productions of Continental dra-
matic art ; he slammed the door in the face of Dumas
fits, and opened the door wide to G&ntvtive de
Brabant ; he denied a hearing to the Supplice d'nnc
Femme, and smiled in tender commiseration on the
New Magdalen. The present writer will certainly not
be suspected of a love for I'ecole brutale, as a certain
class of dramatic literature is called in Paris ; but he
would rather see that school flourish on every stage
from London to Aberdeen than suffer the spokesman
of an illiterate and irresponsible Court, dressed in
a little brief authority, to dictate on what terms and
under what restrictions the enjoyments of the public
are to be admissible. Such interference is another
phase of that oppressive legislation which appears
* Previous to the appearance of Mr. Irving as Hamlet, the
newspapers contained a paragraph stating that Mr. Tennyson
had expressed his opinion that the performance at the Lyceum
"would educate the people better than all the School Boards."
This delicious nonsense actually went the round of the news-
papers. A representation of Hamlet is educational in pre-
cise ratio to the preparation of the spectator ; it had no
more effect on Mr. Partridge than that of any other " sensation"
drama.
R 2
244 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
elsewhere in the form of a Contagious Diseases Act ;
it is intolerable in itself ; but that a functionary who
incarnates the most degraded superstitions of society,
and who presides, so to speak, over the open inde-
cency of a levee crush, when the rank and beauty of
our land are transformed like Circe's swine, under
the ignoble pressure of degraded ambition that
such a functionary should play Petronius to our
pleasures is a hideous farce, a monstrosity, a scandal.
Were the great shapes of the past to pass before this
Arbiter, how would they fare ? Sophocles would be
condemned by ears too delicate for calamitous tales of
incest ; even the marble figure of " Antigone " would
awake no awe in the heart of the censor ; and as for
the "fair heifer" and other kindred naturalisms of
^Eschylus, they would be pronounced scandalous
beyond measure. No hope for Euripides ; he has
naked Mcenads in his train. Still less for Aristo-
. phanes ; conceive the British Matron's horror at the
recital of the " Ecclesiazusae ! " Plautus is too plain,
and Terence is too broad. That smiling, elegantly-
dressed fellow must be banished for ever ; for is
he not Moliere, and does he not carry jauntily in
his hand the very utensil used as a stage property in
Le Mt'decin Volant? Worse still, not one of the
crowd of "mighty magicians," who wear the trunk
and doublet of our golden age, is fit to be heard.
Marlowe and Cyril Tourneur, Massinger and Shirley,
must begone from the charmed circle of this scented
courtling. John Ford may draw down "his melan-
choly hat," for we remember the play chastely
rechristened the Brother and Sister ; and Dekkar
may hush his grim morality, for the very name of
his masterpiece is unmentionable to ears polite.
Shakespeare himself is only to be heard on sufferance.
THE MODERN STACK. 245
And if we come down the years, seeking for a
dramatist after the Lord Chamberlain's own heart,
we must pass by Dryden, smudging with his careless
finger the already well-besmurged Amphitruo of
Plautus, and uttering in his very prologues and
epilogues speech calculated to affright convention
much, by the way, to the delight of the King and
Lord Chamberlain for the time being. Congreve,
Wycherly, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, are no more to
be heard than that quondam Court favourite, Mrs.
Behn. Not until we find ourselves amongst the
Dresden china literature of the age of Queen Anne
do we begin to scent the air of virtue; but the air
grows still purer as we proceed, until we find
ourselves inspecting the stainless tragedies of
Mr. Rowe, and, still later, the virgin pages of
Mr. Sheridan Knowles. Unfortunately for the
prospects of art, we discover that virtue and
mediocrity, so far as the drama is concerned, have
been synonymous, and that almost the only plays
which (to quote Mr. Podsnap) " would not bring
a blush to the cheek of a young person," are pre-
cisely the only plays to which lovers of literature
are least disposed to listen.
In point of fact, British playgoers are quite
virtuous enough without being encouraged to still
more foolish prejudice by any official, however
accredited. The one great obstacle to anything
like high dramatic art in England is a conspiracy
on the part of authors, managers, and actors to
emasculate and conventionalise all their productions
by a constant tacit reference to Mr. Podsnap's
"young person." Plays must be simple in structure
and succinct in plot to suit the comprehension of
the young person ; they must not touch on forbidden
246 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
relationship, nor unnatural crimes, nor glimpses of
morbid psychology, for fear of shocking the young
person ; they must be modern, for the young person's
historical knowledge is limited; and they must be
written as far as possible in modern English, for
the young person dislikes poetical turns of ex-
pression. Any one reasonably familiar with
that vulgar deus ex machind, the British manager,
knows with how sure a gauge he professes to measure
the dislikes of the typical playgoer. But recent
experience has shown that the young person is not
the mere inanity managers imagine her ; that, in
other words, people who go to the play possess,
with all their ignorance, a fair share of human
enthusiasm, and that a few touches of that nature
which makes all the world kin will reconcile them
even to pretty stiff attacks on their prejudices.
They had a prejudice against " sensational " death-
scenes, which Mr. Irving conquered in a night.
They had another ridiculous prejudice in favour
of "happy endings," which Mr. W. S. Gilbert has
successfully violated over and over again. They
disliked the "poetical" drama, but Mr. Irving
has taught them to tolerate it. They had an
aversion to " Irish " pieces, but were instantaneously
converted by the Colleen Bawn. In a word, they are
adolescent, ready to accept any decent education
the enlightened may offer them. Education they
want ; who is to undertake the task of supplying
it to them ?
The managers being indifferent, and the actors at
the mercy of the managers, the entire task of dra-
matic education pace the critics, of whom I shall
speak hereafter must be performed by the authors.
True, these gentlemen are themselves greatly at the
THE MODERN STAGE. 247
mercy of the managers ; but they have power, and
they occasionally use it. This being the case, it is
worth while to consider at some length the style and
pretensions of dramatic productions ; and, indeed, to
do this, while adding some final suggestions as to how
the cause of dramatic art may be advanced, is the
main purpose of the present article.
Place aux dames ! First let us see what the
so-called poetical Muse has done for us of late in
England. It is now many long years since the Lady
of Lyons first made the theatrical fortune of its author,
and it still remains at the head of modern romantic
dramas ; not on account of its writing, which is vapid
in the extreme, but by virtue of an entertaining
subject and excellent construction. Worthless as
literature, worthless even as a vehicle for good acting,
it holds its place on the stage as a thoroughly com-
monplace and interesting play. "You are just the
author for a Lady of Lyons!' wrote a London manager
recently to a living author ; " write me such a piece
and there is a small fortune for you and yours
truly;" but the person addressed, unfortunately, did
not think himself just the author for a Lady of Lyons.
Of the same date as Lord Lytton's dramas are those
of Sheridan Knowles; of these only the Hunchback
and the Love Chase retain any firm hold of the stage.
Unlike Lord Lytton, who succeeded by virtue of a
compact and well-welded plot, Knowles got his
effects from consummate command of verbiage and a
masterly power of creating stage situations, not as
part of a well-conceived whole, but from scene to
scene. His characters are simply marionettes, ad-
mirably dressed and excellently managed. Their
speech is wondrous. Listening to its endless inter-
jections and repetitions, to its extraordinary flatulence
248- A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
of phrase and epithet, as uttered on the stage, one
becomes so bewildered as almost to fancy one is
listening to words of power, not sounds of fury signi-
fying nothing. Knowles is the Chadband of dra-
matists, the Moody of the defunct classical school.
His vigour in saying and meaning nothing amounts
to genius, his skill in devising and connecting dia-
logues without a purpose, and yet apparently full
of purpose, is fairly astounding. The following pas-
sage from the Hunchback, is a fair sample of the
author at his best :
Enter JULIA and HELEN.
Helen. I like not, Julia, this your country life.
I'm weary on't.
Julia. Indeed ? So am not I ;
I know no other ; would no other know.
Helen. You would no other know ? Would you not know
Another relative another friend
Another house another anything,
Because the ones you have already please you ?
That's poor content. Would you not be more rich,
More wise, more fair ? The song that last you learned
You fancy well ; and therefore shall you learn
No other song ? Your virginal, 'tis true,
Hath a sweet tone ; but does it follow thence
You shall not have another virginal ?
You may, love, and a sweeter one ; and so
A sweeter life may find, than this you lead !
Julia. I seek it not. Helen, I'm constancy !
Helen. So is a cat, a dog, a silly hen,
An owl, a bat where they are wont to lodge
They still sojourn, nor care to shift their quarters.
Thou'rt constancy ? I'm glad I know thy name !
The spider comes of the same family,
That in his meshy fortress spends his life,
Unless you pull it down and scare him from it.
And so thou'rt constancy ? Art proud of that ?
I'll warrant thee, I'll match thee with a snail,
From year to year that never leaves his house !
Such constancy, forsooth ! a constant grub
That houses ever in the self-same nut
Where he was born, till hunger drives him out.
And so in very deed thou'rt constancy !
THE MODERN STAGE. 249
Julia. Helen, you know the adage of the tree :
I've ta'en the bend. This rural life of mine,
Enjoined me by an unknown father's will,
I've led from infancy. Debarr'd from hope
Of change, I ne'er have sighed for change. The town
To me was like the moon, for any thought
I e'er should visit it nor was I school'd
To think it half so fair.
Helen. Not half so fair !
The town's the sun, and thou hast dwelt in night
E'er since thy birth, not to have seen the town !
Their women there are queens, and kings their men,
Their houses palaces.
Julia. And what of that ?
Have your town palaces a hall like this ?
Couches so fragrant ? walls so high adorned ?
Casements with such festoons, such prospects, Helen,
As these fair vistas have ? Your kings and queens !
See me a May-day queen and talk of them !
Helen. Extremes are ever neighbours. J Tis a step
From one of the other.
Of course, the less said of such very blank verse
the better, for the author did not pretend to be a
poet. His moral sentiments are on a level with his
dialogue, and the occasional glimpses of good honest
talent which Knowles undoubtedly possessed, are
always spoiled by some ridiculous false note. The
following little speech has merits, from a stagey
point of view, despite its resemblance to a speech
of Jacques:
Waller. Well, Master Wildrake, speak you of the chase?
To hear you one doth feel the bounding steed ;
You bring the hounds, and game, and all to view
All scudding to the jovial huntsman's cheer !
And yet I pity the poor crowned deer,
And always fancy 'tis by fortune's spite,
That lordly head of his he bears so high
Like Virtue, stately in calamity,
And hunted by the human, worldly hound
Is made to fly before the pack, that straight
Burst into song at prospect of his death.
You say their cry is harmony, and yet
250 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
The chorus scarce is music to my ear,
When I bethink me what it sounds to his ;
Nor deem I sweet the note that rings the knell
Of the once merry forester !
But no sooner has Master Waller struck the
natural note, than another speaker, Master Neville,
interposes a note of moral philosophy.
Nev. The same things
Do please or pain according to the thought
We take of them '
Gems of this precious kind abound in Sheridan
Knowles. Despite all his faults, he understood stage
language thoroughly, and he was so well read in the
literature of our best period, that he would have been
a truly admirable writer if he had possessed ideas in
proportion to his command of language.
Though Dr. Westland Marston is still living, his
plays may almost be said to belong to the last
generation. He does not attempt to compete with
younger writers, and the only recent productions
of his pen have been some capital little comedies for
Mr. Sothern. His first play, the Patrician's Daughter,
was produced in 1842, five years after the production
of the Love Chase ; and since then he has written
five or six high-class plays. He possesses a true
poetical instinct, which saves him, to a great extent,
from the absurdities of that school of which he is the
contemporary. His dialogue is bright and clever, his
situations highly picturesque. He is deficient, how-
ever, in constructing power and sense of theatrical
situation, and his dramas, therefore, have only been
moderately successful when acted. Their value as
literature has yet to be determined, and lovers of the
drama will see with pleasure the announcement that
they are now procurable in a collected form.
THE MODERN STAGE. 251
The name of Mr. Wills is now familiar to the
public in its connection with the successes of Mr.
Irving, but it has long been known to critics as that
of an exceedingly clever, though undoubtedly care-
less, writer of plays. In a sort of collaboration with
Mr. Vezin, who translated the German originals or
"bases," Mr. Wills has written the Man o y Airlie,
and Hinko, the first a really beautiful study of a
poet's life and fate, the second a romantic drama of a
school made popular by Kotzebue. The striking
scene in the first-named play, where the senile poet,
who is supposed to be dead, appears among the gay
company assembled to uncover his own statue, belongs
entirely to Mr. Wills, and is alone enough to prove
him a dramatist of a high order. Unfortunately,
his language is never on a level with his concep-
tions ; it is seldom as strong and nervous as a little
more care might make it. In the drama of Charles
the First, Mr. Wills appeared to advantage neither as
a poet nor as a politician. The picture of Cromwell
(outrageously represented, by the way, by a comic
actor [named Belmore) is without an excuse or a
parallel ; while that of the royal martyr is like a very
mild piece in crayon by Richmond. Thanks chiefly
to the easy grace and truly natural manner of Mr.
Irving, even such scenes as this were listened to with
toleration :
Huntley. I long have hoped to be an humble instrument
Of aid and comfort to your Majesty.
To show you something more than blind devotion.
To this end I have compass'd the acquaintance
And conversation of one Master Cromwell,
A leader in the Commons, and yet liberal.
King. I know him by report : a shrewd, strong gentleman,
Whose shrewdness and whose strength, methinks, are venal
Huntley. In that your Majesty may do him wrong.
But be that as it may, I do profess
252 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
I come not an officious go-between,
But as an indirect and easy medium.
King. I cannot say thy visit is more welcome.
What then ?
Huntley. Shall I bear back to Master Cromwell
The spirit of your Majesty's reply ?
King. Saint George forbid ! Henry, of lusty memory,
Thy reign was set in happier days than mine.
Sooth, when thine anger flashed, thy thunderous voice
Announced it roundly. Huntley, we must temporize
Thou hast not come as an official here,
And so thy message back commits us not.
Stay ! Prithee tell them nay, let's see let's see.
Huntley. Under your favour
King. Nay, under yours I do bethink me now ;
Thou shouldst have told me earlier in our talk.
Say that the King repents his hasty act ;
So we avoid that first rash burst of blame,
Which sudden measures, howsoever wholesome,
Provoke in England.
Let the five members sit as heretofore
(Our charges shall be laid most formally)
And let them bide the verdict of their peers.
As for their late remonstrance tell my Commons
It is before us, and shall be considered
Most anxiously, and, point by point, discussed.
Some we shall cede at once, in other some
We shall require their counsel and review, etc.
But Mr. Irving in armour (Act iii.), resembling
nothing more than the " Knight of the Rueful Visage,"
clad in a tin meat-jack, would have appeared comical
to any audience less disposed to applaud the royal
prerogative at all hazards. On the occasion of my
visit to the Lyceum, the audience appeared to shed
tears plentifully ; but the situation was certainly only
saved by the nervous energy of the popular young
actor. A piece of higher calibre, Eugene Aram>
showed Mr. Wills at his very best. No other living
playwright could have produced, out of elements so
simple, a success so genuine and unmistakable. Since
Eugene Aram Mr. Wills has written a tragedy on
the subject of Mary Queen of Scots ; but as it was
THE MODERN STAC, 253
played, unfortunately, by people ignorant of the
merest rudiments of acting, and has not been pub-
lished, it is not easy to decide on its merits. One
thing, however, is certain, that Mr. Wills seems to
have some special delusions about Puritanism and
Puritan leaders, for if anything could surpass his
wonderful picture of Cromwell, it would be his de-
licious caricature of John Knox. The beautiful Mr.
Rousby as Knox was a phenomenon to make the
ghost of George Buchanan rise from the grave, and to
darken the declining years of Mr. Carlyle.
Worthy to rank with Mr. Wills as a poetical
dramatist, is Mr. Tom Taylor,* who is at once the
most successful writer of his class, with only one
exception, and the bete noir of a large clique of critics.
Mr. Taylor is less original, but more diverse less
happy, but more careful, than Mr. Wills ; and his
dialogue, though bald like most modern dialogue, is
more apt and to the purpose. I am certainly not
among those gentlemen who deny Mr. Taylor the
merit of originality ; on the contrary, I believe his
talents are underrated, simply because a foolish and
erroneous idea has been circulated as to his indebted-
ness to foreign sources. To my mind he has seldom
or never exceeded the allowable privileges of a drama-
tist, and almost all his success is due to dramatic
faculties and instincts entirely his own. He is the
author of some of the very brightest pieces of the day,
and if in his historical and poetical productions he
has failed to maintain a high level of literary excel-
lence, he has merely failed in common with almost
all caterers for the modern stage. The Fool's
Revenge is, on the whole, his best serious play, and
worthy of the translator of the Barsaz-Brciz. It
is, to a certain extent, similar in subject to the opera
* Since deceased.
254 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
of Rigoletto and the play of Le Roi J amuse.
In most of its merits, however, it is Mr. Taylor's own,
while its defects are just what might have been
expected from one who, with all his talents, shows a
sneaking regard for Mr. Podsnap's young person ;
and thus we are treated to a moral denouement setting
forth the prerogatives of Providence and the naughti-
ness of revenge.
Vengeance is not man's attribute but heaven's !
I have usurped it !
cries Bertuccio, " hiding his face in his hands/' The
piece trespasses on the borders of forbidden ground,
but the danger is delicately avoided. The character
of the Jester (admirably embodied at Sadler's Wells
by Mr. Phelps) is cleverly worked out, through a
series of nervous situations. The writing is on the
whole excellent ; the dialogue, though without
imagery, being strong, pointed, and incisive. If
faults are to be found in a really meritorious work,
one may observe that Mr. Taylor is too consciously
theatrical. Take the following little scene, which
pleased the audience greatly :
[BERTUCCIO stands for a moment fondly contemplating FIOR-
DELISA. His dress is sober and his manner composed. He
steps quietly forward.
Bert. My own !
Fiord, (turning suddenly and flinging herself into his arms
with a cry of joy]. My father !
Bert, (embracing her tenderly). Closer, closer yet !
Let me feel those soft arms about my neck,
This dear cheek on my heart ! No do not stir
It does me so much good ! I am so happy
These minutes are worth years !
Fiord. My own dear father !
Bert. Let me look at thee, darling why, thou growest
More and more beautiful ! Tktntrt happy here ?
Hast all that thou desirest thy lute thy flowers ?
She loves her poor old father ? Blessings on thee,
I know thou dost but tell me so.
THE MODERN STAGE. 255
Fiord. I love you
I love you very much ! I am so happy
When you are with me- Why do you come so late,
And %o so soon ? Why not stay always here ?
fieri. Why not ? Why not ? Oh, if I could ! To live
Where there's no mocking, and no being mocked ;
No laughter, but what's innocent ; no mirth
That leaves an after-bitterness like gall.
Fiord. Now, you are sad ! There's that black ugly cloud
Upon your brow you promised, the last time,
It never should come when we were together.
You know when you're sad Pm sad too.
Bert. My bird !
I'm selfish even with thee let dark thoughts come,
That thy sweet voice may chase them, as they say
The blessed church-bells drive the demons off.
Fiord. If I but knew the reason of your sadness,
Then I might comfort you ; but I know nothing.
Not even your name.
Bert. I have no name for thee
But " Father.' 1
Fiord. In the convent at Cesena
Where I was reared, tJicy used to call me orphan.
I thought I had no father, till you came,
And then they needed not to say I had one ;
My own heart told me that.
Now it is, perhaps, superfluous to point out the
gushing unnaturalness of this meeting between a
father and daughter on a commonplace occasion. It
might pass very well if the two had been separated
for years, but they meet frequently, and hysterics are
absurd. It is necessary, however, to recapitulate the
nature of their relationship, for the edification of the
audience, and so in the italicised lines, with a far
too obvious side-glance at the spectators, the dialogue
is studded with explanations. Faults of this sort
disfigure too much of Mr. Taylor's work, and show
too plainly that he approaches his subject more as
a playwright than as a dramatist. There is a want
of fusion in some of his conceptions, and a theatrical
tawdriness in some of his designs. With all this, he
256 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
has done the stage good service, and is certainly one
of the leading theatrical authors of the day.
With the names already cited, the list of pseudo-
poetical writers may cease. True, Mr. Albery has
written a play in blank verse, in which the critics
discovered original beauties, but his real talents lie
in quite another direction. A word of praise, how-
ever, may [be given en passant to Mr. Hermann
Merivale, who has made a very fair acting play out
of Le Lion Amoureux of Ponsard, carefully avoiding
the stilted style of that leader of the classic revival.
Mr. Merivale has also written the White Pilgrim, a
sort of poem for the stage, which failed as much by
vile acting as by want of dramatic fibre. His pro-
ductions have been few, but they encourage one to
hope that he may take a leading place among
contemporary dramatists.
Turning from the poetical drama, which is after
all not poetical essentially, but rather a form of
writing in which blank verse is used because great
dramatists used it once on a time, we come to a
writer who is perhaps more original than any we
have named, and who also at times uses a sort of
monstr-inform-ingens-horrendous style of writing,
which is supposed to be blank verse. Critics have
even gone to the length of calling his plays poetical,
and of actually selecting poetic gems from their
pages ; but it would surprise me greatly to hear that
he ever wrote a poetical line in his life. Mr. W. S.
Gilbert, for it is he of whom I am speaking, is the
greatest living writer of burlesques not mere sense-
less inanities, composed of vulgar slang and break-
downs but really first-rate comic productions, with
an occasional touch of serious import. He began his
literary career with the " Bab Ballads," maniac rhymes
THE MODERN STAGE. 257
of perfect and convulsing originality, and he after-
wards contributed to the vulgar burlesque literature of
the day such absurdities as Dulcamara-, or, the Little
Duck and the Great Quack. His first genuine burlesque
was the Princess, founded on Mr. Tennyson's pretty
poem of that name; quaint in design, and clever in
treatment. But in Pygmalion and Galatea, called a
mythological comedy, and produced with conspicuous
success at the Haymarket Theatre, he shows his
talents at their very best. The myth of Pygmalion
is a poetical one, and has been treated previously by
our own Marston ; but it remained for Mr. Gilbert to
turn it into a first-class burlesque of the serious
school. In his version, the statue, when brought to
life, becomes a burden and a misery to its creator,
and its perfect innocence and artlessness are made
the cause of many diverting situations. The treat-
ment is a vulgarising one, but has its merits ; for
while all the subtle loveliness of the primary idea is
brutally destroyed, a good deal of strong satiric
matter is gained. These are Galatea's reflections
on first emerging from the stone :
Galatea. Then is this life ?
Pygmalion. It is.
Gal. And not long since
I was a cold, dull stone. I recollect
That by some means I knew that I was stone,
That was the first dull gleam of conscience ;
I became conscious of a chilly self,
A cold immovable identity,
I knew that I was stone, and knew no more ;
Then, by an imperceptible advance,
Came the dim evidence of outer things,
Seen darkly and imperfectly yet seen
The walls surrounded me, and 1, alone,
That pedestal that curtain then a voice
That called on Galatea ! At that word,
Which seemed to shake my marble to the core,
That which was dim before, came evident.
S
258 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Sounds, that had hummed around me, indistinct,
Vague, meaningless seemed to resolve themselves
Into a language I could understand ;
I felt my frame pervaded with a glow
That seemed to thaw my marble into flesh ;
Its cold hard substance throbbed with active life,
My limbs grew supple, and I moved I lived !
Lived in the ecstasy of new-born life ;
Lived in the love of him that fashioned me ;
Lived in a thousand tangled thoughts of hope,
Love, gratitude, thoughts that resolved themselves
Into one word, that word Pygmalion ! (kneels to him}.
Pyg. I have no words to tell thee of my joy,
O woman perfect in thy loveliness.
Gal. What is that word ? Am I a woman ?
Pyg. Yes.
Here is a dim gleam of what might have been a
fine passage, but fine passages are not in Mr. Gilbert's
line. Galatea immediately demands, "Am I a woman?"
When Pygmalion replies, "Yes," she returns, "Art
tkou a woman ? " and the house begins to titter. The
ball now begins rolling. Galatea asks, "What is a
man?" and being answered that man is a being
framed to protect woman, work and toil for her, fight
and die for her, observes quietly, " Fm glad I am a
woman." " So am I ! " Pygmalion responds ; and
the house titters again. So fascinated is the author
by these subtle touches, that he repeats them, and
when Galatea, observing her beauty in a mirror,
exclaims, " So Fm a woman ! " Pygmalion, to the
intense delight of the audience, exclaims, " No doubt
of that ! " She continues :
Gal. O happy maid, to be so passing fair !
And happier still Pygmalion, who can gaze
At will upon so beautiful a face.
Pyg. Hush ! Galatea in thine innocence (taking glass
from her)
Thou sayest things that others would reprove.
Gal. Indeed, Pygmalion ; then it is wrong
To think that one is exquisitely fair ?
THE MODERN STAGE. 259
Well, Galatea, it's a sentiment
That every woman shares with thee ;
They think it but they keep it to themselves.
Gal. And is thy wife as beautiful as I ?
Pyg. No, Galatea, for in forming thee
I took her features lovely in themselves
And in the marble made them lovelier still.
Gal. (disappointed}. Oh ! then I'm not original ?
The last expression is hardly tolerable in its
psychology, even in a burlesque, where the whole
subject is grotesque and unnatural. Though the
other remarks of the statue may pass, it is difficult to
believe her pouting over her own want of "originality."
But I am fault-finding where I meant to praise.
Taken as a whole, and seen as represented on the
stage, this play has really a pleasant effect. It
contains just enough imagination to redeem the
dialogue from mere farce. Mrs. Kendal, who played
Galatea, imparted to the character a delicate and
dreamy beauty, noticeable even in her slow " swim-
ming " movements about the stage, which lifted it
into the high region of an Aristophanic creation ; she
seemed indeed one of the great Athenian's own
TrapdevoL o/Jsffpotyopoi, descending into the region
of modern comedy, and the ears almost listened
for the music of strophe and antistrophe. And
now, if Mr. Gilbert will forgive me for having
found so many faults, I shall try to make amends
by saying that in more than this particular he
resembles Aristophanes. No living dramatist has
his originality, and no living writer has his quiddity ;
and if, with all his satiric gifts, he were capable of
passion that is, genuine satiric passion, he might do
in a measure for our generation what Aristophanes
did for his. The Happy Land, a burlesque of a
burlesque, his own Wicked World, was perfect. Mr.
s 2
260 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Gilbert has also perpetrated a delicious absurdity
called Trial by Jury. Nothing could be better.
It would have delighted Thackeray.
Reverting for a moment to Pygmalion and Galatea,
which I suspect Mr. Gilbert regards as his master-
piece, I must regret that its general treatment was
not either levelled to the broadness of the coarser
passages, or raised to the level of the finer nuances
of the situations. As it is, the effect is irritating.
True, Aristophanes himself uses both absurdity and
poetry, but he never blends them in this way ; and
his delicious lyrical effects are reserved for the
chorus. Mr. Gilbert's play contains one truly
imaginative passage, that where Galatea chronicles
her first experience of sleep and dreams. It is as
follows :
Gal. I sat alone and wept and wept
A long, long time for my Pygmalion.
Then by degrees by tedious degrees,
The light the glorious light ! the God-sent light,
I saw it sink sink sink behind the world ;
Then I grew cold cold as I used to be,
Before my loved Pygmalion gave me life.
Then came the fearful thought that, by degrees,
I was returning into stone again ;
How bitterly I wept, and prayed aloud
That I might not be so ! " Spare me, ye gods !
Spare me," I cried, " for my Pygmalion,
A little longer for Pygmalion !
Oh, take me not so early from my love ;
Oh, let me see him once, but once again ! "
But no they heard me not, for they are good,
And had they heard, must needs have pitied me ;
They had not seen thee, and they did not know
The happiness that I must leave behind.
I fell upon thy couch (to Myrine), my eyelids closed,
My senses faded from me one by one ;
I knew no more until I found myself,
After a strange dark interval of time,
Once more upon my hated pedestal,
A statue motionless insensible ;
THE MODERN STAGE. 261
And then I saw the glorious gods come down !
Down to this room ! the air was filled with them,
They came and looked upon Pygmalion,
And looking on him, kissed him one by one,
And said, in tones that spoke to me of life,
" We cannot take her from such happiness !
Live, Galatea, for his love ! " And then
The glorious light that I had lost came back
There was Myrine's room, there was her couch,
There was the sun in heaven ; and the birds
Sang once more in the great green waving trees,
As I had heard them sing I lived once more,
To look oft him I love !
Myr. 'Twas but a dream ! (coming down)
Once every day this death occurs to us,
Till thou and I and all who dwell on earth,
Shall sleep to wake no more !
Gal. (horrified, takes Myrine's hand). To wake no more !
But a little after uttering this, Galatea is com-
menting vulgarly on the podginess of Chrysos (Mr.
Buckstone), and exclaiming, " Mother ! what is that ?
I never had one. Have people usually mothers ? "
to which Mr. Buckstone I mean Chrysos replies,
with the leer and chuckle familiar at the Haymarket,
" Well that is the rule ! " I do not say that Mr.
Gilbert could by treating his theme in the highest
manner have achieved as thorough a success, but I
do lament to see an author of his talent, which
commands the warmest admiration, descending to so
vulgarising a treatment. The scenes with Chrysos
were simply nasty, less, perhaps, through any inten-
tion of the author, than through the satyric unction
of the male comedian. I have already expressed my
opinion of the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain.
Although censorship begins at home, the gentleman
who interdicted the Demi-monde had nothing to say to
certain portions of the Wicked World, or to that
portion of Pygmalion and Galatea where Mrs. Kendal,
in commenting on the shape of Chrysos, was to all
262 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
intents and purposes compelled to pass her hand up
and down Mr. Buckstone's abdomen, which resembled
that of an African aboriginal blown out with " bang."
I am not going to insist on the indelicacy of these
matters. Perhaps, as the audience was not shocked,
they contained nothing shocking. But I do insist
that there is nothing in the Demi-monde or similar
masterpieces to shock the delicacy half as much, and
that the detection of indelicacies, if they exist, is the
business and prerogative of the audience, and no
business of any solitary person in authority. It is
not for a moment to be argued that the modern
French drama is clean. Such scenes as the supper
scene in Le Re'veillon are certainly indecent ; and well
might the Pall Mall Gazette complain that those who
virtuously insist on adding an inch to the skirts of
our ballet-dancers are comparatively lenient to foreign
artistes. The Press and the Public, however, not the
Court, are the proper authorities to settle such matters.
Their power is at once indisputable and overwhelming.
If a few super-sensitive souls complain that neither
Press nor Public is severe enough, let them show their
indignation by staying at home. So far as I see, it
is not openly indecent pieces which most offend our
Lord Paramount, but psychological dramas dealing
chiefly with the violation of the marriage tie. Despite
our breach of promise cases, and our Divorce Court,
we are so virtuous here in England that we shiver at
the very notion of a matrimonial breach of contract.
To my mind, however, nothing but good could result
even here from a free performance of French " social "
pieces. We are not so good as we seem, and Mor-
daunt trials are merely the occasional eruptions of a
volcano which is ever blazing under the surface.
THE MODERN STAGE. 263
Dumas fits, with all his faults, has purified his
audiences. His ideal is not high, but to the French
bourgeoisie it has been elevating, and it could certainly
do us no harm. Moreover, there can be no question
that the representation of a work of high artistic
merit, full of accurate character-painting and delicate
psychology, though its subject may be unpleasant
and its treatment anatomic, is more in the interests of
public morality than the representation of an apothe-
osis of vulgar virtue. The British Matron, whose ethics
are those of the farmyard, and who deliberately sells
her own young to the highest bidder, ruffles her
feathers and squeaks her horror whenever naughty
subjects are spoken of ; but a more careful study of
social complications, though shocking at first, might
do her good. Marriage by her is held inviolable, and
so true marriage should be ; but the bond she means
is a mercantile bargain, sacred to her as the contents
of her pocket. Inspired by her, we in England value
a purse more than a life, and deem an open violation
of what is often a brutal fraud, the one unpardonable
sin.
But I am forgetting my dramatists. The men-
tion of the name of our leading burlesque writer
naturally leads me to consider those others who call
themselves burlesque writers also. But as an artist
Mr. Gilbert is almost solitary. His are true comic
creations, not mere monstrosities. Mr. F. C. Burnand
is exquisitely funny at times ; but his stage work is
never done au serieux that is, with attempt to pro-
duce anything really admirable. His animal spirits
are great, and his sense of incongruity perfect ; he is
an adept in stage tricks ; and his pages are perfectly
incomprehensible to one not adept in Cockney slang.
264 A LOOfC ROUND LITERATURE.
Here are Bacchus and Zephyr "returning from an
evening party " :
Bacc. A very merry evening ! for, as you know,
There's no one gives a party like Queen Juno ;
They spoilt the coffee, tho', with too much chicory.
Zeph. I say ! each dance, you flirted with Terpsichore I
(Digs him in the ribs sly dog business?)
Conceive the agony of an intelligent foreigner battling
with the awful idiom of this stage direction. Mr.
Burnand's Olympus is redolent of Cockaigne. Venus
sings sweet ditties to the tune of " Billy Taylor," and
the oracle at Delphi joins in chorus with "tiddy fol,"
etc. Zephyr talks of " taking a bus " while walking
down " The Strand." Cupid talks about " Burlington
Arcade" and Kew Gardens. The effect is sometimes
funny, more often dreary. The author of " Happy
Thoughts" should be capable of better work. His
characteristic recklessness, however, has made his
case hopeless. Even less amusing than Mr. Burnand's
are Mr. Byron's. To the same rank belongs all the
meretricious foolery of the day. Instead of Aristo-
phanes, we have Joe Miller and the Ethiopian Sere-
naders done into dramatic scenes. The decline and
fall of extravaganza has been rapid in the hands of
its latest exponents. When Mr. Planch^ searched
Fairyland for subjects, children of all ages could go-
to Covent Garden for delicate fun and picturesque
romance. The spirit of " Once upon a time there
were two kings," is almost idyllic, and the " Yellow
Dwarf" is a genuine fairy tale for the stage. Even
the succeeding school of Brough and Talfourd had
great and distinguishing merits. Who that saw
Robson in Brough's Masaniello can forget the tragic
agony of the little conspirator, as pale and tremulous,.
THE MODERN STAGE. 265
the clammy perspiration on his brow, and his jaw
dropping, he tottered in, crying,
" They've done it now they've laid a tax on winkles !"
Not less striking was the pathetic reproachfulncss
of the same actor in Fair Rosamund when, as Queen
Eleanor, he addressed the unfaithful king with one
word, his own unaspirated Christian name, " 'Enry ! "
This, with all its absurdity, was real burlesque.
Something of a similar spirit breathes in a ridiculous
production of Mr. Reece, wherein Romulus and
Remus, two very naugfity children, played by Messrs.
James and Thorne, quarrelled while building up
Rome with a " box of bricks ! " The only surviving
representative of fine extravaganza is Mr. Blanchard,
whose yearly pantomime at Drury Lane is always
what it professes to be a dramatised fairy tale, full
of light pictures, and without a shadow of vulgarity.
Passing from the dramatists who write in blank
verse, and from the burlesque writers, who write in
verse and worse, I come to those gentlemen who
may be described as general dramatists, to whom
nothing theatrical comes amiss, but who are perhaps
most at home in plundering helpless novelists and
adapting from the French. Towering before me rises
a stately figure, with a head recalling the Chandos
bust of Shakespeare, beautiful in its benignant bald-
ness, with a twinkling eye and self-satisfied smile on
the lips. I recognise him at once it is our latter
Shakespeare and our greater ; a swan from the Shan-
non, uttering his wondrous notes in a delicious
brogue, and breathing softly his own dulcet name of
chaste "Dion." He has written one hundred and
fifty dramas, some dozen of which have surpassed all
modern productions in their successes. He might
266 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
have been the editor of the Times and the President
of the United States, but he preferred to devise
amusements for a delighted generation : to turn
LHomme Blase into a comedy for Charles Mathews ;
to take and mutilate the Louis XI. of Casimir
Delavigne; to translate Dumas' Corsican Brothers;
to dramatise the Collegians of Gerald Griffin.
The first appearance of Mr. Boucicault was as a
poet ! When quite a young man he contributed to
Bentley's Miscellany a poem called " Darkness/'
which, for some inscrutable reason, the publishers
have reprinted in the " Bentley Ballads." Anything
more dismal and uninstructed than this piece I have
never encountered. It reads like a poem from Mr.
Dobell's "Balder" turned into morality by Mr. Tupper,
and then done into blank verse by one of Mr. Blimber's
"young gentlemen." The author's first play was a
comedy, London Assurance, which remains, with all
its faults, his masterpiece. All the characters had
done duty before in comedy. The languid old man
about town with a rakish son, whom he believes to be
an innocent ; the rattling Londoner, who is ready to
become bosom-friend with anybody ; the rattling
lady who hunts ; the boobyish husband who follows
at that lady's heels; the meddlesome lawyer; the
confidential valet all are familiar figures, farcical in
outline, sketchy in drawing. The dialogue, brisk and
telling, reads like Sheridan and water, faintly lemoned
with Douglas Jerrold, and sugared by Sheridan
Knowles. It is quick and jerky, to a great extent
monosyllabic ; when it rises to anything resembling
emotion, it is simply insufferable. This is the rubbish
a plain old baronet, whose other dialogue is simple in
the extreme, is made to talk, in his enthusiasm over
hunting : " What state can match the chase in full
THE MODERN STAGE. i> 7
cry, each vying with his fellow which shall be most
happy? A thousand deaths fly by unheeded in tli.it
one hour's life of ecstasy. Time is outrun, and nature
seems to grudge our bliss in making the day too
short." The heroine talks gushingly, in the " Dark-
ness " mood, of the " first tear that glitters in the eye
of morning," and of " the shrilly choir of the wood-
land minstrels, to which the modest brook trickles
applause." The lover, save the mark ! informs
mistress that " the beams of that bright face falling
on my soul, have, from its chaos, warmed into life the
flowerets of affection, whose maiden odours now float
towards the sun, pouring forth in their pure tongue a
mite of adoration, midst the voices of a universe/ 1
It is clear that, when the stage secured Boucicault
literature lost a Close. The success of London
Assurance was secured by such artists as Farren,
Harley, Keeley, and Mrs. Nisbett. Twenty years
elapsed, during which the author continued to v.
indefatigably without any conspicuous triumph, but
in 1859-60 the success of the Colleen Bawn, which
ran for some two hundred and fifty nights, took
London by storm. This drama, which is really a
stage version of one of the most picturesque Irish
novels ever written, brought its adapter a fortune.
Its merits were great, but they belong to Gerald
Griffin. Great successes rapidly followed ; t\\c Streets
of London, Flying Scud, After Dark, and Arrah-na-
Pogue, made the name of Boucicault a household word.
Shakespeare was forgotten, but his mantle had fallen
upon glorious shoulders. Now came the theatrical
apotheosis of the railway train, the racecourse, and
the town-pump. Now did the modern Orlando,
disguised as the driver of a Hansom cab, prowl about
the scene representing the Adelphi arches. Now did
268 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
a fat female jockey sit in the weighing scales, to the
delight of thousands ; while a mighty stage mob of
carpenters and scene-shifters applauded the racing of
cardboard horses, running in the distance for the
Derby. The triumph of realism had arrived, and the
Shakespeare of the New Cut and Seven Dials had
come.
As a constructor of stage plays, Mr. Boucicault is
unequalled, and here, if anywhere, lies his special
claim to distinction. If any one will take the trouble
to compare the Colleen Bawn with the Collegians, he
will see how the dramatist, while preserving every-
thing, down to the tiniest detail, fuses all into a
clever and more telling form. His dialogue is occa-
sionally very happy, but comes from all sorts of
sources. Turning from the mere form of his plays
to the internal morale, the student perceives at a
glance that, like most illiterate productions, they are
thoroughly heartless. He has been styled the inventor
of the Upholstery school of Comedy upholstery
doing in his comedies what pumps and steam-engines
do in his dramas, and his ethics are, as might be
expected, those of the bill-broker and the furniture-
dealer. Indeed, his plays, like cheap furniture, seem
made to sell. Though neatly put together, they are
composed of cheap material and a great deal of
veneer ; and when he does introduce a fine, sterling,
solid article, it is sure, on inspection, to prove second-
hand. Such a gem as the character of Myles-na-
Coppaleen is too fine to be his own ; he has polished
it up, however, to the highest pitch of stage brightness.
The mention of the Upholstery school leads me
by a natural transition to that Cabinet school which
is its natural successor, and which is generally known
by the title of Robertsonian. Nothing could be more
THE MODERN STAGE. 269
touching than the living career of the late Mr. Tom
Robertson ; he endured hardships and vicissitudes
enough to crush any spirit, and only at the last
moment awoke from his dream of poverty to find
himself famous and rich. His talents were un-
doubtedly fine, his perception of his vocation delicate
in the extreme ; his defects belong less to his work-
manship, than to his system. Born as it were on the
stage, he early perceived the folly and absurdity of
many stage traditions. He felt that acting as a rule
was artificial and unnatural, that actors were too
stagy and too stiff, and that this was partly a con-
sequence of unnatural and stagy dramatic conceptions.
Setting carefully to work, he produced, after several
failures, his first and most popular comedy, Caste,
the spirit of which is the simplest naturalism, the
situations such as happen every day, the dialogue
such commonplace as is spoken by commonplace
people in real life. The effect was electrical, and
Mr. Robertson was at once recognised as the Trollope
of the stage. Without being original, the characters
were life-like, and they did the ordinary business of
life such as laying table-cloths, carrying tea-kettles,
and cutting bread-and-butter in the easiest style
imaginable. It is wonderful how modern audiences
love on the stage the common facts of every-day
life how they thrill with joy at the sound of
the postman's knock, or the muffin bell, and how
they rejoice when they see an actor, dressed like
a real gentleman, open a real umbrella or smoke a
real cigar.* Mr. Robertson discovered this taste, and
* In a West-End comedy produced at this period, a leading
scene represented a certain Park at dusk, when the chairs for
visitors are gathered together and put away by a boy in buttons.
The scene was recognised at once with delight, but the great
270 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
humoured it to the full. His comedies are minute
cabinet pictures of society, admirably constructed
for stage purposes, with a masterly perception of
the tableau. As reading they are, of course, in-
sufferable : that is no fault of the dramatist. Acted
by the artistes of the Prince of Wales 5 Theatre, they
were simply perfection. It has been argued against
them, with some show of reason, that as they deal
with the most commonplace persons and incidents,
they are hardly worth the trouble and expense of
seeing, since the real persons and incidents are un-
fortunately too common to every one's perception.
" We don't go to the theatre," cry the severe critics
of the drama, " to see lackadaisical schoolgirls
flirting with imbecile Guardsmen, to contemplate
crockery and inhale the steam of real tripe at a real
supper, to listen to the vapid conversation of vapid
people such as we encounter daily ; we go to hear
great thoughts expressed in grand language, to have
our souls exalted by noble situations, to mark the
fiery conflict of passions, and the subtle lights and
shades of human character." This is all very well,
and means just that they prefer Shakespeare to
Robertson. But if we examine closely into the truth,
we shall discover that Robertson, in his own way,
was a poet too. No mere vapid realist could com-
mand such thorough success. His incidents may be
commonplace, his characters may wear modern
dresses and talk modern slang, but the fact is, he
composed pictures which were pleasant to see on
account of their artistic qualities. Those who do not
point was the appearance of the real boy, who after his real
work in the Park was done, repeated it on the stage nightly >
for the delectation of the delighted audience, many of whom
recognised him at once.
THE MODERN STAGE. 271
understand how this can be, should read Mr.
Browning's " Fra Lippo Lippi " :
Have you noticed, now,
Your scullion's hanging face ? A bit of chalk,
And trust me that you should tho' ?
And though Polly Eccles and Sam Gerridge, and the
rest, may not be worth much notice in real life, they
had real colour and pleasantness as figures on the
little stage near Tottenham Court Road. The best
of Mr. Robertson's dramas surpass the best of Mr.
Boucicault's, as the best of Mr. Blackmore's novels
surpass the best of Mr. Trollope's by virtue of their
gleams of simple poetic feeling. A maiden parting
from her lover, a wife separated from her husband,
a schoolgirl waking from her first dream, a soldier
reading letters from home at the seat of war all
these are simple figures enough, but they grow
interesting in the light of a genuine emotion. I do
not for a moment affirm that Mr. Robertson's is high
art ; it is art of a kind. Its faults are those of the
life it depicts : occasional heartlessness, shallow
attempts at verbal wit, monotony of character-
painting, the persistent representation of vulgar
moods and modes.
We call it pretty that is, pretty well !
But to deny that it evidences poetic skill is certainly
unfair. There is obviously poetry in it of situation,
of picture, though not of character and dialogue.
This can scarcely be said of any other modern school
of comedy. On another score, too, we owe gratitude
to Mr. Robertson. He rebelled against the mock-
heroic and stagy nonsense which had so long flooded
the theatre. He determined at all hazards that his
272 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
people should always be natural, his situations never
artificial. He taught his actors to abandon their
gasping " oh's " and " ah's," their stage strides, their
unnatural looks and gestures. He suggested that
they should endeavour to speak as men and women
in real life do, and as French actors and actresses
generally try to do. With this purpose he simplified
his characters, his scenes, and his dialogues. At first
there was a difficulty. " Gentlemen " were wanted,
and actors, as a rule, were not like "gentlemen."
The Gordian knot was solved by securing the real
article, and more than one distinguished amateur was
tempted, by the growth of society-dramas, to adopt
the stage as a profession.
So far the gain was clear. The Scylla of arti-
ficiality was avoided, but the Charybdis of common-
place lay in the way ; and, alas ! on that fatal rock,
the so-called Robertsonian school has split and sunk.
The founder of the school died, having done good
service to Art, and never, I believe, overstrained his
natural pretensions. His very genius, however,
deluded the public. A cry arose for realism, and
the cry, which was answered to the heart's
content of the crier, has hardly yet died away.
Instead of being kept for gauging actors and
acting of the Cabinet kind, the Robertsonian test has
been applied to greater actors and nobler acting ; so
that English performances have become more and
more distinguished for a dull, dead uniformity of
mediocrity. Many people have gone to the extreme
of renouncing the poetic drama altogether, on the
score that it is not in the least like real life; forgetting
that poetic language bears the same relation to high
art that marble does to flesh, and though different in
its superficial resemblances, resembles in its latent
THE MODERN STAGE. 273
suggestions. Strong passions have been decried, strong
gestures censured, strong emotions disliked, as offensive
to the sense of realism. Dramatists have been afraid
to take an imaginative flight, or to utter a flowery
sentiment, from fear of the realist. The stage has
lost dimensions, actors have lost dignity. Upholsterers
and milliners have taken possession of a thousand
theatres ; and even the art of the scene-painter,
who used to produce grand effects by Turneresque
delineations of the brush, has been exchanged for the
microscopic skill of the Cabinet designer. The best
proof of Mr. Robertson's genius is that all these
effects, which he instituted, are useless without him,
and that in the one touch of poetry which redeemed
all his imperfections he has never found a successor.
In the style of verbal wit of which he was so fond,
he has found many. Perhaps the most conspicuous
offender is Mr. H. J. Byron,* who began his literary
career as a burlesque writer, and who is now the most
indefatigable caterer of " comedies " for the London
stage. Mr. Byron has two qualifications for theatrical
success he understands stage business, and he is an
irrepressible punster. In his pieces, a number of
infinitely vulgar people labelled respectively "noble-
men," "gentlemen," "authors/' "ladies," "shop-
keepers," " actors," but all bearing an indescribable
family likeness, assail each other with vulgar verbal
quibbles from scene to scene, in utter defiance of
probability, and with no attempt whatever at
suitability or sequence. Characters these plays have
none, save such as may be detected in " Boz's "
prentice-sketches, or extinct Adelphi farces. They
do for the stage what Albert Smith's novels did for
the library, and they are relished, I suppose, by the
* Since deceased.
274 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
same class of people. Their best feature is their
innocence of all intent ; their worst is their vulgarity.
They might be passed over in silence, if they did not
constantly occupy the London stage, to the exclusion
doubtless of productions of real merit. Mr. Albery's
Two Roses isof otherand finer quality a really genuine
little play, although belonging also to the new school.
As I write, the reaction against mere realism,
which began, doubtless, with the success of Mr. Wills
and Mr. Irving, has culminated in some striking
theatrical phenomena. A great actor, Signer Salvini,
has appeared in London in an Italian translation of
Othello, and his success has been in proportion to
the originality or what many think the outrageous-
ness of his conception. Sad to say, he has not
entirely pleased the critics, some of whom accuse him
of extravagance. The entire dramatic profession,
however, with striking unanimity, has risen to do the
great foreigner honour, and to recognise in his person
the rights of the long-forgotten tragic Muse. Now
for the first time, after long labouring under the
delusion that Othello was a dull, hoarse-spoken
blackamoor, who in the mildest possible way smothers
his wife with an embroidered pillow, we discover the
incarnate Moor, Titanic, terrible, striking down all
opposition, raging on the torrent of his own wrath,
haling Desdemona to death by the hair, and finally
cutting his own throat with the most terrible realism
of detail. A few years ago, this performance
would have been hissed. To-day, audiences familiar
with the horrors of The Bells greet it as the finest
acting in the world. To my mind, it is entirely
in the interests of Art that so powerful and
original a reading of Shakespeare's drama should
have achieved this popularity ; it encourages the
THE MODERN STAGE. 275
hope that attempts at originality may soon be the
rule, and not the exception, on the English stage.
Anything weaker than the stereotyped conception
of Othello can scarcely be imagined. Mr. Fechter
essayed the part after he had created an unparalleled
sensation by playing Hamlet in a flaxen wig ; his
mild, gentlemanly jeunc premier with a black face did
not succeed in attracting the masses. He listened in
the most well-bred manner to the insinuations of
lago, his strongest passions being conveyed by an
open mouth, elevated shoulders, and turned out
palms ; and when he came to the murder, he did it as
gingerly with his pillow as a careful father covering
up a baby. It is said that Mr. Irving is going to try
the character, and that he does not like Salvini's
conception. It is difficult to imagine Mr. Irving in
any part demanding powerful physique or mighty
passion. His appearance is cadaverous, and his voice
is weak. His manners on the stage are dignified
without grandeur. His pathos, when he attempts
pathos, is chiefly conveyed by a huskiness of the
voice and a galvanic quivering of the hands. His
success in Hamlet should not mislead him, for
Hamlet is a character in which no actor has ever
failed, so admirably helped is it at every point by the
magnificent structure of the situations.* Mr. Irving
is an actor of original genius, greater perhaps by
reason of its very limitations than a genius more
fluent in adapting itself to character foreign to itself.
He would succeed as Richard III. ; he might succeed
* Since the above was printed, Salvini's Hamlet has startled
London. The character so represented becomes what Hamlet
might have been, had he been born in Tuscany, during the
-ducal reign of Francesco de Medici ; it is full-blooded Italian,
and resembles as little the Danish Prince of Shakespeare as
the legendary Amleth of Oehlenschlager,
T 2
276 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
as Macbeth. I believe he would comparatively
fail in Othello, in Coriolanus, or in other parts
characterised by intellectual robustness or predomi-
nant passion.
Simultaneously with the success of Salvini's pas-
sionate idealism, occurred the failure of Mr. Coghlan's
mild realism. When first the announcement ap-
peared that the management of the Prince of Wales'
Theatre were about to produce The Merchant of
Venice with Mr. Coghlan in the chief character,
playgoers expressed a very natural astonishment.
The theatre had been the temple of the Robertson ian
Muse, and although since the dramatist's death it had
despairingly betaken itself to such ghastly pieces as
Mr. Wilkie Collins' Man and Wife, it had re-
deemed its own credit by the production of a pretty
little trifle by Mr. Gilbert Sweethearts. Mr.
Coghlan was known as the jenne premier of the
Robertsonian drama, an excellent actor, with oc-
casional exhibitions of strength and insight, but
certainly not one from whom was expected any high
poetic exhibition. The experiment in the interest
of realism has been made, and the failure has been
complete. Mr. Coghlan's quiet, gentlemanly Jew
has been voted an impossibility, and worse, a bore.
The famous scene between Shylock and Antonio
dwindles down into a mild conversation between two
courteous merchants :
Shy. Signor Antonio, many a time and oft,
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances :
Still have I borne it -with a patient shrug ;
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me " misbeliever, cut-throat dog,"
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine ;
And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well, then, it now appears you need my help :
THE MODERN STAGE. 277
Go to, then : you come to me, and you say,
" Shylock, we would have moneys : " you say so ;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard,
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold. Moneys is your suit :
What should I say to you ? Should I not say,
" Hath a dog money ? Is it possible
A cur can lend three thousand ducats ? " Or
Shall I bend low, and in a bondman's key,
With bated breath, and with a whispering humbleness,
Say this :
*' Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last ;
You spurn'd me such a day ; another time
You called me dog ; and for these courtesies
I'll lend you thus much moneys."
Ant. I am as like to call thee so again,
To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.
If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
As to thy friends ; for when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend ?
But lend it rather to thine enemy,
Who, if he break, thou may'st with better face
Exact the penalty.
Shy. Why, look you, how you storm !
Mr. Coghlan's conception, that Shylock is gene-
rally made too open and snake-like a villain, a mouther
and ranter whose every look and word would awaken
suspicion, was doubtless right enough ; but something
more was wanted than mere negation of old readings
to complete the part. It was foolish in the extreme
not to perceive that the Muse of Shakespeare and
that of Robertson are hopelessly apart. True, even
Shakespeare gains by a more natural style of gesture
and delivery, such as Mr. Calvert has been en-
deavouring to cultivate in his admirable revivals at
Manchester ; mouthing and bellowing are always
offensive and unsuitable, but one might as well play
the Prometheus of ^Eschylus in gaiters instead of in
the cothurnus, and modern wigs instead of the mask,
as deliver the grand style of drama in the easy
conversational style of modern comedy.
278 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Of the resuscitation of that drama, I believe there
is hope ; if I did not, it would hardly have been
worth while to take the above retrospect. Just now
the theatre is shunned by the students, scorned more
or less by litterateurs, despised entirely by philosophers.
We are told on every side that the dramatic Muse is
dead, and that she can never rise again.
She is dead and gone, lady,
She is dead and gone ;
At her head a grass green turf,
At her heels a stone.
And over her stand Mr. Phelps and Mr. Hermann
Vezin, in chimney-pot hats, while Mr. Chattertori
intones her requiem. But the public know better.
The dramatic Muse lives will live as long as passions
stir in men's hearts, as long as thousands delight in
the mimic stage. It is simply absurd for poets and
philosophers to glance contemptuously at the theatre
at an art hallowed by the grandest achievements
of the human intellect, and glorified by godlike
names ; and it is equally insane to lay the blame
on modern actors and the modern public, when the
real fault lies with the intellectual barrenness of this
generation. Let a great dramatist arise, and he
will find great actors, and perhaps a great manager.
I do not say there would be no difficulties in the way ;
but I do aver that the reward and honour of the
highest probable dramatic success would be greater
than that hitherto achieved by any writer of this
generation. Just now, the world, wealthy as it is
in feminine and fantastic writers, wants a great
masculine dramatist above all things. Such an one
would take the stage as it is, with all its deficiencies,
and out of given materials evolve a noble series of
productions. He would be harassed by miscon-
THE MODERN STAGE. 279
captions and absurdities ; but so were Euripides and
Racine. He would be often badly interpreted; but
so were Sophocles and Moliere. His grandest pro-
ductions might be misunderstood ; so were those of
^Eschylus himself. He might even have to " write
in " inferior matter to tickle the groundlings ; so did
Shakespeare habitually. At no time in English
history has the drama been recognised as the highest
department of literature ; it has always been more or
less despised by serious professors ; and this fact has
deterred many, as it deterred Milton,* from casting
their conceptions in the dramatic form. For this,
English criticism is certainly to blame. Many of our
poets, such as Coleridge and Byron, have deliberately
written " plays for the closet," forgetting that the
true home of a play is a theatre, the true destiny of
a play to be acted well or ill, as the case may be.
This destiny has been filled by the highest master-
pieces, from the Prometheus of ^Eschylus to the
Hamlet of Shakespeare, from the Ornithes of Aristo-
phanes to the Tartuffe of Moliere. There are other
dramas, like those masterpieces of Mr. Browning,
compiled for representation, but not even the highest
enthusiast in closet literature could represent any of
these as of quite equal calibre.
" But/' cry the wiseacres, " the public must be
amused, and the highest products of the human
intellect are not amusing." After this we shall be
told that Othello does not draw the masses, and that
Le Malade Imaginaire is not funny. " The finest
productions of the Elizabethan period, for example,
would fail to draw." The finest productions do draw,
* See some striking particulars under this head in Mr.
Masson's admirable study of Milton's life.
280 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
whenever played ; the inferior productions either fail,
because they are ill-constructed and verbose, or are
suppressed, because they are grossly indecent in
subject and in language. There is an actor who
parades the provinces, Mr. Barry Sullivan, a very
clever performer of the old school, who succeeds so
wonderfully, that a " Barry Sullivan house" represents
the fullest triumph of the managerial exchequer ;
yet Mr. Sullivan's repertoire consists chiefly of
Shakespeare ; his leading parts are Hamlet, Richard,
and Othello. The late Mr. Charles Kean, though by
no means a first-class actor, made a fortune by
Shakespeare. Many other obscurer stars do likewise.
By his revival of a dull play, Henry V., Mr. Calvert,
of Manchester, achieved great successes, both in our
provinces and in New York. Shakespeare, then,
is amusing, after all. What the public find in Shake-
speare, they would find in any writer of kindred
endowments. They do not want dull plays written
for students by students, by poets for poets; they
want the living, breathing drama, whether in the
shape of a play by the great master, or a trifle by
Robertson ; they want good construction, good
situation, fair insight into character, lively dialogue.
When a play, with these qualifications, fairly re-
presented, fails, it will be time to talk of the
indifference of the public. True, as I said at the
outset, audiences are uneducated ; it should be the
task of dramatists to educate them to guide their
taste, which is on the whole excellent, into regular
channels of legitimate enjoyment.
THE MODERN STAGE. 281
II.
A NOTE IN 1886.
SINCE the preceding notes were written, there has
been little or no alteration in the condition and
prospects of the modern stage. Two phenomena,
however, have occurred, which are likely sooner
or later to be noted as more or less historical ;
(i) The triumphant progress of Mr. Irving, followed
somewhat timidly by Mr. Wilson Barrett and others,
under the banner richly scrolled with the words
" poetical " and " legitimate ;" and (2) the successful
cynicism of Mr. W. S. Gilbert, exhibited in the pro-
duction of pieces which are, in the most literal
sense, anti-poetical. Of Mr. Irving and his compeers
I need say little. They are fighting the good fight,
and conquering fresh territory every day. Of Mr.
Gilbert I am inclined to say a few words, since there
is a large section of the play-going public ready to
accept him as the typical playwright of the present
period.
In the first place, let me observe that Mr. Gilbert,
despite all his boasted cynicism, has been on more
than one occasion a backslider.
In his bewilderment as to what is and is not
literature, in his incapacity to perceive that a prettily-
acted modern play, like Arrak-na-Pogue, is better
than the best imitation or resuscitation of effete
poetical models, he has shown curious misconceptions,
among the most pathetic of which is his idea that
a drama written in so-called " blank verse " is of
necessity an attempt in the right direction. This
misconception is curious in a dramatist who is
radically unpoetic, and who has no- more call to
282 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
write blank verse than a nimble dancer has a call to
use wooden legs. Thanks chiefly to such encourage-
ment, Mr. Gilbert, who is well known as a grim
wag and a most amusing writer of dramatic trifles,
set to work the other day to write a play on the
subject of Goethe's Faust, or, to quote his own words,
" to remodel, for dramatic purposes, the whole story
of Gretchen's downfall." I quite acquit Mr. Gilbert
(to quote his own words again) "of intentional ir-
reverence towards the grandest philosophical work of
the century."
Good in his blindness, he in goodness erred.
But his blunder was not in attempting to reach the
poetical standard, but in falling almost wilfully
below it. His Gretchen failed, not because it was
literary, but because it was dull ; not because it re-
sembled Goethe's Faiist, but because it possessed no
portion of Goethe's magic. The first part of Goethe's
Faust has been classed among the great literary
successes of the world, not because (as Mr. Gilbert,
speaking in the name of the provincial, or theatrical,
mind would think) it is "the greatest philosophical
work of the century," but because it is broadly and
simply human, based on the commonest elements of
human nature. It is beautiful because it is crystalline;
it incarnates the sentiment of humanity, irradiated by
the passionate poetical light. As a story it has an
appeal to everybody, even to the theatre-goer, and if
Mr. Gilbert, instead of tampering with it, had simply
arranged its best scenes in their dramatic sequence,
he would have certainly succeeded in arousing the
public interest and securing the public applause.
Rash in his endeavour to justify himself, Mr.
Gilbert appealed straight to the literary public by
THE MODERN STAGE. 283
publishing his play. Some of his critics seem to have
told him that it was too " poetical " to succeed on the
modern stage, and failed in consequence of its
superiority. This is an error. For once playgoers re-
sented a provincial interpretation of a literary master-
piece ; they did so, however, not because the piece was
provincial, but because its provincialism was dreary.
In Mr. Gilbert's play Faust is transformed into a
very uninteresting monk, Mephistopheles into a talker
of comic journal satire, and Margaret into a mincing
young lady who lives and dies the mere echo of a
monotone. On his first appearance Mephisto (as
Mr. Gilbert calls .him) says, with an eye to the
gods:
You see
We devils have our consciences. In vice
We can do nearly all that man can do,
But not quite all. There are some forms of sin
From which we shrink, and that is one of them.
I have no stomach for such worldly work,
But get a man to help you.
This, of course, is thoroughly provincial, thoroughly
undevilish, but sure of a guffaw from the gallery*
The character of Gretchen is pitched in the same
key. Just as Mephisto poses as a dry dog, fond of
his joke, does she pose as the incarnation of pretty
virginity. She is, in fact, Miss Marion Terry, the
very charming but particularly monotonous young
lady who created the part, and to whom the published
play is dedicated. Throughout the whole drama we
never escape into the free air of passion and poetry ;
we are encumbered at every step by the mannerisms
and platitudes of the boarding-school ideal. Goethe's
Marguerite is supremely and essentially a woman.
PVom the moment when she tries on the jewels
before the glass to the hour when she dies raving
284 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
mad in gaol, she is splendid and sublime by sheer
force of typical womanhood. Her strength is that
unconscious purity which comes of a soul thoroughly
and simply human in all its passions, sorrows, and
desires. This other Marguerite, or Gretchen, is a
living doll, a thing of self-consciousness, simpers, and
sawdust. When she dies in the atmosphere of poetry,
with a stage sunrise reddening behind her, she says :
Heaven wills that thou should'st live that I should die
So let us yield ourselves to heaven's will.
The provincial mind is as fond of talking about
" Heaven's will," as of that other "little article" (as
Mr. Toole called it once in a comedy by Mr. Reade),
" a father's curse."
I have made no quotations from Mr. Gilbert's
play, because there are no passages to repay quo-
tation. The best speech is one by Mephisto in the
third act, where he calls down the curse of hell upon
Faust's head ; but even this is disfigured by con-
ventional expressions " false priest," " lying trade,"
" smug-faced brotherhood," " chicken-soul," and other
jargon of the theatre. What is most extraordinary
in the work, as the production of the dramatist by
profession, is its utter negation of all dramatic effect ;
even when the situations are good, they are lost by
want of technical skill. Mr. Gilbert shines as a writer
of theatrical trifles, where dramatic insight is not
wanted. He is a wag, and, to a certain extent, a
comic poet, and I much like his adaptation to the
stage of his own "Bab Ballads." But he has not
even mastered the poetic vocabulary, and I trust
Gretchen will be his last experiment in what writers
call the " modern poetical drama."
It has remained for Mr. Irving, in his position of
THE MODERN STAGE. 285
champion extraordinary of the poetical drama, to
exhibit before audiences bewildered by Mr. Gilbert,
a play which adumbrates, with all its shortcomings,
the true Faust of Goethe, which possesses the soul of
poetry, though not its language ; which, when all is
said and done, is worth a thousand such futilities as
Gretchen ; and which, above all, supplies the one
imaginative manager-actor of this generation with a
rdle which absorbs the full resources of his undoubted
artistic genius. It is little wonder, therefore, that the
critics have taken heart of grace, and talked again
hopefully, if mysteriously, of a possible " dramatic
revival."
Periodically, say every five years, the great
English-speaking public is startled by the eager
voice of the quidnunc, announcing this prospect.
Periodically, the voice dies away among other voices
of the crowd, while the dear old moribund drama
continues in its corpse-like coma, with spasmodic
quickenings of death in life. When Robertson loomed
above the horizon, the world prepared for something
cosmic, only to discover that what it imagined to be a
sun was a sort of gigantic tea-cup. When Boucicault
rose radiant out of the sea of Irish woes, there was
another portent, but what onlookers at first mistook
for a potent magician's wand, turned out to be only
a shillelah. Meantime, the accomplished author
of Pinafore, like a facetious Choragus of Choragi,
has amused himself by poking fun at the Shape that
once lived and moved and spoke the tongue of
Shakespeare, by ridiculing its sock and buskin, by
deriding its antique method, so persistently and
so cleverly, with such a touch of Aristophanes-plus-
Mr. Guppy and the "jolly bank-holiday-every-day
young man" that it has been a dangerous thing
286 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
for any dramatist to view life seriously or sentiment-
ally, or to attempt the grand manner so familiar to
our fathers. Against the influence of sad wags like
Mr. Gilbert, we have to set such phenomena as the
beautiful "revivals" of Mr. Irving, which have
reminded playgoers that after all there is a grand
manner, and that it is a little better, when all is said
and done, than the manner of the middle-class cynic.
But to do Mr. Gilbert justice (and no one is a
warmer admirer of his saturnine humour than I am),
his influence for good in this generation has, at least,
equalled his influence for evil. He might be de-
scribed, with some measure of truth, as the Mark
Twain of the stage ; for while the American humour-
ist has succeeded in disintegrating so much of the
shallow enthusiasm and false sentiment of ordinary
life, the English one has done the same service in
destroying what was false and meretricious in
dramatic tradition. True, he has gone to the extreme
length in disillusionising the public sentiment as
to all the higher dramatic emotions ; but that was
inevitable, and the question will adjust itself by-and-
by, since those emotions are practically indestructible.
As the matter now stands, any attempt at pure poetry
on the stage is very like skating on thin ice. There
can be no doubt, nevertheless, that our grandfathers
very often took platitude for poetry and heroic pos-
turing for the acting of nature. A modern dramatist
or actor must now reckon on a public prepared at
all points to dispute and ridicule his method wherever
it conflicts with common-sense. Love is not a passion
a la mode, and there is a tendency to "guy" love
scenes. Strong exhibitions of emotion are unpopular
in real life and equally so in the theatre. At the
same time the swift inspiration of genius can conque 1 "
THE MODERN STAGE. 287
the prejudice against the sentiment of love, or rather
against its too maudlin expression, and justify the
strongest and wildest of emotions under the right
conditions.
Besides the revival of poetical drama, real or so-
called, there has of late years been a revival of
melodrama. Mr. Sims, Mr. Pettitt, and Mr. Jones
have produced alone, or in collaboration, a number of
bright and panoramic plays of human life. Mr. Sims
possesses a true literary talent and a fine vein of
workaday humour. Mr. Pettitt stands alone as a
dramatic " constructor." Mr. Jones appears to have
lofty aims and praiseworthy literary pretensions,
while openly despising the craft in which he has
sought for popularity. That the critics are eager
to discover literary merit wherever they can is shown
by their lavish praise of the following passage from
the Silver King, put into the mouth of a rehabilitated
drunkard and betting man :
O God, put back thy universe and give me yesterday !
Curiously enough, what is food for mirth to one
generation becomes actual poetry to another, since
the passage I have quoted is simply a paraphrase
of the famous lines given by Martinus Scriblerus, in
the " Art of Sinking in Poetry " :
O God, annihilate both space and time,
And make two lovers happy !
If it were my wish or my business to find fault with
Mr. Jones, I should say that he possesses one serious
fault in a dramatist that of sometimes mistaking
"fine writing" for literature; but of his earnestness
there is no question.
Besides the gentlemen I have named, Mr.
Sydney Grundy and Mr. Pinero are now diligent
288 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
contributors to public entertainment. Mr. Grundy
is a brilliant and an able dramatist, with an unique
capacity for writing trenchant dialogue, and it may
be confidently predicted that he will take a high
place among contemporaries, if ever plays are judged
on their merits as literature. Mr. Pinero seems to be
a pupil of Mr. Gilbert's, without his master's cunning,
but with much of his disagreeable cynicism. Another
writer of note, Mr. Clement Scott, though better
known as a critic, has done excellent work for the
stage, both singly and in collaboration with Mr. B. C.
Stephenson. Diplomacy was an admirable piece of
rendition, and there was great ingenuity shown in
Peril. I have not seen Sister Mary, but I hear it
spoken of as a vigorous attempt at purely emotional
drama.
While the drama remains moribund, the world is
full of actors who may fairly be accounted virile. It
is no exaggeration to say that the greatest of these
actors are Americans. On this side of the water
we have no artists, with the exception of Mr. Irving,
worthy to rank by the side of Booth, of Jefferson, of
Lester Wallack. Even to an Englishman familiar
with the finest efforts of Charles Mathews, the acting
of the younger Wallack comes with all the force of a
revelation. I saw this princely comedian for the first
time in The Bachelor of Arts. He had long been to
me an illustrious name, one of the few American
names known by familiar report on this side, but
I had imagined him one of the " old school," in the
Gilbertian and invidious sense. Of the old school
he is certainly, in so far as his method puts all the
efforts of the new school to shame ; at once broad,
subtle, swift, and penetrating, it is the method of
the born actor, equipped with all the culture of his
THE MODERN STAGE. 289
fascinating art. Nowadays, I fear, actors are made,
not born, and made very badly. Young men flock
upon the stage because it has become a lucrative
profession. Formerly only those achieved histrionic
reputation who possessed by nature a commanding,
an interesting, or an amusing personality. Nature,
even more than art, created, in their various lines of
character, Mrs. Siddons, the Kembles, Macready,
Kean, Harley, Robson, Charles Mathews, Buck-
stone, Keeley, Compton, Wigan, and Walter Lacy.
Not but that the same kind of creation takes place
occasionally even now. Nature, far more than art,
has given us Ellen Terry.
The fact remains, however, that modern actors
generally suggest the idea of professionals who have
mistaken their profession. Let any one who doubts
this go to Wallaces when the master is acting, and
compare him with the ladies and gentlemen who
surround him. There are clever people among them,
but, with the exception of the tried veteran, John
Gilbert, they strike the spectator as people who act
to live, not live to act. In companies where there
is no star of the first magnitude, the effect, of course,
is different. At Daly's, for example, there is a
combination so admirable in ensemble, so full of
natural talent and acquired fitness, so excellently
guided and directed, that it became last summer
the talk of London. Nearly every member of the
company has been chosen for his natural acting gifts,
and from officers to rank and file, the whole regiment
is fit for the field, and magnificently manoeuvred.
In England nowadays, I regret to say, the ten-
dency to what may be called, rather Irishly, pro-
fessional amateurism, is much more marked than in
America. It began with the Robertsonian successes,
u
290 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
which in their excessive and somewhat insipid
naturalism called into existence very little first-class
talent, but opened the stage door to hundreds of
average young men and women. Here and there,
but almost by accident, an artist of distinction ap-
peared to break the genteel monotony of the per-
formances at the Prince of Wales' Theatre ; there
were brightness and natural gaiety in Marie Wilton,
rich humour in George Honey, a pretty kind of talent
for grasping small bits of character, in Mr. Hare.
But when the Prince of Wales comedians exhausted
Robertson and removed to the large stage of the
Haymarket Theatre, it was plain that they were
little more than amateurs after all. A cruder
exhibition than the performance of Masks and
Faces was certainly never seen on the amateur
stage ; and The Rivals, as we all know, was
even worse. The public yearned for the old
methods, and found them not very far off, at the
Lyceum.
I am far from suggesting, as many do, that the
loss of the fine old crusted performer of the past
generation, the performer who played half-a-dozen
parts a week with more or less incoherence, is a thing
to be deplored, or that the inroad of good-looking
walking gentlemen has been wholly without its advan-
tages. Actors, nowadays, take pains to be natural,
they conduct themselves like gentlemen on and off
the stage, they dress well and appropriately, they
seldom over-act or murder the Queen's English. But
all this improvement, consequent on managerial re-
cruiting among penniless dukes and impecunious
earls, will not compensate for the genius, the natural
adaptability, which used to be the actor's distinguish-
ing qualification, or for the boldness and fearlessness
THE MODERN STAGE. 291
of method, which made tragedy tolerable and comedy
puissant. Turn again to Lester Wallack, and see
him step upon the stage; then turn to any of our
modern interpreters of comedy, and note the dif-
ference. The secret of the power and fascination is,
that this man is the part he plays ; that nature,
in Lester Wallack, created the physical and intel-
lectual type fit to wear the idiosyncracy of Charles
Courtley, of Harry Jasper, of D'Artagnan, of Don
Caesar de Bazan. Ars est celare artem ; the art is not
manifest, because Nature herself is potent in estab-
lishing the verisimilitude. The finest of all acting,
indeed, resolves into another Irishism that, au fond,
there is very little acting about it. Fechter in his
young days was Armand Duval, Descle"e was Camille,
Lemaitre was Robert Macaire, Robson was Sampson
Burr, Buckstone was Toby Twinkle, Compton was
Touchstone, Helen Faucit was Cordelia, and so on
all the world over. Natural fitness, plus the many
resources and practices of the art, is what constitutes
the true actor.
In England this fact is understood, perhaps, in
only one direction. I have long wondered what
quality it is in the English atmosphere, or in the
English constitution, which breeds so many genuine
" comedians." On the soil of America, so far as
I have seen, they do not thrive ; yet in England
their name has been and is legion. Harley, Buck-
stone, Compton, Robson, Wright, Toole, Righton,
Lionel Brough, George Honey, David James, Thomas
Thorne, George Barrett, are names that will occur
at once to many. The humour of each of these per-
formers was, or is, something sni generis^ but there is
a family likeness in it all, indeed, a Cockney likeness.
In other branches of the business England is not so
u 2
292 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
excellent. It is doubtful, for example, if we possess
a really first-class "juvenile" performer. Henry
Neville whose first appearance caused Planche* to
leap out of his seat and cry, " At last we have an
actor ! " is still perhaps the best, despite his years,
which he carries very lightly. Charles Coghlan has
great talent, but is unequal and very weak in scenes
of passion, where Neville is strong. Kyrle Bellew
has shown abundant promise, but is somewhat too
self-conscious and artificial ; while Harry Conway,
who began as the very weakest of walking gentlemen,
has lately shown remarkable earnestness and latent
strength. In personal attractiveness, William Terriss
is the most endowed of them all.
The same lack of genius which is the fault of our
juvenile actors, is to be found among our actresses.
In scenes of power and passion, even Ellen Terry
loses much of her charm. Mrs. Kendal is an inimit-
able comedienne, but quite without the pathetic fallacy
in romantic and poetical characters, which she has
sometimes attempted. Her Pauline, in the Lady of
Lyons, is not a high-born beauty in distress, but a
housemaid in a passion ; her Claire, in the Ironmaster,
is strenuously artificial in its pathetic solicitations.
In pure comedy, however, Mrs. Kendal is supremely
delightful. Much her superior in the higher graces
of the art is Madame Modjeska, a somewhat arti-
ficial but exquisitely refined actress. Miss Ada
Cavendish, though inferior in her method, has really
inspired moments. The original freshness and sweet
girlish grace of Miss Kate Rorke surpass all the
attitudinising of more pretentious actresses. Mrs.
Langtry is Venus from foot to forehead. Miss Mary
Anderson is stridently juvenile, but splendidly beau-
tiful. Passing away from leading ladies, we have
THE MODERN STAGE. 293
ingenues by the score, and soubrettes by the dozen ;
one of the brightest of the latter being Miss Lottie
Venne, an inimitable actress in her own peculiar line.
Glancing downward through the ranks of the profes-
sion, we shall discover that the most noticeable artists
are those who follow the good old method. There is
Mr. Mead, whom I remember playing the whole
range of the drama years ago at the Grecian ; Mr.
Howe, who graduated in the robustly vigorous Hay-
market school; Mr. Willard and Mr. Speakman,
both in Wilson Barrett's company ; Mr. Hermann
Vezin, perhaps the finest elocutionist living, and
consummately excellent when suited ; Mr. Charles
Warner, full of electricity and splendid animal spirits;
Mr. Fernandez, excellent in everything, but especially
excellent in strong, rugged character studies ; and
Mr. Odell, who has a quiddity and oddity peculiarly
his own. All the artists I have named are to be
distinguished from the mob of gentlemen of the new
school, who get upon the stage with ease, and act
without intellectual conviction.
Why is it, then, that, with so many capable artists,
and so warm an appreciation of their talents on the
part of the public, we have so few virile plays ? Be-
cause there are no great dramatic authors, say the
critics. Because the managers are uninstructed, say
the playwrights. Because the public is a great silly
baby, to be pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw,
say the managers.
It may be quite true that we have no great
dramatists, but it is also true that we have among us
men capable of splendid dramatic work, if such work
were in demand ; not only within the circle of known
writers for the stage, but outside of it, are such men
to be found. But it is simply impossible to ensure
294 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the production of any drama which is not, to a certain
extent, conventional after the known and approved
fashions. The enormous outlay necessary in London
to mount an important piece, the loss consequent on
failure, the apathy of the public to new ideas of any
kind, frighten the managers from making experi-
ments. When Claudian was produced in London,
everybody anticipated failure because it dealt with an
ideal and far-off subject ; and Mr. Barrett, himself,
though a most enlightened manager and actor, had
so holy a fear of the mere mention of " blank verse,"
that he caused the piece to be written in a sort of
hybrid lingo, neither verse nor good prose, which
utterly destroyed its value as literature. At a huge
sacrifice of time and money, the play was forced
along, till at last its novelty and beauty were recog-
nised. Here, however, the circumstances were very
exceptional ; and moreover, Claudian furnished a star
part for a manager of ample resources. Under any
other conditions, the piece would have been with-
drawn within a month. My own experience, which
I may cite by way of illustration, is the experience of
nearly every dramatic author living. Having an
intimate and practical knowledge of stage require-
ments, acquired through early connection with the
theatre, I find it possible to produce pieces which
please the manager, and sometimes the public ; but
whenever I have proposed any drama lofty in method
or unconventional in form, I have been met with
the answer that such productions are inexpedient.
Management is too precarious a business for experi-
ments of any kind.
Then again, it is very difficult indeed to please
both the critics and the public, and what pleases one
will often repel the other. Nor are critics always
THE MODERN STAGE. 295
unanimous. Two plays of mine, produced in London
and afterwards repeated successfully in America, met
with exactly opposite treatment from the newspapers
here and on the other s ; dc. Storm-beaten (an adapta-
tion of my own novel, "God and the Man") was
received with no little praise by the leading critics
of London ; in New York it was roundly slaughtered
in several quarters. On the other hand, Lady Clare,
which some London critics treated coldly, and which
gained its success in London in the face of lukewarm
criticism, was praised liberally by the American Press,
.almost without an exception.
It is the custom in London, and often a sheer
necessity, to force plays into success by large expendi-
tures of money, and in the teeth of disastrous business.
For many weeks Pinafore, the most successful of
modern comic oper^, played fo quite inadequate
receipts ; so, I am informed, did the Colleen Bawn.
The Private Secretary, when acted at the Prince's
Theatre, involved the author in a loss of some
thousands of pounds ; but he held firmly on to it,
and transferring it to the Globe, reaped a late but
abundant harvest. Of course this can only be done
where the play possesses great vitality in itself, or
where the management is unusually sanguine and
determined. It is seldom or never, I believe, done
in America, where pieces stand or fall by a first
night's reception, and by the perfunctory morning
criticism. The exceptions are cases where the play
is produced with an ultimate eye to the " road,"
rather than with any view of immediately making
money.
I have touched upon the commercial side of the
matter, because, in dramatic work, there is no golden
mean between success and failure. A play is con-
296 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
demned absolutely, if it does not prove managerially
profitable; no matter what its literary or technical
merit, no matter how warm its reception, it is
justified or condemned by the amount of money paid
by audiences who wish to see it. Now, modern
audiences are mixed assemblages of men, women,
and even children. When a great drama flourished
in England, playgoers were different, ready to respond
to any kind of method, however daring, if it was
justified by its cleverness; and if a prude sat listening
under the rain or sunlight, her blushes were hidden by
a mask. Later on, when we had a superb comedy,
great in spite of its license, the conditions were the
same ; the subjects were selected without tremor, the
treatment was slapdash, the speech vehement, reck-
less, and bold. It is too late in the day to reproduce
these conditions, nor am I suggesting for a moment
that their reproduction would be desirable. How far
indiscriminate license may degrade and even emascu-
late art may be seen any night in Paris at the Palais
Royal. But it is obvious at a glance that a dramatist
writing for a mixed modern audience, with Mr. and
Miss Podsnap in the stalls, must choose his subjects
carefully and treat them very gingerly. Were he a
very Sophocles, he would have to eschew the story of
CEdipus; were he an Euripides, he would have ta
fight shy of the domestic life of Phaedra. He must,
in short, to be listened to at all, avoid all offence
against moral and religious prejudices, follow the
conventional ethics, humour the popular creeds, use
language easily intelligible to immature persons. He
must on no account attempt to edify ; if he does, he
is lost, and catalogued as a bore.
THE MODERN STAGE. 297
III.
THE DRAMA AND THE CENSOR.
THERE comes a time in the history of nearly every
great literary movement when it is necessary for
some member of the community to protest, in the
name of himself and in the name of the class to
which he belongs, against vexatious and quasi-
providential interference from above. I think that
time has come in the history of our modern stage,
where some are pleased to perceive the dim dawnings-
of a dramatic revival ; and I believe that I can count
on the sympathy of readers of this book, if in citing
certain experiences of my own I take leave to protest
against an authority very much resembling persecution.
I must premise, however, by saying that I have no
private or personal feeling in the matter. For the
present reader and licenser of plays, Mr. Pigott, I
have the highest respect and consideration. Such
as his spiriting is, he does it gently enough. But the
position he holds, and the influence he brings to
bear, are, in my opinion, so fatal to the interests of
dramatic art, that it will soon be expedient to inquire
into the true nature of his authority, its legality, and
the prospects of its limitation, or best of all, its total
suspension.
There was recently represented at the Adelphi
Theatre, a drama from my pen, entitled Storm-beaten,
and almost identical in subject with my novel, " God
and the Man." This drama contained (I say it in all
humility) a central idea as elevated, as pre-eminently
religious, and I may add Christian, as is to be found,
perhaps, in any other drama of modern times; an idea
indeed embodying and adumbrating the very central
298 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
conception of Christianity. How it was worked out,
whatever might be its literary shortcomings, is
another matter. My point is that the drama's
purpose was the very highest and noblest possible
from the spiritual point of view. That it touched
the heart of the public, both here and in America,
where it is still being represented, is now pretty well
known. Now in this drama, as professedly ethical
and avowedly religious, the name of " God " was
used from time to time never profanely, never being
taken in vain ; that name had even been printed
upon the playbill ; and in the last act, as the triumph
of Christian love and brotherhood was proclaimed,
the lovely Easter Hymn of our Church was sung by
the village choir. I do not think any truly religious
spectator, whatever his creed, could witness Storm-
beaten, or listen to the holy music of its close, with
any feeling of discomfort or sense of incongruity.
But the Lord Chamberlain, in the exercise of his
traditional authority, thought otherwise. He objected
to the mere mention of the name of "God" in a stage
play, as unnecessarily impious ; he resented the
printing of the name of God in a playbill as an
additional outrage ; he denounced the singing of the
Easter Hymn on the stage as a needless piece of
profanity ; and, finally, he hinted to the management
of the theatre that their license was in danger, if
these things were not immediately reformed, as, I
regret to say, they speedily were.
About that time there came to me a letter,
written, not by any mere layman or outsider, but
by an ordained minister of the Scottish Church,
containing the following passage :
What a wretched piece of official prudery that was of the
Censor regarding your play ! It was good enough for a religious
THE MODERN STAGE. 299
magazine, but too good for a playbill. The Censor's objection
implies that he is the controller of the Devil's work. God must
not be named in the documents with which lie has to deal.
This sarcasm, though bitter enough, certainly hit
the mark. The drama, according to the Lord
Chamberlain, must be eternally divorced from the
Gospel according to any of the Apostles ; the religion
which animates our best literature is to have no
influence upon our stage, which is to remain, what it
has remained from Shakespeare's time, a mere ex-
crescence, a thing for shallow hearts and idle heads,
a spectacle for an hour's passing amusement the
Devil's pastime, and nothing more ! The same Censor
who is outraged at the word " God " in a playbill,
would have swooned at the face of the " Holy
Mother " on a wall ; and Raphael would have been
requested not to paint Madonnas. The same Censor
who is outraged by the singing of a church hymn on
the stage, would have been indignant at the musical
description of God creating the world out of chaos,
and Haydn would have been asked not to compose
any more " Creations." Fortunately, however, paint-
ing is a free art, and sacred music has no Lord
Chamberlain.
The question of mine is, I hold, one on which the
whole fate of the English drama must depend. If
the art of the dramatist is to be measured out to
please the whim of a Court functionary, who condemns
the clothing of religious symbols, but approves the
nakedness of Gaiety burlesque ; if the insane bigotry
of the Church (with its rabid hatred of its hereditary
rival, the stage) is to cripple the dramatist's work as
it has done from time immemorial, the sooner we
cease talking about a dramatic " revival " the better.
Thanks to the Lord Chamberlain, the whole marvellous
300 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
psychological drama of the French Empire has been
interdicted to us, while there has been no real inter-
diction on the nudity of Chatelet spectacle or the
ulcerous corruption of the Palais Royal. Thanks to
the Lord Chamberlain, great themes of passion are
forbidden to the dramatic poet and student of human
nature, while the dramatic " Masher " behind the
curtain has carte blanche to cater to the taste of the
social " Masher " in the stalls. Thanks to the Lord
Chamberlain, our drama is no drama, our art is no
art, all the intent and purpose of stage performances
being to amuse fools and chronicle small beer. But
the drama, I trust, has a higher function than to please
a modern Petronius and pass away an idle hour.
It is the noblest of all arts, and should be the most
free ; and it embraces in its scope, not merely its
kindred arts of poetry, painting, music, but from the
days of ^Eschylus downwards it has held out the
hand to Religion, its grave veiled sister. To para-
phrase again the words of George Herbert :
A play may find him who a sermon flies,
And turn delight into a sacrifice !
Not that it is foredoomed to the heresy of mere
instruction that doom would be fatal to its claim as
art ; but there is no sphere of man's life, no phase of
man's religion, with which it might not freely and
candidly deal. True, there is a region of mystery,
of spiritual sacredness, where it has never ventured
since the days of the Greek, and there is no need
that it should venture there again. The public is a
wise judge, a judge that knows well with what sacred
means the drama has a right to deal, and what others
it ought to let alone ; and I believe there is no
public so sagacious as our English play-going one,
THE MODERN STAGE. 301
in resenting inconsistency, mere edification, or idle
profanity. But the dramatist should be able, like the
poet, like the painter, like the musician, to go direct
before his Rhadamanthus, to be condemned or
approved, not in the ante-room, or in darkness, but in
the broad daylight of the open court of public opinion.
I know well what arguments may be adduced by
the friends and supporters of the Censor in support of
the theory that a censorship of the drama is necessary ;
they are the same which have been used, from one dark
age to another, to suppress free thought and free
speech, and to limit literary activity. But the
suppression of literature delayed, from century to
century, the spread of natural knowledge, and the
suppression of the drama (to compare small things
with great) is likely to postpone indefinitely
the resuscitation of our Elizabethan mummy, the
dramatic Muse which is not dead, but sleeping,
after all. What man of genius would care to write
poetry or fiction, if a gentleman in Court livery were
placed at his shoulder, pointing out the kind of
inspiration he thought expedient ? What painter
would care to produce pictures, what musician to
compose music, if his work were to be regulated by
the good taste of a special providence, salaried by
the State ? Such intervention would be the death
of poetry, painting, and music, as it has been the
death or syncope of the drama. But it is with
the professors of dramatic art themselves that the
remedy lies. The timidity of the old days, when the
actor was an outcast, still clings to them ; they are
acquiring literary culture, but they still lack spiritual
courage, so that we see every day the spectacle of
artists cowering before the bottled thunder of Little
Bethel, and feebly accepting the patronage which is
302 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
an insult in lieu of the homage which is a right. Let
the truth be uttered : that the Art which ^Eschylus
made religious, which Shakespeare made humane,
which Moliere made reformatory, must and shall be
free ; that her true place is not at the feet of Religion ,
but at her side sometimes even, during times of folly
and superstition, in the empyrean above her head.
Abolish the Lord Chamberlain, and we shall soon
have virile plays. Free the tied tongue of the stage,
and men of genius will soon teach it the divine speech
of poetry and passion. But until this thing is done,
until dramatists acquire the privileges and exercise
the functions of manhood, the prospects of a dramatic
revival, so fervently to be wished for, must be in-
definitely postponed.
NOTE. Since the production of Storm-beaten has come the
Lyceum production of Faust, in which religious forms and
expressions are freely and liberally used, and in which the
Devil himself is a chief character. I have not heard that the
Lord Chamberlain has remonstrated with Mr. Irving on the
" blasphemous " nature of his production, or has requested him
to cut out any of the Christian hymns. So that there is one
law for the Adelphi, and another for the Lyceum ; a sanction
for Goethe, and no sanction at all for the contemporary
dramatist. R. B.
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.
i.
A NOTE ON MILE ZOLA.
(1886.)
As one grows older, one wonders less at the pro-
verbial philosophy of contemporary criticism. While
the Saturday Review still exists, though toothless
and moribund, a journalistic Dogberry proclaiming
the watches of the literary night to a generation still
unaware of sunrise and of Mr. Spencer, there will
always be a class of readers which takes its opinions
on faith and eagerly echoes the anathemas pronounced
by senile watchmen against " one Deformed " and
other disturbers of the public peace. We smile at
Dogberry, though it is sad to reflect that never once,
from the beginning of his official career, has he done
a sane or a generous thing, has he recognised a
new thought or a rising reputation, has he ceased
to regard all men of genius as malefactors, and all
mediocrities as men of genius. Among the great
men of our time who are oftenest " run in " by the
old-fashioned literary watch, perhaps the most phleg-
matic of all is 6mile Zola. Despite a chorus of un-
instructed abuse he goes doggedly on his way, and
304 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
even when hauled up before the magistrates he con-
tinues to assert his right of private judgment and
his complete contempt for critical authority. I con-
fess that I admire this stolid attitude, so different to
that of most revolutionaries. I confess that I like
to see this sublime contempt for Dogberry and
Verges. Poor Thackeray was irritated when told by
the watch that he was "no gentleman. 1 " Dickens
was actually angry when informed on the same
authority that his " Tale of Two Cities " was idle
rubbish. Nous avons changt tout cela. We are merely
amused when we hear the old cry, " This is your
charge : you shall comprehend all vagrom men ; you
are to bid any man stand, in the Prince's name."
It is only when men who should be wiser join in the
persecution that one's amusement turns into indig-
nation. For my own part I am amazed as well as in-
dignant when Mr. R. L. Stevenson, who ought to know
better, accuses the author of " Une Page d'Amour"
of being possessed by " erotic madness ! " Then I
smile again, seeing the good Mr. Howells from
Boston, gentle apostle of man-millinery, interpose for
the defence, and generously affirm that Zola, though
a sad offender against good taste, is a severe moralist,
and, at the same time, the cleverest Frenchman
alive !
The fact is, Zola is to literature what Schopenhauer
is to philosophy the preacher of a creed of utter
despair. No living writer has a stronger and purer
sense of the beauty of moral goodness ; no living
man finds so little goodness in the world to awaken
his faith or enlarge his hope. But if Zola is " erotic,"
then a demonstrator of morbid anatomy is a sensualist,
and a human physiologist is a person of unclean pro-
.clivities. True enough, he is conscious, even morbidly
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 305
conscious, of the great part which the god Priapus
plays in modern life, more especially in those phases
of life which are Parisian. Everywhere he diagnoses
disease :
Disease and Anguish walking hand in hand
The downward slope to death !
Naturally, too, he is a little unhealthy, for the stench
of the dissecting-room does not conduce to vigour.
But of all men that wield a pen, he is perhaps the
least " erotic/' A little " mad " he may be, for,
after all, some of us hold pessimism to be scarcely
short of madness. His hatred of sensuality, his
loathing of vice in all its forms, amounts to a passion.
He finds, with Schopenhauer, that human nature is
corrupt to the very core, but he always remembers,
with Schopenhauer, that self-sacrifice and spiritual
love, where they exist, are infinitely beautiful and
noble. To him, the apples of the Hesperides are
merest Dead Sea fruit. To him the god Eros is a
corpse, smelling of corruption. To him, nevertheless,
purity is a fact the one grain of salt sprinkled on
a putrefying world. As I write, the face of little
Jeanne, gazing out of " Une Page d'Amour," rebukes
the lie which brands its creator as infamous and
unclean ; but even over this divine child bends the
Nemesis of Sin, cruel, piteous, and hideous the same
Nemesis that leant over the disease-disfigured coun-
tenance of Nana the courtesan, and over the figure of
the old woman, paralysed in her chair, whose son
married Therese Raquin. " Erotic," quotha ! Spirits
of mutual admiration, genial souls of the Savile Club,
is this your indictment ? Come, Messires Dogberry
and Verges, arrest this rogue " Deformed," and haul
him up for judgment; then, when Zola is sentenced
to his fourteen days, go and seize Pasteur in his
x
306 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
laboratory, suppress Huxley, stifle the physiologist
and the philosopher as offenders against public
decency, and put Herbert Spencer into the stocks !
Grim moralist and stern physiologist as he is, and
as such supremely justified, Zola is nevertheless all
wrong. To say that, however, is neither to impute
his motive nor to deny his genius. Like all French-
men, he is possessed by one overmastering ethical
notion, which causes him to sermonise ad nauseam.
Even the French Empire, with all its faults, was
something more than a subject for morbid anatomy.
A man may die of syphilitic caries, yet be a living
soul. In reading Zola, sane as he is, one has to hold
one's nose ; whereas life, real life, smells wholesome,
and it is a very phenomenal city whose existence can
only be determined by its lupanars and its sewers.
Large as is the part which sensualism plays in life,
and which it must play as long as the beast's brain
subsists within the man's, it is merely a minor part
after all. To Schopenhauer, the singing of the little
birds was only one among many signs of their agony;
to Zola, the music even of human love is a discord,
Bending in despair. Yet only a pessimist believes
that the birds are utterly miserable, and that human
creatures are completely vile or unhappy. So that,
when all is said and done, the charge against Zola
amounts to this that he is a pessimist, and that
pessimism is superficially impertinent and funda-
mentally wrong. As it is.
The subject of Zola's intellectual weakness is too
long to discuss in a mere note, but it may be easily
grasped by the reader who will refer to Zola's own
notes on Proudhon. Proudhon is the philosopher
who solves great social and literary problems by the
power of generalisation. Zola is the artist who can-
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 307
not generalise. " Une oeuvre d'art est un coin de
la creation vu a travers un temperament/' says the
artist ; attempting a minor definition which in no
way invalidates the philosopher's larger generalisation
that temperaments and works of art are the products
not merely of individuals, but of the collective
temperament of nations and of humanity. Naturally,
Zola misconceives Proudhon altogether. Great men,
he thinks, are men who permit themselves to possess
genius without " consulting humanity," who say what
they have in their " entrails " (sic), and not what lies
in the entrails of their " imbecile contemporaries/'
But perhaps no man that ever lived was ever so
representative of his contemporaries, " imbecile" or
otherwise, as Emile Zola. He is a Frenchman of the
Empire, seeing the world a travers the temperaments
of all his fellow Frenchmen not seeing it clearly,
not seeing it whole, not seeing anything in it but
infinite corruption and infinite despair. " En un mot,
je suis diametralement oppose a Proudhon : il veut
que 1'art soit le produit de la nation ; j'exige qu'il soit
le produit de Tindividu ! " But that Proudhon is
right, Zola himself offers the strongest literary
demonstration.
Despite all this, Zola is an earnest man and a
strong writer, and I am glad to be able to say even
these few words in his justification.
X 2
308 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
II.
CHARLES READE.
A SOUVENIR.
IT was in the summer of 1876 that I first made the
acquaintance of Charles Reade, at a little dinner
given by Mr. John Coleman, then manager of the
Queen's Theatre. The occasion was one especially
interesting to me, as the great novelist (for great and
in some respects unparalleled he will be found to be,
when the time for his due appraisement comes) had
expressed a desire to meet my sister-in-law, who,
though still a very young girl in her teens, had risen
into sudden distinction by the publication of the
( ' Queen of Connaught " a work attributed in
several quarters to Mr. Reade himself. Pleasant
beyond measure was that night's meeting ; pleasanter
still the friendly intimacy which followed it, and
lasted for years ; for of all the many distinguished
men that I have met, Charles Reade, when you knew
him thoroughly, was one of the gentlest, sincerest,
and most sympathetic. With the intellectual strength
and bodily height of an Anak, he possessed the
quiddity and animal spirits of Tom Thumb. He
was learned, but wore his wisdom lightly, as became
a true English gentleman of the old school. His
manners had the stateliness of the last generation,
such manners as I had known in the scholar Peacock,
himself a prince of tale-tellers ; and, to women
especially, he had the grace and gallantry of the
good old band of literary knights. Yet with all his
courtly dignity he was as frank-hearted as a boy, and
utterly without pretence. What struck me at once
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 309
in him was his supreme veracity. Above all shams
and pretences, he talked only of what he knew ; and
his knowledge, though limited in range, was large
and memorable. At the period of our first acquain-
tance he was living at Albert Gate, with the bright
and genial Mrs. Seymour as his devoted friend and
housekeeper ; and there, surrounded by his books
of wonderful memoranda, he was ever happy to hold
simple wassail with the few friends he loved. Gastro-
nomically, his tastes were juvenile, and his table was
generally heaped with sweets and fruits. A magnifi-
cent whist and chess player, he would condescend to
spend whole evenings at the primitive game of
" squales." In these and all other respects, he was
the least bookish, the least literary person that ever
used a pen ; indeed, if the truth must be told, his
love for merely literary people was small, and he was
consequently above all literary affectations. His
keen insight went straight into a man's real acquire-
ments and real experience, apart from verbal or
artistic clothing, and he was ever illustrating in
practice the potent injunction of Goethe
Greift nur hinein in's voile Menschenleben !
Ein jeder lebt's, nicht vielen ist's bekannt,
Und wo ihr's packt, da ist's interessant !
His sympathy was for the living world, not for the
world of mere ideas ; and as his sympathy so was his
religion not a troubled, problem-haunted, querulous
questioning of truths unrealised and unrealisable, but
a simple, unpretending, humble, and faithful acqui-
escence in those divine laws which are written in the
pages of Nature and on the human heart.
He read few books, and abominated fine writing.
I well remember his impatience when, taking up a
novel of Ouida, and being pestered with a certain
3io A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
abominable iteration about " an Ariadne," he sent the
book flying across the room before he had reached
the end of the first chapter. For the literature of
pure imagination he cared little or nothing, perhaps
not quite enough. Among the letters of his in my
possession is one in which, referring to certain con-
versations we had had on the subject of poetry, he
utters the following dicta, following them up with the
charming playfulness which was his most pleasant
characteristic :
" Even Tennyson, to my mind," he says, " is only
a prince of poetasters * (!). I think with the ancients,
in whose view the Poetae Majores were versifiers, who
could tell a great story in great verse and adorn it
with great speeches and fine descriptions ; and the
Poetae Minores were versifiers who could do all the
rest just as well, but could not tell a great story. In
short, I look on poetry as fiction with the music of
words. But, divorced from fiction, I do not much
value the verbal faculty, nor the verbal music. And
I believe this is the popular instinct, too, and that a
musical story-teller would achieve an incredible popu-
larity. RtjUchisses-y ! Would have gone in for this
myself long ago, but can only write doggerel.
Example :
" You and Miss Jay
Hope to see my play :
I hope so too.
Because the day
You see my play,
I shall see you I
" Vive la pot sic I
" Yours ever very truly,
" READE."
* This remark must be taken cum grano salis, and only in
reference to the argument which follows. Reade was a warm
admirer of the poet Laureate. R. B.
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 3"
Here I may appropriately refer to his habit of signing
only with his surname those letters which he reserved
for intimate friends. In all his personal relations he
was completely frank, charming, and gay-hearted.
On the back of a photograph before me, taken at
Margate, whither he had gone for the benefit of his
health, he wrote as follows :
"DEAR Miss JAY,
" I enclose the benevolent Imbecile you say you require.
It serves you right for not coming down to see me !
" C. R."
" All previous attempts were solidified vinegar. This is the
reaction, no doubt ! "
This was written not long before he encountered
the great trouble of his later life, when the good and
gracious friend who had made his home delightful to
all who knew him was suddenly and cruelly taken
away. " Seymour/' as he used to call her very often,
possessed much of his own fine frankness of character,
and knew and loved him to the last with beautiful
friendship and devotion. From the blow of her loss
he never quite rallied. His grief was pitiful to see,
in so strong a man ; but from that moment forward
he turned his thoughts heavenward, accepting with
noble simplicity and humility the full promise of the
Christian faith. Fortunately, I think, for him, his
intellect had never been speculative in the religious
direction; he possessed the wisdom which to so many
nowadays is foolishness, and was able, as an old man,
to become as a little child.
Any personal recollections of Charles Reade
would be incomplete without some reference to his
connection with the stage. From first to last he
followed, with eager pertinacity, the will-o'-the-wisp
of theatrical fame, descending into the arena to fight
312 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
with wild beasts among men who, neither in man-
hood nor in genius, had any right to be called his
equals. Only in his latter days did he reap much
pecuniary reward from the theatre, while to the
very last he received scant respect from the ephemeral
criticism of the day. But his love for the stage
amounted to a passion, and more than once have I
heard him say that he would rather earn five hundred
pounds a year by writing plays than five thousand
by writing novels. Unfortunately, he came upon a
period when the dramatic art is without honour, and
when the only standard of its success is commercial,
and in his eagerness to meet halfway an uninstructed
public, he had to call in the aid of the low comedian
and the master carpenter. But if any reader would
perceive how good work in this kind differs from bad,
let him compare the literary workmanship of a play
like Never Too Late to Mend or The Wandering
Heir with any printed specimen of what is called in
America the tf nailed-up " drama, or set side by side
with that by Charles Reade any other translation
or adaptation of the French piece known as The
Courier of Lyons. Even in his worst plays Charles
Reade was a master of style.
Far away from and above his achievements in the
acting drama stand the works by which my dear and
lamented friend first made his reputation. The time
is not yet ripe for a fit judgment on these works ; but
I am quite certain that if a poll of living novelists
were taken it would be found that a large majority
of them recognise Charles Reade, as Walter Besant
some time ago nobly and fearlessly recognised him>
as their Master. Yet I read in a newspaper
the other day that Trollope considered Reade
" almost a genius/' and I am informed by the
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 3*3
Observer that "to speak of the author of 'Never
Too Late to Mend ' and * Hard Cash ' as a man
of genius would be an exaggeration." " O saeclum
insipiens et inficetum ! " Trollope, whose art was
the art of Count Smorltork//'^ the bathos of vestry -
dom, Trollope, who could write a book about the
West Indies without putting into it one poetical
thought or line, passes judgment on a literary giant
and pronounces him a genius "almost" ! The Sunday
newspaper, which would doubtless canonise the
author of "John Inglesant," measures this Colossus,
and finds him of "a tall man's height no more"!
Some of us, on the other hand, who are not to be
daunted by bogus reputations, or to be awed by the
idiocy of approven literary godhead, hold to our first
faith that one man alone in our generation mastered
the great craft of Homeric story-telling, and that this
same man has created for us a type of womanhood
which will live like flesh and blood when the heroines
of Thackeray, Dickens, and George Eliot are relegated
to the old curiosity shop of sawdust dolls. For my
own part, I would rather have written " The Cloister
and the Hearth " than half-a-dozen " Romolas," and
I would rather have been Charles Reade, great,
neglected, and misunderstood in his generation, than
the pretentious and pedagogic Talent which earned
the tinsel crown of contemporary homage, to be
speedily dethroned, and, in the good time that is
coming for Genius, justly forgotten.
314 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
III.
GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE.
THE new life of George Eliot, by her last husband,
Mr. Cross, has been justly praised by some English
journals as a model of book-making, consisting, as
it does, almost entirely of the lady's own letters,
slightly and somewhat loosely linked together ; but
it is, none the less, about as dreary and lugubrious a
work as men have met with during the last decade.
Without any bold unveiling of the Sibyl, we are
made to feel, not for the first time of late, that this
biographical habilitation or rehabilitation of dead
men and women, is, at best, an unfortunate business;
for, though George Eliot is invoked to tell her own
story, and tells it fairly well, it all amounts to nothing
after all. We get few hints of honest human thought,
not to speak of flesh and blood ; we find that the
Sibyl is still posing, and will not let us catch one
glimpse of her real face. This statement may seem
extraordinary to readers who are content to accept as
self-revelation a good deal of feminine gossip, much
talk about receipts and sales, some remarks on gang-
lionic cells, and a few quasi-editorial opinions on the
advantages of beneficence. But Posterity, if it
should interest itself very much on the subject
which I take leave to doubt will want something
more ; something such as comes to us, with almost
Biblical solemnity, in the terribly pathetic story of
poor Carlyle.
When I met George Eliot first, over twenty years
ago, she was living, with her husband, George Henry
Lewes, at the Priory, St. John's Wood, London, and
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 315
was then a tall, slight, not ungraceful woman, in the
prime of life. As every one knows, she had a
great reputation, which she had already begun to
discount, however, by the production of " poetry."
Every art and device of the experienced litterateur
had been used by Lewes, a thorough man of the
world, to make that reputation mysterious and sibyl-
line; so that an unanimous press and a confiding
public were leagued together in the faith that George
Eliot spoke with authority, and not as the scribes.
Seldom do works of art satisfy both the instructed
and the uninstructed classes ; yet " Adam Bede " and
" Silas Marner " did so, and the author received the
daily assurance of completed fame. A few, like my-
self, failed to recognise, in some of the author's works,
the puissant touch which conveys literary immortality,
while discovering in them, amidst so much that was
admirable and exquisitely expressed, a distressing
taint of intellectual conventionality, foreign to the
nature of truly creative genius. What I saw of
George Eliot personally confirmed me in my im-
pression that the sibylline business, both publicly
and privately, had been overdone. Naturally pas-
sionate, aggressive, sceptical yet impulsive, she had
sat so long upon the tripod that her genius had
become frozen at the fountain, and her character was
veneered over with the self-pride of insight ; so that,
with all her apprehensiveness, she lacked sympathy,
and with all her moral enthusiasm, she was spiritually
cold. The life she led was not one favourable to free-
dom of character. She saw few people, and those few
were Sibyl-worshippers ; her sex debarred her from
the knowledge of at least two-thirds of humanity ;
her literary prosperity was untroubled by miscon-
ceptions or harsh criticisms ; so it is little wonder
316 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
that life at last became for her an ingenious physio-
logical puzzle, to be pieced together with the assist-
ance of M. Comte and Mr. Harrison. The result,
I believe, is recorded in literary productions which,
with all their brilliancy and subtlety, with all their
friendliness of outlook, with all their well-weighed
catholicity, became at last, in the worst sense,
mechanical, and exchanged for lineaments of flesh
and blood the deathly stare and ghastly ineffectiveness
of a " waxwork " * exhibition.
A characteristic passage in these letters is the
one where George Eliot describes her interest in
Wallace's " Malayan Archipelago," and her particular
delight in the record of the birth and babyhood of
the young orang-outang. Here her sympathy with
popular science warmly asserted itself, and, indeed,
she was always most thoroughly at home in welcom-
ing any suggestion which threw discredit on the
superhuman pretensions of human nature. Very
early in her career she had laid the spectre of " An-
thropomorphism," and discovered that Comte's
Grand fLtre was a more reasonable person than the
Pater Noster of popular superstition. Forthwith it
seems to have occurred to her that human types, pos-
sessing all the peculiarities of living beings, might
be created for the world by a sort of intellectual evo-
lution. But alas ! the world has discovered by this
time that these types, so scientifically fashioned, were
homunculi and simulacra, not human creatures. No
such process could have given us Tom and Maggie
Tulliver, or Mrs. Poyser, or even Hetty Sorrel ; but
it gave us Romola and Daniel Deronda, and Dorothea
Brooke, and the skittish marionette, Fedalma. It is
* This epithet of " waxwork " was very happily applied by
Mr. Swinburne to " Daniel Deronda."
FLOTSAM AND JETSA.\f. 317
a pity, therefore, that George Eliot ever learned the
vocabulary of science, or heard anything, even at
second hand, about ganglionic cells. The radical
defect of her mind, or rather of her education, is to
be seen in her poetry. Striking novels may be
constructed, as we have seen, with much cleverness
and little inspiration ; but great poems are all
inspiration, from the first flush of thought to the
last consecrating touch of form. Not even a con-
temporary critic would be rash enough to affirm that
George Eliot's poems are much superior to poetic
exercises. In only one of them, the series of sonnets
called "Brother and Sister/' is there either the
rhyming instinct or the pathetic fallacy. In all she
wrote, the editorial leaven is predominant. One
instance out of many, serves to illustrate her radical
want of imagination. Take, then, the opening lines
of the " Legend of Jubal " :
When Cain was driven from Jehovah's land
He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand
Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings
Save pure field-fruits, as aromatic things,
To feed the subtler sense of frames divine
That lived on fragrance for their food or wine :
Wild, joyous gods, who winked at faults and folly,
And could be pitiful and melancholy.
He never had a doubt that such gods were.
He looked within and saw them mirrored there.
Some think he came at last to Tartary,
And some to Ind, etc.
Passing over the clumsiness of touch in the fourth
line, there is not much fault to be found with the
verses until we reach the fifth couplet, when the
whole imagery of the poem falls asunder to show the
writer's commonplace intellectuality. A poet, having
just called up the vision of " wild, joyous gods,"
could never have paused to explain that Jubal had
318 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
no doubt of their existence, because he saw them
mirrored in his inner consciousness. Such a sugges-
tion, at such a moment, is of the inmost nature of
unbelief, of the very essence of prose. And what we
discover here we discover everywhere in the Sibyl's
later writings ; keen intelligence and culture are
predominant, and literary faith is wanting. Quite
different is the impression gained on a fresh perusal
of "Adam Bede," or the first volume of " Mill on the
Floss," or, best of all, the " Scenes of Clerical Life."
Here the emotion is almost poetical, and the insight
quite delightful. The beautiful note, first struck in
"Amos Barton," died away into a discord with the
beginning of " Romola." A narrow but exquisite
experience had been exhausted, and the period of
manufacture had begun. George Eliot's books were
full to the last of wise and clever things, her style to
the end was that of honest workmanship, as of one
who reverenced her art ; but the Heaven that lay
around her literary infancy seemed further and
further off as her knowledge widened. Her writings
reflected, not the lover of humanity, but the
superior person. Pure literature is a democracy,
however, where no superior persons are tolerated.
Hence it is that the most noteworthy woman of this
generation, a woman of unexampled cleverness and
veracity,, has left works which, I believe, will be
speedily forgotten, while " Jane Eyre," and " Casa
Guidi Windows," and the " Cry of the Children," will
be remembered.
Indeed, when all is said and done, George Eliot
was, not literally and technically, but essentially, a
Positivist ; and Positivism is not a creed out of which
great imaginative literature is .ever likely to spring.
Such a Pantheon as Comte suggested, consisting of
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 319
the wise men of the world, and presiding over a
cosmos where the rapture of inspiration is exchanged
for the miseries of evolution, is a poor exchange for
the interregnum of the old gods of fable. It may
produce half-hearted singers, but no poets; prodigious
talents, but no geniuses of what Goethe called
" daimonic " power. I am far from deprecating the
influence of Science on works of art; indeed, I believe
that out of the union of Science and Religion will
issue, sooner or later, the supremest literature this
world has ever known. But George Eliot was too
much occupied with crude contemporary discoveries
to grasp the full issues of human life and death. She
studied, not on an observatory, but in a laboratory ;
from conception and creation she turned to dissection
and vivisection. Her influence was enormous for the
time being, precisely because she appealed to an
enormous public exercised in the same way, just
waking up to the awful discovery that the moon was,
not Diana, but green cheese, or magnesium. Of
course we have no concern with a writer's creed, save
in so far as it determines the quality of workmanship.
In George Eliot's case, it changed what had originally
been natural, fresh, and charming, into something
tiresome, platitudinarian, rectangular. She began as
an enthusiast, and ended as a bigot. The full extent
of this change may be ascertained by contrasting her
early letters, written before success came to her, with the
later epistles, written when she was firmly fixed upon the
Sibyl's tripod. Even when she was taster in ordinary
to the propagandist publisher, Mr. John Chapman,
she had not begun to take the literature of revolt too
seriously ; indeed, she knew well that it meant " high
jinks" generally, and had doubtful credentials ; but
when it changed its machinery, and became the
320 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
literature of a scientific priesthood, she was mastered
by its novel pretensions, and went right over to it, as
a ripe convert and eager auxiliary. From that time
forth, her genius degenerated. As I have said, the
life she led with George Lewes was not favourable to
breadth of sympathy, or knowledge of the living
world. They were a retired couple, generally in
low health ; and their visitors consisted chiefly of
men of the new school e.g.. Bastian, Harrison, etc.
George Eliot's female acquaintances might have been
counted upon the ringers of one hand. I have been
at a gathering in the Priory where there were twenty
or thirty gentlemen, and only one lady, the hostess
herself. Now, George Eliot stood much in need of
feminine companionship ; she had a woman's heart
under all her learning, and was capable of interesting
herself even in feminine frivolities ; and so there was
something pathetic in her loneliness. Women, of
course, tried to thrust themselves upon her, persons
of the strong-minded sort, I imagine; but she rejected
all such impertinent overtures. On one occasion, when
she had been pestered by the solicitations of some
more than usually pertinacious stranger, I heard her
exclaim against the folly of troubling one's self to
meet " persons with whom one has no sympathy in
common." " Don't you agree with me?" she asked,
looking at me with her grave, thoughtful eyes. I
answered her in the negative, giving it as my humble
impression that all human beings, however morally
and intellectually different, had something in common
with each other, and that, in any case, it was specially
beneficial for literary people to encounter persons with
no interest in literature, from whom they might at
least discover how small a part mere literature played,
after all, on this wonderful and many-featured planet.
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 321
Few works of permanent literary value obtain
recognition from the criticism that is contemporary,
and if George Eliot had been different, she would
never have achieved her great popularity. Luckily,
in all matters of knowledge, sympathy, and religion,
she was well abreast of her time. She was content
with the scientific solution of the problem of exist-
ence, and one of the best bits of verse she ever
wrote was her prayer to join the "choir invisible,"
who, in the Comtean conception, make music to the
great march of Humanity. Her first writings gave
promise of a great writer, but, viewed coldly and
dispassionately now y they do not justify the claim of
her admirers that even her best work will be a
permanent possession. Yet she was a great woman,
though a genius manqiu', a striking and commanding
contemporary figure, if not a spirit whose labours
may defy oblivion. She will be long remembered
and always deeply respected ; but her fatal mistake
was that of writing as if the last words of wisdom had
been spoken. Modern science is neither a hideous
farce, as some theologians imagine, nor a thing to be
taken, as George Eliot took it, too seriously. It is
merely an interesting chapter in the complex
philosophy of Human Life.
322 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
IV.
EPICTETUS*
THE translation of Epictetus, executed by a gentle-
man who commanded a troop of black soldiers during
the great American campaign, is doubtless popular in
America, where the fiery breath of war and the wild
winds of political change have rapidly dissipated the
mists and fogs of transcendentalism, and converted a
nation of speculators into a nation of men. The
doctrine of fortitude, first growled by Zeno and his
disciples at the pigs in the sty of Epicurus, and
later still shaken like a lion's mane in the faces of pale
emperors with unlimited control over human life a
creed somewhat narrow and practical, allied to the
kind of speculation which forms bulwarks against
contradiction and christens them moral principles,
and expressed in a dialectic terminology as sharp
as the whizzing of a cannon-ball a rule of conduct
which makes a fetish of individual "prosperity"
(cvpoia) and sticks it full of pins will answer the
requirements of the typical Yankee, and even satisfy
some of the cravings of the Concord school of philo-
sophers. The negro, too, inhaling his new liberty,
may glance with pleasure over pages which prove
that there was nothing in a state of slavery incon-
sistent with high philosophic culture ; and that all
one has to do in order to secure the cvpoia (or " pump-
kin," according to Carlyle) is to fold the hands on the
bosom, look calm, and smile at the Infinite. For the
* "The Works of Epictetus." A Translation from the
Greek, based on that of Elizabeth Carter. By Thomas Went-
worth Higginson. Boston : Little, Brown, & Co.
AND JETSAM. 323
rest, the "Discourses" of Kpictetus are plc.is.int and
easy reading for those who like the dialectic method,
and they contain a good deal that is wise and
eternal. I do not go the extreme length, with Mr.
Higginson, of asserting that I am acquainted with
no book so replete with high conceptions of the
Deity and noble aims for man, or in which the laws
of retribution are more grandly stated, with less
of merely childish bribery or threatening. So far as
I can perceive, Epictetus's devotion to the noblest
aim of man, that of religious inquiry, is in the inverse
ratio to his assumption of the possibility of personal
virtue. And what on earth does Mr. Higginson
mean by the " laws of retribution " ? And what
philosophic connection have such laws with " bribery "
or "threatening"? It would have been better to let
Epictetus speak for himself than saddle him with
such sort of praise especially as he is made, in this
version, to speak very well indeed. The version, it is
true, is not altogether faultless, and is perhaps, on
the whole, inferior to that of Miss Carter in fidelity
and force. The rendering of " office " for dpxal is
better than Miss Carter's "command," and there are
many similar instances of -minute care ; but " what is
right and what is wrong," for rl poi ee<m Kal ri /ioi ov*
e&a-Tiv, though correct in the strict signification of the
English words as explained by Home Tooke, does
not convey to ordinary readers the sense of " what is
and what is not permitted to me/' Again, " pheno-
mena" is improperly given as the equivalent for
^avraa-im, which looks all the more unpardonable when
we find cm fyavravia ei, KOI ov Trdvrvs TO <f)aiv6fifvov f Correctly
translated into, " you are but a semblance, and by no
means the real thing." Yet, to do Mr. Higginson
justice, in more than one instance, where he is not
Y 2
324 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
quite so literal, he is somewhat wiser.
2oKpar?7, KCU 'tSe auroi' trvy Karaite ijj,evov 'AAKt/3iaS/7, /cat
avroO T^ topaz/. Here Miss Carter had the boldness to
translate literally, while Mr. Higginson converts
the horrible 'AXiwjStafy into the harmless " his beloved,"
and thus saves his readers from the merest shiver of
a repugnance which is felt too frequently in reading
the heathen philosophers.
And Epictetus, in spite of all Mr. Higginson may
say to the contrary, was as very a heathen as ever
set up school in Rome a fine, rough, self-sufficient
type of heathen, practical and vaguely sceptical, even
in those creeping moments when the breath felt stale,
and the clouds of fantasy fashioned themselves into
uncouth forms of Deity. It is in no religious mood
that he exclaims, in a sentence which, perhaps, is the
keystone of his whole philosophy, "Two rules we
should have always ready that there is nothing
good or evil save in the Will [eo> rfs irpocupco-e&s] ; and
that we are not to lead events, but to follow them."
He appears indeed to have held, with the earlier
Stoics, that there is one unoriginated, unchangeable,
and supreme God, but only such a God as bore the
same relation to the world as the human soul is sup-
posed to bear to the body, and whose power was
limited to the laws of materials out of which things
were originally fashioned. He utterly repudiated the
doctrine of Chance, and described events as just
sufficiently controlled by Law, or Fate, to allow of
the freedom of human action. The souls of men he
averred, paradoxically, to be parts of the essence of
Deity, or the soul of the world effusions, in a word,
as Spinoza held them to be, but perishable with the
body. The reward of goodness is goodness, of evil,
evil ; the bribe of heaven, or the threat of hell, as
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 325
Mr. Higginson would express it, is outside the circle
of his philosophy ; there is no Hades, no Acheron, no
Pyriphlegethon. The business of life concluded, man
is resolved into the four elements from which he
emanated incarnate, and has no further personal
existence. The prospects of felicity do not extend
beyond dissolution, but man may be glorious and
happy as a god in this world, enjoying perfect tran-
quillity of mind in many ways stretched on the
rack, beaten with the lash, or cut piecemeal to glut
the pale, bloodthirsty hunger of an emperor. The
philosopher, "when beaten, must love those who
beat him " a capital maxim, which Legree might
have inscribed on the flogging -post for the edification
of Uncle Tom. While holding life endurable under
any circumstances, the philosopher was, nevertheless,
not severe on suicide. True, Mr. Higginson states
that there is one special argument against suicide,
but that argument does not state that self-slaughter
is wrong, but that it is extremely contradictory and
unphilosophic in a man who counts the body as
nothing. Suffering, the Stoic said, is no real evil,
forgetting how Zeno, the father of the sect, hanged
himself when his finger ached.
Much of all this becomes intelligible when we
reflect that Epictetus speaks invariably in a fictitious
character, that of the ideal man, perfectly wise and
good. The " Discourses " are elaborate protests
against human error, and confidential assertions of
what ought to be. In more than one place the philo-
sopher candidly confesses his own imperfections.
" Believe me," he exclaims humbly, " I have not
quite yet the powers of a good man," adding that
such powers are of sure growth, but slow. Read in
this way, and by the light of history, the fantastic
326 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
fortitude prescribed in the " Discourses " seems noble
and dignified in the extreme.
Had Epictetus invariably held forth in his simpler
fashion, without attempting to launch out into the
more airy region of abstract metaphysics, he would
be more valuable as a teacher. Regarded as the
description of a practical ideal, many of his sayings
are, as we have suggested, true and eternal admirable
standards of perfection in human conduct. He seldom
or never talks enthusiastically ; there is little or no
fire in his composition. He has no high theological
insight, no white-heat thirst for spiritual food. The
nearest approach we find in the remains preserved
by Arrian to real grandeur of religious expression is
perhaps the following, ^vve^trrepov voei TOV Oeov, rj dvcnrvfL ;
but this is in all probability a spurious fragment. It
is not in such a mood that he conceived his golden
ideas of human conduct. His true mood was a house-
hold mood; he was ill at ease with a great concep-
tion, but at home with a sick mourner in an empty
house. Cant, humbug, and pretence of all sorts were
odious to him. He had a plain man's hate for tinsel.
Had he been placed under more modern lights, he
might have become a Calvinist ; for he had a low,
very low, idea of his fellows, and clear knowledge
how far the average man stood below his ideal man ;
but he would never have swung a censer. He had
much of the preacher in him, little of the philosopher^
and was quite hard enough in many of his moods to
accept a doctrine of downright damnation. It was clear
to him that God, or Zeus, or the Spirit of the World,
presided 'over a great deal of evil that the pure of
heart were few, and that the tyranny of circumstances
was very terrible and that the only compromise
possible with Zeus was to set up invulnerable laws of
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 327
private fortitude. On the whole, he conceived the
world was not worth living in, but stubborn will
might make it endurable to a philosopher. Socrates
was his great historical model, though he declined to
agree with Socrates on many subjects, notably the
subject of a future state. He was the toughest bit of
slave-flesh that ever power had to deal with. Strength
and force could not bind him, though they bound
Prometheus; for Epictetus was a commonplace
philosopher, no fire-filcher. What others did in
theory he did in practice. We read of no other such
Stoic in real life. Though many of the anecdotes
preserved concerning him are doubtless spurious,
there is enough in the bare skeleton of his life to
show that he was made of iron stuff, and enough
in the records of his disciples to convince us that his
influence upon those with whom he came into contact
was very extraordinary.
If we picture a deformed negro dwelling some-
where in South America while slavery still existed,
abused, contemned, beaten, yet managing in despite
of circumstances to persuade cultivated free people to
hearken humbly to his discourses on fate, free-will,
and private virtue, we form some idea of the position
of Epictetus. We first hear of him as the slave of
Epaphroditus, Nero's freed-man and Master of Re-
quests the same who assisted Nero to kill himself,
and was slaughtered by Domitian for having done
so. If report be true, the courtier was by no means
a gentle master. We have it on the authority of
Origen that when Epaphroditus put his leg to the
torture, Epictetus, already a Stoic, smiled, saying,
" You will certainly break my leg," which accordingly
happened, on which the slave continued, still smiling,
" Didn't I tell you, you would break it ? " However,
328 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
Simplicius in his commentary expressly states that
the lameness of Epictetus was owing to rheumatism.
How or when he became free is unknown, but it is
evident that by the time when the philosophers were
hounded from Rome by Domitian, he had already
gained considerable influence as a thinker. On the
issue of the decree which turned thin-clad wisdom
adrift, Epictetus retired to Nicopolis, and there
founded a school, carrying with him in all proba-
bility his whole property and stock-in-trade, a bed,
a pipkin, and an earthen lamp. Poor almost to star-
vation-point, a cripple, uncouth and sharp of speech,
he assured the numerous persons of distinction who
flocked to hear him talk that he was perfectly happy ;
expounded and illustrated, in fact, his whole principle
of human fortitude ; and taught that Arrian, soldier
and senator, to whom we are indebted for the preser-
vation of the " Discourses " and the " Manual." Prac-
tical and dogmatic, he, nevertheless, made his school
a fashionable lounging-place for the questioning
spirits of the unequally balanced Empire. He did
all his teaching by word of mouth ; he was no com-
poser ; but briskly wielding the club of dialectics,
he hammered hard truths into many an unwilling
conscience. Instead of flattering, he anatomised his
hearers mocked at those who came for mere idle
pleasure picked out their weaknesses with a grim
humour which is sometimes lost in the diffuse and
repetitive records of Arrian and earned, by the
sheer force of his practical example, unlimited influ-
ence as a portico philosopher. Now, for the first
time, men beheld a true Stoic one whose fortitude
no Caesar could bend, and who held unflinchingly by
the strength of an invincible will. He taught much
by illustration and anecdote, but his daily life was
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 329
the best illustration and anecdote of all. He was, if
we may use the word, a reformer. In the very centre
of an unhealthy social life, he stood like adamant,
erect, smiling, stainless, and indeed, if we mark
closely one or two passages in his writings, not
altogether ungentle. Perhaps, indeed, he used the
terminology of the Stoic school as that best suited
for purposes of practical reform, and would not have
gone so far in following the merely abstract principles
of that school, had he not feared to appear contra-
dictory. What men just then wanted, for purposes
of reform, was not a philosophic treatise, but a life ;
and Epictetus, with that view, gave up his life to
them. Under the strong light of our whiter civilisa-
tion, such a figure as his may appear rough and
rude; but picture the society of the Empire, think of
the thousand enormities practised in the name of
philosophy, contrast the life of Epictetus with the
vagaries and inconsistencies of men like Seneca, and
that human figure, uttering its doctrine of fixed prin-
ciples and a particular Providence connected with
the freedom of the will, seems noble and dignified
beyond all the fantasies of metaphysicians and all
the hair-splitting homunculi of the schools.
To the value of the records of Arrian many fine
thinkers have borne testimony. Marcus Antoninus
ranks Epictetus with Socrates, Aulus Gellius calls
him the greatest of the Stoics, Origen avers that his
writings have done more good than Plato's ; and
in more recent times, the very different tempers
of Pascal and Bishop Butler have found equal delight
in him. For my own part, while disagreeing with
many of his ideas, I. admit that his position as
a reformer rendered them necessary, and I believe
that the study of his precepts will be beneficial
330 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
even now. Few philosophers are easier reading.
The rough egoism, the absolute want of sympathy
with the movements of the mass of mankind, the im-
practicable elevation of individual will, is at all events
quite as wholesome as Carlyle's extravagancies of
hero-worship and Goethe's science of culture. It is
not by minds like that of Epictetus that the world
progresses, but it is by such minds that it is purified
at stationary periods ; and just now England is in a
stationary state, and America is pausing after action,
and ready to digest new ideas or old ones that are
eternal. Much good may the ghost of the old Stoic
do us all !
V.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE
PRINTER'S DEVIL.
THE Pall Mall Gazette, in an article called " The
Knife in Journalism/' quoted recently from a book
called " Oceana " some uncomplimentary passages
concerning Mr. Frederick Harrison and Mr. Robert
Buchanan ; for though Mr. J. A. Froude, the author
of the book, puts dashes in place of proper names,
there can be no doubt as to the identity of the
individuals so attacked. The Pall Mall Gazette
supplies the blanks, and goes on to say that Mr.
Froude's description of the plot of the " worst novel
he ever read " applies literally to the " New Abelard "
a palpable mistake in so correct a newspaper,
seeing that the book referred to is a story, by the
same author, called " Foxglove Manor."
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 331
Now, to be bracketed for condemnation along
with so earnest and high-minded a writer as Mr.
Harrison is so great a compliment, that I could be
well content to let Mr. Froude go stumping the Pacific
Islands without one word of protest, if the question
1 were a merely personal one. Mr. Froude at
the Antipodes is so much more harmless a figure
than Mr. Froude at Chelsea, that he might rail there
to his heart's content, without darkening my sun-
shine. But the fault he finds with me being that
I call him the " slipshod Nemesis," or mischief-
making and meddling literary lady, who destroyed
the reputation of the late Mr. Carlyle, I wish to
repeat, here as elsewhere, my opinion that Nemesis
in this instance did a service to society, and that, for
once in his literary career, Mr. Froude was, uncon-
sciously, veracious. Mr. Froude, wishing to know
"what manner of man did not admire Carlyle," studied
"Foxglove Manor/' was shocked at its plot and
scandalised at its morality. I, wishing to know
what manner of man it is that did admire Carlyle,
and think him the first of human beings, long ago
studied Mr. Froude, and was not at all astonished to
discover in him the "halting Fury" (as he himself
expresses it) who was to avenge human nature on the
worshipper of brute will and brute force. Ever since
I could read and think, Carlyle's teachings, or
preaching, or railings, however one chooses to term
them, have been my abomination. Twenty years
ago I said, as I say now, that the style was worthy of
the man, and that both were worthy the admiration
of a foolish and uninstructed generation as yet
unaware of Mr. Spencer. This, of course, is one of
many indications of what the Pall Mall Gazette
calls my " fatal bad taste."
332 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
At the same time, I would not have the public
think me blind to the infinite pity of Carlyle's
biography ; for even Mr. Froude's bungling could
not destroy that. Noble and beautiful is the lesson
that such a history teaches us ; far more noble and
beautiful, to my mind, than all the clamorous trash
about laborare est orare, than all the sham of what I
have christened the Gospel according to the Printer's
Devil. What I gather there is what every man
should learn that literary fame and hard literary
work are nothing, if the famous man and the worker,
while preaching self-reliance and self-abnegation, for-
gets those who love him and makes of his own house a
hell. The love or the hate of humanity begins at home,
and we are lost or redeemed by the prayers of those
near ones whom we, through love or hate, have made
happy or unhappy. That the true insight of self-
sanctifying affection came to Carlyle at last, we all
know now. It came to him when he was a feeble
old man, looking for a vanished face in the fire. It
never came to him when he was coarsely fulminating
against the suffering masses of mankind, drinking
tea with Lady Ashburton, and talking platitudes
about Work in the name of a God in whom he had
never even the glimmer of a living faith.
Doubtless, Work is a good thing ; but Carlyle
liked his work, was by instinct and habit a literary
worker, and found the whole business, in his un-
gracious way, pleasant. It would be sheer cant for
a busy linendraper or an active bricklayer to make
the welkin ring with praises of the dignity of linen-
draping and the nobility of laying bricks ; it is even
more insufferable cant for the literary man to sound
paeans about the self-sacrifice of making books.
Carlyle liked his work, got both fame and money
FLOTSAM AND JETS A.M. 333
for it, and was covetous of both. Posterity has now
to appraise, apart from all tall talk and atrabilarious
grumbling, what the work was worth. I believe that
posterity will decide with me that it was not worth
one solitary hour of domestic misconception, that,,
cast in the balance, it would all be outweighted by
one of Jane Welsh's secret tears. Carlyle's books,
indeed, possess all the worst qualities of the lower
transcendentalism. The Gospel according to the
Printer's Devil was wrought in scorn and bitterness
instead of love, and so its literary Messiah took the
lineaments of Goethe, and its Apocalypse has been
spoken at the gates of Paris by Bismarck. For my
own part, I would as soon frame my religion on the
scheme of Carlyle's choosing as I would base my
ideal of biography on the masterpiece of Mr. Froude..
Bogus reputations tumble down like houses of
sand. Simple truth and faithful love are things that
abide for ever. I respect Mr. Froude for his fidelity
to the king his bungling has dethroned, and when he
himself has lost his master's scolding trick, I will
cheerfully join with him in reverencing the ashes of
Thomas Carlyle.
VI.
"L'EXILEE" IN ENGLISH*
IN poetry as well as in personal ornament, filagree is.
sometimes very charming. The mere ghost of an
idea, set to tremulous music, appears more seductive
than a substantial reality of the imagination ; while a
* "L'Exile'e." By Francois Coppe'e. Done into English
verse by J. O. L. London : Kegan Paul.
334 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
bit of sentiment, slight in itself but capable of being
indefinitely beaten out, derives from its very slender-
ness a pathos which few can resist. A noticeable
member of the filagree school of poets is M. Francois
Coppee. Perhaps few writers, even of verse, ever
started with so small a capital. Beyond the gift of
verbal melody, which he certainly possesses in an
unusual degree, and a certain pensive sweetness of
mood, he possesses none of the stock-in-trade which
forms the natural prerogative of poets : little or
no shaping imagination, no great insight, no special
love of nature, no passion, and no power. Despite
all this, he uses his one advantage so admirably,
he fashions his filagree so prettily, that it would
be hard to deny him the name of poet. In what
is perhaps his most original and coherent work,
" Le Luthier de Cremone," a poem written for
the theatre and acted with no little success, he
fascinates attention by pure charm and simplicity of
manner; while in " Le Passant/' another contribution
to the stage, in which Mdlle. Agar created a most
witching impression, and Sarah Bernhardt played
with a certain weird power, he produces, with
materials even more slender, the same spiritualising
effect. He is, nevertheless, more like the shadow of
a singer than a real bard full of the knowledge and
tendencies of his time; and his faint little melodies
in the minor key win us like JEolian murmurs from
Shadow-land.
In " L'Exilee," perhaps his most popular poem,
or series of poems, M. Coppee passes from one
dim mood to another with the ease of a melancholy
spirit. Each poem is a little sigh, very human, yet
curiously insubstantial. The difficulty of translating
such pieces seemed to me insuperable, but the present
FLOTSAM A.\D JETSAM. 335
translator, with a singular felicity and lightness ot
touch, turns French into English filagree most delight-
fully. Only a lady, I should fancy, could have
done the work with such dexterity in a man's
coarse hand the little book would have been crushed
like the nestful of delicate eggs mentioned in " Espoir
timide" :
Chre enfant, qu'avant tout vos volontes soient faites !
Mais, comme on trouve un nid rempli d'ceufs de fauvettes,
Vous avez ramasse" mon cocur sur le chemin.
Si de 1'aneantir vous aviez le caprice,
Vous n'auriez qu'a fermer brusquement votre main,
Mais vous ne voudrez pas, j'en suis sur, qu'il perisse !
Here and there, of course, the necessity of faith-
fulness to the original causes awkward turns and
involutions, but this was inevitable. Only those who
have attempted similar work who have tried to
tackle Heine, for example know the difficulty of
producing such a translation as the following :
NATURE'S PITY.
In grief the senses grow more fine ;
Alas ! my darling's gone from me !
And in all Nature, I divine
There lurks a secret sympathy.
The noisy nests, I half believe,
Their bickerings for me restrain,
The flowers for my trouble grieve,
The stars feel pity for my pain.
The linnet almost seems ashamed
To sing aloud his joyous song ;
The lily knows her fragrance blamed,
The stars confess they do me wrong.
Within their sweetness I discern
Only my sweet, too long away !
And for her breath, eyes, voice, I yearn,
Like lily, star, and linnet's lay.
This is felicitous, without being positively faultless.
336 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
The original is a mere tender breathing, hardly a
lyric, lacking altogether the heart-crushing strength
of the wail in "Ye Banks and Braes." When Burns
takes Nature into his sympathy he does so like a
strong man yielding to overmastering tenderness ;
his utterance is a deep-chested groan more than a
sigh from the mouth. Even Tannahill is more robust
than M. Coppee. In poems like the one I have
quoted Coppee shows the influence of Heine more
than that of any other poet, except, perhaps,
Lamartine. The following piece is very much in
Heine's manner, simple and symbolic :
THE THREE BIRDS.
" Fly over corn-fields," I said to the dove,
" And beyond the meadow-land sweet with hay,
Pluck me the flower to win her love ! "
Said the dove " 'Tis too far away !"
And I said to the eagle " Mount with speed
On soaring pinion steal from the sky
The heavenly fire that perchance I need ! "
Said the eagle" It is too high ! "
Then I said to the vulture " This heart devour,
Borne down by its love and its sorrow's weight,
Spare only what has escaped the power ! "
Said the vulture" 'Tis too late ! "
" L'Exilee " consists of exactly twenty little poems
of this kind, all more or less sentimental, and having
for their subject the
Fair child with sweet eyes, O Norway's pale rose,
mentioned in the dedication. It is in fact merely the
chronicle of the attachment of the poet for a young
lady " seventeen years " his junior. Her charms are
thus explicitly described :
Oft musing, with hand on my eyes, I behold
Her lithe form and small head, with the pallid go la
Of her hair cut short on her forehead white.
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 337
Poet and lady meet on the banks of Lake Leman,
and after a formal introduction become acquainted.
The progress of the gentleman's feelings is minutely
described in the lyrics, which follow each other in
thoughtfully devised sequence. In the piece called
" Pre-existence " the poet fancies that they have
met before in some serene world.
And when in thine eyes I mirrored my own,
I knew we had lived in the ages long gone ;
And haunted since then by a nameless yearning,
To the heavens my dream is ever returning,
Our birthland there to discover I try ;
And soon as night mounts up the eastern sky
My glances seek in the glittering dome
The stars that may, whilom, have been our home !
Of all this love nothing serious comes, and the lady
passes gently away from the horizon of her admirer,
reflecting, perhaps, that it would require even more
sentiment than he possesses to get over the disparity
of " seventeen years." " Then pity me not, though
even I die ! " the poet cries in conclusion. One does
not feel much inclined to pity him. His grief is too
insubstantial to last, and one feels that he will get over
it. As for the poems, they are, as I have said, the
veriest filagree or gossamer ; yet as here translated,
they are very attractive. The hand that can do such
dainty work so well ought not to be idle in the
future, and I hope that it will give us more transla-
tions. To have succeeded at all with so faint a
singer as Coppde is a triumph of literary manipula-
tion ; but I should like the translator next time
to leave this thin ghost of a poet alone and to touch
something more robust.
338 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
VII.
THE CHURCH AND THE STAGE.
APROPOS of a poetical drama from my pen, on the
subject of Lady Jane Grey, I was once accused of
fostering religious dissension, by representing the
Roman Catholic Church in an unfavourable light.
Even a friendly foreign journal, I' Independance Beige,
in criticising the Nine Days Queen, observed : " Le
role de I'dveque de Winchester est sacrifie a 1'indig-
nation publique, qui, apres avoir applaudi 1'acteur,
accable de ses sifflets et de ses grognements le
personnage antipathique." I am quite willing to
admit that the nightly excitement, the applause
lavished on the sentiments of Lady Jane Grey, the
hisses and groans showered upon her persecutors, did
seem to warrant the hypothesis of religious bias ;
but this hypothesis is only superficial after all, and
the same sympathy and antipathy would follow the
victim and the persecutor under any circumstances,
quite apart from polemical predisposition. That
Lady Jane belongs to the " royal army of martyrs,"
I am aware ; I am aware, too, that Protestantism has
indirectly canonised her, in the face of its rejection
of all canonisation ; but the great heart of the public
yearns to her, not because she held certain dogmatic
views, but simply because she was a beautiful and
unfortunate human being, almost stainless in a stained
and cruel time. Popular audiences care as much about
Roman Catholicism and Protestantism as they do about
Conservatism and Liberalism. They want interesting
characters and dramatic situations ; and, given these,
they will sympathise as liberally with one side of the
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 339
question as with the other. For my own part, as the
author of this and other plays, I wish to record my
complete indifference to religious bias. I have taken
a few historical facts, which are indisputable, and
tried to make a picturesque and pathetic play out of
them ; voild tout. Personally, I feel as much an-
tipathy to Lady Jane Grey's bigotry as to that of
Mary Tudor. I know that both Catholics and
Protestants have torn each other asunder from time
immemorial, and that they would be doing so still
if modern science and modern free thought yes, and
modern dramatic art ! had not arisen, to light the
dark places of Acheronian controversy. Each side
has its martyrs, and all martyrs, all victims of a
tyrannical majority, appeal, by virtue of the pathetic
fallacy overtaking them, to the tenderness and solici-
tude of human nature.
But putting aside this partly personal question,
I wish to touch upon another point, of larger and
deeper interest to society at large. I wish to ask,
in the name of common sense, what reason there is
that the Stage should spare the Church, seeing that
the Church has been, and still remains, the im-
placable enemy of the Stage nay, of Art and Poetry
in general ? I wish to demand on what ground the
Drama is to hush up the monstrous crimes of Religion,
when Religion parades so libellously the veriest follies
of the Drama ? I know that it is the opinion of many
worthy people that dramatic art would be elevated
if it could once conquer the prejudice of the so-called
" religious " world ; and we have therefore witnessed,
in Church and Stage Guilds, at pious tea-drinkings,
where the theatre has been discussed apologetically,
a timid desire on the part of the theatrical profession
to conciliate the hereditary foes of the theatre. Were
z 2
340 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
I the mouthpiece of dramatic Art, however, I should
adopt a very different attitude. I should say to the
Church : " Before you point out the mote in our eyes,
remember the beam in your own. You tell us of
the evil that the stage has done, of its tendency to
corrupt society. Let us in return tell you what the
stage has not done.. It has never usurped God's
right over the consciences and the souls of men ;
it has never falsified documents, perverted facts,
prostituted itself in the lust for power ; though it has
a long catalogue of martyrs, it has had no Inquisition
and no official persecutor ; the record of its bad deeds
is not written in the blood of butchered women and
children ; it has never burned a Bruno or tortured a
Galileo ; it has never hunted down an Adrienne
Lecouvreur during life, and refused her decent burial
when dead ; it has never, in a word, based its success
or failure on the sorrow or the suffering of human
nature/' Then, if the Church retorted that these
things were only of the past, I should explain that, if
they are so, if religious intolerance is now reduced to
a minimum, thanks are due, not to the Church, but
to the Stage to that art whose immortal teachers,
from Shakespeare downwards, have exposed the false
perversions and pretensions of other- worldliness.
Tartuffe would still be a social possibility if the
Stage had not sent society its deliverer, in Moliere.
For the rest, I am simple enough to believe that there
is often more real religious teaching in the theatre
than in the conventicle. I can find a grander spiritual
lesson in such a presentation as Mr. Edwin Booth's
King Lear than in the columns of the Record or the
preachings of the Rev. Dr. Boanerges ; when I want
humour, or humorous pathos, I prefer Mr. Thomas
Thome to the Rev. Dr. Talmage ; and altogether, as
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 341
an unregencrate individual addicted to the excisable
liquor of dramatic performances, I hold with pious
Mr. Herbert :
A verse may catch him who a sermon flies,
And turn delight into a sacrifice !
Be that as it may, I for one shall certainly not avoid
a good subject, but shall rather utilise it the more
eagerly, because the presentation of certain historical
facts is damaging to the Church. When the ^son
of sacerdotalism is renewed by the elixir of liberalism,
when he casts off its old lendings and recognises the
divine brotherhood of all arts and all religions, then,
and not till then, it will be time to say : " Let the
dead bury its dead ; no good purpose can be served
now by recording the crimes and cruelties of the
past."
VIII.
THE AMERICAN SOCRATES.
I AM very grateful to the Pall Mall Gazette for
its kindly suggestion (Christmas, 1886) that English-
men should send a little tribute to Walt Whitman,
and it is satisfactory to know that there are some
Englishmen with the courage, in the face of good
and ill report, to express their sympathy with
the great American. As usual, when Whitman's
name is mentioned, it is strenuously denied that
Whitman is either neglected or unfortunate. " \Ve
like the old fellow," said Mr. E. C. Stedman to me in
New York, " and it is a great mistake to suppose he
is unappreciated." This sort of pitying patronising
342 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
praise may be heard everywhere. In the meantime,
Whitman gets about as much honest sympathy from
the literary class in America as Socrates did from the
elders of the city. He is simply outlawed. I have
no hesitation in saying that his little English band
of admirers, headed by Mr. William Rossetti, have
secured for him what little kindness he has received
from his own countrymen. And who wonders ?
When Mr. Stedman can devote his talents to an
ornithology of all the singing birds, putting the
tomtit in the eagle's cage, and seriously discussing
the chirps of the hedge-sparrow, when the ideals of
American criticism are Mr. Lowell, Mr. Howells, and
Harper's Magazine, when the reading public stupefies
itself with the dull Eastern narcotic imported by
Mr. Edward Fitzgerald, it is natural enough that
Walt Whitman should be let severely alone.
Fortunately, his worshippers out there are fit though
few. I speedily discovered when in America the
beneficent influence of his teachings on young men
and maidens of the coming generation.
In March, 1885, I was in Philadelphia, bringing
out a stupendous melodrama, and one day I found
myself crossing the crowded ferry to Camden, on a
visit to Walt Whitman. I soon found the house
where he dwelt, for every one knew it, and every face
brightened at the old man's name ; it is a humble
dwelling in a quiet street, very plainly furnished, but
not uncomfortable. When I appeared at the door,
which was opened to me by a middle-aged, motherly
woman, I caught a glimpse along the lobby of a
patriarchal figure seated in a back room, and I was
informed that Whitman was at dinner, but would
join me in the front parlour directly. He soon came
in, supported on a stick, and looking rather feeble,
FLOTSAM AND JETS. 343
his hair and beard long and white as snow, the skin
of his face crimson with the influence of sun and
wind. I need hardly say that I had a hearty welcome.
I had a lady with me, and Whitman was very eager
that she should partake of the feast on which he had
been regaling solid American pie, washed down
with the strongest of strong tea. Inquiry elicited
the fact that pie was the main pabulum of Whitman's
life. He eats no meat, or hardly any, and beyond a
little drop of whisky at bedtime, takes no stimulants.
Year after year he dwells alone, waited on by the
kindly woman who is at once his friend, his servant,
and his nurse. He goes out daily, seeking generally
the most crowded thoroughfares, his favourite amuse-
ment being to journey to and fro on the steam
ferryboat, making friends with all and sundry. For
Whitman's democracy is no mere literary sentiment,
but a living instinct. He loves all forms of humanity.
The movement of human life is divine music to him.
He is quite happy thus, complains of nothing, girns
at nothing, has a loving heart and an open hand for
all the world. He has very few books, and these few
are mostly gifts from the authors ; one from Mr.
J. A. Symonds had just come to him, with a respectful
inscription on the fly-leaf. I found him alert and
bright as any boy, greatly interested to hear about
English authors, especially Tennyson, and very
anxious to visit the old country before he died. He
took us up to his bedroom on the upper floor, showed
us the old arm-chair where he writes, and the old
trunks where he keeps his books and papers. All
about him was beautifully calm and "restful." I spoke
of his detractors, and his blue eye brightened merrily,
though he could not deny that some of them, and
especially Emerson, had used him cavalierly. But
344 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
what was all that to one who " heard the roar of the
ages " ? As might be expected, he cared little or
nothing about modern reputations. Wagner, perhaps,
was the only personality in Europe that greatly
attracted him, as to a sort of equal. But I should
convey a wrong impression if I suggested that he
was without sympathy for the ideas of his contem-
poraries ; on the contrary, every form of literary
activity is interesting to him. He simply perceives
as a philosopher the littleness of all literature in
relation to life. Benignly gentle and universally
tolerant, he sits apart, "holding no form of creed,
but contemplating all."
About his poverty there can be no question.
The pittance he gets from his books would not equal
the wage of an ordinary labourer; the rest of his
slender income is made up of loving gifts from people
almost as poor as himself. Of course he is not
"starving;" so long as pie and tea suffice for his
nourishment, he can subsist ! But his state is never-
theless, from our point of view, pitiful. His physical
health is frail, his days cannot be long in the sun-
shine, and his necessities are pressing enough to
make voluntary help acceptable. In a land of
millionaires, in a land of which he will one day be
known as the chief literary glory, he is almost
utterly neglected. Let there be no question about
this ; all denial of it is disingenuous and dishonest.
The literary class fights shy of him. The great
reading public have been told that he is infamously
immoral. There is nothing in his style to attract,
everything to repel, the natures which batten on
Longfellow's " Village Blacksmith " and the stories
and engravings in the American magazines. Some
years ago, when he was asked to contribute to a
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 345
leading American review, there was an outcry, and
the poor editor took fright. Countenance Whitman,
hankering, gross, mystical, nude, whom even the
good Emerson had abandoned ? The thing was an
outrage ! The editor accepted the warning, and any
future contribution was " declined with thanks."
Whitman told me this, with the merriest of twinkles
in his blue eye.
"I likes to be despised," said Uriah Heep. I
don't know that Whitman likes to be outlawed, but
he is fully alive to the prodigious humour of the
thing. Sympathy, on the other hand, is sweet to
him, as to every human being. He spoke with
loving gratitude of the Rossettis and his other
English friends.
When I shook hands with him there, at the door
of his little house in Camden, I scarcely realised the
great privilege that had been given to me that of
seeing face to face the wisest and noblest, the most truly
great, of all modern literary men. I hope yet, if I am
spared, to look upon him again, for well I know that
the earth holds no such another nature. Nor do I
write this with the wild hero-worship of a boy, but as
the calm, deliberate judgment of a man who is far
beyond all literary predilections or passions. In
Walt Whitman I see more than a mere maker of
poems, I see a personality worthy to rank even above
that of Socrates, akin even, though lower and far
distant, to that of Him who is considered, and
rightly, the first of men. I know that if that Other
were here, his reception in New England might be
very much the same. I know, too, that in some day
not so remote, humanity will wonder that men could
dwell side by side with this colossus, and not realise
his proportions. We have other poets, but we have
346 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
no other divine poet. We have a beautiful singer in
Tennyson, and some day it will be among Tennyson's
highest honours that he was once named kindly and
appreciatively by Whitman. When I think of that
gray head, gently bowing before the contempt of the
literary class in America, when I think that Boston
crowns Emerson and turns aside from the spirit
potent enough to create a hundred Emersons and
leave strength sufficient for the making of the whole
Bostonian cosmogony, from Lowell upwards, I for a
moment lose patience with a mighty nation ; but only
for a moment : the voice of my gentle master sounds
in my ear, and I am reminded that if he is great and
good, it is because he represents the greatness and
goodness of a free and noble people. He would
not be Walt Whitman, if he did not love his
contemporaries more, not less, for the ingratitude
and misconception of the Scribes and Pharisees who
have outlawed him. Praise, and fame, and money are
of course indifferent to him. He has spoken his
message, he has lived his life, and is content. But it
is we that honour and love him who are not content,
while the gospel of man-millinery is preached in
every magazine and every newspaper, and every
literary money-changer and poetaster has a stone
to throw at the patient old prophet of modern
Democracy.
FROM POPE TO TENNYSON.
IN the year 1733 that distinguished and prosperous
poet, Mr. Alexander Pope, wonder of his age and
envy of his contemporaries, published anonymously
the first epistle of his " Essay on Man " ; the second
and third epistles followed in rapid succession ; and,
finally, twelve months afterwards, the fourth was
published, with the poet's name. Pope had from the
first been suspected of the authorship of this truly
representative and " moral " poem, which was for ever
afterwards to bear his superscription. The fame of
the " Essay on Man," which, as everybody knows,
was a sort of poetical adumbration (and perversion)
of the views of Bolingbroke, was widespread and
instantaneous. Translations appeared in all lan-
guages, and disquisitions, in which the poet's views
were advocated or combated, were numerous in our
own. Certainly no poem could be more typical of
its period, or could represent better the elegant
fatalism of that literary and philosophical group of
which Pope was the mouthpiece and the ornament.
A century passed away. The reign of the distin-
guished Mr. Pope was forgotten, nay, almost mythical
in its incredibility from the point of view of modern
criticism.
Soles occidere, et redire possum,
but a literary sun, once thoroughly set, seldom com-
348 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
pletely re-emerges. Mr. Pope was dust, and we were
under the reign of Mr. Tennyson. Rather more than
a hundred years after the publication of the " Essay
on Man " appeared, also anonymously, " In Me-
moriam." The success of this fine poem, in which,
as we all know, an elegant literary scepticism is
lightly dashed with emotion and carefully spiced
with science, was also instantaneous. The work was
at once accepted as typical, and as representing the
finest tendencies of the time. More than that, it
became at once a text-book and a quotation-book.
It was just philosophic enough to suit all poetic needs,
and just poetic enough to please practical philo-
sophers. Its power of supplying apt and memor-
able passages at least equalled that of the " Essay
on Man." Our great-grandfathers, with quivering
nostrils and faltering voices, could proclaim in
measured cadence the wonders of that Deity,
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world ;
and could add, not without solemnity,
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan ;
The proper study of mankind is man.
We, no less fortunate, could speak gently of a God,
That God, which ever lives and moves,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves ;
and could add, with a touch of tenderness unknown
to our grandfathers, that
Merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.
But in either case the fountain of quotation was a
FROM POPE TO TENNYSOX. 349
poem representative, to use the slang expression, of
" the best culture of the time," and of the time's most
typical poet.
Doubtless in those days, as in these, there were
dissentient voices, voices of a minority which rejected
Mr. Pope's elegant fatalism as indignantly as it is
possible to reject the refined scepticism of Mr.
Tennyson. And in good truth the " Essay on Man "
is not much more stimulating than a page of the
renowned St. John himself. From the point of view
of the period, nevertheless, it was simply sublime,
and was accepted by its generation with a faith as
implicit as that which the immortal "poor Indian," in
its own pages, gave to his God. Its very defects
hastened this happy consummation. Delightful be-
yond measure were its endless twists and turns of a
tautological yet pliant metre ; exquisite were its
placid truisms, its fine platitudes, its fluent conserva-
tion of the popular sentiment. The age was one of
moral essays, and this was a moral essay without
an equal. Compared with the " Essay on Man/'
and judged by the standard of a later period, " In
Memoriam " is, from every point of view, vastly
superior; indeed, it is difficult to conceive a period
when its finest passages will fail, as Pope's finest
passages now fail, to awaken polite enthusiasm. As
a piece of workmanship it is singularly beautiful
almost too beautiful, in a certain sense, to be quite
satisfying as an intellectual stimulus. In the pro-
fundity of its philosophical insight, and the magnifi-
cence of its poetical images, moreover, it is as far
above Mr. Pope at his best as Pope himself was
above the herd he ridiculed in the " Dunciad." To
say so much, indeed, is only to say that it is the
peculiar outcome of a generation which was saturated
350 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
in its youth with the sublime mysticism of Coleridge
and Shelley, and which, a little later on, stood
wondering at the " faery tales of Science." But with
all this, and despite the charm of an incomparable lyric
light, it is quite too fine a piece of work to answer our
present speculative needs. Its grief is not moving
grief, and its speculation is not kindling speculation.
The very structure of the poem, in its laboriously
easy monotony, is against its permanence as a poetic
force or a great literary stimulus. Readers at the
present moment are not wanting who have forgotten
its existence altogether, and who, in moments of
anxiety and insight, would sooner turn for stimulus to
a chapter of the Book of Job, or even a rugged page
of the persecuted Walt Whitman.
The penalty of such perfection as is easily dis-
tinguishable in such widely differing poems as the
"Essay on Man " and " In Memoriam," is the penalty
which attends typical literary products of all kinds ;
for it need scarcely be added that it is not in acqui-
escent or explanatory moods, however representative
of " the best culture of the time," that great poetical
creations are developed. If Mr. Tennyson* were only
the philosopher of " In Memoriam," there would be
some danger of his being even summarily forgotten.
Being what he is, one of the loveliest singers of this
time and of all time, and an unique craftsman whose
sign manual is sufficient to consecrate almost any
piece of work, he need not fear the results of a
criticism which must sooner or later leave him among
the lyrical and perfecting, instead of among the philo-
sophical and creative, singers. What the divine
group, which preceded him, left ill-expressed, half-
expressed, or only hinted, he has turned into miracles
* Now Lord Tennyson.
FROM POPE TO TENNYX- 351
of musical speech. Ideas which the world passed by
in the pages of Wordsworth and Shelley, it has
hailed with idolatry in the Laureate's stately setting.
Truths, which Science carelessly and clumsily re-
vealed, have been turned by him into those jewel*
five words long,
Which, on the stretched forefinger of all time,
Sparkle for ever.
He differs, moreover, from Pope in this, that he is
primarily and cardinally the poet of a poetical era,
not, strictly speaking, the poetical oracle of the era
of essays and essayists now again beginning.
Though all that I have said must be self-evident
and even commonplace to most advanced students of
modern poetry, it was still inevitable that many critics
should accept Mr. Tennyson's more meditative utter-
ances as a final gospel, and should pass by as irrele-
vant the utterances of such of his contemporaries as
do not follow his school of literary perfection. In a
little work which I have now before me,* it seems laid
down as a canon that Mr. Tennyson's method of
approaching the great questions of life and death is
the only correct method of approach, and that the
results of that method are finally and wholly satis-
fying. Mr. Selkirk, a man of undeniable cleverness
and culture, has attempted in half-a-dozen striking
essays to touch a subject which, as it seems to us,
often eludes his method of treatment. His style is
admirable, his manner finished in the extreme, but
his summaries of the leading positions he wishes to
establish are at times incorrect and not always con-
vincing. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he does not
* " Ethics and Esthetics of Modern Poetry." By J. B.
Selkirk. London : Smith, Elder, & Co.
352 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
write with a clerical brief, but for all that writes with
a religious bias. The general argument to be gathered
from his book is that of Pope : " Whatever is, is
right/' with this corollary, that an attitude of emo-
tional scepticism is highly admirable, provided it
leaves the main problems open and does not infringe
too much on the rights of the party in power.
This being the case, it may be easily understood
that Mr. Selkirk is thoroughly satisfied with Mr.
Tennyson's representation of current philosophical
problems. His criticisms on Mr. Tennyson's method
are quite admirable, while still, as I have suggested,
unconvincing. He commends with strict justice the
Laureate's " Socratean faculty of seeing both sides of
a question with equal power, which has enabled him
to become, in so important a sense, the interpreter of
the transitional character of the philosophy, religion,
and, to some extent, the politics of his time ; his
power to stand on the debateable ground on which
these questions are discussed, giving strong poetical
force to each of the opposing factions, and yet remain
himself untouched and untainted by what he would
himself call 'The falsehood of extremes/" But,
alas ! it is this very " Socratean faculty," so much
commended by Mr. Selkirk, which absolutely pre-
vents Mr. Tennyson, in his philosophical flights,
from achieving the very highest poetry. No sublime
seer of the human race call him what we will, Isaiah,
Lucretius, Dante, Bunyan, Wordsworth, or Victor
Hugo has astonished his contemporaries by "seeing
both sides of a question with equal power" quite
otherwise. The condition of inspiration in these and
other great prophetic or prophesying poets has been
the power of forgetting that there are two sides of a
question at all ! This is equivalent to saying that
FROM POPE TO TENNYSON. 353
every great poet is, in a certain sense, a bigot, and
that his inspiration is in proportion to his bigotry ;
and, making the necessary deductions, I believe this
to be a true statement of the case.
Mr. Tennyson himself, who is certainly a great
poet, if not of the highest order, is highest and best
where his faculty is most fearlessly lyrical and least
" Socratean."
Mr. Selkirk would doubtless dissent from my
classification of Shelley and Hugo among the
supreme seers. His treatment of Shelley is not
altogether respectful. He tells about his " strangely
persistent" denial of Christianity, "and indeed of
God," but observes with surprise, nevertheless, that
" in his inspired moments, he became the unconscious
interpreter of the higher nature, and to a certain
extent, became reverential and devout in spite of
himself" (page 182). He adds" (and here, for example,
we have the clerical bias strongly marked): " It is
not to be denied, however, that too many of our
great poets, fevered by that kind of dithyrambic
which so easily besets the genus irritabile vatum, have
frequently made attempts to curse what a higJitr
power than theirs has seen fit to bless." It is a very
common habit of critics far inferior to Mr. Selkirk
to treat all forms of revolt as a sort of " dithyrambic
madness," and to rebuke revolters for cursing what a
providential dispensation has blessed generally with
the loaves and fishes. But if Mr. Selkirk means to
suggest that Shelley in his " inspired moments/' when
"he became the unconscious interpreter of the higher
nature," ever confounded that higher nature with
Christianity or Deism, I beg to differ. Shelley was
always " reverential and devout " in presence of those
divine Mysteries which he declined to approach
2 A
354 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
through the vestibules of any of the creeds ; though
certainly, in his inspired moments, he never achieved
the " Socratean" distinction of seeing "both sides of
a question at once." He was a revolter pure and
simple, and in his sublimest moods he was pre-emi-
nently a revolter. I really dislike this Jesuitical plan
of suggesting that such a man as Shelley was com-
pelled at times, through providential inflation, to bear
witness in favour of the enemy. It is not worthy of
a writer so humane as Mr. Selkirk. Then, again,
as to Victor Hugo ; in a work devoted to the ethics
and aesthetics of modern poetry, one would have
expected some slight reference to one who is, with-
out exception, the most didactic poet of the time,
But Mr. Selkirk trots cheerfully along, as if quite
unconscious of any living literary forces outside the
Victorian circle. For all that I know, he has never
even heard of one whom a few benighted individuals
in England esteem the greatest living poetic teacher
of all, Walt Whitman.
I have already said, and I now take the pains
to reiterate, that there is a great deal of wisdom in
Mr. Selkirk's book, but I must explain that it is
at times rather old-fashioned wisdom. In spite of
innumerable fine things, of many really superb
passages, the whole effect is spoiled by the clerical
(or conservative) bias, and by the complete absence
of any leading or dominant idea. Mr. Selkirk is, in
fact, like many others we might name, a microscopic
critic ; his minute observations are admirable, but his
generalisations too often lack breadth and novelty.
In order to sustain this statement with some slight
proof, let me return for a moment to his treatment of
Mr. Tennyson.
Mr. Tennyson is, of course, according to Mr.
FROM POPE TO TENNYSON. 355
Selkirk, the central sun of the Victorian system, the
finish beyond which perfection cannot go. Words
arc insufficient to praise the masterly style in which
the Laureate keeps the golden mean. He "beats
his music out " to an accompaniment in which
neither the sophistries of science nor the casuistries
of a half-hearted orthodoxy find any place. " For
such a task a brave and freedom-loving man was
wanted, one that in his own phrase was ready to
follow truth in scorn of consequence, and such an one
the age has found in the author of 'In Memoriam.'
The image of f Freedom on her regal seat ' has ever
been one of the great sources of his inspiration, and
since the days of Burns we had no more passionate
worshipper of the great goddess, and no such divine
Promethean scorn of anything in the shape of the
quasi-spiritual fetter. Like the friend he consecrates
in his immortal elegy, 'he will not leave his judgment
blind/ and, speaking of himself, he tells us elsewhere
how unendurable life would have been to him except
in
A land where, girt by friend or foe,
A man may speak the thing he will ! "
That such a poem as "In Memoriam" " should have
presented difficulties to the orthodox mind is perhaps
not to be wondered at, and cannot be helped. With-
out absolute freedom from the fetters and restrictions
of authoritative human codes, poetry of the highest
kind is impossible/'
Now, surely, if words of praise were wanting for
Mr. Tennyson, it was scarcely necessary to find them
in so perverse and ridiculous a statement as the one
I have just quoted. We may admire the Laureate's
supreme philosophic calm, without crediting him
with " passionate worship " of freedom, or with any
2 A 2
3$6 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
sort of " divine Promethean scorn." I venture to
say that there is not, in the whole compass of his
writings, a single passage with a more rarefied
ethical atmosphere than the one we breathe in the
pages of the late Mr. Kingsley, or (greatly to descend
the scale of comparison) those of Mr. Thomas
Hughes. It is his characteristic, "and it may possibly
be his glory, that he is pre-eminently " an English-
man/' guilty even, once or twice in his life, of actual
Anglophobia ; and I know of no single occasion
on which his attitude of mind has been one solicitous
of martyrdom. Only sheer bigots and these happily
are now in a minority could find fault with so
noble a piece of work as " In Memoriam." The
British matron, with all her timid young clustering
around her skirts, can find no offence anywhere in
the pages of one who utters nothing base; for
though he may tell her in sufficiently strong language
that she is too fond of money, and that she buys and
sells her offspring, he never on any occasion touches
roughly on any of her institutions say, for example,
marriage, and the restitution of conjugal rights.
Politically, I am so thoroughly at issue with Mr.
Tennyson, that I find it difficult to discuss his
political writings at all, and to preserve my reverence
for a master's name and fame. Yet on more than
one occasion, he has written in the purest spirit of
"John Bull/' has forgotten the divine prerogative of
genius, and has sounded the charge for reckless war.
That wonderfully fine poem, the " Ode on the Death
of the Duke of Wellington," contains passages which
I 1 can scarcely read without a shiver, they are so
manifestly beyond the mark even of a funeral eulogy;
and, to conclude this sort of fault-finding, I am
quite certain that it would have been better if the
FROM POPE TO TENNYSON. 357
ballad on the death of Sir Richard Grenvillc in
itself one of the finest poems in the language had
never appeared, at the time it did, with the name of
Mr. Tennyson.
These are positive recriminations, and my
admiration of the subject is so great, that I almost
shrink from making them. But really after all Mr.
Selkirk is to blame, for Mr. Tennyson himself has
never pretended to be a revolutionary or revolution-
loving poet ; on the contrary, he has held throughout
his grand career to the same fine middle-class ideal
so much adored by the late Mr. Kingsley. " Through-
out all our nineteenth-century British literature/'
wrote one whom England persecuted because he
loved his country,* " there runs a tone of polite,
though distant, recognition of Almighty God, as
one of the Great Powers ; and though no resident
is still maintained at His court, yet British civilisa-
tion gives him assurance of friendly relations; and
'our venerable Church' and 'beautiful liturgy' are
relied upon as a sort of diplomatic Concordat or
Pragmatic Sanction, whereby we, occupied as we
are in grave commercial and political pursuits,
carrying on our business, selling our altars, and
utilising our heathen, bind ourselves to let Him alone,
if He lets us alone ; if He will keep looking apart
contemplating the illustrious maremilkers and blame-
less Ethiopians, and never minding us, we will keep
up a most respectable Church for Him, and make our
lower orders venerate it and pay for it handsomely,
and we will suffer no national infidelity, like the
horrid French." This, of course, is only a sarcastic
and almost brutal statement of the truth. As it
* John Mitchell.
358 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
stands, however, it is far nearer to the facts of the
Tennysonian ethics than is the extraordinary thesis
of Mr. Selkirk. My issue with Mr. Tennyson, if he
for a moment assumed to be a great disturbing or
creating force, would be that he was far too acquiescent
and dispassionate a thinker. Being what he is and
professes to be, the perfect singer of his time, he has
a right to turn round upon us with : " Lyric poetry
is perfect musical speech, and I simply decline the
pressure of all disturbing influences. I am a musician,
not a prophet ; a great artist, not a great creator. I
embody the best tendencies of my time, without
aspiring to be beyond my time. It is no affair of
mine to carp at Church and State, to reform society,
to inspire revolutions. I am no iconoclast ; my
mission is to sing." This would be, and is, quite
unanswerable. When the Laureate himself aspires
to the position Mr. Selkirk claims for him, that of
being the greatest ethical teacher of the time, it will
be quite soon enough to discuss his claim to a
position so close to moral and literary martyrdom.
A LAST LOOK ROUND.
CIRCUMSPICE!
THE pursuit of literature has of late years become a
lonely business. Beyond the narrow orbits of certain
little merry-go-rounds of mutual admiration, few-
literary people are to be found who follow bright
ideals in company, or exhibit much affection for one
another. The great newspapers, with their monstrous
machinery, swallow up our young men of talent by
the dozen. If here and there a tricksy spirit escapes,
it is to degenerate into a fashionable author or a
fourth-rate politician. If by any chance a solitary
writer attempts to be original and to think for himself,
he reaps the privileges of literary martyrdom. Mean-
time, if we look quietly round in the world of life and
literature, what do we see ? The great waters of
Democracy arising to swallow up and cover the last
landmarks of individualism ; a few isolated figures
standing on ever-narrowing islets, and crying like
Canute to the flood ; bogus reputations going down
into the angry living tide, volcanic notorieties
springing up for a moment and disappearing, like
certain earth-eruptions in the Mediterranean ; the
Ark of the Church, with a nasty hole in its
sides, drifting hither and thither before the storm,
with two archbishops, a Catholic and a Protestant,
360 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
lashed to the rudder ; minor prophets, in cockle-
shells of Goethe's building, rowing leisurely out to
the Ark's assistance, leaping jauntily on the deck,
and offering to pilot the vessel into harbours of
culture and light; and far away on the Mount
Ararat of Science, the sun of some new creed
dimly shining. Meantime, there is religious and
social chaos, marked by a great confusion of
tongues. Men no longer know what to believe
or whom to believe. Literature is more like a
blasted fig-tree than a healthy blooming English
oak. Criticism flourishes on the grave of imagination.
Encyclopaedias, discursions, cheap manuals for the
uninstructed, infantile manuals for lazy adults, take
the place of living books. No sooner does one editor
issue a series of ancient classics for English readers,
than another editor cuts in with a series of manuals
to our own classics, which are accessible to everybody
in mother-English. The era of completed literary
sinfulness is reached when people discuss seriously an
article in the Quarterly Review, get up the " Pilgrim's
Progress" out of a manual, and need cicerones to
expound to them the beauties of our popular poets.
Fiction flourishes like a noxious growth. Meantime,
where are we, and whither are we drifting? After
the School Board has come the Deluge. Let me take
a last look round, and see the forces which are
conditioning literature just at present.
At the very outset of my inquiry, two forces intrude
themselves upon me. I will take them in their natural
sequence.
A LAST LOOK ROUND. 361
II.
FIRST, HEAR THE CARDINAL!
"LIBERALISM in religion is the doctrine that there
is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is
as good as another. It is inconsistent with the
recognition of any religion as true. It teaches that
all are to be tolerated, as all are matters of opinion.
Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and
a taste not an objective fact, not miraculous ; and
it is the right of each individual to make it say just
what strikes his fancy/' These words, as many of
my readers are aware, form part of the speech
delivered by Dr. Newman at Rome, when he received
the Pope's official message that he had been created
a Cardinal. They are very sad words, as embodying
the speaker's last farewell of free thought and free
progress, and they have been received with a certain
measure of respect, due to one of exceptional talents,
and undoubted goodness of heart. But falser and
more mischievous words were never spoken. True
Liberalism in religion does not deny the positive
truth of religion, but insists rather upon its relativity ;
so far from holding one creed as good as another,
it insists that every man's creed is a law unto himself,
to be broken at each man's spiritual peril; and
because it reverences religion and its place in the
human conscience, it preaches toleration in the
widest sense to every creed under the sun. Here,
as elsewhere, Dr. Newman shows a radical mis-
conception of what Liberalism is and implies, for to
him it is something abnormal and anarchical, instead
of being totally simple and coherent. True, it is
based on the assumption that in all matters of faith
362 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the individual conscience forms the last appeal ; and
hence, though it long ago pronounced its final
opinion on the inspirations of the Vatican and the
spirit of the Inquisition, it has enabled Dr. Newman
to live his life in peace, and has provided for him at
every stage of his career the cloistered shelter of
popular esteem. Thanks to true Liberalism in
religion, indeed, the author of the "Apologia" has
prayed, worked, and spiritually thriven in a land
which has formally renounced the thrall and, to some
extent, the creed of Rome ; every utterance of his
has been circulated by the press, and commented upon
in a kindly and a friendly spirit ; his character has
always been held venerable, and even his delusions
have invariably been treated as sacred. And after
all this, after years of solemn experience and mellow-
ing wisdom, Dr. Newman, standing in the shadow of
the Vatican, points his finger at his benefactors, and
almost with his last breath abjures Liberty, and
proclaims the gospel of intolerance, of torture, and of
retrogression. The spectacle, to my mind, is a
melancholy one. Not only does the old reason seem
to have lost its cunning, but the gentle judgment
appears to have become twisted and perverted. Such
a definition of Liberalism as I have quoted is cer-
tainly unworthy of a divine trained among the free
institutions of England. Accept that definition,
popularise and legalise it, and we should speedily
possess, instead of a free Church in a free State, not
one Inquisition, but a dozen. Instead of "sentiment
and taste," to which Dr. Newman has a charac-
teristic objection, we should have "objective fact"
Catholic, Protestant, Positivist, and Materialistic.
Dr. Manning would preside over one sort of Star
Chamber, the Archbishop of Canterbury over another,
A LAST LOOK ROUND. 363
Mr. Frederick Harrison over a third, and Professor
Huxley over a fourth. The end might, perhaps,
justify the means ; but apostasy would then become
a serious business, and quiet thinkers would no longer
be left alone, even at Birmingham.
Of course what Dr. Newman means is simple
enough. He has passed over into a Church which
professes to hold the monopoly of objective and
spiritual truth, and which has been historically
distinguished for carrying the doctrine of protection
even into the other world. He wishes to say, and
in effect he says, as his Church has always said, that
religion is to come from above, not from within, and
that no man can be a Christian who denies the
miraculous Virgin. The logical outcome of all this
is inquisitorial. The creed of Rome is true, not
merely relatively, but absolutely. Nay, the good
Cardinal goes farther. " For thirty, forty, fifty years
I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of
Liberalism in religion." Yet for thirty, forty, fifty years
Dr. Newman has been living under the beneficent
protection of the Liberalism he has resisted. During
all those years his protectress has never troubled
him with questions concerning the material facts of
his belief, but has left those facts to his own soul,
which alone can apprehend them. He has seen every-
where around him the spectacle of a free people,
eager to open all avenues of progress and of honour
to all creeds, regardless of religious difference and
tolerant to all opinion. How, and to what extent,
has Dr. Newman resisted this Liberalism? Only,
so far as I know, by expounding with strange
clearness and beauty the meaning of his own faith,
and by casting into the side of Rome all the weight
of his private worth and intellectual ability. Such
364 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
resistance, a Liberal would say, is holy and justifiable ;
that is to say, honest propagandist!! is justifiable.
Our knowledge of Dr. Newman's life is limited to
facts which he himself has made public. Well, there
is nothing in these facts to warrant the assumption
that he ever really resisted Liberalism ; on the
contrary, there is much to prove that he, more than
most men, respected the sanctity of private judgment,
enjoyed the moral atmosphere of Liberal institutions,
and cherished the privilege of passing pensively from
one state of edification to another under the safe
protection of a free and Christian land.
My readers must perfectly understand that I
pronounce no opinion on the creed which Dr.
Newman holds and has held so long, or that faith
which is built on miracles and has itself been most
miraculously unsuccessful in its application to human
needs. My business is not to discuss dogma on one
side or another, but to protest against a definition
of Liberalism in religion which would ultimately
make all private judgment impossible, and render
religion itself, in time, a mere affair of government
from above. Dr. Newman's speech would be equally
false and offensive if it came from the mouth of one
professing any other form of creed. Suppose, for
example, that Professor Haeckel, of Jena, were to
say, in as many words, " Liberalism in science is the
doctrine that there is no positive truth in science, but
that one belief is as good as another. It is incon-
sistent with the recognition of any science as true."
How Dr. Newman and all Churchmen would open
their eyes at such a definition. Yet the cases are
identical. Positive or absolute truth is one thing,
its recognition by the human intellect is quite an-
other. Unfortunately for Dr. Newman, the world is
A LAST LOOK' ROUAT.
not so certain about the truth as it used to be ; it lias
been driven to the conclusion that absolute truth
is inconceivable, and that there a great many ways
of looking at even one order of facts or miracles.
So Liberalism says, " In God's name let all the creeds
of God flourish, so long as they do not interfere with
the due workings of the State ; let Dr. Newman go
to Rome if he pleases, and long may he wear his
biretta ; only he must let other men have their wax-
too, and leave a little scope for taste and judgment,
even in matters of opinion ! " And Liberalism, true
Liberalism, may add, with a sigh, " Since I did allow
my good son, Newman, to go to Rome, and put no
hindrance in his way, he might have remembered
his first obligations to me and mine. He should
not have abandoned me altogether, even to become
a Cardinal."
III.
THE ATTITUDE OF SCIENCE.
I AM no blind admirer of the Professor who is just at
present sending forth his saucy scientific prophecies
from the University of Jena indeed, there are many
points, especially those affecting the psychological
conditions of mankind, on which I am ready to join
issue with him. In reading his two principal w.
the "History of Creation" and the "History of
Evolution," it is impossible to tell where certainty
ends and wild poetical hypothesis begins, and equally
useless to speculate to what heights of dariiu;
sumption the author may be led at any moment
by his passion for logical symmetry and his fervour
366 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
for the fancies of his creed. At the same time his
power is great and his courage indisputable, while,
concerning his mechanical conceptions of creation,
this, at least, can be said that they are a good deal
nearer to the truth than the old dreams of theologians
or the last romances of super-pious naturalists edu-
cated in the school of Cuvier. Fascinated, bewildered
even, by the mighty hypothesis of Darwin, Professor
Haeckel has pushed that hypothesis to its utmost
limits. He has drawn up plans of natural progression
which revolutionise all orthodox ideas ; wherever
links were wanting he has supplied them, with
wonderful visions of the plastidule soul and the
potentialities of carbon ; and the result is a chart of
Man's place in Nature which maybe mistaken, which
is certainly highly conjectural, but which, however
false in detail, is in every way fascinating as a
generalisation. As might have been expected, how-
ever, Haeckel's calm apotheosis of Darwinism has
not been witnessed without protest, even from natural
philosophers ; and every one remembers with what
warmth the orthodox party exulted, when Professor
Virchow delivered his address on the " Freedom of
Science in the Modern State/' and held up to
especial ridicule the evolutionary explanations of
Haeckel. The name of Virchow, of course, carried
extraordinary weight. " A Daniel, a Daniel, come
to judgment!" cried the Churches and the journals ;
and the old Professor's words were flashed by the
party of reaction all over the civilised world. The
reductio ad absurdum came when the Prussian Kreuz-
Zeitung bracketed Darwinism and Democracy to-
gether, and made the theory of descent responsible
for the wicked attempts of Hodel and Nobiling !
The issue between the two Professors is very
A LAST LOOK ROUND. 367
simple, and may be briefly explained. Virchow
condemns the precipitation of Haeckel, accuses him
of assuming as certain what is not verifiable, and
insists that public teaching should be limited to the
statement and illustration of facts which are actually
conquered and firmly established. Haeckel, on the
other hand, censures the retrogression of Virchow,
avers that all human knowledge is subjective, and
shows I think with considerable success that the
mission of science embraces illimitable conjecture.
Even those " axioms," which are the basis of the
teaching of mathematics, are incapable of absolute
proof. Conjectural in every way is all we know of
Matter, or Force ; and even gravitation is hypo-
thetical. The undulatory theory of Light, which
we accept now as the indispensable basis of optics,
rests on an unproved hypothesis, on the subjective
assumption of an ethereal medium, whose existence
no one is in a position to prove in any way. Again,
the whole theoretical side of Chemistry is an airy
structure of hypotheses, the common basis of chemical
theories viz., the atomic theory being perfectly
unprovable, since no chemist has ever seen an atom.
In all this, perhaps, Professor Haeckel is perhaps a
little ingenuous. He knows as well as any one that
he is not fairly crossing swords with Virchow, but
enveloping him in a cloud of verbal dust. The real
matter at issue is not what every modern philosopher
has already answered affirmatively to the public
satisfaction, i.e., whether hypothesis is admissible in
science ; but whether evolutionists, in using hypo-
thesis wholesale and without due caution, and in
mingling together material facts and subjective
dreams, are not misleading both themselves and the
public. Haeckel, for example, is a materialist pure
368 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
and simple. Not content with leaving the evolution-
hypothesis to illustrate itself and to point its own
moral, he uses it as heavy artillery against the Cloud-
Cuckoo-Town of popular Deism. He is eager at
every step to show that Matter is everything, that
Deity is impossible. He is never tired of ridiculing
the religion which attributes, as he expresses it, " a
dualistic existence to the psyche," his own certainty
being that Matter and Spirit are identical ; and he
reminds his opponent that he too at one time expressed
the same materialistic views. " He (Virchow) formerly
supported with a clear conscience and with his utmost
energy, in psychology as in the other collected de-
partments of physiology (sic), that very mechanical
standpoint which we to-day accept as the essential
base of our monism, and which stands in irreconcilable
antagonism to the dualism of the vitalistic doctrine. . . ,
He led me to the clear recognition of the fact that
the nature of man, like every other organism, can only
be rightly understood as an united whole, that this
spiritual and corporeal being are inseparable, and
that the phenomena of the soul-life depend, like all
other vital phenomena, on material motion only on
mechanical (or physico-chemical) modifications of cells''
The italics are mine, not Haeckel's. It seems to
me that such language fully justifies Virchow's ad-
juration of " Restringamur." Haeckel not only
exaggerates the monistic ideas formerly held by
Virchow, but here, as elsewhere, he almost exagge-
rates his own conception of the theory. To assert that
psychical or spiritual life is primarily or ultimately a
material motion only, a mechanical modification of
cells, is to use the language of wild hyperbole. It
may or may not be true that such is the case, just as
it may or may not be true that the moon is made of
A LAST LOOK ROUND. 369
green cheese, but there is not the slightest evidence
to justify the hypothesis. And the hypothesis itself
is so charmingly easy and ofif-hand ! What has
puzzled philosophy since man began to think, what
has eluded every kind of inquiry and research, all
that wondrously complicated phenomenon which to
this hour is the despair of physiology and the
drunkenness of metaphysics, is only mark the
" only " a mechanical modification of " cells." Why,
this is no more than to say that to think is to use
the brain, and that the basis of life is physiological.
Thought may be a mode of motion, as heat is, as
electricity is supposed to be ; but what then ? Does
that bring us an inch nearer to the central mystery,
how cellular change, when such takes place, can
possibly evolve psychic force ? Haeckel's explanation,
in fact, is no explanation whatever. It is a mere
vision of a mysterious mechanism which no man
has yet been able to explain. And when the
Professor goes further and asserts that the me-
chanical nature of Matter and Spirit negates the
idea of God, I cry again, with Virchow, " Restringa-
mur ! " How does the identity of Matter and Spirit
affect the idea of God one way or another ? Because
we know how a monkey wags its tail, or how the
mind of man receives its impressions and redelivers
them, have we solved the riddle of the Universe?
Quite the contrary, says Virchow ; so do not let us
be vainglorious. Here, certainly, Virchow is right.
But where Haeckel has his opponent on the hip
is in his repudiation of the politico-theological as-
sertion that the doctrine of descent leads to social
anarchy, and supports the " Socialist theory."
" What in the world," Haeckel naturally asks, " has
the doctrine of descent to do with Socialism ? " He
2 n
370 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
proceeds to demonstrate, however, that Darwinism,
at least, is the reverse of democratic, since it teaches
the cheerful creed that " in human life, as in animal
and plant life everywhere, and at all times, only a
small and chosen minority can exist and flourish,
while the enormous majority starve and perish
miserably, and more or less prematurely." I cordially
agree with him in his protest against Virchow's
attempt to darken the discussion by awakening a
political bias. I agree with him, moreover, whenever
he takes his stand on the right of private judgment,
and on the freedom of the truth. Yet this tract
with all its justice of polemics in certain particulars
forces upon us more than ever the fact that
Virchow's protest was well-timed, and that pure
scientists should clip their wings and lessen their
fanciful flights, in which they try to rival theologians.
Haeckel is a clever man haunted by one great truth,
which casts a thousand delusive shadows. He seems
utterly incompetent to give a philosophical opinion
on the higher issues of the great religious controversy
which his charts of facts and fancies illustrate so
amusingly and so well ; and he will leave the world
where Aristotle found it, darkened by the shadow of
its own doubt, and face to face with the everlasting
Sphynx.
IV.
MINOR RESULTS AND INFLUENCES.
THESE are the two great forces which stand opposed
to each other authority and superstition, as personi-
fied in such men as Cardinal Newman ; extreme
scientific Radicalism, as personified in such men as
A LAST LOOK ROUND. 371
Professor Haeckcl. The first still persists, to the
great joy of many thousands of people, in affirming
that two and two make five ; the second, elated with
the discovery that two and two make four, encroaches
so far as to deny the existence of any unknown
quantity. Midway between the two forces, and full
of a prescience and a sanity unique in this generation,
stands Mr. Herbert Spencer, uttering supreme words
of wisdom and of warning, but sadly disappointing
those who crave for some creed of absolute certainty.
While all other teachers of the age may easily be
classed, while Mr. Mill, for example, may safely be
relegated to the army of the intellectual revolt, while
Messrs. Carlyle and Ruskin, despite all their
divergencies, may as certainly be claimed by the
leaders of the army of authority, Mr. Spencer alone
confronts the problem of the universe, and while
indefinitely enlarging the area of human knowledge,
frankly postulates the Unknowable. His width of
view, his catholicity of sympathy, his fearlessness in
investigation, his faculty of crystalline exposition,
appear to me almost superhuman. One sweep of his
majestic vision has unveiled the whole mystery of
human responsibility, one touch of his little finger
has annihilated dozens of dilettante prophets e.g.
Mr. Matthew Arnold. Yet for all this he is solitary
and scarcely happy, since, unlike the Cardinal, and
unlike the Professor, he stops short at verification.
His supreme proof is a supreme disappointment.
His last word is, " Wait ! " Fortunately, he closes no
one gate of the universe, but leaves all wide open,
while we stand awestricken at the dazzling vistas
which open out beyond them all.
Below the sphere occupied by these greater t
quietly conditioning literature, work those innumerable
2 B 2
372 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
minorinfluences to which we give, collectively, the name
of criticism. Mr. Matthew Arnold, Mr. Mallock, Mr.
John Morley, Mr. Huxley, Mr. Tyndall, Mr. Frederick
Harrison, Miss Frances Cobbe, Mr. Picton, Mr. Greg,
and many others, devote their powers, each in his
or her own way, to the criticism of the " situation."
From every great review, from every journal or news-
paper, their voices are sounding. According to Mr.
Arnold, here as elsewhere echoing Goethe, literature
is merely a criticism of life. According to Mr.
Mallock, literature is a criticism of religion, and the
highest truth rests where it began, at the Empire
Roman city. According to Mr. Morley, the criterion
of progress is still to be found in the French encyclo-
paedia. According to Messrs. Huxley and Tyndall,
science now and for ever dispossesses imagination
as well as religion. According to Mr. Harrison,
there is no god but the Grand tre, and Comte is
his prophet. And so on, through all the long
catalogue of popular essayists. The whole matter,
so far as it affects the literary calling, resolves itself
into this. The imaginative creator must now, to use
an American vulgarism, take a back seat, while
criticism, with stern and pertinacious countenance,
faces the religio-scientific sphynx. The world is
tired of imagination ; it solicits exposition, verifi-
cation. All imaginative revolt is simple Philistinism.
The Philistine novelist, the Philistine philosopher,
the Philistine poet, and the Philistine journalist are
told that their occupation is gone for ever.
The Philistine novelist is Victor Hugo. The anti-
dote to his influence is the critical novelist-essayist
loved by the critical journalist, Thackeray. Thackeray
looked at life from the windows of the clubs, made
silly Laura Pendennis the ideal of English woman-
A LAST LOOK ROUND. 373
hood, fought and wrought with criticism on his side
till he based a splendid reputation on the theory of
suckling fools and chronicling small beer. Thackeray
was to literature what Major Pendennis was to society
a delightful Jldneur, a charming exponent of the
philosophy of laissez faire. Thackeray " trusted to
Heaven (e.g.) that German art and religion would
take no hold in our country, where there is a fund
of roast beef that will expel any such humbug in the
end." Thackeray protested, apropos of George Sand,
against " women who step down to the people with
stately step and voice of authority, and deliver their
twopenny tablets, as if there were some Divine
authority for the wretched nonsense written there."
Thackeray, in his hatred of all imaginative revolt,
belonged to the party of the Cardinal.
The Philistine poet is Walt Whitman. Against
his influence, such as it is, may be set the influence
of the critical poet loved by the critical journalist ; for
example, Mr. Matthew Arnold.
There must be a certain charm in the didactic
verse of this writer, for it has been liberally praised
and widely read. I have, nevertheless, to record my
impression that Mr. Arnold is not, in the strict sense
of the word, a poet at all, and that, even where the
form of his thought appears poetical, its primary
inspiration is crudely intellectual. In saying so much
1 do not deny that this writer has written charm-
ing verses, and has attained poetical credentials ;
all I mean to convey is that he is not an inspired
writer, in the sense that certain of his contemporaries
are inspired writers, as Mr. Swinburne for example
is inspired, and that his verses lie on the wrong
side of the border-line which separates true poetry
from eloquent prose. As a prose writer, whether
374 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
he is writing verse or not, he is invariably self-
collected, sagacious, and sane, but he is at all times
a prose writer, never a poet, either " born " or
" made." For the besetting sin of his style I should
say that his master, Goethe, was responsible. That
sin is didacticism. Where he reaches the highest
level of his attainment, as in the verses to Obermann,
he is didactic in the best mood of our contemplative
essayists ; where he sinks to his lowest level, he is
didactic in the manner of a leader writer in the Daily
News ; but in either case his object is not poetry but
criticism. He offers to our eyes that strangest of
all spectacles, an inquirer who keeps his temper, who
never gets angry, but who is calmly and insinuatingly
irritating in all his moods. After a careful study of
his verses, I can quite understand how he came
to utter the dictum that Shelley's prose would be
remembered when all Shelley's verses were forgotten.
A writer who finds nothing better in verse to say of
Heine than that the world smiled, and " that smile
was Heine" was never born among the laurel-bushes
of Parnassus.
The Philistine philosopher, for all practical pur-
poses, is Thoreau. People who pass him by with
indifference turn with rapture to Mr. Mallock or
Mr. Percy Greg.
V.
THE NEW GIRONDE.
MEANTIME, in the dearth or the neglect of literary
individualism, we have witnessed for a short season
the apotheosis of the dilettante.
The writers and critics to whom I am about to
allude may be called the Girondists of contemporary
A LAST LOOK ROUND. 375
literature. Being called to power some few years ago>
at a period of literary depression, they have had their
opportunity and lost it ; because, like their namesakes,
they have had nothing to offer mankind but a dainty
scepticism, an enervating aestheticism, an elegant
theory of Art pour Art t founded on a foolish
indifference to the great facts of religion and life.
Their overthrow was certain from the first. Totem-
worshippers, they carved their own images on pieces
of wood, and when the hour of trial came, they were
found without a living faith. They are liberals, I
know, but that is all ; their liberalism is not vital.
In the meantime, that other liberal party in literature,
which may be compared to the Jacobins, have under-
gone no little persecution. Combining with their
advanced religious views and scientific sympathies a
vital belief in God, that is to say, in the supreme
Moral Power which guides the universe, they have
been branded as sentimental and transcendental ;
nor could they hope for any assistance from the
exponents of popular creeds, seeing that like their
great prototype, Rousseau, they reject all dogmatic
solutions of the dark problem of life. But should
they ever be called upon to govern, as is not
impossible, it will perhaps be found that their faith is
not dead but living, that they understand mankind,
and that their programme includes a method by
which Religion, Science, and Art may be reconciled.
It is a favourite assertion of the gifted leaders of
the English Gironde that Art itself is all-sufficing
and that literature, to be acceptable to the dilettante,
must be destitute of any kind of edification. For the
artist, no theory of life is necessary, no philosophy,
no moral aspirations, no religion ; his nature may
exhaust itself in triumphs of mere reproduction, with
376 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
the most satisfactory literary results ; his world may
be Bedford Park, his culture need not extend beyond
the literature of poetic terms, his outlook on life may
be, and indeed had better be, confined to the tea-
roses in his own back garden. Unfortunately, just at
the present moment, something more is wanted in
literature than this kind of teaching. Poetry founded
on elegant indifference to the great problems of life
may be very well suited for schoolboys and their
tutors, but it is of little or no value in times of great
revolution, such as that through which we are now
passing. My friends of the Gironde have reigned
for a few days, and fallen under the derision of the
very citizens who were at first eager for them to
govern. Nor have they fallen merely through negative
incapacity to grapple with the difficulties of the
situation ; they have committed positive sins against
literature and against society. The predominant
vices of the age are its lust for worldly success, its
love of mere amusement, its indifference to moral
sanctions, its mindless pietism on the one hand and
its dapper scepticism on the other, its irreverence, its
contempt for emotion ; in one word, its materialism.
All these vices have been approved, tacitly or openly,
by the party to which we Jacobins of the new
Republic are in opposition. Members of this party
have long contended that this world is all-sufficing,
that mere pleasure is the end of Art, that morality is
a mere matter of opinion, that orthodox religion is im-
becile and scientific religion irrelevant, that sentiment
is preposterous, that the true basis of belief is, in the
worst sense, materialistic. Life is an " empty day,"
and that is all. Well, our friends have been heard,
have been honoured, have said their say, have reigned,
have fallen. They still command several of the
A LAST LOOK ROUND. 377
bastions of criticism, but every day their fire grows
weaker and more straggling, and soon, I have no
doubt, it will be silenced for ever. The strife
between them and the party at present called
Philistine is the everlasting strife between moral
enthusiasm and artistic indifferentism, between
spiritualism and materialism, between Art for
Religion's sake and Art for its own sake, between
idealism and realism in a word, between Jacobinism
and the Gironde.
VI.
THE OUTCOME IN SOCIETY.
WHILE religion is waning, while literature is failing,
while the dilettante still survives in the shadow of
the busy man of science, how is Society progressing ?
According to the evidence of many who speak with
authority, very badly.
There is no smoke without fire; and although
modern society may not be quite as bad as its own
scribes represent it to be, although virtue may still
be a moral factor even in fashionable circles, there
can be no doubt that the progress for the last decade
has been a progress downward. In politics, in social
affairs, in literature, art, and the drama, as well as in
the mere records of the Divorce Court and the
milliners' shops, we read the same dark truth that
luxury has increased in proportion to the decline
of domestic ideals, and that all standards, even the
merely commercial one, have been lowered in answer
to the popular demand for wild mental or moral
stimulants. It is no task of mine to preach a sermon
378 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
on this old theme, or to play Cassandra in the
manner familiar to students of reviews. No words
of mine can change the condition of things. Time
and patience alone can effect any reformation, for
the day is long past when any single utterance,
however prophetic, could have much effect in guiding
the popular mind. And yet it has been repeatedly
forced upon me of late that, of all things wanted by
the present generation, a Satirist is wanted most ;
one who would tell the world its sins and foibles, not
with the sneaking snigger or familiar wink of a
Society journalist, but with a voice loud and clear
enough to reverberate from Land's End to John o*
Groats. It would matter little where this voice was
first heard. It might be in the pulpit, it might be on
the stage. It might sound as the voice of one crying
in the wilderness, or it might be heard, as more than
once heretofore, from the very heart of the crowd.
Since Dickens dropped the scourge, satire has
been sadly at a discount, and we are in reality worse
off for censores morum than were our prototypes, the
prosperous bourgeoisie of the Second Empire.
So closely do our present social conditions re-
semble that of the bourgeoisie alluded to, that even a
course of the comedy of the Empire would do us
nothing but good ; but, unfortunately, instead of a
real we have a spurious censor morum, and the in-
struction from abroad is interdicted. The late
Licenser of Plays, animated by a too blind enthusiasm
of morality, thought he was doing a wise thing when
he forbade the performance in this country of the
masterpieces of Dumas Fils and Sardou; and the
present Licenser, though a man of more liberal
instincts, still sets an adamantine countenance against
the innovation. True, dramas of this sort, though,
A LAST LOOK' ROUND. 379
doubtless, open to the criticism which has been
lavished upon them, and which has caused them to
be classed in France under " l'cole Brutale" arc, in
the best sense, works of art. They are, moreover,
fiery social satires and true satire is never quite
unwholesome. Under the foul rule of the French
Empire society grew luxurious, reckless, libidinous r
and rotten; extravagance in dress, in manners and
customs, in conduct, became the fashion ; it was the
epoch in real life of the " Faux Bonhommes " and
" Madame Bovary." As a bitter comment on this
state of things came the so-called " comedy " of the
Empire. Dumas Fils, a melancholy man, began by
picturing the pathetic side of the life of courtesans,
and continued by preparing for Parisian acceptance
an entire system of theatrical ethics or rather, as a
critic of the period called it, " la logique applique*e au
theatre." And what, after all, was the sum total of
his philosophy ? " Se marier, quand on est jeune et
sain, choisir, dans n'importe quelk classe, une bonne
fille franche et saine, 1'aimer de toute son ame et de
toutes ses forces, en faire une compagne sure et une
mere feconde, travailler pour elever ses enfants et
leur laisser en mourant 1'exemple de sa vie : voila la
verite* le reste n'est qu'une erreur, crime, ou folie."
If, sooner or later, this good girl becomes like the
" Femme de Claude," shoot her ; if she forms a grand
passion, like " Diane de Lys," and it is encouraged,
after due warning, by its object, kill him. Horrible
morality, doubtless, but grimly appropriate notwith-
standing. The comedies of M. Dumas are a series
of propositions on the theme of the married state,
but their moral is unmistakable ; it is the moral
of all plays, from Scribe's Trente Ans dans la Vie
d'une Femme downwards, viz., that to become
380 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
adulterous is natural, but inexpedient. Sardou,
another melancholy man, preaches the same lesson.
The French comedy of the Empire, so far from being
an incentive to vicious living, is subacid, platitu-
dinous, rectangular on the whole not very enter-
taining, but edifying as a social study. It was, at
any rate, the nearest approach to Juvenal's terrible
manner that the Empire could furnish ; and though
it was Dead Sea fruit enough, many who devoured it
were healed perhaps of a portion of their disease.
I am not defending the comedy of the Empire,
though I infinitely prefer it to the vile importations
in which what, in the stage directions of Goethe's
Faust , is called an "obscene gesture" supplies the
place of all moral teaching or rational meaning. He
who accepts La Marjolaine and rejects La Femme
de Claude must be either a roue or an ignoramus. Be
that as it may, there can be no doubt that we here in
England would be the better if some one would hold
the mirror up to our follies, even to our vices. It is
useless to look for such a satirist in the direction
of the stage; the whole drama is usurped by the
spectre of that British matron who in the flesh never
patronises the drama at all. Our novelists are pig-
mies, clinging to the cast-off coat-tails of departed
giants, and their social satire, when they do attempt
social satire, is at once timid and verbose. Our poets
are dilettanti, with each other for a public, and Mr.
Tennyson's mildest verses for a precedent. In all
the lower departments of art and literature a sad,
unsocial diffidence embarrasses the speech of genius,
and instead of " human nature's daily food " we get
mannerism, affectation, and the cynicism of complete
indifference to practical social problems.
Meantime Society, mcenad-like, twines flowers in
A LAST LOOK ROUND. 381
her hair, and goes from bad to worse. The only
individuals who tell her of her vices are those who
flourish through them, and the cue of these is to
lament over the ideals they first overthrow, an
pretend that goodness is useless, since there is no
power but evil left. Well, even a comedy of the
Empire would be better than this ; better than a
journalism which degrades the social standard with
every quip and turn characteristic of blind snobb
better than a literature which hushes up every vital
question, covers up every social sore, reduces life and
thought to the " prunes and prism " insisted on by
Mr. Mudie ; better than a stage which is either unclean
and corybantic or pure and prurient to the verge of
imbecility. The only straightforward and truth-
telling force at present at work is modern Science, but
it is not sufficiently aggressive in the social sphere to
be of much avail. So the feast goes on, so the sooth-
sayer is put aside, and the voice of the prophet is
unheard. Some fine day, nevertheless, there will be
a revelation the handwriting will be seen on the
wall in the colossal cypher of some supreme Satirist.
How much of our present effulgent civilisation will
last till then ? How much will not perish without
any aid from without, by virtue of its own inherent
folly and dry rot ? Meantime, even a temporary
revelation would be thankfully accepted. Such satire
as Churchill suddenly lavished upon the stage would
be of service to Society just now. Even satire as
wicked as that with which Byron deluged the
domestic virtues" of the Georges would not be alto-
gether amiss. Only, it must come in simple sp<
not in such mystic dress as that worn by St. Thomas
of Chelsea when he gave forth his memorable sartorial
prophesies.
382 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
VII.
CONCLUSION.
WHAT, then, is the status quo of our literature just at
present? Too much intellectual activity, and too
little ; too many teachers, and too few ; too few
creative books, and a plethora of " criticisms." For-
tunately, great stars still shine in the literary heavens.
The fame of Spencer, of Tennyson, of Browning, of
Whitman, of Hugo, lends us assurance that the god-
like mood is still possible, that the godlike speech
may still be heard. But against such divine in-
fluences must be set those of men, of cicerones, of
newspaper columns. Authorised critics abound. It
is an authorised critic who tells us, as Mr. Arnold, that
Shelley's prose is likely to be remembered when his
verse is forgotten ; it is an authorised critic who
informs us, with Mr. Lowell, that Thoreau is a
thoroughly unauthorised and almost offensive person.
Mr. Arnold and Mr. Lowell are cultivated men, who
speak with authority ; their temper fascinates the
spirit of mediocrity, and their culture is in perfect
harmony with the culture of the period. Open any
newspaper, and we shall find that these are the leaders
of critical opinion who are honoured in their own
country and whose dicta are accepted at second hand.
I pass these cicerones politely by. Their message is
not to me, their inspiration is not mine. I have
refused to listen to their master and inspirer, Goethe,
and I shall certainly not spend my time with any of
his disciples.
What, then, some may ask, does the world
want, since neither mere science, nor dilettantism,
A LAST LOOK ROUND. 383
nor culture, nor bogus reputations, will serve its
turn ? It wants poetry, and not criticism ; it wants
earnest thought and life, and not a philosophy of the
schoolroom ; it wants fearless truth and imagination,
applied to all the great phenomena of creation ; it
wants, in one word, a living creed, not a rehabilitation
of creeds that are indeterminate. Much of Carlyle's
early teaching was beautiful ; we believed when he
taught us that manly dignity and independence,
that honest work, were better than worldly honours.
Part of Goethe's teaching is wise, that there is a
law which makes for righteousness, independently of
all dogmas. Mill was sane in his generation, while
Comte was even saner in his. But what all these
men have missed is the great truth that literature is
not a criticism of life, but only one of its pheno-
mena ; that manly dignity and belief in culture, and
the belief in the utility of culture, are not personal
possessions differentiating men from each other, but
part of the universal privileges of humanity ; that
" goodness " and " badness " are terms of mere rela-
tion, applied to certain incidents of human action, or
applied to living books, but possessing no absolute
truth whatever ; that Love and Love's sorrow alone
are true, and, being so, are the indisputable posses-
sion of the noblest hero and the lowest criminal under
the sun. A creed of this sort has been called
optimism, or cosmopolitanism, and what not ; it has
been confronted of late years with the arid creed of
pessimism, which has one merit, that of perfect
logical symmetry. It has been described by the
contemporary satirist as the creed which " proves
wrong is as good as right, you know, and one man
as good as another." Well, those who hold it are
quite willing to accept all these definitions. Their
384 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
faith is that God will be justified, even to the very
lowest and least of His children. As poets, they
believe in all the gods, from Jesus to Josh. They
believe in Professor Haeckel and they believe in the
Cardinal. As men of the world, they turn their ears
of sympathy to everything human. As students
of literature, they decline to accept any work as
supremely creative or authoritative which does not
take count of <?//the forces which condition the moral
immortality of the human race.
Brought down to the lowest platform of modern
expediency, what does this creed imply in letters ?
The rejection of all dilettantism, the apotheosis of the
highest and truthfullest of human teachers, whether
dead or contemporary, the recognition of every kind
of noble effort, whether in the region of the lowest
" cakes and ale " or the highest sphere of the ideal.
Above all, it implies distrust of individual judg-
ments or "criticisms/' and faith in the all-embracing
catholicity of the laws of life and literature.
Literature cannot be divorced from life, any more
than poetry can be divorced from religion. The two
are one, A man is great or wise, not because by
humouring his reputation he succeeds in hocussing
the world into an opinion of his greatness or wisdom,
not because he is corroborated by the folly of his
inferiors as Napoleon was, as Goethe is ; but because,
like Lincoln, like Whitman, he is saner than his fellows
in the purest sanity of goodness and love. A book is
great, not on account of its cleverness, its brilliance,
its literary pretences, but on account of that integral
wisdom which discharges cleverness, and brilliance,
and even pyrotechny, through the magical chemistry
of style; the style which is neither superficially
effective nor openly meretricious, but which unites
A LAST LOOK' ROU.\ 385
perfect harmony of meaning with sanity of
sion. Words are the merest counters, apart from
what they are used to represent. Books are the
merest waste of force, unless they tell us somct'.
new, or lend a new significance of beauty to something
that is old. Judged in this way, not one book in a
thousand has a right to live.
All this proves only that criticism is really a
series of private judgments, more or less fallible, and
that the value of a man's life and work can only be
estimated after a very long period of probation.
Meantime, all one can do is to record impressions as
honestly as he can. I can advance no scientific
reason for seeing a great genius in Robert Browning,
or a fine painstaking talent in George Eliot, for
thinking George Meredith almost alone in his power
of expressing personal passion, and Walt Whitman
supreme in his power of conveying moral stimulation.
I can take a skeleton to pieces scientifically, but not
a living soul. I might prove the .absurdity of the
writer who calls herself Ouida, but I could not prove
the absurdity of any honest original thinker, however
low in the intellectual scale. I am helpless before
Mr. Swinburne or any authentic poet, while quite at
my ease before Macaulay and Professor Aytoun.
Finally, it must not be understood that a reader
has a right to judge a thinker by the nature of his
opinions in other words, by the points of his a:,
ment or disagreement with one's own philosophy of
life. This would be to say that I could not enjoy
Thackeray, because I thought him ait fend narrow-
minded, or appreciate Sterne, because I knew him to
be a sham sentimentalist. A writer may be very
provincial yet very delightful ; in that rase, hu\\
though his scope of view and his sympathies may be
2 C
386 A LOOK ROUND LITERATURE.
narrow, his spirit must be faithful and completely
sane within its range. At the same time, the greatest
writers are those who possess, in combination with
technical gifts, the grandest -and most all-embracing
power of sympathetic vision. No writer can be truly
great who believes, like Carlyle, that God Almighty
intended the negro to be a servant, who avows, like
Lamb, that he is miserable anywhere beyond a
London street, or who upholds, like Zola, that the
world is a sink of sensual corruption. For great
writing is great wisdom, and great wisdom means
great goodness, that is, love for and sympathy with
all created things, animate and inanimate. Judged by
this standard, great writers are very few, and when
they appear, are, for a long time, dimly guessed.
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