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HOME    UNIVERSITY   LIBRARY 
OF  MODERN    KNOWLEDGE 


THE   VICTORIAN   AGE   IN 
LITERATURE 

By   G.   K.   CHESTERTON 


London 
WILLIAMS   &   NORGATE 


HENRY   HOLT  &   Co.,  New  York 
Canada  :   WM.  BRIGGS,  Toronto 
India  :  R.  &  T.  WASHBOURNE  Ltd. 


J 


HOME 

UNIVERSITY 

LIBRARY 


OF 


MODERN  KNOWLEDGE 


Editors : 
HERBERT    FISHER,  M.A.,  F.B.A. 

Prof.   GILBERT   MURRAY,   D.LiTT., 
LL.D.,  F.B.A. 

PROF".  J.  ARTHUR  THOMSON,  MA. 

Prof.  WILLIAM  T.  BREWSTER,  M.A. 
(Columbia  University,  U.S.A.) 


LMMU=> 


±L 


NEW   YORK 

HENRY   HOLT  AND   COMPANY 


UPB 


THE 

VICTORIAN  AGE 

IN   LITERATURE 


BY 


G.  K.  CHESTERTON 


11 


UL-»—   B 


;i£^r 


LONDON 

WILLIAMS  AND   NORGATE 


Richard  Clay  &  Sons,  Limited, 
brunswick  street,  stamford  street,  s  e.: 
and  bungay,  suffolk 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 7 

I       THE  VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES  12 

II      THE    GREAT    VICTORIAN    NOVELISTS            .            .  90 

III  THE    GREAT   VICTORIAN    POETS         .  .  .156 

IV  THE   BREAK-UP   OF    THE    COMPROMISE     .            .  204 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 253 

INDEX 255 


The  Editors  wish  to  explain  that  this 
book  is  not  put  forward  as  an  authoritative 
history  of  Victorian  literature.  It  is  a  free 
and  personal  statement  of  views  and  im- 
pressions about  the  significance  of  Victorian 
literature  made  by  Mr.  Chesterton  at  the 
Editors'  express  invitation. 


VI 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE   IN 
LITERATURE 

INTRODUCTION 

A  section  of  a  long  and  splendid  literature 
can  be  most  conveniently  treated  in  one  of 
two  ways.  It  can  be  divided  as  one  cuts 
a  currant  cake  or  a  Gruy^re  cheese,  taking 
the  currants  (or  the  holes)  as  they  come. 
Or  it  can  be  divided  as  one  cuts  wood — along 
the  grain  :  if  one  thinks  that  there  is  a  grain. 
But  the  two  are  never  the  same  :  the  names 
never  come  in  the  same  order  in  actual  time 
as  they  come  in  any  serious  study  of  a  spirit 
or  a  tendency.  The  critic  who  wishes  to 
move  onward  with  the  life  of  an  epoch,  must 
be  always  running  backwards  and  forwards 
among  its  mere  dates ;  just  as  a  branch  bends 
back  and   forth   continually;    yet   the   grain 

7 


8    VICTORIAN  AGE   IN  LITERATURE 

in  the  branch   runs   true  like  an   unbroken 
river. 

Mere  chronological  order,  indeed,  is  almost 
as  arbitrary  as  alphabetical  order.  To  deal 
with  Darwin,  Dickens,  Browning,  in  the 
sequence  of  the  birthday  book  would  be  to 
forge  about  as  real  a  chain  as  the  "  Tacitus, 
Tolstoy,  Tupper  "  of  a  biographical  dictionary. 
It  might  lend  itself  more,  perhaps,  to  accuracy : 
and  it  might  satisfy  that  school  of  critics  who 
hold  that  every  artist  should  be  treated 
as  a  solitary  craftsman,  indifferent  to  the 
commonwealth  and  unconcerned  about  moral 
things.  To  write  on  that  principle  in  the 
present  case,  however,  would  involve  all 
those  delicate  difficulties,  known  to  politicians, 
which  beset  the  public  defence  of  a  doctrine 
which  one  heartily  disbelieves.  It  is  quite 
needless  here  to  go  into  the  old  "  art  for 
art's  sake  " — business,  or  explain  at  length 
why  individual  artists  cannot  be  reviewed 
without  reference  to  their  traditions  and 
creeds.     It  is  enough  to  say  that  with  other 


INTRODUCTION  9 

creeds  they  would  have  been,  for  literary 
purposes,  other  individuals.  Their  views  do 
not,  of  course,  make  the  brains  in  their  heads 
any  more  than  the  ink  in  their  pens.  But  it 
is  equally  evident  that  mere  brain-power, 
without  attributes  or  aims,  a  wheel  revolving 
in  the  void,  would  be  a  subject  about  as 
entertaining  as  ink.  The  moment  we  differ- 
entiate the  minds,  we  must  differentiate  by 
doctrines  and  moral  sentiments.  A  mere 
sympathy  for  democratic  merry-making  and 
mourning  will  not  make  a  man  a  writer 
like  Dickens.  But  without  that  sympathy 
Dickens  would  not  be  a  writer  like  Dickens; 
and  probably  not  a  writer  at  all.  A  mere 
conviction  that  Catholic  thought  is  the  clearest 
as  well  as  the  best  disciplined,  will  not  make 
a  man  a  writer  like  Newman.  But  without 
that  conviction  Newman  would  not  be  a 
writer  like  Newman ;  and  probably  not  a  writer 
at  all.  It  is  useless  for  the  aesthete  (or  any 
other  anarchist)  to  urge  the  isolated  individual- 
ity of  the  artist,  apart  from  his  attitude  to  his 


10    VICTORIAN   AGE   IN   LITERATURE 

age.     His  attitude  to  his  age  is  his  individual- 
ity :  men  are  never  individual  when  alone. 

It  only  remains  for  me,  therefore,  to  take 
the  more  delicate  and  entangled  task;  and 
deal  with  the  great  Victorians,  not  only  by 
dates  and  names,  but  rather  by  schools  and 
streams  of  thought.  It  is  a  task  for  which 
I  feel  myself  wholly  incompetent ;  but  as  that 
applies  to  every  other  literary  enterprise  I 
ever  went  in  for,  the  sensation  is  not  wholly 
novel  :  indeed,  it  is  rather  reassuring  than 
otherwise  to  realise  that  I  am  now  doing 
something  that  nobody  could  do  properly. 
The  chief  peril  of  the  process,  however,  will 
be  an  inevitable  tendency  to  make  the  spiritual 
landscape  too  large  for  the  figures.  I  must 
ask  for  indulgence  if  such  criticism  traces  too 
far  back  into  politics  or  ethics  the  roots  of  which 
great  books  were  the  blossoms;  makes  Utili- 
tarianism more  important  than  Liberty  or 
talks  more  of  the  Oxford  Movement  than 
of  The  Christian  Year.  I  can  only  answer 
in  the  very  temper  of  the  age  of  which  I 


INTRODUCTION  11 

write  :  for  I  also  was  born  a  Victorian ;  and 
sympathise  not  a  little  with  the  serious 
Victorian  spirit.  I  can  only  answer,  I  shall 
not  make  religion  more  important  than  it 
was  to  Keble,  or  politics  more  sacred  than 
they  were  to  Mill. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  VICTORIAN  COMPROMISE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

The  previous  literary  life  of  this  country 

had   left    vigorous    many    old   forces   in   the 

Victorian    time,    as    in    our    time.     Roman 

Britain  and  Mediaeval  England  are  still  not 

only  alive  but  lively ;  for  real  development  is 

not  leaving  things  behind,  as  on    a  road,  but 

drawing  life  from  them,  as  from  a  root.   Even 

when   we   improve   we  never  progress.     For 

progress,  the  metaphor  from  the  road,  implies 

a  man   leaving  his   home  behind   him  :   but 

improvement    means    a    man    exalting    the 

towers  or  extending  the  gardens  of  his  home. 

The  ancient  English  literature  was  like  all  the 

several  literatures  of  Christendom,  alike  in  its 

likeness,   alike  in  its  very  unlikeness.     Like 

all  European  cultures,  it  was  European;  like 

all  European  cultures,  it  was  something  more 

12 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE    13 

than  European.  A  most  marked  and  un- 
manageable national  temperament  is  plain  in 
Chaucer  and  the  ballads  of  Robin  Hood;  in 
spite  of  deep  and  sometimes  disastrous 
changes  of  national  policy,  that  note  is  still 
unmistakable  in  Shakespeare,  in  Johnson  and 
his  friends,  in  Cobbett,  in  Dickens.  It  is 
vain  to  dream  of  defining  such  vivid  things; 
a  national  soul  is  as  indefinable  as  a  smell, 
and  as  unmistakable.  I  remember  a  friend 
who  tried  impatiently  to  explain  the  word 
"  mistletoe  "  to  a  German,  and  cried  at  last, 
despairing,  "  Well,  you  know  holly — mistle- 
toe's the  opposite  !  "  I  do  not  commend  this 
logical  method  in  the  comparison  of  plants  or 
nations.  But  if  he  had  said  to  the  Teuton, 
"  Well,  you  know  Germany — England's  the 
opposite  " — the  definition,  though  fallacious, 
would  not  have  been  wholly  false.  England, 
like  all  Christian  countries,  absorbed  valuable 
elements  from  the  forests  and  the  rude 
romanticism  of  the  North;  but,  like  all 
Christian    countries,    it    drank     its     longest 


14    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

literary  draughts  from  the  classic  fountains 
of  the  ancients  :  nor  was  this  (as  is  so  often 
loosely  thought)  a  matter  of  the  mere 
"  Renaissance."  The  English  tongue  and 
talent  of  speech  did  not  merely  flower  suddenly 
into  the  gargantuan  polysyllables  of  the  great 
Elizabethans;  it  had  always  been  full  of  the 
popular  Latin  of  the  Middle  Ages.  But 
whatever  balance  of  blood  and  racial  idiom 
one  allows,  it  is  really  true  that  the  only 
suggestion  that  gets  near  the  Englishman  is 
to  hint  how  far  he  is  from  the  German.  The 
Germans,  like  the  Welsh,  can  sing  perfectly 
serious  songs  perfectly  seriously  in  chorus  : 
can  with  clear  eyes  and  clear  voices,  join 
together  in  words  of  innocent  and  beautiful 
personal  passion,  for  a  false  maiden  or  a  dead 
child.  The  nearest  one  can  get  to  defining 
the  poetic  temper  of  Englishmen  is  to  say 
that  they  couldn't  do  this  even  for  beer. 
They  can  sing  in  chorus,  and  louder  than 
other  Christians  :  but  they  must  have  in  their 
songs  something,  I  know  not  what,  that  is  at 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     15 

once  shamefaced  and  rowdy.  If  the  matter 
be  emotional,  it  must  somehow  be  also  broad, 
common  and  comic,  as  "  Wapping  Old  Stairs  " 
and  "  Sally  in  Our  Alley."  If  it  be  patriotic, 
it  must  somehow  be  openly  bombastic  and, 
as  it  were,  indefensible,  like  "  Rule  Britannia  " 
or  like  that  superb  song  (I  never  knew  its 
name,  if  it  has  one)  that  records  the  number 
of  leagues  from  Ushant  to  the  Scilly  Isles. 
Also  there  is  a  tender  love-lyric  called  "  O 
Tarry  Trousers  "  which  is  even  more  English 
than  the  heart  of  The  Midsummer  Nights 
Dream.  But  our  greatest  bards  and  sages 
have  often  shown  a  tendency  to  rant  it  and 
roar  it  like  true  British  sailors;  to  employ  an 
extravagance  that  is  half  conscious  and  there- 
fore half  humorous.  Compare,  for  example, 
the  rants  of  Shakespeare  with  the  rants  of 
Victor  Hugo.  A  piece  of  Hugo's  eloquence  is 
either  a  serious  triumph  or  a  serious  collapse  : 
one  feels  the  poet  is  offended  at  a  smile.  But 
Shakespeare  seems  rather  proud  of  talking 
nonsense  :  I  never  can  read  that  rousing  and 


16    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

mounting  description  of  the  storm,  where  it 
comes  to — 


&« 


Who  take  the  ruffian  billows  by  the  top, 
Curling  their  monstrous  heads,  and  hanging 

them 
With  deafening    clamour    in    the   slippery 

clouds." 


without  seeing  an  immense  balloon  rising 
from  the  ground,  with  Shakespeare  grinning 
over  the  edge  of  the  car,  and  saying,  "  You 
can't  stop  me  :  I  am  above  reason  now." 
That  is  the  nearest  we  can  get  to  the  general 
national  spirit,  which  we  have  now  to  follow 
through  one  brief  and  curious  but  very 
national  episode. 

Three  years  before  the  young  queen  was 
crowned,  William  Cobbett  was  buried  at 
Farnham.  It  may  seem  strange  to  begin 
with  this  great  neglected  name,  rather  than 
the  old  age  of  Wordsworth  or  the  young 
death  of  Shelley.     But  to  any  one  who  feels 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     17 

literature  as  human,  the  empty  chair  of 
Cobbett  is  more  solemn  and  significant  than 
the  throne.  With  him  died  the  sort  of 
democracy  that  was  a  return  to  Nature,  and 
which  only  poets  and  mobs  can  understand. 
After  him  Radicalism  is  urban — and  Toryism 
suburban.  Going  through  green  Warwick- 
shire, Cobbett  might  have  thought  of  the 
crops  and  Shelley  of  the  clouds.  But  Shelley 
would  have  called  Birmingham  what  Cobbett 
called  it — a  hell-hole.  Cobbett  was  one  with 
after  Liberals  in  the  ideal  of  Man  under  an 
equal  law,  a  citizen  of  no  mean  city.  He 
differed  from  after  Liberals  in  strongly  affirming 
that  Liverpool  and  Leeds  are  mean  cities. 

It  is  no  idle  Hibernianism  to  say  that 
towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
the  most  important  event  in  English  history 
happened  in  France.  It  would  seem  still 
more  perverse,  yet  it  would  be  still  more 
precise,  to  say  that  the  most  important  event 
in  English  history  was  the  event  that  never 
happened  at  all — the  English  Revolution  on 

B 


18     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

the  lines  of  the  French  Revolution.  Its 
failure  was  not  due  to  any  lack  of  fervour  or 
even  ferocity  in  those  who  would  have  brought 
it  about  :  from  the  time  when  the  first  shout 
wrent  up  for  Wilkes  to  the  time  when  the  last 
Luddite  fires  were  quenched  in  a  cold  rain  of 
rationalism,  the  spirit  of  Cobbett,  of  rural 
republicanism,  of  English  and  patriotic 
democracy,  burned  like  a  beacon.  The 
revolution  failed  because  it  was  foiled  by 
another  revolution ;  an  aristocratic  revolu- 
tion, a  victory  of  the  rich  over  the  poor.  It 
was  about  this  time  that  the  common  lands 
were  finally  enclosed;  that  the  more  cruel 
game  laws  were  first  established;  that 
England  became  finally  a  land  of  landlords 
instead  of  common  land-owners.  I  will  not 
call  it  a  Tory  reaction ;  for  much  of  the  worst 
of  it  (especially  of  the  land-grabbing)  was 
done  by  Whigs;  but  we  may  certainly  call  it 
Anti- Jacobin.  Now  this  fact,  though  political, 
is  not  only  relevant  but  essential  to  everything 
that   concerned  literature.     The  upshot  was 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     19 

that  though  England  was  full  of  the  revolu- 
tionary ideas,  nevertheless  there  was  no 
revolution.  And  the  effect  of  this  in  turn 
was  that  from  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  the 
spirit  of  revolt  in  England  took  a  wholly 
literary  form.  In  France  it  was  what  people 
did  that  was  wild  and  elemental ;  in  England 
it  was  what  people  wrote.  It  is  a  quaint 
comment  on  the  notion  that  the  English  are 
practical  and  the  French  merely  visionary, 
that  we  were  rebels  in  arts  while  they  were 
rebels  in  arms. 

It  has  been  well  and  wittily  said  (as  illus- 
trating the  mildness  of  English  and  the 
violence  of  French  developments)  that  the 
same  Gospel  of  Rousseau  which  in  France 
produced  the  Terror,  in  England  produced 
Sandjord  and  Merton.  But  people  forget  that 
in  literature  the  English  were  by  no  means 
restrained  by  Mr.  Barlow;  and  that  if  we 
turn  from  politics  to  art,  we  shall  find  the 
two  parts  peculiarly  reversed.     It  would  be 

B  2 


20     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

equally  true  to  say  that  the  same  eighteenth- 
century  emancipation  which  in  France  pro- 
duced the  pictures  of  David,  in  England 
produced  the  pictures  of  Blake.  There  never 
were,  I  think,  men  who  gave  to  the  imagina- 
tion so  much  of  the  sense  of  having  broken 
out  into  the  very  borderlands  of  being,  as 
did  the  great  English  poets  of  the  romantic 
or  revolutionary  period ;  than  Coleridge  in  the 
secret  sunlight  of  the  Antarctic,  where  the 
waters  were  like  witches'  oils;  than  Keats 
looking  out  of  those  extreme  mysterious  case- 
ments upon  that  ultimate  sea.  The  heroes 
and  criminals  of  the  great  French  crisis  would 
have  been  quite  as  incapable  of  such  imagina- 
tive independence  as  Keats  and  Coleridge 
would  have  been  incapable  of  winning  the 
battle  of  Wattignies.  In  Paris  the  tree  of 
liberty  was  a  garden  tree,  clipped  very 
correctly;  and  Robespierre  used  the  razor 
more  regularly  than  the  guillotine.  Danton, 
who  knew  and  admired  English  literature, 
would  have  cursed  freely  over  Kubla  Khan  ; 


THE  VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     21 

and  if  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  had 
not  already  executed  Shelley  as  an  aristocrat, 
they  would  certainly  have  locked  him  up  for 
a  madman.  Even  Hebert  (the  one  really  vile 
Revolutionist),  had  he  been  reproached  by 
English  poets  with  worshipping  the  Goddess 
of  Reason,  might  legitimately  have  retorted 
that  it  was  rather  the  Goddess  of  Unreason 
that  they  set  up  to  be  worshipped.  Verbally 
considered,  Carlyle's  French  Revolution  was 
more  revolutionary  than  the  real  French 
Revolution  :  and  if  Carrier,  in  an  exaggera- 
tive phrase,  empurpled  the  Loire  with  carnage, 
Turner  almost  literally  set  the  Thames  on 
fire. 

This  trend  of  the  English  Romantics  to 
carry  out  the  revolutionary  idea  not  savagely 
in  works,  but  very  wildly  indeed  in  words,  had 
several  results;  the  most  important  of  which 
was  this.  It  started  English  literature  after 
the  Revolution  with  a  sort  of  bent  towards 
independence  and  eccentricity,  which  in  the 
brighter  wits  became  individuality,  and  in  the 


22     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

duller  ones,  Individualism.  English  Roman- 
tics, English  Liberals,  were  not  public  men 
making  a  republic,  but  poets,  each  seeing  a 
vision.  The  lonelier  version  of  liberty  was  a 
sort  of  aristocratic  anarchism  in  Byron  and 
Shelley;  but  though  in  Victorian  times  it 
faded  into  much  milder  prejudices  and  much 
more  bourgeois  crotchets,  England  retained 
from  that  twist  a  certain  odd  separation 
and  privacy.  England  became  much  more 
of  an  island  than  she  had  ever  been  before. 
There  fell  from  her  about  this  time,  not  only 
the  understanding  of  France  or  Germany,  but 
to  her  own  long  and  yet  lingering  disaster,  the 
understanding  of  Ireland.  She  had  not  joined 
in  the  attempt  to  create  European  democracy ; 
nor  did  she,  save  in  the  first  glow  of  Waterloo, 
join  in  the  counter-attempt  to  destroy  it. 
The  life  in  her  literature  was  still,  to  a  large 
extent,  the  romantic  liberalism  of  Rousseau, 
the  free  and  humane  truisms  that  had  re- 
freshed the'other  nations,  the  return  to  Nature 
and   to  natural   rights.     But   that   which  in 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     23 

Rousseau  was  a  creed,  became  in  Hazlitt  a 
taste  and  in  Lamb  little  more  than  a  whim. 
These  latter  and  their  like  form  a  group  at  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  of  those 
we  may  call  the  Eccentrics  :  they  gather  round 
Coleridge  and  his  decaying  dreams  or  linger 
in    the    tracks    of    Keats    and    Shelley    and 
Godwin ;    Lamb    with    his    bibliomania    and 
creed  of  pure  caprice,  the  most  unique  of  all 
geniuses;    Leigh    Hunt    with    his    Bohemian 
impecuniosity ;  Landor  with  his  tempestuous 
temper,  throwing  plates  on  the  floor ;  Hazlitt 
with  his  bitterness  and  his  low  love  affair; 
even  that  healthier  and  happier  Bohemian, 
Peacock.     With  these,  in  one  sense  at  least, 
goes  De  Quincey.     He  was,  unlike  most  of 
these    embers    of   the   revolutionary   age    in 
letters,    a   Tory;   and   was   attached   to   the 
political  army  which  is  best  represented  in 
letters  by  the  virile  laughter  and  leisure  of 
Wilson's    Nodes   Ambrosiance.     But    he   had 
nothing  in  common  with  that  environment. 
It  remained  for  some  time  as  a  Tory  tradition, 


24     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

which  balanced  the  cold  and  brilliant  aris- 
tocracy of  the  Whigs.  It  lived  on  the  legend 
of  Trafalgar;  the  sense  that  insularity  was 
independence;  the  sense  that  anomalies  are 
as  jolly  as  family  jokes ;  the  general  sense  that 
old  salts  are  the  salt  of  the  earth.  It  still 
lives  in  some  old  songs  about  Nelson  or 
Waterloo,  which  are  vastly  more  pompous 
and  vastly  more  sincere  than  the  cockney 
cocksureness  of  later  Jingo  lyrics.  But  it  is 
hard  to  connect  De  Quincey  with  it ;  or, 
indeed,  with  anything  else.  De  Quincey 
wrould  certainly  have  been  a  happier  man, 
and  almost  certainly  a  better  man,  if  he  had 
got  drunk  on  toddy  with  Wilson,  instead  of 
getting  calm  and  clear  (as  he  himself  de- 
scribes) on  opium,  and  with  no  company  but 
a  book  of  German  metaphysics.  But  he 
would  hardly  have  revealed  those  wonderful 
vistas  and  perspectives  of  prose,  wrhich 
permit  one  to  call  him  the  first  and  most 
powerful  of  the  decadents  :  those  sentences 
that  lengthen  out  like  nightmare  corridors,  or 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     25 

rise  higher  and  higher  like  impossible  eastern 
pagodas.  He  was  a  morbid  fellow,  and  far 
less  moral  than  Burns;  for  when  Burns  con- 
fessed excess  he  did  not  defend  it.  But  he 
has  cast  a  gigantic  shadow  on  our  literature, 
and  was  as  certainly  a  genius  as  Poe.  Also 
he  had  humour,  which  Poe  had  not.  And  if 
any  one  still  smarting  from  the  pinpricks  of 
Wilde  or  Whistler,  wants  to  convict  them  of 
plagarism  in  their  "  art  for  art  "  epigrams 
— he  will  find  most  of  what  they  said  said 
better  in  Murder  as  One  of  the  Fine  Arts. 

One  great  man  remains  of  this  elder  group, 
who  did  their  last  work  only  under  Victoria ; 
he  knew  most  of  the  members  of  it,  yet  he  did 
not  belong  to  it  in  any  corporate  sense.  He 
was  a  poor  man  and  an  invalid,  with  Scotch 
blood  and  a  strong,  though  perhaps  only 
inherited,  quarrel  with  the  old  Calvinism ;  by 
name  Thomas  Hood.  Poverty  and  illness 
forced  him  to  the  toils  of  an  incessant  jester ; 
and  the  revolt  against  gloomy  religion  made 
him  turn  his  wit,  whenever  he  could,  in  the 


26     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

direction  of  a  defence  of  happier  and  humaner 
views.  In  the  long  great  roll  that  includes 
Homer  and  Shakespeare,  he  was  the  last 
great  man  who  really  employed  the  pun. 
His  puns  were  not  all  good  (nor  were  Shake- 
speare's), but  the  best  of  them  were  a  strong 
and  fresh  form  of  art.  The  pun  is  said  to  be 
a  thing  of  two  meanings ;  but  with  Hood  there 
were  three  meanings,  for  there  was  also  the 
abstract  truth  that  would  have  been  there 
with  no  pun  at  all.  The  pun  of  Hood  is 
underrated,  like  the  "  wit "  of  Voltaire,  by 
those  who  forget  that  the  words  of  Voltaire 
were  not  pins,  but  swords.  In  Hood  at  his 
best  the  verbal  neatness  only  gives  to  the 
satire  or  the  scorn  a  ring  of  finality  such  as  is 
given  by  ryhme.  For  rhyme  does  go  with 
reason,  since  the  aim  of  both  is  to  bring  things 
to  an  end.  The  tragic  necessity  of  puns 
tautened  and  hardened  Hood's  genius;  so 
that  there  is  always  a  sort  of  shadow  of  that 
sharpness  across  all  his  serious  poems,  falling 
like  the  shadow  of  a  sword.     "  Sewing  at  once 


THE  VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     27 

with  a  double  thread  a  shroud  as  well  as  a 
shirt" — "  We  thought   her   dying   when   she 
slept,   and   sleeping   when   she   died  " — "  Oh 
God,  that  bread  should  be  so  dear  and  flesh 
and  blood  so  cheap  " — none  can  fail  to  note 
in  these  a  certain  fighting  discipline  of  phrase, 
a    compactness    and    point    which    was    well 
trained  in  lines  like  "  A  cannon-ball  took  off 
his    legs,    so    he   laid    down    his   arms."     In 
France  he   would   have   been   a    great    epi- 
grammatist,  like   Hugo.     In   England   he   is 
a  punster. 

There  was  nothing  at  least  in  this  group 
I  have  loosely  called  the  Eccentrics  that 
disturbs  the  general  sense  that  all  their 
generation  was  part  of  the  sunset  of  the  great 
revolutionary  poets.  This  fading  glamour 
affected  England  in  a  sentimental  and,  to 
some  extent,  a  snobbish  direction;  making 
men  feel  that  great  lords  with  long  curls 
and  whiskers  were  naturally  the  wits  that  led 
the  world.  But  it  affected  England  also 
negatively  and  by  reaction ;  for  it  associated 


28     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

such  men  as  Byron  with  superiority,  but  not 
with  success.  The  English  middle  classes 
were  led  to  distrust  poetry  almost  as  much  as 
they  admired  it.  They  could  not  believe 
that  either  vision  at  the  one  end  or  violence  at 
the  other  could  ever  be  practical.  They  were 
deaf  to  that  great  warning  of  Hugo  :  You 
say  the  poet  is  in  the  clouds;  but  so  is  the 
thunderbolt."  Ideals  exhausted  themselves 
in  the  void ;  Victorian  England,  very  unwisely, 
would  have  no  more  to  do  with  idealists  in 
politics.  And  this,  chiefly,  because  there  had 
been  about  these  great  poets  a  young  and 
splendid  sterility;  since  the  pantheist  Shelley 
was  in  fact  washed  under  by  the  wave  of  the 
world,  or  Byron  sank  in  death  as  he  drew  the 
sword  for  Hellas. 

The  chief  turn  of  nineteenth  -  century 
England  was  taken  about  the  time  when  a 
footman  at  Holland  House  opened  a  door 
and  announced  "Mr.  Macaulay."  Macaulay's 
literary  popularity  wras  representative  and  it 
was   deserved;   but   his   presence  among  the 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     29 

great  Whig  families  marks  an  epoch.  He  was 
the  son  of  one  of  the  first  "  friends  of  the 
negro,"  whose  honest  industry  and  philan- 
thropy wrere  darkened  by  a  religion  of  sombre 
smugness,  which  almost  makes  one  fancy 
they  loved  the  negro  for  his  colour,  and  would 
have  turned  away  from  red  or  yellow  men 
as  needlessly  gaudy.  But  his  wit  and  his 
politics  (combined  with  that  dropping  of  the 
Puritan  tenets  but  retention  of  the  Puritan 
tone  which  marked  his  class  and  generation), 
lifted  him  into  a  sphere  which  was  utterly 
opposite  to  that  from  which  he  came.  This 
Whig  world  was  exclusive;  but  it  was  not 
narrow.  It  was  very  difficult  for  an  outsider 
to  get  into  it ;  but  if  he  did  get  into  it  he  was 
in  a  much  freer  atmosphere  than  any  other 
in  England.  Of  those  aristocrats,  the  Old 
Guard  of  the  eighteenth  century,  many  denied 
God,  many  defended  Bonaparte,  and  nearly 
all  sneered  at  the  Royal  Family.  Nor  did 
wealth  or  birth  make  any  barriers  for  those 
once  within  this  singular  Whig  world.     The 


30     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

platform  was  high,  but  it  was  level.  More- 
over the  upstart  nowadays  pushes  himself  by- 
wealth  :  but  the  Whigs  could  choose  their 
upstarts.  In  that  world  Macaulay  found 
Rogers,  with  his  phosphorescent  and  corpse- 
like brilliancy;  there  he  found  Sidney  Smith, 
bursting  with  crackers  of  common  sense,  an 
admirable  old  heathen;  there  he  found  Tom 
Moore,  the  romantic  of  the  Regency,  a 
shortened  shadow  of  Lord  Byron.  That  he 
reached  this  platform  and  remained  on  it  is, 
I  say,  typical  of  a  turning-point  in  the 
century.  For  the  fundamental  fact  of  early 
Victorian  history  was  this ;  the  decision  of  the 
middle  classes  to  employ  their  new  wealth  in 
backing  up  a  sort  of  aristocratical  compromise, 
and  not  (like  the  middle  class  in  the  French 
Revolution)  insisting  on  a  clean  sweep  and 
a  clear  democratic  programme.  It  wrent 
along  with  the  decision  of  the  aristocracy  to 
recruit  itself  more  freely  from  the  middle 
class.  It  was  then  also  that  Victorian 
"  prudery  "  began  :  the  great  lords  yielded  on 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     31 

this  as  on  Free  Trade.  These  two  decisions 
have  made  the  doubtful  England  of  to-day; 
and  Macaulay  is  typical  of  them;  he  is 
the  bourgeois  in  Belgravia.  The  alliance  is 
marked  by  his  great  speeches  for  Lord  Grey's 
Reform  Bill  :  it  is  marked  even  more  signifi- 
cantly in  his  speech  against  the  Chartists. 
Cobbett  was  dead. 

Macaulay  makes  the  foundation  of  the 
Victorian  age  in  all  its  very  English  and 
unique  elements  :  its  praise  of  Puritan  politics 
and  abandonment  of  Puritan  theology;  its 
belief  in  a  cautious  but  perpetual  patching  up 
of  the  Constitution ;  its  admiration  for  in- 
dustrial wealth.  But  above  all  he  typifies  the 
two  things  that  really  make  the  Victorian  Age 
itself,  the  cheapness  and  narrowness  of  its 
conscious  formulae;  the  richness  and  humanity 
of  its  unconscious  tradition.  There  were  two 
Macaulays,  a  rational  Macaulay  who  was 
generally  wrong,  and  a  romantic  Macaulay 
who  was  almost  invariably  right.  All  that 
was    small    in    him    derives    from    the   dull 


32     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

parliamentarism  of  men  like  Sir  James  Mackin- 
tosh ;  but  all  that  was  great  in  him  has  much 
more  kinship  with  the  festive  antiquarianism 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

As  a  philosopher  he  had  only  two  thoughts ; 
and  neither  of  them  are  true.     The  first  was 
that  politics,  as  an  experimental  science,  must 
go  on  improving,  along  with  clocks,  pistols 
or  penknives,   by  the  mere  accumulation  of 
experiment  and  variety.     He  was,  indeed,  far 
too  strong-minded  a  man  to  accept  the  hazy 
modern  notion  that  the  soul  in  its  highest 
sense   can   change  :   he   seems   to   have   held 
that  religion  can  never  get  any  better  and 
that  poetry  rather  tends  to  get  worse.     But 
he  did  not  see  the  flaw  in  his  political  theory ; 
which  is  that  unless  the  soul  improves  with 
time  there  is  no  guarantee  that  the  accumula- 
tions of  experience  will  be  adequately  used. 
Figures  do  not  add  themselves  up;  birds  do 
not  label  or  stuff  themselves ;  comets  do  not 
calculate  their  own  courses ;  these  things  are 
done  by  the  soul  of  man.     And  if  the  soul  of 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE    33 

man  is  subject  to  other  laws,  is  liable  to  sin, 

to  sleep,  to  anarchism  or  to  suicide,  then  all 

sciences  including  politics  may  fall  as  sterile 

and  lie  as  fallow  as  before  man's  reason  was 

made.     Macaulay  seemed  sometimes  to  talk 

as   if   clocks   produced   clocks,   or   guns   had 

families  of  little  pistols,  or  a  penknife  littered 

like  a  pig.     The  other  view  he  held  was  the 

more  or  less  utilitarian  theory  of  toleration; 

that  we  should  get  the  best  butcher  whether 

he  was  a  Baptist  or  a  Muggletonian  and  the 

best  soldier,  whether  he  was  a  Wesleyan  or 

an  Irvingite.     The  compromise  worked  well 

enough  in  an  England  Protestant  in  bulk; 

but  Macaulay  ought  to  have  seen  that  it  has 

its   limitations.     A   good   butcher   might    be 

Baptist ;  he  is  not  very  likely  to  be  a  Buddhist. 

A  good  soldier  might  be  a  Wesleyan ;  he  would 

hardly  be  a  Quaker.     For  the  rest,  Macaulay 

was  concerned  to  interpret  the  seventeenth 

century  in  terms  of  the  triumph  of  the  Whigs 

as  champions  of  public  rights ;  and  he  upheld 

this   one-sidedly   but   not   malignantly   in   a 
c 


34     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

style  of  rounded  and  ringing  sentences,  which 
at  its  best  is  like  steel  and  at  its  worst  like  tin. 
This  was  the  small  conscious  Macaulay; 
the  great  unconscious  Macaulay  was  very 
different.  His  noble  enduring  quality  in  our 
literature  is  this  :  that  he  truly  had  an  abstract 
passion  for  history ;  a  warm,  poetic  and  sincere 
enthusiasm  for  great  things  as  such;  an 
ardour  and  appetite  for  great  books,  great 
battles,  great  cities,  great  men.  He  felt  and 
used  names  like  trumpets.  The  reader's 
greatest  joy  is  in  the  writer's  own  joy,  when 
he  can  let  his  last  phrase  fall  like  a  hammer 
on  some  resounding  name  like  Hildebrand  or 
Charlemagne,  on  the  eagles  of  Rome  or  the 
pillars  of  Hercules.  As  with  Walter  Scott, 
some  of  the  best  things  in  his  prose  and  poetry 
are  the  surnames  that  he  did  not  make.  And 
it  is  remarkable  to  notice  that  this  romance  of 
history,  so  far  from  making  him  more  partial 
or  untrustworthy,  was  the  only  thing  that 
made  him  moderately  just.  His  reason  was 
entirely  one-sided  and  fanatical.     It  was  his 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     35 

imagination  that  was  well-balanced  and 
broad.  He  was  monotonously  certain  that 
only  Whigs  were  right ;  but  it  was  necessary 
that  Tories  should  at  least  be  great,  that  his 
heroes  might  have  foemen  worthy  of  their 
steel.  If  there  was  one  thing  in  the  world 
he  hated  it  was  a  High  Church  Royalist 
parson ;  yet  when  Jeremy  Collier  the  Jacobite 
priest  raises  a  real  banner,  all  Macaulay's 
blood  warms  with  the  mere  prospect  of  a 
fight.  "  It  is  inspiriting  to  see  how  gallantly 
the  solitary  outlaw  advances  to  attack  enemies 
formidable  separately,  and,  it  might  have 
been  thought,  irresistible  when  combined; 
distributes  his  swashing  blows  right  and  left 
among  Wycherley,  Congreve  and  Vanbrugh. 
treads  the  wretched  D'Urfey  down  in  the 
dirt  beneath  his  feet ;  and  strikes  with  all  his 
strength  full  at  the  towering  crest  of  Dryden." 
That  is  exactly  where  Macaulay  is  great; 
because  he  is  almost  Homeric.  The  whole 
triumph  turns  upon  mere  names ;  but  men  are 
commanded  by  names.     So  his  poem  on  the 

0  2 


36    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

Armada  is  really  a  good  geography  book 
gone  mad ;  one  sees  the  map  of  England  come 
alive  and  march  and  mix  under  the  eye. 

The  chief  tragedy  in  the  trend  of  later 
literature  may  be  expressed  by  saying  that 
the  smaller  Macaulay  conquered  the  larger. 
Later  men  had  less  and  less  of  that  hot  love  of 
history  he  had  inherited  from  Scott.  They 
had  more  and  more  of  that  cold  science 
of  self-interests  which  he  had  learnt  from 
Bentham. 

The  name  of  this  great  man,  though  it 
belongs  to  a  period  before  the  Victorian,  is, 
like  the  name  of  Cobbett,  very  important  to 
it.  In  substance  Macaulay  accepted  the  con- 
clusions of  Bentham;  though  he  offered 
brilliant  objections  to  all  his  arguments.  Li 
any  case  the  soul  of  Bentham  (if  he  had  one) 
went  marching  on,  like  John  Brown;  and 
in  the  central  Victorian  movement  it  was 
certainly  he  who  won.  John  Stuart  Mill  was 
the  final  flower  of  that  growth.  He  was 
himself  fresh  and  delicate  and  pure ;  but  that 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     37 

is  the  business  of  a  flower.  Though  he  had 
to  preach  a  hard  rationalism  in  religion,  a 
hard  competition  in  economics,  a  hard  egoism 
in  ethics,  his  own  soul  had  all  that  silvery- 
sensitiveness  that  can  be  seen  in  his  fine 
portrait  by  Watts.  He  boasted  none  of  that 
brutal  optimism  with  which  his  friends  and 
followers  of  the  Manchester  School  expounded 
their  cheery  negations.  There  was  about  Mill 
even  a  sort  of  embarrassment;  he  exhibited 
all  the  wheels  of  his  iron  universe  rather 
reluctantly,  like  a  gentleman  in  trade  showing 
ladies  over  his  factory.  There  shone  in  him 
a  beautiful  reverence  for  women,  which  is  all 
the  more  touching  because,  in  his  department, 
as  it  were,  he  could  only  offer  them  so  dry  a 
gift  as  the  Victorian  Parliamentary  Franchise. 
Now  in  trying  to  describe  how  the  Victorian 
writers  stood  to  each  other,  we  must  recur 
to  the  very  real  difficulty  noted  at  the  begin- 
ning; the  difficulty  of  keeping  the  moral 
order  parallel  with  the  chronological  order. 
For  the  mind  moves  by  instincts,  associations, 


38     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

premonitions  and  not  by  fixed  dates  or  com- 
pleted processes.  Action  and  reaction  will 
occur  simultaneously  :  or  the  cause  actually 
be  found  after  the  effect.  Errors  will  be  re- 
sisted before  they  have  been  properly  pro- 
mulgated :  notions  will  be  first  defined  long 
after  they  are  dead.  It  is  no  good  getting  the 
almanac  to  look  up  moonshine;  and  most 
literature  in  this  sense  is  moonshine.  Thus 
Wordsworth  shrank  back  into  Toryism,  as 
it  were,  from  a  Shelleyan  extreme  of  panthe- 
ism as  yet  disembodied.  Thus  Newman  took 
down  the  iron  sword  of  dogma  to  parry  a 
blow  not  yet  delivered,  that  was  coming  from 
the  club  of  Darwin.  For  this  reason  no  one 
can  understand  tradition,  or  even  history, 
who  has  not  some  tenderness  for  anachronism. 
Now  for  the  great  part  of  the  Victorian 
era  the  utilitarian  tradition  which  reached  its 
highest  in  Mill  held  the  centre  of  the  field ;  it 
was  the  philosophy  in  office,  so  to  speak.  It 
sustained  its  march  of  codification  and  inquiry 
until  it  had  made  possible  the  great  victories 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE    39 

of  Darwin  and  Huxley  and  Wallace.  If  we 
take  Macaulay  at  the  beginning  of  the  epoch 
and  Huxley  at  the  end  of  it,  we  shall  find  that 
they  had  much  in  common.  They  were  both 
square-jawed,  simple  men,  greedy  of  contro- 
versy but  scornful  of  sophistry,  dead  to  mysti- 
cism but  very  much  alive  to  morality;  and 
they  were  both  very  much  more  under  the 
influence  of  their  own  admirable  rhetoric 
than  they  knew.  Huxley,  especially,  was 
much  more  a  literary  than  a  scientific  man. 
It  is  amusing  to  note  that  when  Huxley  was 
charged  with  being  rhetorical,  he  expressed 
his  horror  of  "  plastering  the  fair  face  of  truth 
with  that  pestilent  cosmetic,  rhetoric,"  which 
is  itself  about  as  well-plastered  a  piece  of 
rhetoric  as  Ruskin  himself  could  have  managed. 
The  difference  that  the  period  had  developed 
can  best  be  seen  if  we  consider  this  :  that  while 
neither  was  of  a  spiritual  sort,  Macaulay  took 
it  for  granted  that  common  sense  required 
some  kind  of  theology,  while  Huxley  took  it 
for  granted  that  common  sense  meant  having 


40     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

none.  Macaulay,  it  is  said,  never  talked 
about  his  religion  :  but  Huxley  was  always 
talking  about  the  religion  he  hadn't  got. 

But  though  this  simple  Victorian  rational- 
ism held  the  centre,  and  in  a  certain  sense  was 
the  Victorian  era,  it  was  assailed  on  many 
sides,  and  had  been  assailed  even  before  the 
beginning  of  that  era.  The  rest  of  the 
intellectual  history  of  the  time  is  a  series  of 
reactions  against  it,  which  come  wave  after 
wave.  They  have  succeeded  in  shaking  it, 
but  not  in  dislodging  it  from  the  modern 
mind.  The  first  of  these  was  the  Oxford 
Movement;  a  bow  that  broke  when  it  had 
let  loose  the  flashing  arrow  that  was  Newman. 
The  second  reaction  was  one  man;  without 
teachers  or  pupils — Dickens.  The  third  re- 
action was  a  group  that  tried  to  create  a  sort 
of  new  romantic  Protestantism,  to  pit  against 
both  Reason  and  Rome  —  Carlyle,  Rus- 
kin,  Kingsley,  Maurice — perhaps  Tennyson. 
Browning  also  was  at  once  romantic  and 
Puritan;  but  he  belonged  to  no  group,  and 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     41 

worked  against  materialism  in  a  manner 
entirely  his  own.  Though  as  a  boy  he  bought 
eagerly  Shelley's  revolutionary  poems,  he  did 
not  think  of  becoming  a  revolutionary  poet. 
He  concentrated  on  the  special  souls  of  men ; 
seeking  God  in  a  series  of  private  interviews. 
Hence  Browning,  great  as  he  is,  is  rather  one 
of  the  Victorian  novelists  than  wholly  of  the 
Victorian  poets.  From  Ruskin,  again,  de- 
scend those  who  may  be  called  the  Pre- 
Raphaelites  of  prose  and  poetry. 

It  is  really  with  this  rationalism  triumphant, 
and  with  the  romance  of  these  various  attacks 
on  it,  that  the  study  of  Victorian  literature 
begins  and  proceeds.  Bentham  was  already 
the  prophet  of  a  powerful  sect;  Macaulay 
was  already  the  historian  of  an  historic  party, 
before  the  true  Victorian  epoch  began.  The 
middle  classes  were  emerging  in  a  state  of 
damaged  Puritanism.  The  upper  classes  were 
utterly  pagan.  Their  clear  and  courageous 
testimony  remains  in  those  immortal  words 
of  Lord  Melbourne,  who  had  led  the  young 


42    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

queen  to  the  throne  and  long  stood  there  as 
her  protector.  "  No  one  has  more  respect 
for  the  Christian  religion  than  I  have;  but 
really,   when   it   comes  to   intruding  it   into 

private  life "      What  was  pure  paganism 

in  the  politics  of  Melbourne  became  a  sort  of 
mystical  cynicism  in  the  politics  of  Disraeli; 
and  is  well  mirrored  in  his  novels — for  he  was 
a  man  who  felt  at  home  in  mirrors.  With 
every  allowance  for  aliens  and  eccentrics  and 
all  the  accidents  that  must  always  eat  the 
edges  of  any  systematic  circumference,  it 
may  still  be  said  that  the  Utilitarians  held 
the  fort. 

Of  the  Oxford  Movement  what  remains 
most  strongly  in  the  Victorian  Epoch  centres 
round  the  challenge  of  Newman,  its  one  great 
literary  man.  But  the  movement  as  a  whole 
had  been  of  great  significance  in  the  very 
genesis  and  make  up  of  the  society  :  yet  that 
significance  is  not  quite  easy  immediately  to 
define.  It  wras  certainly  not  aesthetic  ritual- 
ism ;  scarcely  one  of  the  Oxford  High  Church- 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     43 

men  was  what  we  should  call  a  Ritualist.  It 
was  certainly  not  a  conscious  reaching  out 
towards  Rome  :  except  on  a  Roman  Catholic 
theory  which  might  explain  all  our  unrests 
by  that  dim  desire.  It  knew  little  of  Europe, 
it  knew  nothing  of  Ireland,  to  which  any 
merely  Roman  Catholic  revulsion  would 
obviously  have  turned.  In  the  first  instance, 
I  think,  the  more  it  is  studied,  the  more  it 
would  appear  that  it  was  a  movement  of  mere 
religion  as  such.  It  was  not  so  much  a  taste 
for  Catholic  dogma,  but  simply  a  hunger  for 
dogma.  For  dogma  means  the  serious  satis- 
faction of  the  mind.  Dogma  does  not  mean 
the  absence  of  thought,  but  the  end  of  thought. 
It  was  a  revolt  against  the  Victorian  spirit 
in  one  particular  aspect  of  it ;  which  may 
roughly  be  called  (in  a  cosy  and  domestic 
Victorian  metaphor)  having  your  cake  and 
eating  it  too.  It  saw  that  the  solid  and 
serious  Victorians  were  fundamentally  frivol- 
ous—  because  they  were  fundamentally  in- 
consistent. 


44     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

A  man  making  the  confession  of  any  creed 
worth  ten  minutes'  intelligent  talk,  is  always 
a  man  who  gains  something  and  gives  up 
something.  So  long  as  he  does  both  he  can 
create  :  for  he  is  making  an  outline  and  a 
shape.  Mahomet  created,  when  he  forbade 
wine  but  allowed  five  wives  :  he  created  a 
very  big  thing,  which  we  have  still  to  deal 
with.  The  first  French  Republic  created, 
when  it  affirmed  property  and  abolished 
peerages;  France  still  stands  like  a  square, 
four-sided  building  which  Europe  has  be- 
sieged in  vain.  The  men  of  the  Oxford 
Movement  would  have  been  horrified  at  being 
compared  either  with  Moslems  or  Jacobins. 
But  their  sub-conscious  thirst  was  for  some- 
thing that  Moslems  and  Jacobins  had  and 
ordinary  Anglicans  had  not  :  the  exalted 
excitement  of  consistency.  If  you  were  a 
Moslem  you  were  not  a  Bacchanal.  If  you 
were  a  Republican  you  were  not  a  peer.  And 
so  the  Oxford  men,  even  in  their  first  and 
dimmest  stages,  felt  that  if  you  were  a  Church- 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     45 

man  you  were  not  a  Dissenter.  The  Oxford 
Movement  was,  out  of  the  very  roots  of  its 
being,  a  rational  movement ;  almost  a  ration- 
alist movement.  In  that  it  differed  sharply 
from  the  other  reactions  that  shook  the  Utili- 
tarian compromise ;  the  blinding  mysticism  of 
Carlyle,  the  mere  manly  emotionalism  of 
Dickens.  It  was  an  appeal  to  reason  :  reason 
said  that  if  a  Christian  had  a  feast  day  he 
must  have  a  fast  day  too.  Otherwise,  all 
days  ought  to  be  alike;  and  this  was  that 
very  Utilitarianism  against  which  their  Ox- 
ford Movement  was  the  first  and  most 
rational  assault. 

This  idea,  even  by  reason  of  its  reason, 
narrowed  into  a  sort  of  sharp  spear,  of  which 
the  spear  blade  was  Newman.  It  did  forget 
many  of  the  other  forces  that  were  fighting 
on  its  side.  But  the  movement  could  boast, 
first  and  last,  many  men  who  had  this  eager 
dogmatic  quality;  Keble,  who  spoilt  a  poem 
in  order  to  recognise  a  doctrine;  Faber  who 
told  the  rich,  almost  with  taunts,  that  God 


46     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATUR 

sent  the  poor  as  eagles  to  strip  them,  Froude 
who,  with  Newman  announced  his  return  in 
the  arrogant  motto  of  Achilles.  But  the 
greater  part  of  all  this  happened  before  what 
is  properly  our  period;  and  in  that  period 
Newman,  and  perhaps  Newman  alone,  is  the 
expression  and  summary  of  the  whole  school. 
It  was  certainly  in  the  Victorian  Age,  and  after 
his  passage  to  Rome,  that  Newman  claimed 
his  complete  right  to  be  in  any  book  on 
modern  English  literature.  This  is  no  place 
for  estimating  his  theology  :  but  one  point 
about  it  does  clearly  emerge.  Whatever  else 
is  right,  the  theory  that  Newman  went  over 
to  Rome  to  find  peace  and  an  end  of  argument, 
is  quite  unquestionably  wrong.  He  had  far 
more  quarrels  after  he  had  gone  over  to  Rome. 
But,  though  he  had  far  more  quarrels,  he  had 
far  fewer  compromises  :  and  he  was  of  that 
temper  which  is  tortured  more  by  compromise 
than  by  quarrel.  He  was  a  man  at  once  of 
abnormal  energy  and  abnormal  sensibility  : 
nobody     without    that     combination     could 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     47 

have  written  the  Apologia.  If  he  sometimes 
seemed  to  skin  his  enemies  alive,  it  was  be- 
cause he  himself  lacked  a  skin.  In  this  sense 
his  Apologia  is  a  triumph  far  beyond  the 
ephemeral  charge  on  which  it  was  founded; 
in  this  sense  he  does  indeed  (to  use  his  own 
expression)  vanquish  not  his  accuser  but  his 
judges.  Many  men  wrould  shrink  from  re- 
cording all  their  cold  fits  and  hesitations  and 
prolonged  inconsistencies  :  I  am  sure  it  was 
the  breath  of  life  to  Newman  to  confess  them,, 
now  that  he  had  done  with  them  for  ever. 
His  Lectures  on  the  Present  Position  of  English 
Catholics,  practically  preached  against  a 
raging  mob,  rise  not  only  higher  but  happier, 
as  his  instant  unpopularity  increases.  There 
is  something  grander  than  humour,  there  is 
fun,  in  the  verv  first  lecture  about  the  British 
Constitution  as  explained  to  a  meeting  of 
Russians.  But  always  his  triumphs  are  the 
triumphs  of  a  highly  sensitive  man  :  a  man 
must  feel  insults  before  he  can  so  insultingly 
and  splendidly  avenge  them.     He  is  a  naked 


48     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

man,  who  carries  a  naked  sword.  The 
quality  of  his  literary  style  is  so  successful 
that  it  succeeds  in  escaping  definition.  The 
quality  of  his  logic  is  that  of  a  long  but  passion- 
ate patience,  which  waits  until  he  has  fixed 
all  corners  of  an  iron  trap.  But  the  quality 
of  his  moral  comment  on  the  age  remains 
what  I  have  said  :  a  protest  of  the  rationality 
of  religion  as  against  the  increasing  irration- 
ality of  mere  Victorian  comfort  and  com- 
promise. So  far  as  the  present  purpose  is 
concerned,  his  protest  died  with  him :  he 
left  few  imitators  and  (it  may  easily  be 
conceived)  no  successful  imitators.  The  sug- 
gestion of  him  lingers  on  in  the  exquisite 
Elizabethan  perversity  of  Coventry  Patmore ; 
and  has  later  flamed  out  from  the  shy  volcano 
of  Francis  Thompson.  Otherwise  (as  we 
shall  see  in  the  parallel  case  of  Ruskin's 
Socialism)  he  has  no  followers  in  his  own  age  : 

but  very  many  in  ours. 

The  next  group  of  reactionaries  or  romantics 
or   whatever  we  elect   to  call   them,  gathers 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     49 

roughly  around  one  great  name.     Scotland, 
from  which  had  come  so  many  of  those  harsh 
economists  who  made  the  first  Radical  philo- 
sophies of  the  Victorian  Age,  was  destined  also 
to  fling  forth  (I  had  almost  said  to  spit  forth) 
their  fiercest  and  most  extraordinary  enemy. 
The  two  primary  things  in  Thomas  Carlyle 
were  his  early  Scotch  education  and  his  later 
German  culture.     The  first  was  in  almost  all 
respects    his    strength;     the    latter   in    some 
respects  his  weakness.     As  an  ordinary  low- 
land peasant,  he  inherited  the  really  valuable 
historic  property  of  the  Scots,  their  indepen- 
dence,   their    fighting    spirit,    and    their    in- 
stinctive   philosophic    consideration    of    men 
merely  as  men.     But  he  was  not  an  ordinary 
peasant.     If   he   had   laboured   obscurely   in 
his  village  till  death,  he  would  have  been  yet 
locally  a  marked  man;    a  man  with  a  wild 
eye,  a  man  with  an  air  of  silent  anger ;  perhaps 
a  man  at  whom  stones  were  sometimes  thrown. 
A  strain  of  disease  and  suffering  ran  athwart 
both  his  body  and  his  soul.     In  spite  of  his 

D 


50     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

praise  of  silence,  it  was  only  through  his  gift 
of  utterance  that  he  escaped  madness.  But 
while  his  fellow-peasants  would  have  seen 
this  in  him  and  perhaps  mocked  it,  they  would 
also  have  seen  something  which  they  always 
expect  in  such  men,  and  they  would  have  got 
it :  vision,  a  power  in  the  mind  akin  to  second 
sight.  Like  many  ungainly  or  otherwise 
unattractive  Scotchmen,  he  was  a  seer.  By 
which  I  do  not  mean  to  refer  so  much  to  his 
transcendental  rhapsodies  about  the  World- 
soul  or  the  Nature-garment  or  the  Mysteries 
and  Eternities  generally,  these  seem  to  me 
to  belong  more  to  his  German  side  and  to  be 
less  sincere  and  vital.  I  mean  a  real  power  of 
seeing  things  suddenly,  not  apparently  reached 
by  any  process;  a  grand  power  of  guessing. 
He  saw  the  crowd  of  the  new  States  General, 
Danton  with  his  "  rude  flattened  face,'3 
Robespierre  peering  mistily  through  his 
spectacles.  He  saw  the  English  charge  at 
Dunbar.  He  guessed  that  Mirabeau,  however 
dissipated  and  diseased,  had  something  sturdy 


THE   VICTORIAN  COMPROMISE     51 

inside  him.  He  guessed  that  Lafayette,  how- 
ever brave  and  victorious,  had  nothing  inside 
him.  He  supported  the  lawlessness  of  Crom- 
well, because  across  two  centuries  he  almost 
physically  felt  the  feebleness  and  hopelessness 
of  the  moderate  Parliamentarians.  He  said 
a  word  of  sympathy  for  the  universally 
vituperated  Jacobins  of  the  Mountain,  be- 
cause through  thick  veils  of  national  prejudice 
and  misrepresentation,  he  felt  the  impossibility 
of  the  Gironde.  He  was  wrong  in  denying 
to  Scott  the  power  of  being  inside  his  char- 
acters :  but  he  really  had  a  good  deal  of  that 
power  himself.  It  was  one  of  his  innumerable 
and  rather  provincial  crochets  to  encourage 
prose  as  against  poetry.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  he  himself  was  much  greater  considered 
as  a  kind  of  poet  than  considered  as  anything 
else ;  and  the  central  idea  of  poetry  is  the  idea 
of  guessing  right,  like  a  child. 

He  first  emerged,  as  it  were,  as  a  student 
and  disciple  of  Goethe.     The  connection  was 

not  wholly  fortunate.     With  much  of  what 
D  2 


52     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

Goethe  really  stood  for  he  was  not  really  in 
sympathy;  but  in  his  own  obstinate  way,  he 
tried  to  knock  his  idol  into  shape  instead  of 
choosing  another.  He  pushed  further  and 
further  the  extravagances  of  a  vivid  but  very 
unbalanced  and  barbaric  style,  in  the  praise 
of  a  poet  who  really  represented  the  calmest 
classicism  and  the  attempt  to  restore  a  Hellenic 
equilibrium  in  the  mind.  It  is  like  watching 
a  shaggy  Scandinavian  decorating  a  Greek 
statue  washed  up  by  chance  on  his  shores. 
And  while  the  strength  of  Goethe  was  a 
strength  of  completion  and  serenity,  which 
Carlyle  not  only  never  found  but  never  even 
sought,  the  weaknesses  of  Goethe  were  of  a 
sort  that  did  not  draw  the  best  out  of  Carlyle. 
The  one  civilised  element  that  the  German 
classicists  forgot  to  put  into  their  beautiful 
balance  was  a  sense  of  humour.  And  great 
poet  as  Goethe  was,  there  is  to  the  last  some- 
thing faintly  fatuous  about  his  half  sceptical, 
half  sentimental  self-importance;  a  Lord 
Chamberlain   of  teacup  politics;    an   earnest 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     53 

and  elderly  flirt ;    a  German  of  the  Germans. 
Now  Carlyle  had  humour;    he  had  it  in  his 
very  style,  but  it  never  got  into  his  philosophy. 
His    philosophy    largely    remained    a    heavy 
Teutonic  idealism,  absurdly  unaware  of  the 
complexity  of  things ;  as  when  he  perpetually 
repeated    (as    with    a    kind    of    flat-footed 
stamping)    that    people    ought    to    tell    the 
truth;      apparently     supposing,     to     quote 
Stevenson's    phrase,    that   telling   the   truth 
is  as  easy  as  blind  hookey.     Yet,  though  his 
general  honesty  is  unquestionable,  he  was  by 
no  means  one  of  those  who  will  give  up  a 
fancy  under  the  shock  of  a  fact.     If  by  sheer 
genius  he  frequently  guessed  right,  he  was  not 
the  kind  of  man  to  admit  easily  that  he  had 
guessed   wrong.     His   version   of   Cromwell's 
filthy  cruelties  in  Ireland,  or  his  impatient 
slurring  over  of  the  most  sinister  riddle  in 
the  morality  of  Frederick  the  Great — these 
passages    are,    one    must    frankly    say,    dis- 
ingenuous.    But  it  is,  so  to  speak,  a  generous 
disingenuousness ;    the  heat  and  momentum 


oi    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

of  sincere  admirations,  not  the  shuffling  fear 
and  flattery  of  the  constitutional  or  patriotic 
historian.  It  bears  most  resemblance  to  the 
incurable  prejudices  of  a  woman. 

For  the  rest  there  hovered  behind  all  this 
transcendental  haze  a  certain  presence  of  old 
northern  paganism;  he  really  had  some 
sympathy  with  the  vast  vague  gods  of  that 
moody  but  not  unmanly  Nature-worship  which 
seems  to  have  filled  the  darkness  of  the  North 
before  the  coming  of  the  Roman  Eagle  or  the 
Christian  Cross.  This  he  combined,  allowing 
for  certain  sceptical  omissions,  with  the  grisly 
Old  Testament  God  he  had  heard  about 
in  the  black  Sabbaths  of  his  childhood;  and 
so  promulgated  (against  both  Rationalists 
and  Catholics)  a  sort  of  heathen  Puritanism  : 
Protestantism  purged  of  its  evidences  of 
Christianity. 

His  great  and  real  work  was  the  attack  on 
Utilitarianism  :  which  did  real  good,  though 
there  was  much  that  was  muddled  and  danger- 
ous   in   the   historical    philosophy   which    he 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     55 

preached  as  an  alternative.  It  is  his  real 
glory  that  he  was  the  first  to  see  clearly  and 
say  plainly  the  great  truth  of  our  time ;  that 
the  wealth  of  the  state  is  not  the  prosperity 
of  the  people.  Macaulay  and  the  Mills  and 
all  the  regular  run  of  the  Early  Victorians, 
took  it  for  granted  that  if  Manchester  was 
getting  richer,  we  had  got  hold  of  the  key  to 
comfort  and  progress.  Carlyle  pointed  out 
(with  stronger  sagacity  and  humour  than  he 
showed  on  any  other  question)  that  it  was 
just  as  true  to  say  that  Manchester  was  getting 
poorer  as  that  it  was  getting  richer  :  or,  in 
other  words,  that  Manchester  was  not  getting 
richer  at  all,  but  only  some  of  the  less  pleasing 
people  in  Manchester.  In  this  matter  he  is 
to  be  noted  in  connection  with  national 
developments  much  later ;  for  he  thus  became 
the  first  prophet  of  the  Socialists.  Sartor 
Resartus  is  an  admirable  fantasia ;  The  French 
Revolution  is,  with  all  its  faults,  a  really  fine 
piece  of  history;  the  lectures  on  Heroes 
contain   some  masterly_sketches   of   person- 


56     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

alities.  But  I  think  it  is  in  Past  and  Present, 
and  the  essay  on  Chartism,  that  Carlyle 
achieves  the  work  he  was  chosen  by  gods  and 
men  to  achieve;  which  possibly  might  not 
have  been  achieved  by  a  happier  or  more 
healthy-minded  man.  He  never  rose  to  more 
deadly  irony  than  in  such  macabre  descriptions 
as  that  of  the  poor  woman  proving  her  sister- 
hood with  the  rich  by  giving  them  all  typhoid 
fever;  or  that  perfect  piece  of  badinage 
about  "  Overproduction  of  Shirts  " ;  in  which 
he  imagines  the  aristocrats  claiming  to  be 
quite  clear  of  this  offence.  "  Will  you  bandy 
accusations,  will  you  accuse  us  of  over- 
production ?  We  take  the  Heavens  and  the 
Earth  to  witness  that  we  have  produced 
nothing  at  all  .  .  .  He  that  accuses  us  of  pro- 
ducing, let  him  show  himself.  Let  him  say 
what  and  when."  And  he  never  wrote  so  sternly 
and  justly  as  when  he  compared  the  "  divine 
sorrow  "  of  Dante  with  the  "  undivine  sorrow  " 
of  Utilitarianism,  which  had  already  come 
down  to  talking  about  the  breeding  of  the  poor 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     57 

and  to  hinting  at  infanticide.  This  is  a  repre- 
sentative quarrel ;  for  if  the  Utilitarian  spirit 
reached  its  highest  point  in  Mill,  it  certainly 
reached  its  lowest  point  in  Malthus. 

One  last  element  in  the  influence  of  Carlyle 
ought  to  be  mentioned;  because  it  very 
strongly  dominated  his  disciples — especially 
Kingsley,  and  to  some  extent  Tennyson  and 
Ruskin.  Because  he  frowned  at  the  cockney 
cheerfulness  of  the  cheaper  economists,  they 
and  others  represented  him  as  a  pessimist, 
and  reduced  all  his  azure  infinities  to  a  fit 
of  the  blues.  But  Carlyle's  philosophy,  more 
carefully  considered,  will  be  found  to  be 
dangerously  optimist  rather  than  pessimist. 
As  a  thinker  Carlyle  is  not  sad,  but  recklessly 
and  rather  unscrupulously  satisfied.  For  he 
seems  to  have  held  the  theory  that  good  could 
not  be  definitely  defeated  in  this  world;  and 
that  everything  in  the  long  run  finds  its  right 
level.  It  began  with  what  we  may  call  the 
"  Bible  of  History  "  idea  :  that  all  human 
affairs    and    politics    were    a    clouded    but 


58    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

unbroken  revelation  of  the  divine.  Thus  any 
enormous  and  unaltered  human  settlement — 
as  the  Norman  Conquest  or  the  secession  of 
America — we  must  suppose  to  be  the  will  of 
God.  It  lent  itself  to  picturesque  treatment ; 
and  Carlyle  and  the  Carlyleans  were  above 
all  things  picturesque.  It  gave  them  at  first 
a  rhetorical  advantage  over  the  Catholic  and 
other  older  schools.  They  could  boast  that 
their  Creator  was  still  creating;  that  he  was 
in  Man  and  Nature,  and  was  not  hedged  round 
in  a  Paradise  or  imprisoned  in  a  pyx.  They 
could  say  their  God  had  not  grown  too  old 
for  war  :  that  He  was  present  at  Gettysburg 
and  Gravelotte  as  much  as  at  Gibeon  and 
Gilboa.  I  do  not  mean  that  they  literally 
said  these  particular  things :  they  are  what  I 
should  have  said  had  I  been  bribed  to  defend 
their  position.  But  they  said  things  to  the 
same  effect :  that  what  manages  finally  to 
happen,  happens  for  a  higher  purpose.  Carlyle 
said  the  French  Revolution  was  a  thing  settled 
in  the  eternal  councils  to  be;  and  therefore 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     59 

(and  not  because  it  was  right)  attacking  it 
was  "  fighting  against  God."  And  Kingsley 
even  carried  the  principle  so  far  as  to  tell  a 
lady  she  should  remain  in  the  Church  of 
England  mainly  because  God  had  put  her 
there.  But  in  spite  of  its  superficial  spirituality 
and  encouragement,  it  is  not  hard  to  see  how 
such  a  doctrine  could  be  abused.  It  practi- 
cally comes  to  saying  that  God  is  on  the  side 
of  the  big  battalions — or  at  least,  of  the  vic- 
torious ones.  Thus  a  creed  which  set  out  to 
create  conquerors  would  only  corrupt  soldiers ; 
corrupt  them  with  a  craven  and  unsoldierly 
worship  of  success  :  and  that  which  began  as 
the  philosophy  of  courage  ends  as  the  philo- 
sophy of  cowardice.  If,  indeed,  Carlyle 
were  right  in  saying  that  right  is  only  "  rightly 
articulated  "  might,  men  would  never  articu- 
late or  move  in  any  way.  For  no  act  can  have 
might  before  it  is  done  :  if  there  is  no  right, 
it  cannot  rationally  be  done  at  all.  This 
element,  like  the  Ant i -Utilitarian  element,  is 
to  be  kept  in  mind  in  connection  with  after 


60     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

developments  :  for  in  this  Carlyle  is  the  first 
cry  of  Imperialism,  as  (in  the  other  case)  of 
Socialism :  and  the  two  babes  unborn  who 
stir  at  the  trumpet  are  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  and 
Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling.  Kipling  also  carries 
on  from  Carlyle  the  concentration  on  the 
purely  Hebraic  parts  of  the  Bible.  The 
fallacy  of  this  whole  philosophy  is  that  if  God 
is  indeed  present  at  a  modern  battle,  He  may 
be  present  not  as  on  Gilboa  but  Golgotha. 

Carlyle's  direct  historical  worship  of  strength 
and  the  rest  of  it  was  fortunately  not  very 
fruitful ;  and  perhaps  lingered  only  in  Froude 
the  historian.  Even  he  is  more  an  interruption 
than  a  continuity.  Froude  develops  rather 
the  harsher  and  more  impatient  moral  counsels 
of  his  master  than  like  Ruskin  the  more 
romantic  and  sympathetic.  He  carries  on 
the  tradition  of  Hero  Worship  :  but  carries 
far  beyond  Carlyle  the  practice  of  worshipping 
people  who  cannot  rationally  be  called  heroes. 
In  this  matter  that  eccentric  eye  of  the  seer 
certainly  helped   Carlyle  :    in   Cromwell  and 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     61 

Frederick  the  Great  there  was  at  least  some- 
thing self -begotten,  original  or  mystical;  if 
they  were  not  heroes  they  were  at  least 
demigods  or  perhaps  demons.  But  Froude 
set  himself  to  the  praise  of  the  Tudors,  a  much 
lower  class  of  people;  ill-conditioned  prosper- 
ous people  who  merely  waxed  fat  and  kicked. 
Such  strength  as  Henry  VIII  had  was  the 
strength  of  a  badly  trained  horse  that  bolts, 
not  of  any  clear  or  courageous  rider  who 
controls  him.  There  is  a  sort  of  strong  man 
mentioned  in  Scripture  who,  because  he 
masters  himself,  is  more  than  he  that  takes  a 
city.  There  is  another  kind  of  strong  man 
(known  to  the  medical  profession)  who  cannot 
master  himself ;  and  whom  it  may  take  half  a 
city  to  take  alive.  But  for  all  that  he  is  a 
low  lunatic,  and  not  a  hero ;  and  of  that  sort 
were  too  many  of  the  heroes  whom  Froude 
attempted  to  praise.  A  kind  of  instinct  kept 
Carlyle  from  over-praising  Henry  VIII ;  or  that 
highly  cultivated  and  complicated  liar,  Queen 
Elizabeth.     Here,  the  only  importance  of  this 


62     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

is  that  one  of  Carlyle's  followers  carried  further 
that  "  strength  "  which  was  the  real  weakness 
of  Carlyle.  I  have  heard  that  Froude's  life 
of  Carlyle  was  unsympathetic;  but  if  it  was 
so  it  was  a  sort  of  parricide.  For  the  rest, 
like  Macaulay,  he  was  a  picturesque  and 
partisan  historian  :  but,  like  Macaulay  (and 
unlike  the  craven  scientific  historians  of  to- 
day) he  was  not  ashamed  of  being  partisan 
or  of  being  picturesque.  Such  studies  as 
he  wrote  on  the  Elizabethan  seamen  and 
adventurers,  represent  very  triumphantly  the 
sort  of  romance  of  England  that  all  this  school 
was  attempting  to  establish ;  and  link  him  up 
with  Kingsley  and  the  rest. 

Ruskin  may  be  very  roughly  regarded  as 
the  young  lieutenant  of  Carlyle  in  his  war  on 
Utilitarian  Radicalism  :  but  as  an  individual 
he  presents  many  and  curious  divergences. 
In  the  matter  of  style,  he  enriched  English 
without  disordering  it.  And  in  the  matter  of 
religion  (which  was  the  key  of  this  age  as  of 
every  other)  he  did  not,  like  Carlyle,  set  up 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     63 

the  romance  of  the  great  Puritans  as  a  rival 
to  the  romance  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
Rather  he  set  up  and  worshipped  all  the  arts 
and  trophies  of  the  Catholic  Church  as  a  rival 
to  the  Church  itself.  None  need  dispute 
that  he  held  a  perfectly  tenable  position  if  he 
chose  to  associate  early  Florentine  art  with  a 
Christianity  still  comparatively  pure,  and  such 
sensualities  as  the  Renaissance  bred  with 
the  corruption  of  a  Papacy.  But  this  does 
not  alter,  as  a  merely  artistic  fact,  the  strange 
air  of  ill-ease  and  irritation  with  which  Ruskin 
seems  to  tear  down  the  gargoyles  of  Amiens 
or  the  marbles  of  Venice,  as  things  of  which 
Europe  is  not  worthy;  and  take  them  away 
with  him  to  a  really  careful  museum,  situated 
dangerously  near  Clapham.  Many  of  the 
great  men  of  that  generation,  indeed,  had  a 
sort  of  divided  mind;  an  ethical  headache 
which  was  literally  a  "  splitting  headache  " ; 
for  there  was  a  schism  in  the  sympathies. 
When  these  men  looked  at  some  historic 
object,  like  the  Catholic  Church  or  the  French 


64     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

Revolution,  they  did  not  know  whether  they 

loved  or  hated  it  most.     Carlyle's  two   eyes 

were  out   of  focus,   as   one  may   say,   when 

he  looked   at   democracy :    he   had   one  eye 

on  Valmy  and  the  other  on  Sedan.     In  the 

same  way,  Ruskin  had  a  strong  right  hand 

that  wrote  of  the  great  mediaeval  minsters  in 

tall  harmonies  and   traceries  as  splendid  as 

their  own ;  and  also,  so  to  speak,  a  weak  and 

feverish  left  hand   that  was  always  fidgeting 

and  trying  to  take  the  pen  away — and  write 

an  evangelical  tract  about  the  immorality  of 

foreigners.     Many    of    their    contemporaries 

were  the  same.     The  sea  of  Tennyson's  mind 

was  troubled  under  its  serene  surface.     The 

incessant    excitement    of    Kingsley,    though 

romantic  and  attractive  in  many  ways,  was 

a  great  deal  more  like  Nervous  Christianity 

than    Muscular    Christianity.     It    would    be 

quite  unfair  to  say  of  Ruskin  that  there  was 

any  major  inconsistency  between  his  mediaeval 

tastes    and     his    very   unmediaeval    temper : 

and  minor  inconsistencies  do  not  matter  in 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     65 

anybody.  But  it  is  not  quite  unfair  to  say 
of  him  that  he  seemed  to  want  all  parts  of  the 
Cathedral  except  the  altar. 

As  an  artist  in  prose  he  is  one  of  the  most 
miraculous  products  of  the  extremely  poetical 
genius  of  England.  The  length  of  a  Ruskin 
sentence  is  like  that  length  in  the  long  arrow 
that  was  boasted  of  by  the  drawers  of  the  long 
bow.  He  draws,  not  a  cloth-yard  shaft  but 
a  long  lance  to  his  ear  :  he  shoots  a  spear. 
But  the  whole  goes  light  as  a  bird  and  straight 
as  a  bullet.  There  is  no  Victorian  writer 
before  him  to  whom  he  even  suggests  a 
comparison,  technically  considered,  except 
perhaps  De  Quincey ;  who  also  employed  the 
long  rich  rolling  sentence  that,  like  a  rocket, 
bursts  into  stars  at  the  end.  But  De  Quincey's 
sentences,  as  I  have  said,  have  always  a 
dreamy  and  insecure  sense  about  them,  like 
the  turret  on  toppling  turret  of  some  mad 
sultan's  pagoda.  Ruskin 's  sentence  branches 
into  brackets  and  relative  clauses  as  a  straight 
strong  tree  branches  into  boughs  and  bifur- 

E 


66    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

cations,  rather  shaking  off  its  burden  than 
merely  adding  to  it.  It  is  interesting  to 
remember  that  Ruskin  wrote  some  of  the  best 
of  these  sentences  in  the  attempt  to  show  that 
he  did  understand  the  growth  of  trees,  and  that 
nobody  else  did — except  Turner,  of  course. 
It  is  also  (to  those  acquainted  with  his  per- 
verse and  wild  rhetorical  prejudices)  even  more 
amusing  to  remember  that  if  a  Ruskin  sentence 
(occupying  one  or  two  pages  of  small  print) 
does  not  remind  us  of  the  growth  of  a  tree, 
the  only  other  thing  it  does  remind  of  is  the 
triumphant  passage  of  a  railway  train. 

Ruskin  left  behind  him  in  his  turn  two 
quite  separate  streams  of  inspiration.  The 
first  and  more  practical  was  concerned,  like 
Carlyle's  Chartism,  with  a  challenge  to  the 
social  conclusions  of  the  orthodox  economists. 
He  was  not  so  great  a  man  as  Carlyle,  but  he 
was  a  much  more  clear-headed  man ;  and  the 
point  and  stab  of  his  challenge  still  really 
stands  and  sticks,  like  a  dagger  in  a  dead  man. 
He  answered  the  theory  that  we  must  always 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     67 

get  the  cheapest  labour  we  can,  by  pointing 
out  that  we  never  do  get  the  cheapest  labour 
we  can,  in  any  matter  about  which  we  really 
care  twopence.  We  do  not  get  the  cheapest 
doctor.  We  either  get  a  doctor  who  charges 
nothing  or  a  doctor  who  charges  a  recognised 
and  respectable  fee.  We  do  not  trust  the 
cheapest  bishop.  We  do  not  allow  admirals 
to  compete.  We  do  not  tell  generals  to  under- 
cut each  other  on  the  eve  of  a  war.  We 
either  employ  none  of  them  or  we  employ  all 
of  them  at  an  official  rate  of  pay.  All  this 
was  set  out  in  the  strongest  and  least  senti- 
mental of  his  books,  Unto  this  Last ;  but 
many  suggestions  of  it  are  scattered  through 
Sesame  and  Lilies,  The  Political  Economy  of 
Art,  and  even  Modern  Painters.  On  this  side 
of  his  soul  Ruskin  became  the  second  founder 
of  Socialism.  The  argument  was  not  bv  anv 
means  a  complete  or  unconquerable  weapon, 
but  I  think  it  knocked  out  what  little  re- 
mained of  the  brains  of  the  early  Victorian 

rationalists.     It    is    entirely    nonsensical    ta 

e  z 


68     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

speak  of  Ruskin  as  a  lounging  aesthete,  who 
strolled  into  economics,  and  talked  senti- 
mentalism.  In  plain  fact,  Ruskin  was  seldom 
so  sensible  and  logical  (right  or  wrong)  as 
when  he  was  talking  about  economics.  He 
constantly  talked  the  most  glorious  nonsense 
about  landscape  and  natural  history,  which 
it  was  his  business  to  understand.  Within 
his  own  limits,  he  talked  the  most  cold  com- 
mon sense  about  political  economy,  which 
was  no  business  of  his  at  all. 

On  the  other  side  of  his  literary  soul,  his 
mere  un wrapping  of  the  wealth  and  wonder  of 
European  art,  he  set  going  another  influence, 
earlier  and  vaguer  than  his  influence  on 
Socialism.  He  represented  what  was  at  first 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  School  in  painting,  but 
afterwards  a  much  larger  and  looser  Pre- 
Raphaelite  School  in  poetry  and  prose.  The 
word  "  looser  "  will  not  be  found  unfair  if 
we  remember  how  Swinburne  and  all  the 
wildest  friends  of  the  Rossettis  carried  this 
movement  forward.     They  used  the  mediaeval 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     69 

imagery  to  blaspheme  the  mediaeval  religion. 
Ruskin's  dark  and  doubtful  decision  to  accept 
Catholic  art  but  not  Catholic  ethics  had  borne 
rapid  or  even  flagrant  fruit  by  the  time  that 
Swinburne,  writing  about  a  harlot,  composed 
a  learned  and  sympathetic  and  indecent 
parody  on  the  Litany  of  the  Blessed  Virgin. 

With  the  poets  I  deal  in  another  part  of  this 
book;  but  the  influence  of  Ruskin's  great 
prose  touching  art  criticism  can  best  be 
expressed  in  the  name  of  the  next  great  prose 
writer  on  such  subjects.  That  name  is  Walter 
Pater  :  and  the  name  is  the  full  measure  of 
the  extent  to  which  Ruskin's  vague  but  vast 
influence  had  escaped  from  his  hands.  Pater 
eventually  joined  the  Church  of  Rome  (which 
would  not  have  pleased  Ruskin  at  all),  but  it 
is  surely  fair  to  say  of  the  mass  of  his  work 
that  its  moral  tone  is  neither  Puritan  nor 
Catholic,  but  strictly  and  splendidly  Pagan. 
In  Pater  we  have  Ruskin  without  the  pre- 
judices, that  is,  without  the  funny  parts.  I 
may  be  wrong,  but  I  cannot  recall  at  this 


70     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

moment  a  single  passage  in  which  Pater's 
style  takes  a  holiday  or  in  which  his  wisdom 
plays  the  fool.  Newman  and  Ruskin  were 
as  careful  and  graceful  stylists  as  he.  New- 
man and  Ruskin  wrere  as  serious,  elaborate, 
and  even  academic  thinkers  as  he.  But 
Ruskin  let  himself  go  about  railways.  New- 
man let  himself  go  about  Kingsley.  Pater 
cannot  let  himself  go  for  the  excellent  reason 
that  he  wants  to  stay  :  to  stay  at  the  point 
where  all  the  keenest  emotions  meet,  as  he 
explains  in  the  splendid  peroration  of  The 
Renaissance,  The  only  objection  to  being 
where  all  the  keenest  emotions  meet  is  that 
you  feel  none  of  them. 

In  this  sense  Pater  may  well  stand  for  a 
substantial  summary  of  the  aesthetes,  apart 
from  the  purely  poetical  merits  of  men  like 
Rossetti  and  Swinburne.  Like  Swinburne 
and  others  he  first  attempted  to  use  mediaeval 
tradition  without  trusting  it.  These  people 
wanted  to  see  Paganism  through  Christianity  : 
because  it  involved  the  incidental  amusement 


THE  VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     71 

of  seeing  through  Christianity  itself.     They 
not  only  tried  to  be  in  all  ages  at  once  (which 
is   a  very  reasonable  ambition,   though  not 
often  realised),  but  they  wanted  to  be  on  all 
sides  at  once  :  which  is  nonsense,     Swinburne 
tries  to  question  the  philosophy  of  Christianity 
in  the  metres   of    a   Christmas   carol  :    and 
Dante  Rossetti  tries  to  write  as  if  he  were 
Christina    Rossetti.      Certainly    the    almost 
successful  summit  of  all  this  attempt  is  Pater's 
superb  passage  on  the  Monna  Lisa ;  in  which 
he  seeks  to  make  her  at  once  a  mystery  of 
good  and  a  mystery  of  evil.     The  philosophy 
is  false;  even  evidently  false,  for  it  bears  no 
fruit   to-day.      There  never  was   a   woman, 
not  Eve  herself  in  the  instant  of  temptation, 
who  could  smile  the  same  smile  as  the  mother 
of  Helen  and  the  mother  of  Mary.     But  it 
is  the  high-water  mark  of  that  vast  attempt 
at  an  impartiality  reached  through  art :   and 
no  other  mere  artist  ever  rose  so  high  again. 

Apart  from  this  Ruskinian  offshoot  through 
Pre-Raphaelitism     into     what     was     called 


72     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

-32stheticism,  the  remains  of   the  inspiration 
of  Carlyle  fill  a  very  large  part  in  the  Victorian 
life,  but  not  strictly  so  large  a  part  in  the 
Victorian   literature.     Charles    Kingsley   was 
a   great    publicist ;     a   popular   preacher ;     a 
popular  novelist ;   and  (in  two  cases  at  least) 
a  very  good  novelist.     His   Water  Babies  is 
really   a   breezy   and   roaring  freak;    like  a 
holiday  at  the  seaside — a  holiday  where  one 
talks     natural     history     without     taking    it 
seriously.     Some  of  the  songs  in  this  and  other 
of  his  works  are  very  real   songs  :    notably, 
"  When  all  the  World  is  Young,  Lad,"  which 
comes  very  near  to  being  the  only  true  defence 
of  marriage  in  the  controversies  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.     But  when  all  this  is  allowed, 
no  one  will  seriously  rank  Kingsley,  in  the 
really  literary  sense  on  the  level  of  Carlyle 
or  Ruskin,  Tennyson  or  Browning,  Dickens 
or  Thackeray  :   and  if  such  a  place  cannot  be 
given  to  him,  it  can  be  given  even  less  to  his 
lusty  and  pleasant  friend,  Tom  Hughes,  whose 
personality  floats  towards   the  frankness   of 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     73 

the  Boy's  Own  Paper;  or  to  his  deep,  sug- 
gestive metaphysical  friend  Maurice,  who 
floats  rather  towards  The  Hibbert  Journal, 
The  moral  and  social  influence  of  these  things 
is  not  to  be  forgotten  :  but  they  leave  the 
domain  of  letters.  The  voice  of  Carlyle  is 
not  heard  again  in  letters  till  the  coming  of 
Kipling  and  Henley. 

One  other  name  of  great  importance  should 
appear  here,  because  it  cannot  appear  very 
appropriately  anywhere  else  :  the  man  hardly 
belonged  to  the  same  school  as  Ruskin  and 
Carlyle,  but  fought  many  of  their  battles , 
and  was  even  more  concentrated  on  their 
main  task — the  task  of  convicting  liberal 
bourgeois  England  of  priggishness  and  provin- 
ciality* I  mean,  of  course,  Matthew  Arnold. 
Against  Mill's  "  liberty "  and  Carlyle's 
if  strength  "  and  Ruskin 's  "  nature,"  he  set 
up  a  new  presence  and  entity  which  he  called 
'  culture,"  the  disinterested  play  of  the  mind 
through  the  sifting  of  the  best  books  and 
authorities.     Though    a    little    dandified    in 


74     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

phrase,  he  was  undoubtedly  serious  and  public- 
spirited  in  intention.     He  sometimes  talked 
of  culture  almost  as  if  it  were  a  man,  or  at 
least  a  church  (for  a  church  has  a  sort  of 
personality) :   some  may  suspect  that  culture 
was  a  man,  whose  name  was  Matthew  Arnold. 
But  Arnold  was  not  only  right  but  highly 
valuable.     If  we  have  said  that  Carlyle  was 
a  man  that  saw  things,  we  may  add  that 
Arnold  was  chiefly  valuable  as  a  man  who 
knew    things.     Well    as    he    was    endowed 
intellectually,    his    power    came    more    from 
information  than  intellect.     He  simply  hap- 
pened to  know  certain  things,  that  Carlyle 
didn't  know,  that  Kingsley  didn't  know,  that 
Huxley  and  Herbert  Spencer  didn't  know  : 
that  England  didn't  know.     He  knew  that 
England  was  a  part  of  Europe  :    and  not  so 
important  a  part  as  it  had  been  the  morning 
after  Waterloo.     He  knew  that  England  was 
then  (as  it  is  now)  an  oligarchical  State,  and 
that  many  great  nations  are  not.     He  knew 
that  a  real  democracy  need  not  live  and  does 


THE  VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE    75 

not  live  in  that  perpetual  panic  about  using 
the  powers  of  the  State,  which  possessed  men 
like  Spencer  and  Cobden.  He  knew  a  rational 
minimum  of  culture  and  common  courtesy 
could  exist  and  did  exist  throughout  large 
democracies.  He  knew  the  Catholic  Church 
had  been  in  history  "the  Church  of  the  multi- 
tude "  :  he  knew  it  was  not  a  sect.  He  knew 
that  great  landlords  are  no  more  a  part  of  the 
economic  law  than  nigger-drivers  :  he  knew 
that  small  owners  could  and  did  prosper.  He 
was  not  so  much  the  philosopher  as  the  man 
of  the  world  :  he  reminded  us  that  Europe 
was  a  society  while  Ruskin  was  treating  it  as 
a  picture  gallery.  He  was  a  sort  of  Heaven- 
sent courier.  His  frontal  attack  on  the  vulgar 
and  sullen  optimism  of  Victorian  utility  may  be 
summed  up  in  the  admirable  sentence,  in  which 
he  asked  the  English  what  was  the  use  of  a 
train  taking  them  quickly  from  Islington  to 
Camberwell,  if  it  only  took  them  "  from  a 
dismal  and  illiberal  life  in  Islington  to  a  dismal 
and  illiberal  life  in  Camberwell  ?  " 


70     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

His  attitude  to  that  great  religious  enigma 
round  which  all  these  great  men  were  grouped 
as  in  a  ring,  was  individual  and  decidedly 
curious.  He  seems  to  have  believed  that  a 
"Historic  Church,"  that  is,  some  established 
organisation  with  ceremonies  and  sacred  books, 
etc.,  could  be  perpetually  preserved  as  a  sort 
of  vessel  to  contain  the  spiritual  ideas  of  the 
age,  whatever  those  ideas  might  happen  to 
be.  He  clearly  seems  to  have  contemplated 
a  melting  away  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Church 
and  even  of  the  meaning  of  the  words  :  but 
he  thought  a  certain  need  in  man  would  always 
be  best  satisfied  by  public  worship  and 
especially  by  the  great  religious  literatures  of 
the  past.  He  would  embalm  the  body  that 
it  might  often  be  revisited  by  the  soul — or 
souls.  Something  of  the  sort  has  been 
suggested  by  Dr.  Coit  and  others  of  the 
ethical  societies  in  our  own  time.  But  while 
Arnold  would  loosen  the  theological  bonds  of 
the  Church,  he  would  not  loosen  the  official 
bonds  of  the  State.     You  must  not  disestab- 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     77 

lish  the  Church  :  you  must  not  even  leave  the 
Church  :  you  must  stop  inside  it  and  think 
what  you  choose.  Enemies  might  say  that 
he  was  simply  trying  to  establish  and  endow 
Agnosticism.  It  is  fairer  and  truer  to  say  that 
unconsciously  he  was  trying  to  restore  Pagan- 
ism :  for  this  State  Ritualism  without  theology, 
and  without  much  belief,  actually  was  the 
practice  of  the  ancient  world.  Arnold  may 
have  thought  that  he  was  building  an  altar 
to  the  Unknown  God ;  but  he  was  really 
building  it  to  Divus  Caesar. 

As  a  critic  he  wTas  chiefly  concerned  to 
preserve  criticism  itself ;  to  set  a  measure  to 
praise  and  blame  and  support  the  classics 
against  the  fashions.  It  is  here  that  it  is 
specially  true  of  him,  if  of  no  writer  else,  that 
the  style  was  the  man.  The  most  vital  thing 
he  invented  was  a  new  style  :  founded  on  the 
patient  unravelling  of  the  tangled  Victorian 
ideas,  as  if  they  were  matted  hair  under  a 
comb.  He  did  not  mind  how  elaborately  long 
he  made  a  sentence,  so  long  as  he  made  it 


78     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

clear.  He  would  constantly  repeat  whole 
phrases  word  for  word  in  the  same  sentence, 
rather  than  risk  ambiguity  by  abbreviation. 
His  genius  showed  itself  in  turning  this  method 
of  a  laborious  lucidity  into  a  peculiarly 
exasperating  form  of  satire  and  controversy. 
Newman's  strength  was  in  a  sort  of  stifled 
passion,  a  dangerous  patience  of  polite  logic 
and  then :  "  Cowards !  if  I  advanced  a  step 
you  would  run  away  :  it  is  not  you  I  fear. 
Di  me  terrent,  et  Jupiter  hostis"  If  Newman 
seemed  suddenly  to  fly  into  a  temper,  Carlyle 
seemed  never  to  fly  out  of  one.  But  Arnold 
kept  a  smile  of  heart-broken  forbearance,  as 
of  the  teacher  in  an  idiot  school,  that  was 
enormously  insulting.  One  trick  he  often  tried 
with  success.  If  his  opponent  had  said  some- 
thing foolish,  like  "  the  destiny  of  England  is 
in  the  great  heart  of  England,"  Arnold  would 
repeat  the  phrase  again  and  again  until  it 
looked  more  foolish  than  it  really  was.  Thus 
he  recurs  again  and  again  to  "  the  British 
College  of  Health  in  the  New  Road  "  till  the 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     79 

reader  wants  to  rush  out  and  burn  the  place 
down.  Arnold's  great  error  was  that  he  some- 
times thus  wearied  us  of  his  own  phrases,  as 
well  as  of  his  enemies'. 

These  names  are  roughly  representative  of 
the  long  series  of  protests  against  the  cold 
commercial  rationalism  which  held  Parliament 
and  the  schools  through  the  earlier  Victorian 
time,  in  so  far  as  those  protests  were  made  in 
the  name  of  neglected  intellect,  insulted  art, 
forgotten  heroism  and  desecrated  religion. 
But  already  the  Utilitarian  citadel  had  been 
more  heavily  bombarded  on  the  other  side  by 
one  lonely  and  unlettered  man  of  genius. 

The  rise  of  Dickens  is  like  the  rising  of  a  vast 
mob.  This  is  not  only  because  his  tales  are 
indeed  as  crowded  and  populous  as  towns  : 
for  truly  it  was  not  so  much  that  Dickens 
appeared  as  that  a  hundred  Dickens  char- 
acters appeared.  It  is  also  because  he  was 
the  sort  of  man  who  has  the  impersonal 
impetus  of  a  mob  :  what  Poe  meant  when  he 
truly   said   that    popular   rumour,    if    really 


SO     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

spontaneous,  was  like  the  intuition  of  the 
individual  man  of  genius.  Those  who  speak 
scornfully  of  the  ignorance  of  the  mob  do 
not  err  as  to  the  fact  itself;  their  error  is  in 
not  seeing  that  just  as  a  crowd  is  comparatively 
ignorant,  so  a  crowd  is  comparatively  in- 
nocent. It  will  have  the  old  and  human 
faults ;  but  it  is  not  likely  to  specialise  in  the 
special  faults  of  that  particular  society : 
because  the  effort  of  the  strong  and  successful 
in  all  ages  is  to  keep  the  poor  out  of  society. 
If  the  higher  castes  have  developed  some 
special  moral  beauty  or  grace,  as  they  occa- 
sionally do  (for  instance,  mediaeval  chivalry), 
it  is  likely  enough,  of  course,  that  the  mass  of 
men  will  miss  it.  But  if  they  have  developed 
some  perversion  or  over-emphasis,  as  they 
much  more  often  do  (for  instance,  the  Re- 
naissance poisoning),  then  it  will  be  the  ten- 
■dency  of  the  mass  of  men  to  miss  that  too. 
The  point  might  be  put  in  many  ways;  you 
may  say  if  you  will  that  the  poor  are  always 
.at  the  tail  of  the  procession,  and  that  whether 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     81 

they  are  morally  worse  or  better  depends  on 
whether  humanity  as  a  whole  is  proceeding 
towards  heaven  or  hell.  When  humanity  is 
going  to  hell,  the  poor  are  always  nearest  to 
heaven. 

Dickens  was  a  mob — and  a  mob  in  revolt ; 
he  fought   by  the  light  of  nature;   he  had 
not  a  theory,  but  a  thirst.    If  any  one  chooses 
to   offer  the   cheap   sarcasm  that   his   thirst 
was   largely  a  thirst   for   milk-punch,   I   am 
content  to  reply  with  complete  gravity  and 
entire  contempt  that  in  a  sense  this  is  per- 
fectly  true.     His   thirst    was   for   things    as 
humble,  as  human,  as  laughable  as  that  daily 
bread  for  which  we  cry  to  God.     He  had  no 
particular  plan  of  reform;  or,  when  he  had, 
it  was  startlingly  petty  and  parochial  compared 
with  the  deep,  confused  clamour  of  comradeship 
and  insurrection  that  fills  all  his  narrative. 
It    would  not  be    gravely  unjust  to  him  to 
compare   him   to   his   own   heroine,  Arabella 
Allen,  who    '  didn't  know  what  she  did  like," 
but    who    (when    confronted    with    Mr.    Bob 

F 


82     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

Sawyer)   "  did  know  what  she  didn't  like." 
Dickens  did  know  what  he  didn't  like.     He 
didn't  like  the  Unrivalled  Happiness  which 
Mr.  Roebuck  praised ;  the  economic  laws  that 
were  working  so  faultlessly  in  Fever  Alley; 
the  wealth  that  was  accumulating  so  rapidly 
in  Bleeding  Heart  Yard.     But,  above  all,  he 
didn't  like  the  mean  side  of  the  Manchester 
philosophy:  the  preaching  of  an  impossible 
thrift    and    an   intolerable    temperance.     He 
hated  the   implication  that   because  a  man 
was  a  miser  in  Latin  he  must  also  be  a  miser 
in  English.     And  this  meanness  of  the  Utili- 
tarians  had   gone   very  far — infecting  many 
finer  minds  who  had  fought  the  Utilitarians. 
Li  the  Edinburgh  Review,  sl  thing  like  Malthus 
could  be  championed  by  a  man  like  Macaulay. 
The  twin  root  facts  of  the  revolution  called 
Dickens  are  these  :  first,  that  he  attacked  the 
cold  Victorian  compromise;  second,  that  he 
attacked  it  without   knowing  he  was  doing 
it — certainly     without    knowing    that    other 
people    were    doing    it.     He    was    attacking 


THE  VICTORIAN  COMPROMISE     83 

something  which  we  will  call  Mr.  Gradgrind. 
He   was   utterly  unaware   (in   any   essential 
sense)  that  any  one  else  had  attacked  Mr. 
Gradgrind.     All  the  other  attacks  had  come 
from  positions  of  learning  or  cultured  eccen- 
tricity of    which  he    was   entirely  ignorant, 
and  to  which,  therefore  (like  a  spirited  fellow), 
he  felt  a  furious  hostility.     Thus,  for  instance, 
he  hated  that  Little  Bethel  to  which  Kit's 
mother   went :   he   hated   it   simply  as    Eat 
hated  it.     Newman  could  have  told  him  it  was 
hateful,  because  it  had  no  root  in  religious 
history;  it  was  not  even  a  sapling  sprung  of 
the  seed  of  some  great  human  and  heathen 
tree  :  it  was  a  monstrous  mushroom  that  grows 
in    the   moonshine   and    dies    in   the    dawn. 
Dickens  knew  no  more  of  religious  history 
than  Kit ;  he  simply  smelt  the  fungus,  and  it 
stank.     Thus,  again,  he  hated  that  insolent 
luxury  of  a  class  counting  itself  a  comfortable 
exception   to   all   mankind;   he   hated   it   as 
Kate  Nickleby  hated  Sir  Mulberry  Hawke — 

by   instinct.     Carlyle    could   have   told   him 
F  2 


84     VICTORIAN  AGE   IN  LITERATURE 

that  all  the  world  was  full  of  that  anger 
against  the  impudent  fatness  of  the  few. 
But  when  Dickens  wrote  about  Kate  Nicklebv, 
he  knew  about  as  much  of  the  world — as 
Kate  Nicklebv.  He  did  write  The  Tale  of 
T-jco  Cities  long  afterwards  ;  but  that  was  when 
he  had  been  instructed  by  Carlyle.  His  first 
revolutionism  was  as  private  and  internal  as 
feeling  sea-sick.  Thus,  once  more,  he  wrote 
against  Mr.  Gradgrind  long  before  he  created 
him.  In  The  Chimes,  conceived  in  quite  his 
casual  and  charitable  season,  with  the  Christ- 
mas Carol  and  the  Cricket  on  the  Hearth,  he 
hit  hard  at  the  economists.  Ruskin,  in  the 
same  fashion,  would  have  told  him  that  the 
worst  thing  about  the  economists  was  that 
they  were  not  economists  :  that  they  missed 
many  essential  things  even  in  economics. 
But  Dickens  did  not  know  whether  they  were 
economists  or  not  :  he  only  knew  that  they 
wanted  hitting.  Thus,  to  take  a  last  case 
out  of  many,  Dickens  travelled  in  a  French 
railway  train,  and  noticed  that  this  eccentric 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     85 

nation  provided  him  with  wine  that  he  could 
drink    and    sandwiches    he    could    eat,  and 
manners  he  could  tolerate.     And  remembering 
the  ghastly  sawdust -eating  waiting-rooms  of 
the  North  English  railways,   he  wrote  that 
rich   chapter  in   Mugby  Junction.     Matthew 
Arnold  could  have  told   him  that  this  was 
but  a  part  of  the   general  thinning  down  of 
European  civilisation  in  these  islands  at  the 
edge  of  it ;  that  for  two  or  three  thousand 
years  the  Latin   society  has   learnt   how  to 
drink  wine,  and  how  not  to  drink  too  much 
of  it.     Dickens  did  not  in  the  least  under- 
stand the  Latin  society  :  but  he  did  under- 
stand the   wine.     If  (to   prolong  an  idle  but 
not  entirely  false  metaphor)  we  have  called 
Carlvle  a  man  who  saw  and  Arnold  a  man  who 
knew,   we  might  truly  call  Dickens  a  man 
who  tasted,  that  is,  a  man    who  really  felt. 
In  spite  of  all  the  silly  talk  about  his  vulgarity, 
he  really  had,  in  the  strict  and  serious  sense, 
good   taste.     All  real   good  taste   is   gusto — 
the  power  of  appreciating  the  presence — or 


86    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

the  absence — of  a  particular  and  positive 
pleasure.  He  had  no  learning;  he  was  not 
misled  by  the  label  on  the  bottle — for  that 
is  what  learning  largely  meant  in  his  time. 
He  opened  his  mouth  and  shut  his  eyes  and 
saw  what  the  Age  of  Reason  would  give  him. 
And,  having  tasted  it,  he  spat  it  out. 

I  am  constrained  to  consider  Dickens  here 
among  the  fighters ;  though  I  ought  (on  the 
pure  principles  of  Art)  to  be  considering  him 
in  the  chapter  which  I  have  allotted  to  the 
story-tellers.  But  we  should  get  the  whole 
Victorian  perspective  wrong,  in  my  opinion 
at  least,  if  we  did  not  see  that  Dickens  was 
primarily  the  most  successful  of  all  the 
onslaughts  on  the  solid  scientific  school; 
because  he  did  not  attack  from  the  standpoint 
of  extraordinary  faith,  like  Newman;  or  the 
standpoint  of  extraordinary  inspiration,  like 
Carlyle;  or  the  standpoint  of  extraordinary 
detachment  or  serenity,  like  Arnold ;  but  from 
the  standpoint  of  quite  ordinary  and  quite 
hearty    dislike.     To    give    but    one   instance 


THE  VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     87 

more,  Matthew  Arnold,  trying  to  carry  into 
England    constructive    educational    schemes 
which  he  could  see  spread  like  a  clear  railway 
map    all     over    the    Continent,    was    much 
badgered  about  what  he  really  thought  was 
wrong    with  English  middle-class  education. 
Despairing    of    explaining    to    the    English 
middle   class   the   idea   of   high   and   central 
public   instruction,    as    distinct    from    coarse 
and   hole-and-corner   private    instruction,  he 
invoked   the   aid   of   Dickens.     He   said  the 
English  middle-class  school    was  the  sort  of 
school  where  Mr.  Creakle  sat,  with  his  but- 
tered toast  and  his  cane.     Now  Dickens  had 
probably  never  seen  any  other  kind  of  school — 
certainly  he  had  never  understood  the  syste- 
matic State  Schools  in  which  Arnold  had  learnt 
his  lesson.     But   he   saw  the   cane  and  the 
buttered  toast,  and  he  knew  that  it  was  all 
wrong.     In    this    sense,  Dickens,    the    great 
romanticist,  is  truly  the  great  realist  also.    For 
he  had  no  abstractions  :  he  had  nothing  except 
realities  out  of  which  to  make  a  romance. 


88     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

With  Dickens,  then,  re-arises  that  reality 
with  which  I  began  and  which  (curtly,  but 
I  think  not  falsely)  I  have  called  Cobbett. 
In  dealing  with  fiction  as  such,  I  shall  have 
occasion  to  say  wherein  Dickens  is  weaker 
and  stronger  than  that  England  of  the 
eighteenth  century  :  here  it  is  sufficient  to 
say  that  he  represents  the  return  of  Cobbett 
in  this  vital  sense;  that  he  is  proud  of  being 
the  ordinary  man.  No  one  can  understand 
the  thousand  caricatures  by  Dickens  who  does 
not  understand  that  he  is  comparing  them 
all  with  his  own  common  sense.  Dickens, 
in  the  bulk,  liked  the  things  that  Cobbett 
had  liked ;  what  is  perhaps  more  to  the  point, 
he  hated  the  things  that  Cobbett  had  hated ; 
the  Tudors,  the  lawyers,  the  leisurely  oppres- 
sion of  the  poor.  Cobbett's  fine  fighting 
journalism  had  been  what  is  nowadays  called 
"  personal,"  that  is,  it  supposed  human  beings 
to  be  human.  But  Cobbett  was  also  personal 
in  the  less  satisfactory  sense;  he  could  only 
multiply   monsters    who    were    exaggerations 


THE   VICTORIAN   COMPROMISE     89 

of  his  enemies  or  exaggerations  of  himself. 
Dickens  was  personal  in  a  more  godlike  sense ; 
he  could  multiply  persons.  He  could  create 
all  the  farce  and  tragedy  of  his  age  over  again, 
with  creatures  unborn  to  sin  and  creatures 
unborn  to  suffer.  That  which  had  not  been 
achieved  by  the  fierce  facts  of  Cobbett,  the 
burning  dreams  of  Carlyle,  the  white-hot 
proofs  of  Newman,  was  really  or  very  nearly 
achieved  by  a  crowd  of  impossible  people. 
In  the  centre  stood  that  citadel  of  atheist 
industrialism  :  and  if  indeed  it  has  ever  been 
taken,  it  was  taken  by  the  rush  of  that  unreal 
army. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE    GREAT   VICTORIAN    NOVELISTS 

The  Victorian  novel  was  a  thing  entirely- 
Victorian;  quite  unique  and  suited  to  a  sort 
of  cosiness  in  that  country  and  that  age. 
But  the  novel  itself,  though  not  merely 
Victorian,  is  mainly  modern.  No  clear- 
headed person  wastes  his  time  over  defini- 
tions, except  where  he  thinks  his  own  definition 
would  probably  be  in  dispute.  I  merely  say, 
therefore,  that  when  I  say  "  novel,"  I  mean 
a  fictitious  narrative  (almost  invariably,  but 
not  necessarily,  in  prose)  of  which  the  essential 
is  that  the  story  is  not  told  for  the  sake  of 
its  naked  pointedness  as  an  anecdote,  or  for  the 
sake  of  the  irrelevant  landscapes  and  visions 
that  can  be  caught  up  in  it,  but  for  the  sake 
of    some    study    of    the    difference    between 

human  beings.     There  are  several  things  that 

90 


GREAT   VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     91 

make  this  mode  of  art  unique.  One  of  the 
most  conspicuous  is  that  it  is  the  art  in  which 
the  conquests  of  woman  are  quite  beyond 
controversy.  The  proposition  that  Victorian 
women  have  done  well  in  politics  and  philo- 
sophy is  not  necessarily  an  untrue  proposition ; 
but  it  is  a  partisan  proposition.  I  never  heard 
that  many  women,  let  alone  men,  shared 
the  views  of  Mary  Wollstoncroft ;  I  never 
heard  that  millions  of  believers  flocked  to  the 
religion  tentatively  founded  by  Miss  Frances 
Power  Cobbe.  They  did,  undoubtedly,  flock 
to  Mrs.  Eddy;  but  it  will  not  be  unfair  to 
that  lady  to  call  her  following  a  sect,  and  not 
altogether  unreasonable  to  say  that  such 
insane  exceptions  prove  the  rule.  Nor  can 
I  at  this  moment  think  of  a  single  modern 
woman  writing  on  politics  or  abstract  things, 
whose  work  is  of  undisputed  importance; 
except  perhaps  Mrs.  Sidney  Webb,  who  settles 
things  by  the  simple  process  of  ordering  about 
the  citizens  of  a  state,  as  she  might  the 
servants  in  a  kitchen.      There  has  been,  at 


92     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

any  rate,  no  writer  on  moral  or  political  theory 
that  can  be  mentioned,  without  seeming 
comic,  in  the  same  breath  with  the  great 
female  novelists.  But  when  we  come  to  the 
novelists,  the  women  have,  on  the  whole, 
equality;  and  certainly,  in  some  points, 
superiority.  Jane  Austen  is  as  strong  in 
her  own  way  as  Scott  is  in  his.  But  she  is, 
for  all  practical  purposes,  never  weak  in  her 
own  way — and  Scott  very  often  is.  Char- 
lotte Bronte  dedicated  Jane  Eyre  to  the 
author  of  Vanity  Fair.  I  should  hesitate  to 
say  that  Charlotte  Bronte's  is  a  better  book 
than  Thackeray's,  but  I  think  it  might  well 
be  maintained  that  it  is  a  better  story.  All 
sorts  of  inquiring  asses  (equally  ignorant 
of  the  old  nature  of  woman  and  the  new 
nature  of  the  novel)  whispered  wisely  that 
George  Eliot's  novels  were  really  written  by 
George  Lewes.  I  will  cheerfully  answer  for  the 
fact  that,  if  they  had  been  written  by  George 
Lewes,  no  one  would  ever  have  read  them. 
Those  who  have  read  his  book  on  Robespierre 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS    93 

will  have  no  doubt  about  my  meaning,  I  am 
no  idolator  of  George  Eliot;  but  a  man  who 
could  concoct  such  a  crushing  opiate  about 
the  most  exciting  occasion  in  history  cer- 
tainly did  not  write  The  Mill  on  the  Floss. 
This  is  the  first  fact  about  the  novel,  that  it 
is  the  introduction  of  a  new  and  rather  curious 
kind  of  art;  and  it  has  been  found  to  be 
peculiarly  feminine,  from  the  first  good  novel 
by  Fanny  Burney  to  the  last  good  novel  by 
Miss  May  Sinclair,  The  truth  is,  I  think, 
that  the  modern  novel  is  a  new  thing;  not 
new  in  its  essence  (for  that  is  a  philosophy  for 
fools),  but  new  in  the  sense  that  it  lets  loose 
many  of  the  things  that  are  old.  It  is  a 
hearty  and  exhaustive  overhauling  of  that 
part  of  human  existence  which  has  always 
been  the  woman's  province,  or  rather  king- 
dom ;  the  play  of  personalities  in  private,  the 
real  difference  between  Tommy  and  Joe.  It 
is  right  that  womanhood  should  specialise  in 
individuals,  and  be  praised  for  doing  so;  just 
as    in    the    Middle   Ages    she    specialised    in 


94     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

dignity  and  was  praised  for  doing  so.  People 
put  the  matter  wrong  when  they  say  that  the 
novel  is  a  study  of  human  nature.  Human 
nature  is  a  thing  that  even  men  can  under- 
stand. Human  nature  is  born  of  the  pain 
of  a  woman ;  human  nature  plays  at  peep-bo 
when  it  is  two  and  at  cricket  when  it  is 
twelve;  human  nature  earns  its  living  and 
desires  the  other  sex  and  dies.  What  the 
novel  deals  with  is  what  women  have  to  deal 
with ;  the  differentiations,  the  twists  and  turns 
of  this  eternal  river.  The  key  of  this  new 
form  of  art,  which  we  call  fiction,  is  sympathy. 
And  sympathy  does  not  mean  so  much 
feeling  with  all  who  feel,  but  rather  suffering 
with  all  who  suffer.  And  it  was  inevitable, 
under  such  an  inspiration,  that  more  attention 
should  be  given  to  the  awkward  corners  of 
life  than  to  its  even  flow.  The  very  promising 
domestic  channel  dug  by  the  Victorian  women, 
in  books  like  Cr  an  ford,  by  Mrs.  Gaskell,  would 
have  got  to  the  sea,  if  they  had  been  left  alone 
to  dig  it.     They  might  have  made  domesticity 


GREAT   VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     95 

a  fairyland.  Unfortunately  another  idea,  the 
idea  of  imitating  men's  cuffs  and  collars  and 
documents,  cut  across  this  purely  female  dis- 
covery and  destroyed  it. 

It  may  seem  mere  praise  of  the  novel  to 
say  it  is  the  art  of  sympathy  and  the  study 
of   human    variations.     But    indeed,    though 
this  is  a  good  thing,  it  is  not  universally  good. 
We  have  gained  in  sympathy;  but  we  have 
lost  in  brotherhood.     Old  quarrels  had  more 
equality    than    modern    exonerations.     Two 
peasants  in  the  Middle  Ages  quarrelled  about 
their  two  fields.     But  they  went  to  the  same 
church,  served  in  the  same  semi-feudal  militia, 
and  had  the  same  morality,  whichever  might 
happen  to  be  breaking  it   at  the   moment. 
The  very  cause  of  their  quarrel  was  the  cause 
of    their   fraternity;    they    both    liked    land. 
But  suppose  one  of    them  a  teetotaler  who 
desired  the  abolition  of  hops  on  both  farms; 
suppose  the  other  a  vegetarian  who  desired 
the  abolition  of  chickens  on  both  farms  :  and 
it  is  at  once  apparent  that  a  quarrel  of  quite 


96    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

a  different  kind  would  begin;  and  that  in 
that  quarrel  it  would  not  be  a  question  of 
farmer  against  farmer,  but  of  individual 
against  individual.  This  fundamental  sense 
of  human  fraternity  can  only  exist  in  the 
presence  of  positive  religion.  Man  is  merely 
man  only  when  he  is  seen  against  the  sky. 
If  he  is  seen  against  any  landscape,  he  is 
only  a  man  of  that  land.  If  he  is  seen  against 
any  house,  he  is  only  a  householder.  Only 
where  death  and  eternity  are  intensely  present 
can  human  beings  fully  feel  their  fellowship. 
Once  the  divine  darkness  against  which  we 
stand  is  really  dismissed  from  the  mind  (as 
it  was  very  nearly  dismissed  in  the  Victorian 
time)  the  differences  between  human  beings 
become  overpoweringly  plain;  whether  they 
are  expressed  in  the  high  caricatures  of 
Dickens  or  the  low  lunacies  of  Zola. 

This  can  be  seen  in  a  sort  of  picture  in  the 
Prologue  of  the  Canterbury  Tales ;  which  is 
already  pregnant  with  the  promise  of  the 
English    novel.     The    characters    there    are 


GREAT   VICTORIAN   NOVELISTS     97 

at  once  graphically  and  delicately  differ- 
entiated ;  the  Doctor  with  his  rich  cloak,  his 
careful  meals,  his  coldness  to  religion;  the 
Franklin,  whose  white  beard  was  so  fresh 
that  it  recalled  the  daisies,  and  in  whose 
house  it  snowed  meat  and  drink;  the  Sum- 
moner,  from  whose  fearful  face,  like  a  red 
cherub's,  the  children  fled,  and  who  wore  a 
garland  like  a  hoop;  the  Miller  with  his 
short  red  hair  and  bagpipes  and  brutal  head, 
with  which  he  could  break  down  a  door;  the 
Lover  who  was  as  sleepless  as  a  nightingale; 
the  Knight,  the  Cook,  the  Clerk  of  Oxford. 
Pendennis  or  the  Cook,  M.  Mirabolant,  are 
nowhere  so  vividly  varied  by  a  few  merely 
verbal  strokes.  But  the  great  difference  is 
deeper  and  more  striking.  It  is  simply  that 
Pendennis  would  never  have  gone  riding  with 
a  cook  at  all.  Chaucer's  knight  rode  with  a 
cook  quite  naturally;  because  the  thing  they 
were  all  seeking  together  was  as  much  above 
knighthood  as  it  was  above  cookery.  Soldiers 
and  swindlers  and  bullies  and  outcasts,  they 

G 


98     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN   LITERATURE 

were  all  going  to  the  shrine  of  a  distant  saint. 
To  what  sort  of  distant  saint  would  Pendennis 
and  Colonel  Neweome  and  Mr.  Moss  and 
Captain  Costigan  and  Ridley  the  butler  and 
Bayham  and  Sir  Barnes  Neweome  and  Laura 
and  the  Duehess  d'lvry  and  Warrington  and 
Captain  Blackball  and  Lady  Kew  travel, 
laughing  and  telling  tales  together  ? 

The  growth  of  the  novel,  therefore,  must 
not  be  too  easily  called  an  increase  in  the 
interest  in  humanity.  It  is  an  increase  in 
the  interest  in  the  things  in  which  men  differ ; 
much  fuller  and  finer  work  had  been  done 
before  about  the  things  in  which  they  agree. 
And  this  intense  interest  in  variety  had  its 
bad  side  as  well  as  its  good;  it  has  rather 
increased  social  distinctions  in  a  serious  and 
spiritual  sense.  Most  of  the  oblivion  of 
democracy  is  due  to  the  oblivion  of  death. 
But  in  its  own  manner  and  measure,  it  was  a 
real  advance  and  experiment  of  the  European 
mind,  like  the  public  art  of  the  Renaissance 
or  the  fairyland  of  physical  science  explored 


GREAT   VICTORIAN   NOVELISTS     99 

in  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  a  more 
unquestionable  benefit  than  these  :  and  in 
that  development  women  played  a  peculiar 
part,  English  women  especially,  and  Victorian 
women  most  of  all. 

It  is  perhaps  partly,  though  certainly  not 
entirely,  this  influence  of  the  great  women 
writers  that  explains  another  very  arresting 
and  important  fact  about  the  emergence  of 
genuinely  Victorian  fiction.  It  had  been  by 
this  time  decided,  by  the  powers  that  had 
influence  (and  by  public  opinion  also,  at 
least  in  the  middle-class  sense),  that  certain 
verbal  limits  must  be  set  to  such  literature. 
The  novel  must  be  what  some  would  call 
pure  and  others  would  call  prudish ;  but  what 
is  not,  properly  considered,  either  one  or  the 
other :  it  is  rather  a  more  or  less  business 
proposal  (right  or  wrong)  that  every  writer 
shall  draw  the  line  at  literal  physical  descrip- 
tion of  things  socially  concealed.  It  was 
originally  merely  verbal;  it  had  not,  prima- 
rily, any  dream  of  purifying  the  topic  or  the 
G  2 


100    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

moral  tone.  Dickens  and  Thackeray  claimed 
very  properly  the  right  to  deal  with  shameful 
passions  and  suggest  their  shameful  culmina- 
tions; Scott  sometimes  dealt  with  ideas 
positively  horrible — as  in  that  grand  Glenallan 
tragedy  which  is  as  appalling  as  the  (Edipus 
or  The  Cenci.  None  of  these  great  men  would 
have  tolerated  for  a  moment  being  talked  to 
(as  the  muddle-headed  amateur  censors  talk  to 
artists  to-day)  about  "  wholesome  "  topics  and 
suggestions  "  that  cannot  elevate."  They  had 
to  describe  the  great  battle  of  good  and  evil 
and  they  described  both;  but  they  accepted 
a  working  Victorian  compromise  about  what 
should  happen  behind  the  scenes  and  what 
on  the  stage.  Dickens  did  not  claim  the 
license  of  diction  Fielding  might  have  claimed 
in  repeating  the  senile  ecstasies  of  Gride  (let 
us  say)  over  his  purchased  bride  :  but  Dickens 
does  not  leave  the  reader  in  the  faintest  doubt 
about  what  sort  of  feelings  they  were ;  nor 
is  there  any  reason  why  he  should.  Thackeray 
would  not  have  described  the  toilet  details 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     101 

of  the  secret  balls  of  Lord  Steyne  :  he  left 
that  to  Lady  Cardigan.  But  no  one  who  had 
read  Thackeray's  version  would  be  surprised 
at  Lady  Cardigan's.  But  though  the  great 
Victorian  novelists  would  not  have  permitted 
the  impudence  of  the  suggestion  that  every 
part  of  their  problem  must  be  wholesome  and 
innocent  in  itself,  it  is  still  tenable  (I  do  not 
say  it  is  certain)  that  by  yielding  to  the 
Philistines  on  this  verbal  compromise,  they 
have  in  the  long  run  worked  for  impurity 
rather  than  purity.  In  one  point  I  do  cer- 
tainly think  that  Victorian  Bowdlerism  did 
pure  harm.  This  is  the  simple  point  that, 
nine  times  out  of  ten,  the  coarse  word  is 
the  word  that  condemns  an  evil  and  the 
refined  word  the  word  that  excuses  it.  A 
common  evasion,  for  instance,  substitutes  for 
the  word  that  brands  self -sale  as  the  essential 
sin,  a  word  which  weakly  suggests  that  it  is 
no  more  wicked  than  walking  down  the  street. 
The  great  peril  of  such  soft  mystifications  is 
that  extreme  evils  (they  that  are  abnormal 


102    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

even  by  the  standard  of  evil)  have  a  very 
long  start.  Where  ordinary  wrong  is  made 
unintelligible,  extraordinary  wrong  can  count 
on  remaining  more  unintelligible  still;  especi- 
ally among  those  who  live  in  such  an  atmo- 
sphere of  long  words.  It  is  a  cruel  comment 
on  the  purity  of  the  Victorian  Age,  that  the 
age  ended  (save  for  the  bursting  of  a  single 
scandal)  in  a  thing  being  everywhere  called 
"  Art,"  "  The  Greek  Spirit,"  "  The  Platonic 
Ideal  "  and  so  on — which  any  navvy  mend- 
ing the  road  outside  would  have  stamped 
with  a  word  as  vile  and  as  vulgar  as  it 
deserved. 

This  reticence,  right  or  wrong,  may  have 
been  connected  with  the  participation  of 
women  with  men  in  the  matter  of  fiction.  It 
is  an  important  point  :  the  sexes  can  only  be 
coarse  separately.  It  was  certainly  also  due, 
as  I  have  already  suggested,  to  the  treaty 
between  the  rich  bourgeoisie  and  the  old 
aristocracy,  which  both  had  to  make,  for  the 
common   and   congenial   purpose    of   keeping 


GREAT   VICTORIAN   NOVELISTS     103 

the  English  people  down.  But  it  was  due 
much  more  than  this  to  a  general  moral 
atmosphere  in  the  Victorian  Age.  It  is 
impossible  to  express  that  spirit  except  by 
the  electric  bell  of  a  name.  It  was  latitudin- 
arian,  and  yet  it  was  limited.  It  could  be 
content  with  nothing  less  than  the  whole 
cosmos  :  yet  the  cosmos  with  which  it  was 
content  was  small.  It  is  false  to  say  it  was 
without  humour  :  yet  there  was  something  by 
instinct  unsmiling  in  it.  It  was  always  saying 
solidly  that  things  were  "  enough " ;  and 
proving  by  that  sharpness  (as  of  the  shutting 
of  a  door)  that  they  were  not  enough.  It 
took,  I  will  not  say  its  pleasures,  but  even  its 
emancipations,  sadly.  Definitions  seem  to 
escape  this  way  and  that  in  the  attempt  to 
locate  it  as  an  idea.  But  every  one  will 
understand  me  if  I  call  it  George  Eliot. 

I  begin  with  this  great  woman  of  letters 
for  both  the  two  reasons  already  mentioned. 
She  represents  the  rationalism  of  the  old 
Victorian  Age  at  its  highest.     She  and  Mill 


104    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

are  like  two  great  mountains  at  the  end  of 
that  long,  hard  chain  which  is  the  watershed 
of  the  Early  Victorian  time.  They  alone  rise 
high  enough  to  be  confused  among  the  clouds 
— or  perhaps  confused  among  the  stars.  They 
certainly  were  seeking  truth,  as  Newman  and 
Carlyle  were;  the  slow  slope  of  the  later 
Victorian  vulgarity  does  not  lower  their 
precipice  and  pinnacle.  But  I  begin  with  this 
name  also  because  it  emphasises  the  idea  of 
modern  fiction  as  a  fresh  and  largely  a  female 
thing.  The  novel  of  the  nineteenth  century 
was  female;  as  fully  as  the  novel  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  male.  It  is  quite 
certain  that  no  woman  could  have  written 
Roderick  Random.  It  is  not  quite  so  certain 
that  no  woman  could  have  written  Esmond. 
The  strength  and  subtlety  of  woman  had 
certainly  sunk  deep  into  English  letters  when 
George  Eliot  began  to  write. 

Her  originals  and  even  her  contemporaries 
had  shown  the  feminine  power  in  fiction  as 
well  or  better  than  she.     Charlotte  Bronte, 


GREAT   VICTORIAN   NOVELISTS     105 

understood  along  her  own  instincts,  was  as 
great;  Jane  Austen  was  greater.  The  latter 
comes  into  our  present  consideration  only 
as  that  most  exasperating  thing,  an  ideal 
unachieved.  It  is  like  leaving  an  uncon- 
quered  fortress  in  the  rear.  No  woman  later 
has  captured  the  complete  common  sense  of 
Jane  Austen.  She  could  keep  her  head,  while 
all  the  after  women  went  about  looking  for 
their  brains.  She  could  describe  a  man  coolly ; 
which  neither  George  Eliot  nor  Charlotte 
Bronte  could  do.  She  knew  what  she  knew, 
like  a  sound  dogmatist  :  she  did  not  know  what 
she  did  not  know — like  a  sound  agnostic. 
But  -she  belongs  to  a  vanished  world  before 
the  great  progressive  age  of  which  I  write. 

One  of  the  characteristics  of  the  central 
Victorian  spirit  was  a  tendency  to  substitute  a 
certain  more  or  less  satisfied  seriousness  for  the 
extremes  of  tragedy  and  comedy.  This  is 
marked  by  a  certain  change  in  George  Eliot; 
as  it  is  marked  by  a  certain  limitation  or 
moderation    in    Dickens.     Dickens    was    the 


106    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

People,  as  it  was  in  the  eighteenth  century 
and  still  largely  is,  in  spite  of  all  the  talk 
for  and  against  Board  School  Education  : 
comic,  tragic,  realistic,  free-spoken,  far  looser 
in  words  than  in  deeds.  It  marks  the  silent 
strength  and  pressure  of  the  spirit  of  the 
Victorian  middle  class  that  even  to  Dickens 
it  never  occurred  to  revive  the  verbal  coarse- 
ness of  Smollett  or  Swift.  The  other  proof 
of  the  same  pressure  is  the  change  in  George 
Eliot.  She  was  not  a  genius  in  the  elemental 
sense  of  Dickens;  she  could  never  have  been 
either  so  strong  or  so  soft.  But  she  did 
originally  represent  some  of  the  same  popular 
realities  :  and  her  first  books  (at  least  as 
compared  with  her  latest)  were  full  of  sound 
fun  and  bitter  pathos.  Mr.  Max  Beerbohm 
has  remarked  (in  his  glorious  essay  called 
Ichabod,  I  think),  that  Silas  Marner  would 
not  have  forgotten  his  miserliness  if  George 
Eliot  had  written  of  him  in  her  maturity.  I 
have  a  great  regard  for  Mr.  Beerbohm's 
literary  judgments;  and  it  may  be  so.      But 


GREAT   VICTORIAN   NOVELISTS    10T 

if  literature  means  anything  more  than  a  cold 
calculation  of  the  chances,  if  there  is  in  it,  as 
I  believe,  any  deeper  idea  of  detaching  the 
spirit  of  life  from  the  dull  obstacles  of  life, 
of  permitting  human  nature  really  to  reveal 
itself  as  human,  if  (to  put  it  shortly)  literature 
has  anything  on  earth  to  do  with  being 
interesting — then  I  think  we  would  rather 
have  a  few  more  Marners  than  that  rich 
maturity  that  gave  us  the  analysed  dust- 
heaps  of  Daniel  Deronda. 

In  her  best  novels  there  is  real  humour, 
of  a  cool  sparkling  sort ;  there  is  a  strong 
sense  of  substantial  character  that  has  not 
yet  degenerated  into  psychology;  there  is 
a  great  deal  of  wisdom,  chiefly  about  women ; 
indeed  there  is  almost  every  element  of 
literature  except  a  certain  indescribable  thing 
called  glamour  ;  which  was  the  whole  stock- 
in-trade  of  the  Brontes,  which  we  feel  in 
Dickens  when  Quilp  clambers  amid  rotten 
wood  by  the  desolate  river;  and  even  in 
Thackeray    when    Esmond   with    his    melan 


108    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

choly  eyes  wanders  like  some  swarthy  crow 
about  the  dismal  avenues  of  Castlewood. 
Of  this  quality  (which  some  have  called,  but 
hastily,  the  essential  of  literature)  George 
Eliot  had  not  little  but  nothing.  Her  air 
is  bright  and  intellectually  even  exciting; 
but  it  is  like  the  air  of  a  cloudless  day  on  the 
parade  at  Brighton.  She  sees  people  clearly, 
but  not  through  an  atmosphere.  And  she 
can  conjure  up  storms  in  the  conscious,  but 
not  in  the  subconscious  mind. 

It  is  true  (though  the  idea  should  not  be 
exaggerated)  that  this  deficiency  was  largely 
due  to  her  being  cut  off  from  all  those  concep- 
tions that  had  made  the  fiction  of  a  Muse ;  the 
deep  idea  that  there  are  really  demons  and 
angels  behind  men.  Certainly  the  increasing 
atheism  of  her  school  spoilt  her  own  particular 
imaginative  talent  :  she  was  far  less  free  when 
she  thought  like  Ladislaw  than  when  she 
thought  like  Casaubon.  It  also  betrayed  her 
on  a  matter  specially  requiring  common  sense ; 
I  mean  sex.     There  is  nothing  that  is  so  pro- 


GREAT   VICTORIAN   NOVELISTS     109 

foundly  false  as  rationalist  flirtation.  Each 
sex  is  trying  to  be  both  sexes  at  once;  and 
the  result  is  a  confusion  more  untruthful  than 
any  conventions.  This  can  easily  be  seen 
by  comparing  her  with  a  greater  woman  who 
died  before  the  beginning  of  our  present 
problem.  Jane  Austen  was  born  before  those 
bonds  which  (we  are  told)  protected  woman 
from  truth,  were  burst  by  the  Brontes  or 
elaborately  untied  by  George  Eliot.  Yet 
the  fact  remains  that  Jane  Austen  knew  much 
more  about  men  than  either  of  them.  Jane 
Austen  may  have  been  protected  from  truth  : 
but  it  was  precious  little  of  truth  that  was 
protected  from  her.  When  Darcy,  in  finally 
confessing  his  faults,  says,  "  I  have  been  a 
selfish  being  all  my  life,  in  practice  though  not 
in  theory"  he  gets  nearer  to  a  complete  con- 
fession of  the  intelligent  male  than  ever  was 
even  hinted  by  the  Byronic  lapses  of  the 
Brontes'  heroes  or  the  elaborate  exculpations 
of  George  Eliot's.  Jane  Austen,  of  course, 
covered   an  infinitely  smaller  field   than  any 


110    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

of  her  later  rivals ;  but  I  have  always  believed 
in  the  victory  of  small  nationalities. 

The  BrontSs  suggest  themselves  here;  be- 
cause their  superficial  qualities,  the  qualities 
that  can  be  seized  upon  in  satire,  were  in  this 
an  exaggeration  of  what  was,  in  George  Eliot, 
hardly  more  than  an  omission.  There  was 
perhaps  a  time  when  Mr.  Rawjester  was  more 
widely  known  than  Mr.  Rochester.  And 
certainly  Mr.  Rochester  (to  adopt  the  diction 
of  that  other  eminent  country  gentleman, 
Mr.  Darcy)  was  simply  individualistic  not 
only  in  practice,  but  in  theorj\  Now  any 
one  may  be  so  in  practice :  but  a  man 
who  is  simply  individualistic  in  theory  must 
merely  be  an  ass.  Undoubtedly  the  Brontes 
exposed  themselves  to  some  misunderstanding 
by  thus  perpetually  making  the  masculine 
creature  much  more  masculine  than  he  wants 
to  be.  Thackeray  (a  man  of  strong  though 
sleepy  virility)  asked  in  his  exquisite  plaintive 
way :  "  Why  do  our  lady  novelists  make  the 
men   bully   the   women  ? "     It    is,    I   think, 


GREAT   VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     111 

unquestionably  true  that  the  Brontes  treated 
the  male  as  an  almost  anarchic  thing  coming 
in  from  outside  nature;  much  as  people  on 
this  planet  regard  a  comet.  Even  the  really 
delicate  and  sustained  comedy  of  Paul  Emanuel 
is  not  quite  free  from  this  air  of  studying 
something  alien.  The  reply  may  be  made 
that  the  women  in  men's  novels  are  equally 
fallacious.     The  reply  is  probably  just. 

What  the  Brontes  really  brought  into  fiction 
was  exactly  what  Carlyle  brought  into  history ; 
the  blast  of  the  mysticism  of  the  North.  They 
were  of  Irish  blood  settled  on  the  wTindy 
heights  of  Yorkshire;  in  that  country  where 
Catholicism  lingered  latest,  but  in  a  super- 
stitious form;  where  modern  industrialism 
came  earliest  and  was  more  superstitious  still. 
The  strong  winds  and  sterile  places,  the  old 
tyranny  of  barons  and  the  new  and  blacker 
tyranny  of  manufacturers,  has  made  and  left 
that  country  a  land  of  barbarians.  All 
Charlotte  Bronte's  earlier  work  is  full  of 
that  sullen  and  unmanageable  world ;  moss- 


112    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

troopers  turned  hurriedly  into  miners ;  the  last 
of  the  old  world  forced  into  supporting  the  very 
first  crudities  of  the  new.  In  this  way  Char- 
lotte Bronte  represents  the  Victorian  settle- 
ment in  a  special  way.  The  Early  Victorian 
Industrialism  is  to  George  Eliot  and  to 
Charlotte  Bronte,  rather  as  the  Late  Vic- 
torian Imperialism  would  have  been  to 
Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  in  the  centre  of  the 
empire  and  to  Miss  Olive  Schreiner  at  the 
edge  of  it.  The  real  strength  there  is  in 
characters  like  Robert  Moore,  when  he  is 
dealing  with  anything  except  women,  is  the 
romance  of  industry  in  its  first  advance  :  a 
romance  that  has  not  remained.  On  such 
fighting  frontiers  people  always  exaggerate  the 
strong  qualities  the  masculine  sex  does  possess, 
and  always  add  a  great  many  strong  qualities 
that  it  does  not  possess.  That  is,  briefly,  all 
the  reason  in  the  Brontes  on  this  special 
subject  :  the  rest  is  stark  unreason.  It  can 
be  most  clearly  seen  in  that  sister  of  Charlotte 
Bronte's,  who  has    achieved  the  real  feat  of 


GREAT   VICTORIAN   NOVELISTS     113 

remaining  as  a  great  woman  rather  than  a 
great  writer.  There  is  really,  in  a  narrow 
but  intense  way,  a  tradition  of  Emily  Bronte  : 
as  there  is  a  tradition  of  St.  Peter  or  Dr. 
Johnson.  People  talk  as  if  they  had  known 
her,  apart  from  her  works.  She  must  have 
been  something  more  than  an  original  person ; 
perhaps  an  origin.  But  so  far  as  her  written 
works  go  she  enters  English  letters  only  as 
an  original  person — and  rather  a  narrow  one. 
Her  imagination  was  sometimes  superhuman 
— always  inhuman.  Wuthering  Heights  might 
have  been  written  by  an  eagle.  She  is  the 
strongest  instance  of  these  strong  imaginations 
that  made  the  other  sex  a  monster :  for 
Heathcliffe  fails  as  a  man  as  catastrophically 
as  he  succeeds  as  a  demon.  I  think  Emily 
Bronte  was  further  narrowed  by  the  broadness 
of  her  religious  views;  but  never,  of  course, 
so  much  as  George  Eliot. 

In  any  case,  it  is  Charlotte  Bronte  who 
enters  Victorian  literature.  The  shortest  way 
of  stating  her  strong  contribution  is,  I  think, 

H 


114    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

this  :  that  she  reached  the  highest  romance 
through  the  lowest  realism.  She  did  not 
set  out  with  Amadis  of  Gaul  in  a  forest  or 
with  Mr.  Pickwick  in  a  comic  club.  She  set 
out  with  herself,  with  her  own  dingy  clothes, 
and  accidental  ugliness,  and  flat,  coarse, 
provincial  household;  and  forcibly  fused  all 
such  muddy  materials  into  a  spirited  fairy- 
tale. If  the  first  chapters  on  the  home  and 
school  had  not  proved  how  heavy  and  hateful 
sanity  can  be,  there  would  really  be  less  point 
in  the  insanity  of  Mr.  Rochester's  wife — or  the 
not  much  milder  insanity  of  Mrs.  Rochester's 
husband.  She  discovered  the  secret  of  hiding 
the  sensational  in  the  commonplace :  and 
Jane  Eyre  remains  the  best  of  her  books 
(better  even  than  Villette)  because  while  it 
is  a  human  document  written  in  blood,  it 
is  also  one  of  the  best  blood-and-thunder 
detective  stories  in  the  world. 

But  while  Emily  Bronte  was  as  unsociable 
as  a  storm  at  midnight,  and  while  Charlotte 
Bronte  was  at  best  like  that  warmer  and  more 


GREAT   VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     115 

domestic  thing,  a  house  on  fire — they  do 
connect  themselves  with  the  calm  of  George 
Eliot,  as  the  forerunners  of  many  later 
developments  of  the  feminine  advance.  Many 
forerunners  (if  it  comes  to  that)  would  have 
felt  rather  ill  if  they  had  seen  the  things  they 
foreran.  This  notion  of  a  hazy  anticipation 
of  after  history  has  been  absurdly  overdone  : 
as  when  men  connect  Chaucer  with  the 
Reformation ;  which  is  like  connecting  Homer 
with  the  Syracusan  Expedition.  But  it  is 
to  some  extent  true  that  all  these  great 
Victorian  women  had  a  sort  of  unrest  in 
their  souls.  And  the  proof  of  it  is  that  (after 
what  I  will  claim  to  call  the  healthier  time 
of  Dickens  and  Thackeray)  it  began  to  be 
admitted  by  the  great  Victorian  men.  If 
there  had  not  been  something  in  that  irrita- 
tion, we  should  hardly  have  had  to  speak 
in  these  pages  of  Diana  of  the  Crossways  or 
of  Tess  of  the  D'Urberville's.  To  what  this 
strange  and  very  local  sex  war  has  been  due 

I  shall  not  ask,  because  I  have  no  answer. 
H  2 


116    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

That  it  was  due  to  votes  or  even  little  legal 
inequalities  about  marriage,  I  feel  myself 
here  too  close  to  realities  even  to  discuss.  My 
own  guess  is  that  it  has  been  due  to  the  great 
neglect  of  the  military  spirit  by  the  male 
Victorians.  The  woman  felt  obscurely  that 
she  was  still  running  her  mortal  risk,  while  the 
man  was  not  still  running  his.  But  I  know 
nothing  about  it ;    nor  does  anybody  else. 

In  so  short  a  book  on  so  vast,  complex  and 
living  a  subject,  it  is  impossible  to  drop  even 
into  the  second  rank  of  good  authors,  whose 
name  is  legion ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  leave 
that  considerable  female  force  in  fiction  which 
has  so  largely  made  the  very  nature  of  the 
modern  novel,  without  mentioning  two  names 
which  almost  brought  that  second  rank  up 
to  the  first  rank.  They  were  at  utterly 
opposite  poles.  The  one  succeeded  by  being 
a  much  mellower  and  more  Christian  George 
Eliot ;  the  other  succeeded  by  being  a  much 
more  mad  and  unchristian  Emily  Bronte. 
But   Mrs.    Oliphant   and   the   author   calling 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     117 

herself  "  Ouida  "  both  forced  themselves  well 
within   the   frontier   of   fine   literature.     The 
Beleaguered  City  is  literature  in  its  highest 
sense;   the  other  works  of  its  author  tend  to 
fall   into  fiction   in   its   best   working   sense. 
Mrs.    Oliphant   was   infinitely   saner  in   that 
city  of   ghosts  than  the  cosmopolitan  Ouida 
ever  was  in  any  of  the  cities  of  men.     Mrs. 
Oliphant  would  never  have  dared  to  discover, 
either  in  heaven  or  hell,  such  a  thing  as  a 
hairbrush     with    its     back     encrusted     with 
diamonds.     But   though   Ouida   was    violent 
and  weak  where  Mrs.   Oliphant  might  have 
been    mild    and    strong,    her    own    triumphs 
were   her   own.     She   had    a    real    power   of 
expressing    the    senses    through    her    style; 
of  conveying  the  very  heat  of  blue  skies  or 
the  bursting  of  palpable  pomegranates.     And 
just  as  Mrs.   Oliphant   transfused   her  more 
timid    Victorian     tales     with    a     true     and 
intense   faith   in   the   Christian    mystery — so 
Ouida,   with   infinite  fury   and   infinite   con- 
fusion  of   thought,    did   fill   her   books   with 


118    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

Bvron  and  the  remains  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion.  In  the  track  of  such  genius  there  has 
been  quite  an  accumulation  of  true  talent  as 
in  the  children's  tales  of  Mrs.  Ewing,  the 
historical  tales  of  Miss  Yonge,  the  tales  of 
Mrs.  Molesworth,  and  so  on.  On  a  general 
review  I  do  not  think  I  have  been  wrong  in 
taking  the  female  novelists  first.  I  think 
they  gave  its  special  shape,  its  temporary 
twist,  to  the  Victorian  novel. 

Nevertheless  it  is  a  shock  (I  almost  dare  to 
call  it  a  relief)  to  come  back  to  the  males. 
It  is  the  more  abrupt  because  the  first  name 
that  must  be  mentioned  derives  directly 
from  the  mere  maleness  of  the  Sterne  and 
Smollett  novel.  I  have  already  spoken  of 
Dickens  as  the  most  homely  and  instinctive, 
and  therefore  probably  the  heaviest,  of  all 
the  onslaughts  made  on  the  central  Victorian 
satisfaction.  There  is  therefore  the  less  to 
say  of  him  here,  where  we  consider  him  only 
as  a  novelist  :  but  there  is  still  much  more 
to   say  than  can   even   conceivably  be   said. 


GREAT   VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     119 

Dickens,  as  we  have  stated,  inherited  the  old 
comic,  rambling  novel  from  Smollett  and 
the  rest.  Dickens,  as  we  have  also  stated, 
consented  to  expurgate  that  novel.  But 
when  all  origins  and  all  restraints  have  been 
defined  and  allowred  for,  the  creature  that 
came  out  was  such  as  we  shall  not  see  again. 
Smollett  was  coarse;  but  Smollett  was  also 
cruel.  Dickens  was  frequently  horrible;  he 
was  never  cruel.  The  art  of  Dickens  was  the 
most  exquisite  of  arts  :  it  was  the  art  of 
enjoying  everybody.  Dickens,  being  a  very 
human  writer,  had  to  be  a  very  human  being  ; 
he  had  his  faults  and  sensibilities  in  a  strong 
degree ;  and  I  do  not  for  a  moment  maintain 
that  he  enjoyed  everybody  in  his  daily  life. 
But  he  enjoyed  everybody  in  his  books ;  and 
everybody  has  enjoyed  everybody  in  those 
books  even  till  to-day.  His  books  are  full 
of  baffled  villains  stalking  out  or  cowardly 
bullies  kicked  downstairs.  But  the  villains 
and  the  cowards  are  such  delightful  people 
that  the  reader  always  hopes  the  villain  will 


120    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

put  his  head  through  a  side  window  and  make 
a  last  remark ;  or  that  the  bully  will  say  one 
thing  more,  even  from  the  bottom  of  the 
stairs.  The  reader  really  hopes  this ;  and  he 
cannot  get  rid  of  the  fancy  that  the  author 
hopes  so  too.  I  cannot  at  the  moment  recall 
that  Dickens  ever  killed  a  comic  villain, 
except  Quilp,  who  was  deliberately  made  even 
more  villainous  than  comic.  There  can  be 
no  serious  fears  for  the  life  of  Mr.  Wegg  in 
the  muckcart ;  though  Mr.  Pecksniff  fell  to 
be  a  borrower  of  money,  and  Mr.  Mantalini 
to  turning  a  mangle,  the  human  race  has  the 
comfort  of  thinking  they  are  still  alive  :  and 
one  might  have  the  rapture  of  receiving  a 
begging  letter  from  Mr.  Pecksniff,  or  even  of 
catching  Mr.  Mantalini  collecting  the  washing, 
if  one  always  lurked  about  on  Monday  morn- 
ings. This  sentiment  (the  true  artist  will 
be  relieved  to  hear)  is  entirely  unmoral. 
Mrs.  Wilfer  deserved  death  much  more  than 
Mr.  Quilp,  for  she  had  succeeded  in  poisoning 
family  life  persistently,  while  he  was  (to  say 


. 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     121 

the  least  of  it)  intermittent  in  his  domesticity. 
But  who  can  honestly  say  he  does  not  hope 
Mrs.  Wilfer  is  still  talking  like  Mrs.  Wilfer — 
especially  if  it  is  only  in  a  book  ?  This  is  the 
artistic  greatness  of  Dickens,  before  and  after 
which  there  is  really  nothing  to  be  said.  He 
had  the  power  of  creating  people,  both  possible 
and  impossible,  who  were  simply  precious  and 
priceless  people;  and  anything  subtler  added 
to  that  truth  really  only  weakens  it. 

The  mention  of  Mrs.  Wilfer  (whom  the  heart 
is  loth  to  leave)  reminds  one  of  the  only 
elementary  ethical  truth  that  is  essential  in 
the  study  of  Dickens.  That  is  that  he  had 
broad  or  universal  sympathies  in  a  sense 
totally  unknown  to  the  social  reformers  who 
wallow  in  such  phrases.  Dickens  (unlike  the 
social  reformers)  really  did  sympathise  with 
every  sort  of  victim  of  every  sort  of  tyrant. 
He  did  truly  pray  for  all  who  are  desolate 
and  oppressed.  If  you  try  to  tie  him  to  any 
cause  narrower  than  that  Prayer  Book  defini- 
tion, you  will  find  you  have  shut  out  half  his 


122    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

best  work.  If,  in  your  sympathy  for  Mrs. 
Quilp,  you  call  Dickens  the  champion  of 
downtrodden  woman,  you  will  suddenly 
remember  Mr.  Wilfer,  and  find  yourself 
unable  to  deny  the  existence  of  downtrodden 
man.  If  in  your  sympathy  for  Mr.  Rounce- 
well  you  call  Dickens  the  champion  of  a 
manly  middle-class  Liberalism  against  Chesney 
Wold,  you  will  suddenly  remember  Stephen 
Blackpool — and  find  yourself  unable  to  deny 
that  Mr.  Rouncewell  might  be  a  pretty 
insupportable  cock  on  his  own  dunghill.  If 
in  your  sympathy  for  Stephen  Blackpool 
you  call  Dickens  a  Socialist  (as  does  Mr. 
Pugh),  and  think  of  him  as  merely  heralding 
the  great  Collectivist  revolt  against  Victorian 
Individualism  and  Capitalism,  which  seemed 
so  clearly  to  be  the  crisis  at  the  end  of  this 
epoch — you  will  suddenly  remember  the 
agreeable  young  Barnacle  at  the  Circum- 
locution Office  :  and  you  will  be  unable,  for 
very  shame,  to  assert  that  Dickens  would 
have  trusted  the  poor  to  a  State  Department. 


, 


GREAT   VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     123 

Dickens  did  not  merely  believe  in  the  brother- 
hood of  men  in  the  weak  modern  way;  he 
was  the  brotherhood  of  men,  and  knew  it  was 
a  brotherhood  in  sin  as  well  as  in  aspiration. 
And  he  was  not  only  larger  than  the  old  factions 
he  satirised;  he  was  larger  than  any  of  our 
great  social  schools  that  have  gone  forward 
since  he  died. 

The  seemingly  quaint  custom  of  comparing 
Dickens  and  Thackeray  existed  in  their  own 
time;  and  no  one  will  dismiss  it  with  entire 
disdain  who  remembers  that  the  Victorian 
tradition  was  domestic  and  genuine,  even  when 
it  was  hoodwinked  and  unworldly.  There 
must  have  been  some  reason  for  making  this 
imaginary  duel  between  two  quite  separate 
and  quite  amiable  acquaintances.  And  there 
is,  after  all,  some  reason  for  it.  It  is  not,  as 
was  once  cheaply  said,  that  Thackeray  went 
in  for  truth,  and  Dickens  for  mere  carica- 
ture. There  is  a  huge  accumulation  of  truth, 
down  to  the  smallest  detail,  in  Dickens  :  he 
seems  sometimes  a  mere  mountain  of  facts. 


124    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

Thackeray,  in  comparison,  often  seems  quite 
careless  and  elusive;  almost  as  if  he  did  not 
quite  know  where  all  his  characters  were. 
There  is  a  truth  behind  the  popular  distinc- 
tion; but  it  lies  much  deeper.  Perhaps  the 
best  way  of  stating  it  is  this  :  that  Dickens 
used  reality,  while  aiming  at  an  effect  of 
romance;  while  Thackeray  used  the  loose 
language  and  ordinary  approaches  of  romance, 
while  aiming  at  an  effect  of  reality.  It  was 
the  special  and  splendid  business  of  Dickens 
to  introduce  us  to  people  who  would  have  been 
quite  incredible  if  he  had  not  told  us  so  much 
truth  about  them.  It  was  the  special  and 
not  less  splendid  task  of  Thackeray  to  intro- 
duce us  to  people  whom  we  knew  already. 
Paradoxically,  but  very  practically,  it  followed 
that  his  introductions  were  the  longer  of  the 
two.  When  we  hear  of  Aunt  Betsy  Trotwood, 
we  vividly  envisage  everything  about  her, 
from  her  gardening  gloves  to  her  seaside 
residence,  from  her  hard,  handsome  face  to 
her  tame   lunatic   laughing  at   the   bedroom 


GREAT   VICTORIAN   NOVELISTS     125 

window.  It  is  all  so  minutely  true  that  she 
must  be  true  also.  We  only  feel  inclined  to 
walk  round  the  English  coast  until  we  find 
that  particular  garden  and  that  particular 
aunt.  But  when  we  turn  from  the  aunt  of 
Copperfield  to  the  uncle  of  Pendennis,  we  are 
more  likely  to  run  round  the  coast  trying  to 
find  a  watering-place  where  he  isn't  than  one 
where  he  is.  The  moment  one  sees  Major 
Pendennis,  one  sees  a  hundred  Major  Pen- 
dennises.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  mere  realism. 
Miss  Trotwood's  bonnet  and  gardening  tools 
and  cupboard  full  of  old-fashioned  bottles 
are  quite  as  true  in  the  materialistic  way  as 
the  Major's  cuffs  and  corner  table  and  toast 
and  newspaper.  Both  writers  are  realistic  : 
but  Dickens  writes  realism  in  order  to  make 
the  incredible  credible.  Thackeray  writes  it 
in  order  to  make  us  recognise  an  old  friend. 
Whether  we  shall  be  pleased  to  meet  the  old 
friend  is  quite  another  matter  :  I  think  we 
should  be  better  pleased  to  meet  Miss  Trot- 
wood,  and    find,  as    David  Copperfield  did, 


126    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

a  new  friend,  a  new  world.  But  we  recognise 
Major  Pendennis  even  when  we  avoid  him. 
Henceforth  Thackeray  can  count  on  our 
seeing  him  from  his  wTig  to  his  well-blacked 
boots  whenever  he  chooses  to  say  "  Major 
Pendennis  paid  a  call."  Dickens,  on  the 
other  hand,  had  to  keep  up  an  incessant 
excitement  about  his  characters ;  and  no  man 
on  earth  but  he  could  have  kept  it  up. 

It  may  be  said,  in  approximate  summary, 
that  Thackeray  is  the  novelist  of  memory — of 
our  memories  as  well  as  his  own.  Dickens 
seems  to  expect  all  his  characters,  like  amusing 
strangers  arriving  at  lunch  :  as  if  they  gave 
him  not  only  pleasure,  but  surprise.  But 
Thackeray  is  everybody's  past — is  everybody's 
youth.  Forgotten  friends  flit  about  the 
passages  of  dreamy  colleges  and  unremem- 
bered  clubs ;  we  hear  fragments  of  unfinished 
conversations,  we  see  faces  without  names 
for  an  instant,  fixed  for  ever  in  some  trivial 
grimace  :  we  smell  the  strong  smell  of  social 
cliques  now  quite  incongruous  to  us;    and 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     127 

there  stir  in  all  the  little  rooms  at  once  the 
hundred  ghosts  of  oneself. 

For  this  purpose  Thackeray  was  equipped 
with  a  singularly  easy  and  sympathetic  style, 
carved  in  slow  soft  curves  where  Dickens 
hacked  out  his  images  with  a  hatchet.  There 
was  a  sort  of  avuncular  indulgence  about 
his  attitude ;  what  he  called  his  "  preaching  " 
was  at  worst  a  sort  of  grumbling,  ending  with 
the  sentiment  that  boys  will  be  boys  and  that 
there's  nothing  new  under  the  sun.  He  was 
not  really  either  a  cynic  or  a  censor  morum  ; 
but  (in  another  sense  than  Chaucer's)  a  gentle 
pardoner  :  having  seen  the  weaknesses  he  is 
sometimes  almost  weak  about  them.  He 
really  comes  nearer  to  exculpating  Pendennis 
or  Ethel  Newcome  than  any  other  author,  who 
saw  what  he  saw,  would  have  been.  The 
rare  wrath  of  such  men  is  all  the  more  effective ; 
and  there  are  passages  in  Vanity  Fair  and 
still  more  in  The  Book  of  Snobs,  where  he 
does  make  the  dance  of  wealth  and  fashion 
look   stiff  and  monstrous,  like  a  Babvlonian 


128    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

masquerade.  But  he  never  quite  did  it  in 
such  a  way  as  to  turn  the  course  of  the 
Victorian  Age. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  say  that  Thackeray 
did  not  know  enough  of  the  world;  yet  this 
was  the  truth  about  him  in  large  matters  of 
the  philosophy  of  life,  and  especially  of  his 
own  time.  He  did  not  know  the  way  things 
were  going  :  he  was  too  Victorian  to  under- 
stand the  Victorian  epoch.  He  did  not  know 
enough  ignorant  people  to  have  heard  the 
news*  In  one  of  his  delightful  asides  he 
imagines  two  little  clerks  commenting  erro- 
neously on  the  appearance  of  Lady  Kew  or  Sir 
Brian  Newcome  in  the  Park,  and  says  :  "  How 
should  Jones  and  Brown,  who  are  not,  vous 
comprenez,  du  monde,  understand  these  mys- 
teries ?  "  But  I  think  Thackeray  knew  quite 
as  little  about  Jones  and  Brown  as  they  knew 
about  Newcome  and  Kew;  his  world  was  le 
monde.  Hence  he  seemed  to  take  it  for 
granted  that  the  Victorian  compromise  would 
last ;   while  Dickens  (who  knew  his  Jones  and 


GREAT   VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     129 

Brown)  had  already  guessed  that  it  would  not. 
Thackeray  did  not  realise  that  the  Victorian 
platform  was  a  moving  platform.  To  take 
but  one  instance,  he  was  a  Radical  like 
Dickens;  all  really  representative  Victorians, 
except  perhaps  Tennyson,  were  Radicals. 
But  he  seems  to  have  thought  of  all  reform 
as  simple  and  straightforward  and  all  of  a 
piece;  as  if  Catholic  Emancipation,  the  New 
Poor  Law,  Free  Trade  and  the  Factory  Acts 
and  Popular  Education  were  all  parts  of  one 
almost  self-evident  evolution  of  enlighten- 
ment. Dickens,  being  in  touch  with  the 
democracy,  had  already  discovered  that  the 
country  had  come  to  a  dark  place  of  divided 
ways  and  divided  counsels.  In  Hard  Times 
he  realised  Democracy  at  war  with  Radicalism  ; 
and  became,  with  so  incompatible  an  ally  as 
Ruskin,  not  indeed  a  Socialist,  but  certainly 
an  anti-Individualist.  In  Our  Mutual  Friend 
he  felt  the  strength  of  the  new  rich,  and  knew 
they  had  begun  to  transform  the  aristocracy, 
instead  of  the  aristocracy  transforming  them. 


130    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

He  knew  that  Veneering  had  carried  off 
Twemlow  in  triumph.  He  very  nearly  knew 
what  we  all  know  to-day  :  that,  so  far  from 
it  being  possible  to  plod  along  the  progressive 
road  with  more  votes  and  more  Free  Trade, 
England  must  either  sharply  become  very 
much  more  democratic  or  as  rapidly  become 
very  much  less  so. 

There  gathers  round  these  two  great 
novelists  a  considerable  group  of  good  novel- 
ists, who  more  or  less  mirror  their  mid- 
Victorian  mood.  Wilkie  Collins  may  be  said 
to  be  in  this  way  a  lesser  Dickens  and  Anthony 
Trollope  a  lesser  Thackeray.  Wilkie  Collins 
is  chiefly  typical  of  his  time  in  this  respect : 
that  while  his  moral  and  religious  conceptions 
were  as  mechanical  as  his  carefully  con- 
structed fictitious  conspiracies,  he  nevertheless 
informed  the  latter  with  a  sort  of  involuntary 
mysticism  which  dealt  wholly  with  the  darker 
side  of  the  soul.  For  this  was  one  of  the  most 
peculiar  of  the  problems  of  the  Victorian 
mind.     The    idea    of    the    supernatural    was 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     131 

perhaps  at  as  low  an  ebb  as  it  had  ever  been — 
certainly  much  lower  than  it  is  now.  But  in 
spite  of  this,  and  in  spite  of  a  certain  ethical 
cheeriness  that  was  almost  de  rigueur — the 
strange  fact  remains  that  the  only  sort  of 
supernaturalism  the  Victorians  allowed  to 
their  imaginations  was  a  sad  supernaturalism. 
They  might  have  ghost  stories,  but  not  saints' 
stories.  They  could  trifle  with  the  curse  or 
unpardoning  prophecy  of  a  witch,  but  not  with 
the  pardon  of  a  priest.  They  seem  to  have 
held  (I  believe  erroneously)  that  the  super- 
natural was  safest  when  it  came  from  below. 
When  we  think  (for  example)  of  the  un- 
countable riches  of  religious  art,  imagery, 
ritual  and  popular  legend  that  has  clustered 
round  Christmas  through  all  the  Christian 
ages,  it  is  a  truly  extraordinary  thing  to 
reflect  that  Dickens  (wishing  to  have  in  The 
Christmas  Carol  a  little  happy  supernaturalism 
by  way  of  a  change)  actually  had  to  make  up 
a  mythology  for  himself.     Here  was  one  of  the 

rare  cases  where  Dickens,  in  a  real  and  human 
12 


132    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

sense,  did  suffer  from  the  lack  of  culture. 
For  the  rest,  Wilkie  Collins  is  these  two 
elements  :  the  mechani  J  and  the  mystical ; 
both  very  good  of  their  kind.  He  is  one  of 
the  few  novelists  in  whose  case  it  is  proper 
and  literal  to  speak  of  his  "  plots."  He  was  a 
plotter;  he  went  about  to  slay  Godfrey 
Ablewhite  as  coldly  and  craftily  as  the 
Indians  did.  But  he  also  had  a  sound  though 
sinister  note  of  true  magic;  as  in  the  repeti- 
tion of  the  two  white  dresses  in  The  Woman 
in  White  ;  or  of  the  dreams  with  their  double 
explanations  in  Armadale.  His  ghosts  do 
wralk.  They  are  alive;  and  walk  as  softly  as 
Count  Fosco,  but  as  solidly.  Finally,  The 
Moonstone  is  probably  the  best  detective  tale 
in  the  world. 

Anthony  Trollope,  a  clear  and  very  capable 
realist,  represents  rather  another  side  of  the 
Victorian  spirit  of  comfort;  its  leisureliness, 
its  love  of  detail,  especially  of  domestic 
detail;  its  love  of  following  characters  and 
kindred  from  book  to  book  and  from  genera- 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     133 

tion  to  generation.  Dickens  very  seldom 
tried  this  latter  experiment,  and  then  (as  in 
Master  Humphrey's  Clock)  unsuccessfully ; 
those  magnesium  blazes  of  his  were  too 
brilliant  and  glaring  to  be  indefinitely  pro- 
longed. But  Thackeray  was  full  of  it;  and 
we  often  feel  that  the  characters  in  The  Nezv- 
comes  or  Philip  might  legitimately  complain 
that  their  talk  and  tale  are  being  perpetually 
interrupted  and  pestered  by  people  out  of 
other  books.  Within  his  narrower  limits, 
Trollope  was  a  more  strict  and  masterly 
realist  than  Thackeray,  and  even  those  who 
would  call  his  personages  "  types  "  would 
admit  that  they  are  as  vivid  as  characters. 
It  was  a  bustling  but  a  quiet  world  that  he 
described :  politics  before  the  coming  of  the 
Irish  and  the  Socialists;  the  Church  in  the 
lull  between  the  Oxford  Movement  and  the 
modern  High  Anglican  energy.  And  it  is 
notable  in  the  Victorian  spirit  once  more 
that  though  his  clergymen  are  all  of  them  real 
men  and  many  of  them  good  men,  it  never 


134     VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

really  occurs  to  us  to  think  of  them  as  the 
priests  of  a  religion. 

Charles  Reade  may  be  said  to  go  along  with 
these ;  and  Disraeli  and  even  Kingsley ;   not 
because    these  three   very  different  persons 
had    anything    particular    in    common,    but 
because  they  all  fell  short  of  the  first  rank  in 
about  the  same  degree.     Charles  Reade  had 
a   kind   of   cold   coarseness    about   him,   not 
morally  but  artistically,  which  keeps  him  out 
of  the  best  literature  as  such  :    but  he  is  of 
importance  to  the  Victorian  development  in 
another  way ;   because  he  has  the  harsher  and 
more  tragic  note  that  has  come  later  in  the 
study  of  our  social  problems.     He  is  the  first 
of  the  angry  realists.     Kingsley's  best  books 
may  be  called  boys'  books.     There  is  a  real 
though   a  juvenile   poetry  in    Westward  Ho  ! 
and  though  that  narrative,  historically  con- 
sidered, is  very  much  of  a  lie,  it  is  a  good, 
thundering    honest     lie.      There     are     also 
genuinely    eloquent   things    in    Hypatia,  and 
a    certain    electric    atmosphere    of    sectarian 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     135 

excitement  that  Kingsley  kept  himself  in, 
and  did  know  how  to  convey.  He  said  he 
wrote  the  book  in  his  heart's  blood.  This  is 
an  exaggeration,  but  there  is  a  truth  in  it; 
and  one  does  feel  that  he  may  have  relieved 
his  feelings  by  writing  it  in  red  ink.  As  for 
Disraeli,  his  novels  are  able  and  interesting 
considered  as  everything  except  novels,  and 
are  an  important  contribution  precisely  be- 
cause they  are  written  by  an  alien  who  did 
not  take  our  politics  so  seriously  as  Trollope 
did.  They  are  important  again  as  showing 
those  later  Victorian  changes  which  men  like 
Thackeray  missed.  Disraeli  did  do  something 
towards  revealing  the  dishonesty  of  our 
politics — even  if  he  had  done  a  good  deal 
towards  bringing  it  about. 

Between  this  group  and  the  next  there 
hovers  a  figure  very  hard  to  place ;  not  higher 
in  letters  than  these,  yet  not  easy  to  class 
with  them ;  I  mean  Bulwer  Lytton.  He  was 
no  greater  than  they  were ;  yet  somehow  he 
seems  to  take  up  more  space.     He  did  not, 


136    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

in  the  ultimate  reckoning,  do  anything  in 
particular  :  but  he  was  a  figure ;  rather  as 
Oscar  Wilde  was  later  a  figure.  You  could 
not  have  the  Victorian  Age  without  him. 
And  this  was  not  due  to  wholly  superficial 
things  like  his  dandyism,  his  dark,  sinister 
good  looks  and  a  great  deal  of  the  mere 
polished  melodrama  that  he  wrote.  There 
was  something  in  his  all-round  interests;  in 
the  variety  of  things  he  tried;  in  his  half- 
aristocratic  swagger  as  poet  and  politician, 
that  made  him  in  some  ways  a  real  touch- 
stone of  the  time.  It  is  noticeable  about  him 
that  he  is  always  turning  up  everywhere  and 
that  he  brings  other  people  out,  generally 
in  a  hostile  spirit.  His  Byronic  and  almost 
Oriental  ostentation  was  used  by  the  young 
Thackeray  as  something  on  which  to  sharpen 
his  new  razor  of  Victorian  common  sense. 
His  pose  as  a  dilettante  satirist  inflamed  the 
execrable  temper  of  Tennyson,  and  led  to 
those  lively  comparisons  to  a  bandbox  and 
a  lion  in  curlpapers.      He  interposed  the  glove 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     137 

of  warning  and  the  tear  of  sensibility  between 
us  and  the  proper  ending  of  Great  Expectations. 
Of  his  own  books,  by  far  the  best  are  the 
really  charming  comedies  about  The  Caxtons 
and  Kenelm  Chillingley ;  none  of  his  other 
works  have  a  high  literary  importance  now ; 
with  the  possible  exception  of  A  Strange 
Story ;  but  his  Coming  Race  is  historically 
interesting  as  foreshadowing  those  novels  of 
the  future  which  were  afterwards  such  a 
weapon  of  the  Socialists.  Lastly,  there  was  an 
element  indefinable  about  Lytton,  which  often 
is  in  adventurers ;  wrhich  amounts  to  a  suspi- 
cion that  there  was  something  in  him  after  all. 
It  rang  out  of  him  when  he  said  to  the  hesi- 
tating Crimean  Parliament:  "Destroy  your 
Government  and  save  your  army." 

With  the  next  phase  of  Victorian  fiction 
we  enter  a  new  world ;  the  later,  more  revolu- 
tionary, more  continental,  freer  but  in  some 
ways  wreaker  world  in  which  we  live  to-day. 
The  subtle  and  sad  change  that  was  passing 
like  twilight  across  the  English  brain  at  this 


138    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

time  is  very  well  expressed  in  the  fact  that 
men  have  come  to  mention  the  great  name  of 
Meredith  in  the  same  breath  as  Mr.  Thomas 
Hardy.  Both  writers,  doubtless,  disagreed 
with  the  orthodox  religion  of  the  ordinary 
English  village.  Most  of  us  have  disagreed 
with  that  religion  until  we  made  the  simple 
discovery  that  it  does  not  exist.  But  in  any 
age  where  ideas  could  be  even  feebly  dis- 
entangled from  each  other,  it  would  have  been 
evident  at  once  that  Meredith  and  Hardy 
were,  intellectually  speaking,  mortal  enemies. 
They  were  much  more  opposed  to  each  other 
than  Newman  was  to  Kingsley;  or  than 
Abelard  was  to  St.  Bernard.  But  then  they 
collided  in  a  sceptical  age,  which  is  like 
colliding  in  a  London  fog.  There  can  never 
be  any  clear  controversy  in  a  sceptical  age. 

Nevertheless  both  Hardy  and  Meredith 
did  mean  something;  and  they  did  mean 
diametrically  opposite  things.  Meredith  was 
perhaps  the  only  man  in  the  modern  world 
who  has  almost  had  the  high  honour  of  rising 


GREAT  VICTORIAN   NOVELISTS     139 

out  of  the  low  estate  of  a  Pantheist  into  the 
high  estate  of  a  Pagan.  A  Pagan  is  a  person 
who  can  do  what  hardly  any  person  for  the 
last  two  thousand  years  could  do :  a  person 
who  can  take  Nature  naturally.  It  is  due 
to  Meredith  to  say  that  no  one  outside  a  few 
of  the  great  Greeks  has  ever  taken  Nature 
so  naturally  as  he  did.  And  it  is  also  due 
to  him  to  say  that  no  one  outside  Colney 
Hatch  ever  took  Nature  so  unnaturally  as 
it  was  taken  in  what  Mr.  Hardy  has  had  the 
blasphemy  to  call  Wessex  Tales.  This  division 
between  the  two  points  of  view  is  vital ; 
because  the  turn  of  the  nineteenth  century 
was  a  very  sharp  one ;  by  it  we  have  reached 
the  rapids  in  which  we  find  ourselves  to-day. 
Meredith  really  is  a  Pantheist.  You  can 
express  it  by  saying  that  God  is  the  great 
All  :  you  can  express  it  much  more  intelli- 
gently by  saying  that  Pan  is  the  great  god. 
But  there  is  some  sense  in  it,  and  the  sense  is 
this  :  that  some  people  believe  that  this  world 
is    sufficiently    good    at    bottom    for    us    to 


140    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

trust  ourselves  to  it  without  very  much 
knowing  why.  It  is  the  whole  point  in  most 
of  Meredith's  tales  that  there  is  something 
behind  us  that  often  saves  us  when  we  under- 
stand neither  it  nor  ourselves.  He  sometimes 
talked  mere  intellectualism  about  women  : 
but  that  is  because  the  most  brilliant  brains 
can  get  tired.  Meredith's  brain  was  quite 
tired  when  it  wrote  some  of  its  most  quoted 
and  least  interesting  epigrams :  like  that 
about  passing  Seraglio  Point,  but  not  doubling 
Cape  Turk.  Those  who  can  see  Meredith's 
mind  in  that  are  with  those  who  can  see 
Dickens'  mind  in  Little  Nell.  Both  were 
chivalrous  pronouncements  on  behalf  of 
oppressed  females  :  neither  have  any  earthly 
meaning  as  ideas. 

But  what  Meredith  did  do  for  women  was 
not  to  emancipate  them  (which  means 
nothing)  but  to  express  them,  which  means  a 
great  deal.  And  he  often  expressed  them 
right,  even  when  he  expressed  himself  wrong. 
Take,    for    instance,    that    phrase    so    often 


. 


GREAT   VICTORIAN   NOVELISTS     141 


quoted :  Woman  will  be  the  last  thing 
civilised  by  man."  Intellectually  it  is  some- 
thing worse  than  false;  it  is  the  opposite 
of  what  he  was  always  attempting  to  say. 
So  far  from  admitting  any  equality  in  the 
sexes,  it  logically  admits  that  a  man  may  use 
against  a  woman  any  chains  or  wThips  he  has 
been  in  the  habit  of  using  against  a  tiger  or 
a  bear.  He  stood  as  the  special  champion  of 
female  dignity  :  but  I  cannot  remember  any 
author,  Eastern  or  Western,  who  has  so  calmly 
assumed  that  man  is  the  master  and  woman 
merely  the  material,  as  Meredith  really  does 
in  this  phrase.  Any  one  who  knows  a  free 
woman  (she  is  generally  a  married  woman)  will 
immediately  be  inclined  to  ask  two  simple  and 
catastrophic  questions,  first  :  "  Why  should 
woman  be  civilised  ?  "  and,  second :  "  Why, 
if  she  is  to  be  civilised,  should  she  be  civilised 
by  man  I "  In  the  mere  intellect ualism  of 
the  matter,  Meredith  seems  to  be  talking  the 
most  brutal  sex  mastery  :  he,  at  any  rate, 
has  not  doubled  Cape  Turk,  nor  even  passed 


142    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

Seraglio  Point.  Now  why  is  it  that  we  all 
really  feel  that  this  Meredithian  passage  is 
not  so  insolently  masculine  as  in  mere  logic 
it  would  seem  ?  I  think  it  is  for  this  simple 
reason:  that  there  is  something  about  Mere- 
dith making  us  feel  that  it  is  not  woman  he 
disbelieves  in,  but  civilisation.  It  is  a  dark 
undemonstrated  feeling  that  Meredith  would 
really  be  rather  sorry  if  woman  were  civilised 
by  man — or  by  anything  else.  When  we  have 
got  that,  we  have  got  the  real  Pagan — the 
man  that  does  believe  in  Pan. 

It  is  proper  to  put  this  philosophic  matter 
first,  before  the  aesthetic  appreciation  of 
Meredith,  because  with  Meredith  a  sort  of 
passing  bell  has  rung  and  the  Victorian 
orthodoxy  is  certainly  no  longer  safe.  Dickens 
and  Carlyle,  as  we  have  said,  rebelled  against 
the  orthodox  compromise :  but  Meredith 
has  escaped  from  it.  Cosmopolitanism, 
Socialism,  Feminism  are  already  in  the  air; 
and  Queen  Victoria  has  begun  to  look  like 
Mrs.  Grundy      But  to  escape  from  a  city  is 


GREAT   VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     143 

one  thing :  to  choose  a  road  is  another.  The 
free-thinker  who  found  himself  outside  the 
Victorian  city,  found  himself  also  in  the  fork 
of  two  very  different  naturalistic  paths. 
One  of  them  went  upwards  through  a  tangled 
but  living  forest  to  lonely  but  healthy  hills : 
the  other  went  down  to  a  swamp.  Hardy 
went  down  to  botanise  in  the  swamp,  while 
Meredith  climbed  towards  the  sun.  Meredith 
became,  at  his  best,  a  sort  of  daintily  dressed 
Walt  Whitman :  Hardy  became  a  sort  of 
village  atheist  brooding  and  blaspheming 
over  the  village  idiot.  It  is  largely  because 
the  free-thinkers,  as  a  school,  have  hardly 
made  up  their  minds  whether  they  want  to 
be  more  optimist  or  more  pessimist  than 
Christianity  that  their  small  but  sincere 
movement  has  failed. 

For  the  duel  is  deadly;  and  any  agnostic 
who  wishes  to  be  anything  more  than  a 
Nihilist  must  sympathise  with  one  version  of 
nature  or  the  other.  The  God  of  Meredith 
is  impersonal;   but  he  is  often  more  healthy 


144    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

and  kindly  than  any  of  the  persons.     That  of 
Thomas  Hardy  is  almost  made  personal    by 
the    intense    feeling    that   he    is    poisonous. 
Nature  is  always  coming  in  to  save  Meredith's 
women ;  Nature  is  always  coming  in  to  betray 
and  ruin  Hardy's.     It  has  been  said  that  if 
God   had   not   existed    it   would   have   been 
necessary  to  invent  Him.     But  it  is  not  often, 
as  in  Mr.  Hardy's  case,  that  it  is  necessary  to 
invent  Him  in  order  to  prove  how  unnecessary 
(and  undesirable)  He  is.     But  Mr.  Hardy  is 
anthropomorphic  out  of  sheer  atheism.      He 
personifies  the  universe  in  order  to  give  it  a 
piece  of  his  mind.     But  the  fight  is  unequal 
for  the   old  philosophical   reason  :    that  the 
universe  had  already  given  Mr.  Hardy  a  piece 
of  its  mind  to  fight  with.     One  curious  result 
of  this  divergence  in  the  two  types  of  sceptic 
is  this  :  that  when  these  two  brilliant  novelists 
break  down  or  blow  up  or  otherwise  lose  for  a 
moment  their  artistic  self-command,  they  are 
both    equally    wild,    but    wild    in    opposite 
directions.     Meredith  shows  an  extravagance 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     145 

in  comedy  which,  if  it  were  not  so  complicated, 
every  one  would  call  broad  farce.  But  Mr. 
Hardy  has  the  honour  of  inventing  a  new  sort 
of  game,  which  may  be  called  the  extravagance 
of  depression.  The  placing  of  the  weak  lover 
and  his  new  love  in  such  a  place  that  they 
actually  see  the  black  flag  announcing  that 
Tess  has  been  hanged  is  utterly  inexcusable 
in  art  and  probability;  it  is  a  cruel  practical 
joke.  But  it  is  a  practical  joke  at  which 
even  its  author  cannot  brighten  up  enough 
to  laugh. 

But  it  is  when  we  consider  the  great  artistic 
power  of  these  two  writers,  with  all  their 
eccentricities,  that  we  see  even  more  clearly 
that  free-thought  was,  as  it  were,  a  fight 
between  finger-posts.  For  it  is  the  remarkable 
fact  that  it  was  the  man  who  had  the  healthy 
and  manly  outlook  who  had  the  crabbed  and 
perverse  style;  it  was  the  man  who  had  the 
crabbed  and  perverse  outlook  who  had  the 
healthy  and  manly  style.  The  reader  may 
well   have   complained   of   paradox   when    I 

K 


146    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

observed  above  that  Meredith,  unlike  most 
neo-Pagans,  did  in  his  way  take  Nature 
naturally.  It  may  be  suggested,  in  tones  of 
some  remonstrance,  that  things  like  "  though 
pierced  by  the  cruel  acerb  "  or  "  thy  fleeting- 
ness is  bigger  in  the  ghost,"  or  "  her  gabbling 
grey  she  eyes  askant,"  or  "  sheer  film  of  the  sur- 
face awag  "  are  not  taking  Nature  naturally. 
And  this  is  true  of  Meredith's  style,  but  it  is 
not  true  of  his  spirit;  nor  even,  apparently, 
of  his  serious  opinions.  In  one  of  the  poems 
I  have  quoted  he  actually  says  of  those  who 
live  nearest  to  that  Nature  he  was  always 
praising — 

"  Have  they  but   held  her  laws  and  nature 
dear, 
They  mouth  no  sentence  of  inverted  wit  " ; 

which  certainly  was  what  Meredith  himself 
was  doing  most  of  the  time.  But  a  similar 
paradox  of  the  combination  of  plain  tastes 
with   twisted    phrases    can    also    be   seen   in 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     147 

Browning.  Something  of  the  same  can  be 
seen  in  many  of  the  cavalier  poets.  I  do 
not  understand  it  :  it  may  be  that  the  fertility 
of  a  cheerful  mind  crowds  everything,  so 
that  the  tree  is  entangled  in  its  own  branches ; 
or  it  may  be  that  the  cheerful  mind  cares 
less  whether  it  is  understood  or  not ;  as  a  man 
is  less  articulate  when  he  is  humming  than 
when  he  is  calling  for  help. 

Certainly  Meredith  suffers  from  applying 
a  complex  method  to  men  and  things  he  does 
not  mean  to  be  complex;  nay,  honestly 
admires  for  being  simple.  The  conversations 
between  Diana  and  Redworth  fail  of  their 
full  contrast  because  Meredith  can  afford 
the  twopence  for  Diana  coloured,  but  can- 
not afford  the  penny  for  Redworth  plain. 
Meredith's  ideals  were  neither  sceptical  nor 
finnicky  :  but  they  can  be  called  insufficient. 
He  had,  perhaps,  over  and  above  his  honest 
Pantheism  two  convictions  profound  enough 
to  be  called  prejudices.  He  was  probably  of 
Welsh  blood,  certainly  of  Celtic  sympathies, 

K  2 


148    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

and  he  set  himself  more  swiftly  though  more 
subtly  than  Ruskin  or  Swinburne  to  under- 
mining the  enormous  complacency  of  John 
Bull.  He  also  had  a  sincere  hope  in  the 
strength  of  womanhood,  and  may  be  said, 
almost  without  hyperbole,  to  have  begotten 
gigantic  daughters.  He  may  yet  suffer  for 
his  chivalric  interference  as  many  champions 
do.  I  have  little  doubt  that  when  St.  George 
had  killed  the  dragon  he  was  heartily  afraid 
of  the  princess.  But  certainly  neither  of 
these  two  vital  enthusiasms  touched  the 
Victorian  trouble.  The  disaster  of  the  modern 
English  is  not  that  they  are  not  Celtic,  but 
that  they  are  not  English.  The  tragedy  of 
the  modern  woman  is  not  that  she  is  not 
allowed  to  follow  man,  but  that  she  follows 
him  far  too  slavishly.  This  conscious  and 
theorising  Meredith  did  not  get  very  near 
his  problem  and  is  certainly  miles  away  from 
ours.  But  the  other  Meredith  was  a  creator; 
which  means  a  god.  That  is  true  of  him 
which  is  true  of  so  different  a  man  as  Dickens, 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     149 

that  all  one  can  say  of  him  is  that  he  is  full 
of  good  things.  A  reader  opening  one  of  his 
books  feels  like  a  schoolboy  opening  a  hamper 
which  he  knows  to  have  somehow  cost  a 
hundred  pounds.  He  may  be  more  bewildered 
by  it  than  by  an  ordinary  hamper;  but  he 
gets  the  impression  of  a  real  richness  of 
thought;  and  that  is  what  one  really  gets 
from  such  riots  of  felicity  as  Evan  Harrington 
or  Harry  Richmond.  His  philosophy  may  be 
barren,  but  he  was  not.  And  the  chief  feeling 
among  those  that  enjoy  him  is  a  mere  wish 
that  more  people  could  enjoy  him  too. 

I  end  here  upon  Hardy  and  Meredith; 
because  this  parting  of  the  ways  to  open 
optimism  and  open  pessimism  really  was  the 
end  of  the  Victorian  peace.  There  are  many 
other  men,  very  nearly  as  great,  on  whom 
I  might  delight  to  linger :  on  Shorthouse, 
for  instance,  who  in  one  wray  goes  writh 
Mrs.  Browning  or  Coventry  Patmore.  I 
mean  that  he  has  a  wide  culture,  which  is 
called  by  some  a  narrow  religion.     When  we 


150    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

think  what  even  the  best  novels  about 
cavaliers  have  been  (written  by  men  like 
Scott  or  Stevenson)  it  is  a  wonderful  thing 
that  the  author  of  John  Inglesant  could  write 
a  cavalier  romance  in  which  he  forgot  Cromwell 
but  remembered  Hobbes.  But  Shorthouse 
is  outside  the  period  in  fiction  in  the  same  sort 
of  way  in  which  Francis  Thompson  is  outside 
it  in  poetry.  He  did  not  accept  the  Victorian 
basis.     He  knew  too  much. 

There  is  one  more  matter  that  may  best 
be  considered  here,  though  briefly  :  it  illus- 
trates the  extreme  difficulty  of  dealing  with 
the  Victorian  English  in  a  book  like  this, 
because  of  their  eccentricity ;  not  of  opinions, 
but  of  character  and  artistic  form.  There 
are  several  great  Victorians  who  will  not  fit 
into  any  of  the  obvious  categories  I  employ; 
because  they  will  not  fit  into  anything,  hardly 
into  the  world  itself.  Where  Germany  or 
Italy  would  relieve  the  monotony  of  mankind 
by  paying  serious  respect  to  an  artist,  or  a 
scholar,  or  a  patriotic  warrior,  or  a  priest — 


GREAT  VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     151 

it  was  always  the  instinct  of  the  English  to 
do    it    by    pointing    out    a    Character.     Dr. 
Johnson  has  faded  as  a  poet  or  a  critic,  but 
he    survives    as    a    Character.     Cobbett    is 
neglected  (unfortunately)  as  a  publicist  and 
pamphleteer,    but    he   is    remembered    as   a 
Character.     Now  these  people  continued  to 
crop  up  through  the  Victorian  time ;  and  each 
stands  so  much  by  himself  that  I  shall  end 
these  pages  with  a  profound  suspicion  that 
I  have  forgotten  to  mention  a  Character   of 
gigantic   dimensions.     Perhaps   the   best   ex- 
ample of  such  eccentrics  is  George  Borrow; 
who  sympathised  with  unsuccessful  nomads 
like  the  gipsies  while  every  one  else  sympa- 
thised with  successful  nomads  like  the  Jews; 
who  had  a  genius  like  the  west  wind  for  the 
awakening  of  wild  and  casual  friendships  and 
the  drag  and  attraction  of  the  roads.     But 
whether  George  Borrow  ought  to  go  into  the 
section  devoted  to  philosophers,  or  the  section 
devoted  to  novelists,  or  the  section  devoted  to 
liars, nobody  else  has  ever  Known,  even  if  he  did. 


152    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

But   the   strongest   case   of   this   Victorian 
power  of  being  abruptly  original  in  a  corner 
can  be  found  in  two  things  :    the  literature 
meant  merely  for  children  and  the  literature 
meant  merely  for  fun.     It  is  true  that  these 
two  very  Victorian  things  often  melted  into 
each   other    (as    was   the    way    of    Victorian 
things),  but  not  sufficiently  to  make  it  safe 
to  mass  them  together  without  distinction. 
Thus  there  was  George  Macdonald,  a  Scot  of 
genius    as    genuine    as    Carlyle's;     he   could 
write  fairy-tales  that  made  all    experience  a 
fairy-tale.     He  could  give  the  real  sense  that 
every  one  had  the  end  of  an  elfin  thread  that 
must  at  last  lead  them  into  Paradise.     It  was 
a  sort  of  optimist  Calvinism.     But  such  really 
significant  fairy-tales  were  accidents  of  genius. 
Of  the  Victorian  Age  as  a  whole  it  is  true  to 
say  that  it  did  discover  a  new  thing ;   a  thing 
called  Nonsense.     It  may  be  doubted  whether 
this    thing    was    really    invented    to    please 
children.     Rather    it    was    invented    by    old 
people  trying  to  prove  their  first  childhood, 


GREAT   VICTORIAN  NOVELISTS     153 

and  sometimes  succeeding  only  in  proving 
their  second.  But  whatever  else  the  thing 
was,  it  was  English  and  it  was  individual. 
Lewis  Carroll  gave  mathematics  a  holiday  : 
he  carried  logic  into  the  wild  lands  of  illogic- 
ality. Edward  Lear,  a  richer,  more  romantic 
and  therefore  more  truly  Victorian  buffoon, 
improved  the  experiment.  But  the  more 
we  study  it,  the  more  we  shall,  I  think,  con- 
clude that  it  reposed  on  something  more  real 
and  profound  in  the  Victorians  than  even  their 
just  and  exquisite  appreciation  of  children. 
It  came  from  the  deep  Victorian  sense  of 
humour. 

It  may  appear,  because  I  have  used  from 
time  to  time  the  only  possible  phrases  for  the 
case,  that  I  mean  the  Victorian  Englishman 
to  appear  as  a  blockhead,  which  means  an 
unconscious  buffoon.  To  all  this  there  is  a 
final  answer :  that  he  was  also  a  conscious 
buffoon — and  a  successful  one.  He  was  a 
humorist;  and  one  of  the  best  humorists 
in   Europe.     That   which   Goethe   had   never 


154    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

taught  the  Germans,  Byron  did  manage  to 
teach  the  English — the  duty  of  not  taking 
him  seriously.  The  strong  and  shrewd 
Victorian  humour  appears  in  every  slash  of 
the  pencil  of  Charles  Keene ;  in  every  under- 
graduate inspiration  of  Calverley  or  "  Q."  or 
J.  K.  S.  They  had  largely  forgotten  both 
art  and  arms  :  but  the  gods  had  left  them 
laughter. 

But  the  final  proof  that  the  Victorians  were 
alive  by  this  laughter,  can  be  found  in  the 
fact  they  could  manage  and  master  for  a 
moment  even  the  cosmopolitan  modern 
theatre  They  could  contrive  to  put  "  The 
Bab  Ballads  "  on  the  stage.  To  turn  a  private 
name  into  a  public  epithet  is  a  thing  given  to 
few  :  but  the  word  "  Gilbertian  "  will  probably 
last  longer  than  the  name  Gilbert. 

It  meant  a  real  Victorian  talent;  that  of 
exploding  unexpectedly  and  almost,  as  it 
seemed,  unintentionally.  Gilbert  made  good 
jokes  by  the  thousand;  but  he  never  (in  his 
best  days)  made  the  joke  that  could  possibly 


GREAT   VICTORIAN   NOVELISTS     155 

have  been  expected  of  him.  This  is  the  last 
essential  of  the  Victorian.  Laugh  at  him  as  a 
limited  man,  a  moralist,  conventionalist,  an 
opportunist,  a  formalist.  But  remember  also 
that  he  was  really  a  humorist ;  and  may  still 
be  laughing  at  you 


CHAPTER   III 


THE    GREAT   VICTORIAN    POETS 

What  was  really  unsatisfactory  in  Victorian 
literature  is  something  much  easier  to  feel 
than  to  state.  It  was  not  so  much  a  superi- 
ority in  the  men  of  other  ages  to  the  Victorian 
men.  It  was  a  superiority  of  Victorian  men 
to  themselves.  The  individual  was  unequal. 
Perhaps  that  is  why  the  society  became  un- 
equal :  I  cannot  say.  They  were  lame  giants ; 
the  strongest  of  them  walked  on  one  leg  a 
little  shorter  than  the  other.  A  great  man  in 
any  age  must  be  a  common  man,  and  also  an 
uncommon  man.  Those  that  are  only  un- 
common men  are  perverts  and  sowers  of 
pestilence.  But  somehow  the  great  Victorian 
man  wTas  more  and  less  than  this.  He  was 
at  once  a  giant  and  a  dwarf.     When  he  has 

been   sweeping  the   sky   in   circles   infinitely 

15G 


THE   GREAT   VICTORIAN   POETS     157 

great,  he  suddenly  shrivels  into  something 
indescribably  small.  There  is  a  moment 
when  Carlyle  turns  suddenly  from  a  high 
creative  mystic  to  a  common  Calvinist.  There 
are  moments  when  George  Eliot  turns  from 
a  prophetess  into  a  governess.  There  are 
also  moments  when  Ruskin  turns  into  a 
governess,  without  even  the  excuse  of  sex. 
But  in  all  these  cases  the  alteration  comes 
as  a  thing  quite  abrupt  and  unreasonable. 
We  do  not  feel  this  acute  angle  anywhere 
in  Homer  or  in  Virgil  or  in  Chaucer  or  in 
Shakespeare  or  in  Dryden;  such  things  as 
they  knew  they  knew.  It  is  no  disgrace  to 
Homer  that  he  had  not  discovered  Britain ; 
or  to  Virgil  that  he  had  not  discovered 
America;  or  to  Chaucer  that  he  had  not 
discovered  the  solar  system;  or  to  Dryden 
that  he  had  not  discovered  the  steam-engine. 
But  we  do  most  frequently  feel,  with  the 
Victorians,  that  the  very  vastness  of  the 
number  of  things  they  know  illustrates  the 
abrupt  abyss  of  the  things  they  do  not  know. 


158    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

We  feel,  in  a  sort  of  way,  that  it  is  a  disgrace  to 
a  man  like  Carlyle  when  he  asks  the  Irish 
why  they  do  not  bestir  themselves  and  re- 
forest their  country  :  saying  not  a  word  about 
the  soaking  up  of  every  sort  of  profit  by  the 
landlords  which  made  that  and  every  other 
Irish  improvement  impossible.  We  feel  that 
it  is  a  disgrace  to  a  man  like  Ruskin  when  he 
says,  with  a  solemn  visage,  that  building  in 
iron  is  ugly  and  unreal,  but  that  the  weightiest 
objection  is  that  there  is  no  mention  of  it 
in  the  Bible ;  we  feel  as  if  he  had  just  said  he 
could  find  no  hair-brushes  in  Habakkuk.  We 
feel  that  it  is  a  disgrace  to  a  man  like  Thackeray 
when  he  proposes  that  people  should  be 
forcibly  prevented  from  being  nuns,  merely 
because  he  has  no  fixed  intention  of  becoming 
a  nun  himself.  We  feel  that  it  is  a  disgrace 
to  a  man  like  Tennyson,  when  he  talks  of  the 
French  revolutions,  the  huge  crusades  that 
had  recreated  the  whole  of  his  civilisation, 
as  being  "  no  graver  than  a  schoolboy's 
barring  out."     We  feel  that  it  is  a  disgrace 


THE   GREAT   VICTORIAN   POETS     159 

to  a  man  like  Browning  to  make  spluttering 
and  spiteful  puns  about  the  names  Newman, 
Wiseman,  and  Manning.  We  feel  that  it 
is  a  disgrace  to  a  man  like  Newman  when 
he  confesses  that  for  some  time  he  felt 
as  if  he  couldn't  come  in  to  the  Catholic 
Church,  because  of  that  dreadful  Mr.  Daniel 
O'Connell,  who  had  the  vulgarity  to  fight 
for  his  own  country.  We  feel  that  it  is  a 
disgrace  to  a  man  like  Dickens,  when  he  makes 
a  blind  brute  and  savage  out  of  a  man  like 
St.  Dunstan;  it  sounds  as  if  it  were  not 
Dickens  talking  but  Dombey.  We  feel  it  is 
a  disgrace  to  a  man  like  Swinburne,  when  he 
has  a  Jingo  fit  and  calls  the  Boer  children  in 
the  concentration  camps  "  Whelps  of  treacher- 
ous dams  whom  none  save  we  have  spared  to 
starve  and  slay  "  :  we  feel  that  Swinburne, 
for  the  first  time,  really  has  become  an  immoral 
and  indecent  writer.  All  this  is  a  certain  odd 
provincialism  peculiar  to  the  English  in  that 
great  century  :  they  were  in  a  kind  of  pocket ; 
they  appealed  to  too  narrow  a  public  opinion ; 


160    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

I  am  certain  that  no  French  or  German  men 
of  the  same  genius  made  such  remarks.    Renan 
was  the  enemy  of  the  Catholic  Church;    but 
who    can    imagine    Renan    writing    of    it    as 
Kingsley   or   Dickens   did  ?     Taine   was   the 
enemy  of  the  French  Revolution;    but  wrho 
can  imagine  Taine  talking  about  it  as  Tenny- 
son   or    Newrman    talked  ?     Even   Matthew 
Arnold,  though  he  saw  this  peril  and  prided 
himself   on   escaping   it,    did   not   altogether 
escape  it.     There  must  be  (to  use  an  Irishism) 
something  shallow  in  the  depths  of  any  man 
who  talks  about  the  Zeitgeist  as  if  it  were  a 
living  thing. 

But  this  defect  is  very  specially  the  key 
to  the  case  of  the  two  great  Victorian  poets, 
Tennyson  and  Browning;  the  two  spirited 
or  beautiful  tunes,  so  to  speak,  to  which  the 
other  events  marched  or  danced.  It  was 
especially  so  of  Tennyson,  for  a  reason  which 
raises  some  of  the  most  real  problems  about 
his  poetry.  Tennyson,  of  course,  owed  a 
great  deal  to  Virgil.     There  is  no  question  of 


THE  GREAT  VICTORIAN   POETS     161 

plagiarism   here;    a  debt  to  Virgil  is  like    a 
debt    to    Nature.     But    Tennyson    was     a 
provincial  Virgil.     In  such  passages  as  that 
about  the  schoolboy's  barring  out  he  might 
be  called  a  suburban  Virgil.     I  mean  that  he 
tried  to  have  the  universal  balance  of  all  the 
ideas  at  which  the  great  Roman  had  aimed  : 
but  he  hadn't  got  hold  of  all  the  ideas  to 
balance.     Hence  his  work  was  not  a  balance  of 
truths,  like  the  universe.     It  was  a  balance 
of  whims;    like  the  British  Constitution.     It 
is  intensely  typical  of  Tennyson's  philosophical 
temper   that    he  was  almost  the    only  Poet 
Laureate  who  was  not  ludicrous.     It  is  not 
absurd  to  think  of  Tennyson  as  tuning  his 
harp  in  praise  of  Queen  Victoria  :  that  is,  it  is 
not   absurd  in   the   same   sense  as  Chaucer's 
harp  hallowed  by  dedication  to  Richard  II 
or  Wordsworth's  harp  hallowed  by  dedication 
to  George  IV  is  absurd.    Richard's  court  could 
not  properly  appreciate  either  Chaucer's  daisies 
or   his    "  devotion."     George   IV   would   not 
have  gone  pottering  about  Helvellyn  in  search 

L 


162    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

of  purity  and  the  simple  annals  of  the  poor. 
But  Tennyson  did  sincerely  believe  in  the 
Victorian  compromise ;  and  sincerity  is  never 
undignified.  He  really  did  hold  a  great 
many  of  the  same  views  as  Queen  Victoria, 
though  he  was  gifted  with  a  more  fortunate 
literary  style.  If  Dickens  is  Cobbett's 
democracy  stirring  in  its  grave,  Tennyson  is 
the  exquisitely  ornamental  extinguisher  on 
the  flame  of  the  first  revolutionary  poets. 
England  has  settled  down;  England  has 
become  Victorian.  The  compromise  was 
interesting,  it  was  national  and  for  a  long 
time  it  was  successful  :  there  is  still  a  great 
deal  to  be  said  for  it.  But  it  was  as  freakish 
and  unphilosophic,  as  arbitrary  and  untrans- 
latable, as  a  beggar's  patched  coat  or  a  child's 
secret  language.  Now  it  is  here  that  Browning 
had  a  certain  odd  advantage  over  Tennyson ; 
which  has,  perhaps,  somewhat  exaggerated 
his  intellectual  superiority  to  him.  Brown- 
ing's eccentric  style  was  more  suitable  to  the 
poetry  of  a  nation  of  eccentrics;    of  people 


THE  GREAT  VICTORIAN   POETS     163 

for  the  time  being  removed  far  from  the  centre 
of  intellectual  interests.  The  hearty  and 
pleasant  task  of  expressing  one's  intense 
dislike  of  something  one  doesn't  understand 
is  much  more  poetically  achieved  by  saying* 
in  a  general  way  "  Grrr — you  swine  !  "  than 
it  is  by  laboured  lines  such  as  "  the  red  fool- 
fury  of  the  Seine."  We  all  feel  that  there  is 
more  of  the  man  in  Browning  here ;  more  of 
Dr.  Johnson  or  Cobbett.  Browning  is  the 
Englishman  taking  himself  wilfully,  following 
his  nose  like  a  bull-dog,  going  by  his  own  likes 
and  dislikes.  We  cannot  help  feeling  that 
Tennyson  is  the  Englishman  taking  himself 
!  seriously — an  awful  sight.  One's  memory 
i  flutters  unhappily  over  a  certain  letter  about 
the  Papal  Guards  written  by  Sir  Willoughby 
Patterne.  It  is  here  chiefly  that  Tennyson 
suffers  by  that  very  Virgilian  loveliness  and 
dignity  of  diction  which  he  put  to  the  service 
of  such  a  small  and  anomalous  national 
scheme.     Virgil  had  the  best  news  to  tell  as 

well  as  the  best  words  to  tell  it  in.     His  world 
L  2 


164    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

might  be  sad;  but  it  was  the  largest  world 
one  could  live  in  before  the  coming  of  Christi- 
anity. If  he  told  the  Romans  to  spare  the 
vanquished  and  to  war  down  the  mighty,  at 
least  he  was  more  or  less  well  informed  about 
who  were  mighty  and  who  were  vanquished. 
But  when  Tennyson  wrote  verses  like — 

11  Of  freedom  in  her  regal  seat, 
Of  England;  not  the  schoolboy  heat, 
The  blind  hysterics  of  the  Celt  " 

he  quite  literally  did  not  know  one  word  of 
what  he  was  talking  about ;  he  did  not  know 
what  Celts  are,  or  what  hysterics  are,  or  what 
freedom  was,  or  what  regal  was  or  even 
of  what  England  was — in  the  living  Europe 
of  that  time. 

His  religious  range  was  very  much  wider 
and  wiser  than  his  political;  but  here  also 
he  suffered  from  treating  as  true  universality 
a  thing  that  was  only  a  sort  of  lukewarm  local 
patriotism.     Here    also    he    suffered    by   the 


THE  GREAT   VICTORIAN   POETS     165 

very  splendour  and  perfection  of  his  poetical 
powers.  He  was  quite  the  opposite  of  the 
man  who  cannot  express  himself;  the  in- 
articulate singer  who  dies  with  all  his  music  in 
him.  He  had  a  great  deal  to  say;  but  he 
had  much  more  power  of  expression  than  was 
wanted  for  anything  he  had  to  express.  He 
could  not  think  up  to  the  height  of  his  own 
towering  style. 

For  whatever  else  Tennyson  was,  he  was  a 
great  poet;  no  mind  that  feels  itself  free, 
that  is,  above  the  ebb  and  flow  of  fashion,  can 
feel  anything  but  contempt  for  the  later  effort 
to  discredit  him  in  that  respect.  It  is  true 
that,  like  Browning  and  almost  every  other 
Victorian  poet,  he  was  really  two  poets.  But 
it  is  just  to  him  to  insist  that  in  his  case 
(unlike  Browning's)  both  the  poets  were  good. 
The  first  is  more  or  less  like  Stevenson  in 
metre ;  it  is  a  magical  luck  or  skill  in  the  mere 
choice  of  words.  "  Wet  sands  marbled  with 
moon  and  cloud  " — "  Flits  by  the  sea-blue  bird 
of  March  " — "  Leafless  ribs  and  iron  horns  " 


166    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

— "  When  the  long  dun  wolds  are  ribbed  with 
snow  " — in  all  these  cases  one  word  is  the 
keystone  of  an  arch  which  would  fall  into 
ruin  without  it.  But  there  are  other  strong 
phrases  that  recall  not  Stevenson  but  rather 
their  common  master,  Virgil — "  Tears  from 
the  depths  of  some  divine  despair  " — "  There 
is  fallen  a  splendid  tear  from  the  passion- 
flower at  the  gate" — "Was  a  great  water; 
and  the  moon  was  full " — "  God  made  Himself 
an  awful  rose  of  dawn."  These  do  not 
depend  on  a  word  but  on  an  idea  :  they  might 
even  be  translated.  It  is  also  true,  I  think, 
that  he  was  first  and  last  a  lyric  poet.  He  was 
always  best  when  he  expressed  himself 
shortly.  In  long  poems  he  had  an  unf ortunate 
habit  of  eventually  saying  very  nearly  the 
opposite  of  what  he  meant  to  say.  I  will 
take  only  two  instances  of  what  I  mean. 
In  the  Idylls  of  the  King,  and  in  In  Memoriam 
(his  two  sustained  and  ambitious  efforts), 
particular  phrases  are  always  flashing  out  the 
whole  fire  of  the  truth ;  the  truth  that  Tenny- 


THE  GREAT  VICTORIAN   POETS     167 

son  meant.  But  owing  to  his  English  indo- 
lence, his  English  aristocratic  irresponsibility, 
his  English  vagueness  in  thought,  he  always 
managed  to  make  the  main  poem  mean 
exactly  what  he  did  not  mean.  Thus,  these 
two  lines  which  simply  say  that 


it 


Lancelot  was  the  first  in  tournament, 
But  Arthur  mightiest  in  the  battle-field  " 


do  really  express  what  he  meant  to  express 
about  Arthur  being  after  all  "  the  highest, 
yet  most  human  too;  not  Lancelot,  nor 
another."  But  as  his  hero  is  actually 
developed,  we  have  exactly  the  opposite 
impression;  that  poor  old  Lancelot,  with  all 
his  faults,  was  much  more  of  a  man  than 
Arthur.  He  was  a  Victorian  in  the  bad  as 
well  as  the  good  sense;  he  could  not  keep 
priggishness  out  of  long  poems.  Or  again, 
take  the  case  of  In  Memoriam.  I  will  quote 
one  verse  (probably  incorrectly)  which  has 
always   seemed  to  me  splendid,   and   which 


168    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

does  express  what  the  whole  poem  should 
express — but^hardly^does. 

"  That  we  may  lift  from  out  the  dust, 
A  voice  as  unto  him  that  hears 
A  cry  above  the  conquered  years 
Of  one  that  ever  works,  and  trust." 

The  poem  should  have  been  a  cry  above  the 
conquered  years.  It  might  well  have  been 
that  if  the  poet  could  have  said  sharply  at 
the  end  of  it,  as  a  pure  piece  of  dogma,  "  I've 
forgotten  every  feature  of  the  man's  face  :  I 
know  God  holds  him  alive."  But  under  the 
influence  of  the  mere  leisurely  length  of  the 
thing,  the  reader  does  rather  receive  the 
impression  that  the  wound  has  been  healed 
only  by  time ;  and  that  the  victor  hours  can 
boast  that  this  is  the  man  that  loved  and 
lost,  but  all  he  was  is  overworn.  This  is  not 
the  truth;  and  Tennyson  did  not  intend  it 
for  the  truth.  It  is  simply  the  result  of  the 
lack    of    something   militant,    dogmatic    and 


THE  GREAT  VICTORIAN  POETS     169 

structural  in  him  :  whereby  he  could  not  be 
trusted  with  the  trail  of  a  very  long  literary 
process  without  entangling  himself  like  a 
kitten  playing  cat's-cradle. 

Browning,  as  above  suggested,  got  on  much 
better  with  eccentric  and  secluded  England 
because  he  treated  it  as  eccentric  and  secluded ; 
a  place  where  one  could  do  what  one  liked. 
To  a  considerable  extent  he  did  do  what  he 
liked;  arousing  not  a  few  complaints;  and 
many  doubts  and  conjectures  as  to  why  on 
earth  he  liked  it.  Many  comparatively  sympa- 
thetic persons  pondered  upon  what  pleasure 
it  could  give  any  man  to  write  Sordello  or 
rhyme  "  end-knot  "  to  "  offend  not."  Never- 
theless he  was  no  anarchist  and  no  mystagogue ; 
and  even  where  he  was  defective,  his  defect 
has  commonly  been  stated  wrongly.  The 
two  chief  charges  against  him  were  a  contempt 
for  form  unworthy  of  an  artist,  and  a  poor 
pride  in  obscurity.  The  obscurity  is  true, 
though  not,  I  think,  the  pride  in  it ;  but  the 
truth  about  this  charge  rather  rises  out  of  the 


170    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

truth  about  the  other.  The  other  charge  is 
not  true.  Browning  cared  very  much  for 
form;  he  cared  very  much  for  style.  You 
may  not  happen  to  like  his  style;  but  he 
did.  To  say  that  he  had  not  enough  mastery 
over  form  to  express  himself  perfectly  like 
Tennyson  or  Swinburne  is  like  criticising  the 
griffin  of  a  mediaeval  gargoyle  without  even 
knowing  that  it  is  a  griffin;  treating  as  an 
infantile  and  unsuccessful  attempt  at  a  classical 
angel.  A  poet  indifferent  to  form  ought  to 
mean  a  poet  who  did  not  care  what  form  he 
used  as  long  as  he  expressed  his  thoughts. 
He  might  be  a  rather  entertaining  sort  of  poet ; 
telling  a  smoking-room  story  in  blank  verse 
or  writing  a  hunting-song  in  the  Spenserian 
stanza ;  giving  a  realistic  analysis  of  infanticide 
in  a  series  of  triolets;  or  proving  the  truth 
of  Immortality  in  a  long  string  of  limericks. 
Browning  certainly  had  no  such  indifference. 
Almost  every  poem  of  Browning,  especially 
the  shortest  and  most  successful  ones,  was 
moulded    or   graven   in   some   special    style, 


THE  GREAT  VICTORIAN  POETS    171 

generally  grotesque,  but  invariably  deliberate. 
In  most  cases  whenever  he  wrote  a  new  song 
he  wrote  a  new  kind  of  song.  The  new  lyric 
is  not  only  of  a  different  metre,  but  of  a 
different  shape.  No  one,  not  even  Browning, 
ever  wrote  a  poem  in  the  same  style  as  that 
horrible  one  beginning  "  John,  Master  of  the 
Temple  of  God,"  with  its  weird  choruses  and 
creepy  prose  directions.  No  one,  not  even 
Browning,  ever  wrote  a  poem  in  the  same  style 
as  Pisgah-sights.  No  one,  not  even  Browning, 
ever  wrote  a  poem  in  the  same  style  as  Time's 
Revenges,  no  one,  not  even  Browning,  ever 
wrote  a  poem  in  the  same  style  as  Meeting  at 
Night  and  Parting  at  Morning.  No  one,  not 
even  Browning,  ever  wrote  a  poem  in  the 
same  style  as  The  Flight  of  the  Duchess,  or  in 
the  same  style  as  The  Grammarian9 s  Funeral,  or 
in  the  same  style  as  A  Star,  or  in  the  same 
style  as  that  astounding  lyric  which  begins 
abruptly  "  Some  people  hang  pictures  up." 
These  metres  and  manners  were  not  accidental ; 
they  really  do  suit  the  sort  of  spiritual  ex- 


172    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

periment  Browning  was  making  in  each  case. 
Browning,  then,  was  not  chaotic;  he  was 
deliberately  grotesque.  But  there  certainly 
was,  over  and  above  this  grotesqueness,  a 
perversity  and  irrationality  about  the  man 
which  led  him  to  play  the  fool  in  the  middle 
of  his  own  poems;  to  leave  off  carving 
gargoyles  and  simply  begin  throwing  stones. 
His  curious  complicated  puns  are  an  example 
of  this  :  Hood  had  used  the  pun  to  make 
a  sentence  or  a  sentiment  especially  pointed 
and  clear.  In  Browning  the  word  with  two 
meanings  seems  to  mean  rather  less,  if  any- 
thing, than  the  word  wTith  one.  It  also  applies 
to  his  trick  of  setting  himself  to  cope  with 
impossible  rhymes.  It  may  be  fun,  though 
it  is  not  poetry,  to  try  rhyming  to  ranunculus ; 
but  even  the  fun  presupposes  that  you  do 
rhyme  to  it ;  and  I  will  affirm,  and  hold  under 
persecution,  that  "  Tommy-make-room-for- 
your-uncle-us  "  does  not  rhyme  to  it. 

The  obscurity,  to  which  he  must  in  a  large 
degree  plead  guilty,  was,  curiously  enough,  the 


THE   GREAT   VICTORIAN   POETS     173 

result  rather  of  the  gay  artist  in  him  than  the 
deep  thinker.     It  is  patience  in  the  Browning 
students ;  in  Browning  it  was  only  impatience. 
He    wanted    to    say    something    comic    and 
energetic  and  he  wanted  to  say  it  quick.    And, 
between  his  artistic  skill  in  the  fantastic  and 
his  temperamental  turn  for  the  abrupt,  the 
idea  sometimes  flashed  past  unseen.     But  it 
is  quite  an  error  to  suppose  that   these   are 
the  dark  mines  containing  his  treasure.     The 
two  or  three  great  and  true  things  he  really 
had  to  say  he  generally  managed  to  say  quite 
simply.     Thus  he  really  did  want  to  say  that 
God  had  indeed  made  man  and  woman  one 
flesh;    that  the  sex  relation  was  religious  in 
this  real  sense  that  even  in  our  sin  and  despair 
we  take  it  for  granted   and   expect  a  sort  of 
virtue  in  it.     The  feelings  of  the  bad  husband 
about  the  good  wife,  for  instance,  are  about 
as  subtle  and  entangled  as  any  matter  on  this 
earth;    and  Browning  really  had  something 
to  say  about  them.     But  he  said  it  in  some  of 
the  plainest  and    most    unmistakable  words 


174    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

in  all  literature ;  as  lucid  as  a  flash  of  light- 
ning. "  Pompilia,  will  you  let  them  murder 
me  ?  "  Or  again,  he  did  really  want  to  say 
that  death  and  such  moral  terrors  were  best 
taken  in  a  military  spirit ;  he  could  not  have 
said  it  more  simply  than  :  "  I  was  ever  a  fighter ; 
one  fight  more,  the  best  and  the  last."  He 
did  really  wish  to  say  that  human  life  was 
unworkable  unless  immortality  were  implied 
in  it  every  other  moment ;  he  could  not  have 
said  it  more  simply :  "  leave  now  to  dogs 
and  apes;  Man  has  for  ever."  The  obscurities 
were  not  merely  superficial,  but  often  covered 
quite  superficial  ideas.  He  was  as  likely  as 
not  to  be  most  unintelligible  of  all  in  writing 
a  compliment  in  a  lady's  album.  I  remember 
in  my  boyhood  (when  Browning  kept  us  awake 
like  coffee)  a  friend  reading  out  the  poem  about 
the  portrait  to  which  I  have  already  referred, 
reading  it  in  that  rapid  dramatic  way  in  which 
this  poet  must  be  read.  And  I  was  profoundly 
puzzled  at  the  passage  where  it  seemed  to  say 
that  the  cousin  disparaged  the  picture,  "  while 


THE   GREAT  VICTORIAN  POETS    175 

John  scorns  ale."  I  could  not  think  what 
this  sudden  teetotalism  on  the  part  of  John 
had  to  do  with  the  affair,  but  I  forgot  to  ask 
at  the  time  and  it  was  only  years  afterwards 
that,  looking  at  the  book,  I  found  it  was 
"  John's  corns  ail,"  a  very  Browningesque 
way  of  saying  he  winced.  Most  of  Browning's 
obscurity  is  of  that  sort — the  mistakes  are 
almost  as  quaint  as  misprints — and  the 
Browning  student,  in  that  sense,  is  more  a 
proof  reader  than  a  disciple.  For  the  rest 
his  real  religion  was  of  the  most  manly,  even 
the  most  boyish  sort.  He  is  called  an 
optimist ;  but  the  word  suggests  a  calculated 
contentment  which  was  not  in  the  least  one 
of  his  vices.  What  he  really  was  was  a 
romantic.  He  offered  the  cosmos  as  an 
adventure  rather  than  a  scheme.  He  did 
not  explain  evil,  far  less  explain  it  away  :  he 
enjoyed  defying  it.  He  was  a  troubadour 
even  in  theology  and  metaphysics  :  like  the 
Jongleurs  de  Dieu  of  St.  Francis.  He  may  be 
said  to  have  serenaded  heaven  with  a  guitar, 


176    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

and  even,  so  to  speak,  tried  to  climb  there  with 
a  rope  ladder.  Thus  his  most  vivid  things 
are  the  red-hot  little  love  lyrics,  or  rather, 
Jittle  love  dramas.  He  did  one  really  original 
and  admirable  thing  :  he  managed  the  real 
details  of  modern  love  affairs  in  verse,  and 
love  is  the  most  realistic  thing  in  the  world. 
He  substituted  the  street  with  the  green 
blind  for  the  faded  garden  of  Watteau,  and 
the  "  blue  spirt  of  a  lighted  match  "  for  the 
monotony  of  the  evening  star. 

Before  leaving  him  it  should  be  added  that 
he  was  fitted  to  deepen  the  Victorian  mind, 
but  not  to  broaden  it.  With  all  his  Italian 
sympathies  and  Italian  residence,  he  was  not 
the  man  to  get  Victorian  England  out  of  its 
provincial  rut  :  on  many  things  Kingsley 
himself  was  not  so  narrow.  His  celebrated 
wife  was  wider  and  wiser  than  he  in  this  sense ; 
for  she  was,  however  one-sidedly,  involved 
in  the  emotions  of  central  European  politics. 
She  defended  Louis  Napoleon  and  Victor 
Emmanuel ;  and  intelligently,  as  one  conscious 


THE   GREAT   VICTORIAN  POETS     177 

of  the  case  against  them  both.  As  to  why 
it  now  seems  simple  to  defend  the  first  Italian 
King,  but  absurd  to  defend  the  last  French 
Emperor — well  the  reason  is  sad  and  simple. 
It  is  concerned  with  certain  curious  things 
called  success  and  failure,  and  I  ought  to 
have  considered  it  under  the  heading  of 
The  Book  of  Snobs.  But  Elizabeth  Barrett, 
at  least,  was  no  snob  :  her  political  poems 
have  rather  an  impatient  air,  as  if  they 
were  written,  and  even  published,  rather  pre- 
maturely— just  before  the  fall  of  her  idol. 
These  old  political  poems  of  hers  are  too  little 
read  to-day;  they  are  amongst  the  most 
sincere  documents  on  the  history  of  the 
times,  and  many  modern  blunders  could  be 
corrected  by  the  reading  of  them.  And 
Elizabeth  Barrett  had  a  strength  really  rare 
among  women  poets;  the  strength  of  the 
phrase.  She  excelled  in  her  sex,  in  epigram, 
;  almost  as  much  as  Voltaire  in  his.  Pointed 
phrases  like:  "Martyrs  by  the  pang  without 
i  the  palm  " — or  "  Incense  to  sweeten  a  crime 

M 


178    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

and  myrrh  to  embitter  a  curse,"  these  ex- 
pressions, which  are  witty  after  the  old 
fashion  of  the  conceit,  came  quite  freshly  and 
spontaneously  to  her  quite  modern  mind. 
But  the  first  fact  is  this,  that  these  epigrams 
of  hers  were  never  so  true  as  when  they 
turned  on  one  of  the  two  or  three  pivots  on 
which  contemporary  Europe  was  really  turn- 
ing. She  is  by  far  the  most  European  of 
all  the  English  poets  of  that  age ;  all  of  them, 
even  her  own  much  greater  husband,  look 
local  beside  her.  Tennyson  and  the  rest 
are  nowhere.  Take  any  positive  political 
fact,  such  as  the  final  fall  of  Napoleon. 
Tennyson  wrote  these  profoundly  foolish 
lines — 

"  He  thought  to  quell  the  stubborn  hearts 
of  oak 
Madman  !  " 

as  if  the  defeat  of  an  English  regiment  were  a 
violation  of  the  laws  of  Nature.     Mrs.  Brown- 


THE  GREAT  VICTORIAN   POETS     179 

ing  knew  no  more  facts  about  Napoleon, 
perhaps,  than  Tennyson  did;  but  she  knew 
the  truth.  Her  epigram  on  Napoleon's  fall 
is  in  one  line 

"  And  kings  crept  out  again  to  feel  the  sun. 

Talleyrand  would  have  clapped  his  horrible 
old  hands  at  that.  Her  instinct  about  the 
statesman  and  the  soldier  was  very  like  Jane 
Austen's  instinct  for  the  gentleman  and  the 
man.  It  is  not  unnoticeable  that  as  Miss 
Austen  spent  most  of  her  life  in  a  village, 
Miss  Barrett  spent  most  of  her  life  on  a  sofa. 
The  godlike  power  of  guessing  seems  (for 
some  reason  I  do  not  understand)  to  grow 
under  such  conditions.  Unfortunately  Mrs. 
Browning  was  like  all  the  other  Victorians 
in  going  a  little  lame,  as  I  have  roughly  called 
it,  having  one  leg  shorter  than  the  other. 
But  her  case  was,  in  one  sense,  extreme.  She 
exaggerated  both  ways.  She  was  too  strong 
and  too  weak,  or  (as  a  false  sex  philosophy 

M  2 


180    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

would  express  it),  too  masculine  and  too 
feminine.  I  mean  that  she  hit  the  centre  of 
weakness  with  almost  the  same  emphatic 
precision  with  which  she  hit  the  centre  of 
strength.  She  could  write  finally  of  the 
factory  wheels  "  grinding  life  down  from  its 
mark  "  a  strong  and  strictly  true  observation. 
Unfortunately  she  could  also  write  of  Euripides 
"  with  his  droppings  of  warm  tears."  She 
could  write  in  A  Drama  of  Exile,  a  really 
fine  exposition,  touching  the  later  relation  of 
Adam  and  the  animals  :  unfortunately  the 
tears  were  again  turned  on  at  the  wrong 
moment  at  the  main ;  and  the  stage  direction 
commands  a  silence,  only  broken  by  the 
dropping  of  angel's  tears.  How  much  noise 
is  made  by  angel's  tears  ?  Is  it  a  sound  of 
emptied  buckets,  or  of  garden  hoses,  or  of 
mountain  cataracts  ?  That  is  the  sort  of 
question  which  Elizabeth  Barrett's  extreme 
love  of  the  extreme  was  always  tempting 
people  to  ask.  Yet  the  question,  as  asked, 
does    her   a   heavy   historical   injustice;     we 


THE   GREAT   VICTORIAN   POETS     181 

remember    all  the  lines  in  her  work  which 
were  weak  enough  to  be  called  "  womanly,'' 
we  forget  the  multitude  of  strong  lines  that 
are    strong    enough  to  be  called  "  manly  " ; 
lines   that   Kingsley   or   Henley   would   have 
jumped   for   joy   to   print   in   proof   of   their 
manliness.     She    had    one    of    the    peculiar 
talents  of  true  rhetoric,  that  of  a  powerful 
concentration.     As  to  the  critic  who   thinks 
her  poetry  owed  anything  to  the  great  poet 
who  was  her  husband,  he  can  go  and  live  in  the 
same  hotel  with  the  man  who  can  believe  that 
George  Eliot  owed  anything  to  the  extrava- 
gant imagination  of  Mr.  George  Henry  Lewes. 
So  far  from  Browning  inspiring  or  interfering, 
he   did   not   in   one   sense   interfere   enough. 
Her  real   inferiority  to  him  in  literature  is 
that  he  was  consciously  while  she  was  un- 
consciously absurd. 

It  is  natural,  in  the  matter  of  Victorian 
moral  change,  to  take  Swinburne  as  the  next 
name  here.  He  is  the  only  poet  who  was  also, 
in  the  European  sense,  on  the  spot ;    even  if, 


182    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

in  the  sense  of  the  Gilbertian  song,  the  spot 
was  barred.  He  also  knew  that  something 
rather  crucial  was  happening  to  Christendom ; 
he  thought  it  was  getting  unchristened.  It  is 
even  a  little  amusing,  indeed,  that  these  two 
Pro-Italian  poets  almost  conducted  a  political 
correspondence  in  rhyme.  Mrs.  Browning 
sternly  reproached  those  who  had  ever  doubted 
the  good  faith  of  the  King  of  Sardinia,  whom 
she  acclaimed  as  being  truly  a  king.  Swin- 
burne, lyrically  alluding  to  her  as  "  Sea-eagle 
of  English  feather,"  broadly  hinted  that  the 
chief  blunder  of  that  wild  fowl  had  been  her 
support  of  an  autocratic  adventurer  :  "  calling 
a  crowned  man  royal,  that  was  no  more  than 
a  king."  But  it  is  not  fair,  even  in  this 
important  connection,  to  judge  Swinburne  by 
Songs  Before  Sunrise.  They  were  songs  before 
a  sunrise  that  has  never  turned  up.  Their 
dogmatic  assertions  have  for  a  long  time  past 
stared  starkly  at  us  as  nonsense.  As,  for 
instance,  the  phrase  "  Glory  to  Man  in  the 
Highest,  for  man  is  the  master  of  things  " ; 


THE   GREAT  VICTORIAN   POETS     183 

after  which  there  is  evidently  nothing  to  be 
said,  except  that  it  is  not  true.  But  even 
where  Swinburne  had  his  greater  grip,  as  in 
that  grave  and  partly  just  poem  Before  a 
Crucifix,  Swinburne,  the  most  Latin,  the  most 
learned,  the  most  largely  travelled  of  the 
Victorians,  still  knows  far  less  of  the  facts 
than  even  Mrs.  Browning.  The  whole  of  the 
poem,  Before  a  Crucifix,  breaks  down  by  one 
mere  mistake.  It  imagines  that  the  French 
or  Italian  peasants  who  fell  on  their  knees 
before  the  Crucifix  did  so  because  they  were 
slaves.  They  fell  on  their  knees  because  they 
were  free  men,  probably  owning  their  own 
farms.  Swinburne  could  have  found  round 
about  Putney  plenty  of  slaves  who  had  no 
crucifixes  :    but  only  crucifixions. 

When  we  come  to  ethics  and  philosophy, 
doubtless  we  find  Swinburne  in  full  revolt,  not 
only  against  the  temperate  idealism  of  Tenny- 
son, but  against  the  genuine  piety  and  moral 
enthusiasm  of  people  like  Mrs.  Browning, 
But   here  again   Swinburne  is  very  English, 


184    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

nay,  he  is  very  Victorian,  for  his  revolt  is 
illogical.  For  the  purposes  of  intelligent 
insurrection  against  priests  and  kings,  Swin- 
burne ought  to  have  described  the  natural  life 
of  man,  free  and  beautiful,  and  proved  from 
this  both  the  noxiousness  and  the  needlessness 
of  such  chains.  Unfortunately  Swinburne 
rebelled  against  Nature  first  and  then  tried  to 
rebel  against  religion  for  doing  exactly  the 
same  thing  that  he  had  done.  His  songs  of 
joy  are  not  really  immoral;  but  his  songs  of 
sorrow  are.  But  when  he  merely  hurls  at  the 
priest  the  assertion  that  flesh  is  grass  and  life 
is  sorrow,  he  really  lays  himself  open  to  the 
restrained  answer,  "So  I  have  ventured,  on 
various  occasions,  to  remark."  When  he 
went  forth,  as  it  were,  as  the  champion  of 
pagan  change  and  pleasure,  he  heard  uplifted 
the  grand  choruses  of  his  own  Atalanta,  in  his 
rear,  refusing  hope. 

The  splendid  diction  that  blazes  through  the 
whole  of  that  drama,  that  still  dances  exqui- 
sitely in  the  more  lyrical  Poems  and  Ballads, 


THE   GREAT   VICTORIAN   POETS     185 

makes  some  marvellous  appearances  in  Songs 
Before  Sunrise,  and  then  mainly  falters  and 
fades  away,  is,  of  course,  the  chief  thing  about 
Swinburne.  The  style  is  the  man ;  and  some 
will  add  that  it  does  not,  thus  unsupported, 
amount  to  much  of  a  man.  But  the  style 
itself  suffers  some  injustice  from  those  who 
would  speak  thus.  The  views  expressed  are 
often  quite  foolish  and  often  quite  insincere; 
but  the  style  itself  is  a  manlier  and  more 
natural  thing  than  is  commonly  made  out.  It 
is  not  in  the  least  languorous  or  luxurious  or 
merely  musical  and  sensuous,  as  one  would 
gather  from  both  the  eulogies  and  the  satires, 
from  the  conscious  and  the  unconscious 
imitations.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  sort  of 
fighting  and  profane  parody  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment ;  and  its  lines  are  made  of  short  English 
words  like  the  short  Roman  swords.  The 
first  line  of  one  of  his  finest  poems,  for  instance, 
runs,  "  I  have  lived  long  enough  to  have  seen 
one  thing,  that  love  hath  an  end."  In  that 
sentence  only  one  small  "  e  "  gets  outside  the 


186    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

monosyllable.     Through  all  his  interminable 
tragedies,  he  was  fondest  of  lines  like — 

"  If  ever  I  leave  off  to  honour  you 
God  give  me  shame ;  I  were  the  worst  churl 
born." 

The  dramas  were  far  from  being  short  and 
dramatic;  but  the  words  really  were.  Nor 
was  his  verse  merely  smooth ;  except  his  very 
bad  verse,  like  "  the  lilies  and  languors  of 
virtue,  to  the  raptures  and  roses  of  vice," 
which  both,  in  cheapness  of  form  and  foolish- 
ness of  sentiment,  may  be  called  the  worst 
couplet  in  the  world's  literature.  In  his  real 
poetry  (even  in  the  same  poem)  his  rhythm 
and  rhyme  are  as  original  and  ambitious  as 
Browning;  and  the  only  difference  between 
him  and  Browning  is,  not  that  he  is  smooth 
and  without  ridges,  but  that  he  always  crests 
the  ridge  triumphantly  and  Browning  often 
does  not — 

"  On  thy  bosom  though  many  a  kiss  be, 
There  are  none  such  as  knew  it  of  old. 


THE   GREAT   VICTORIAN   POETS     187 

Was  it  Alciphron  once  or  Arisbe, 

Male  ringlets  or  feminine  gold, 

That  thy  lips  met  with  under  the  statue 

Whence  a  look  shot  out  sharp  after  thieves 

From  the  eyes  of  the  garden-god  at  you 

Across  the  fig-leaves." 

Look  at  the  rhymes  in  that  verse,  and  you 
will  see  they  are  as  stiff  a  task  as  Browning's  : 
only  they  are  successful.  That  is  the  real 
strength  of  Swinburne — a  style.  It  was  a 
style  that  nobody  could  really  imitate;  and 
least  of  all  Swinburne  himself,  though  he  made 
the  attempt  all  through  his  later  years.  He 
was,  if  ever  there  was  one,  an  inspired  poet.  I 
do  not  think  it  the  highest  sort  of  poet.  And 
you  never  discover  who  is  an  inspired  poet 
until  the  inspiration  goes. 

With  Swinburne  we  step  into  the  circle  of 
that  later  Victorian  influence  which  was  very 
vaguely  called  ^Esthetic.  Like  all  human 
things,  but  especially  Victorian  things,  it  was 
not  only  complex  but  confused.     Things  in 


188    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

it  that  were  at  one  on  the  emotional  side  were 
flatly  at  war  on  the  intellectual.  In  the  sec- 
tion of  the  painters,  it  was  the  allies  or  pupils 
of  Ruskin,  pious,  almost  painfully  exact,  and 
copying  mediaeval  details  rather  for  their  truth 
than  their  beauty.  In  the  section  of  the  poets 
it  was  pretty  loose,  Swinburne  being  the  leader 
of  the  revels.  But  there  was  one  great  man 
who  was  in  both  sections,  a  painter  and  a  poet, 
who  may  be  said  to  bestride  the  chasm  like  a 
giant.  It  is  in  an  odd  and  literal  sense  true 
that  the  name  of  Rossetti  is  important  here, 
for  the  name  implies  the  nationality.  I  have 
loosely  called  Carlyle  and  the  Brontes  the 
romance  from  the  North;  the  nearest  to  a 
general  definition  of  the  ^Esthetic  movement 
is  to  call  it  the  romance  from  the  South.  It 
is  that  warm  wind  that  had  never  blown  so 
strong  since  Chaucer,  standing  in  his  cold 
English  April,  had  smelt  the  spring  in 
Provence.  The  Englishman  has  always  found 
it  easier  to  get  inspiration  from  the  Italians 
than  from  the  French ;  they  call  to  each  other 


THE   GREAT  VICTORIAN  POETS     189 

across  that  unconquered  castle  of  reason. 
Browning's  Englishman  in  Italy,  Browning's 
Italian  in  England,  were  both  happier  than 
either  would  have  been  in  France.  Rossetti 
was  the  Italian  in  England,  as  Browning  was 
the  Englishman  in  Italy ;  and  the  first  broad 
fact  about  the  artistic  revolution  Rossetti 
wrought  is  written  when  we  have  written  his 
name.  But  if  the  South  lets  in  warmth  or 
heat,  it  also  lets  in  hardness.  The  more  the 
orange  tree  is  luxuriant  in  growth,  the  less  it 
is  loose  in  outline.  And  it  is  exactly  where  the 
sea  is  slightly  warmer  than  marble  that  it 
looks  slightly  harder.  This,  I  think,  is  the 
one  universal  power  behind  the  ^Esthetic  and 
Pre-Raphaelite  movements,  which  all  agreed 
in  two  things  at  least :  strictness  in  the  line 
and  strength,  nay  violence,  in  the  colour. 

Rossetti  was  a  remarkable  man  in  more 
ways  than  one ;  he  did  not  succeed  in  any  art ; 
if  he  had  he  would  probably  never  have  been 
heard  of.  It  was  his  happy  knack  of  half 
failing  in  both  the  arts  that  has  made  him  a 


190    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

success.  If  he  had  been  as  good  a  poet  as 
Tennyson,  he  would  have  been  a  poet  who 
painted  pictures.  If  he  had  been  as  good  a 
painter  as  Burne-Jones,  he  would  have  been 
a  painter  who  wrote  poems.  It  is  odd  to  note 
on  the  very  threshold  of  the  extreme  art 
movement  that  this  great  artist  largely 
succeeded  by  not  defining  his  art.  His  poems 
were  too  pictorial.  His  pictures  were  too 
poetical.  That  is  why  they  really  conquered 
the  cold  satisfaction  of  the  Victorians,  because 
they  did  mean  something,  even  if  it  was  a 
small  artistic  thing. 

Rossetti  was  one  with  Ruskin,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  Swinburne  on  the  other,  in  reviving 
the  decorative  instinct  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
While  Ruskin,  in  letters  only,  praised  that 
decoration  Rossetti  and  his  friends  repeated  it. 
They  almost  made  patterns  of  their  poems. 
That  frequent  return  of  the  refrain  which  was 
foolishly  discussed  by  Professor  Nordau  was, 
in  Rossetti's  case,  of  such  sadness  as  some- 
times to  amount  to  sameness.     The  criticism 


THE   GREAT   VICTORIAN   POETS     191 

on  him,  from  a  mediaeval  point  of  view,  is  not 
that  he  insisted  on  a  chorus,  but  that  he  could 
not  insist  on  a  jolly  chorus.  Many  of  his 
poems  were  truly  mediaeval,  but  they  would 
have  been  even  more  mediaeval  if  he  could 
ever  have  written  such  a  refrain  as  "  Tally 
Ho  !  "  or  even  "  Tooral-ooral  "  instead  of 
"Tall  Troy's  on  fire."  With  Rossetti  goes, 
of  course,  his  sister,  a  real  poet,  though  she 
also  illustrated  that  Pre-Raphaelite's  conflict 
of  views  that  covered  their  coincidence  of 
taste.  Both  used  the  angular  outlines,  the 
burning  transparencies,  the  fixed  but  still 
unfathomable  symbols  of  the  great  mediaeval 
civilisation;  but  Rossetti  used  the  religious 
imageiy  (on  the  whole)  irreligiously,  Christina 
Rossetti  used  it  religiously  but  (on  the  whole) 
so  to  make  it  seem  a  narrower  religion. 

One  poet,  or,  to  speak  more  strictly,  one 
poem,  belongs  to  the  same  general  atmosphere 
and  impulse  as  Swinburne;  the  free  but 
languid  atmosphere  of  later  Victorian  art. 
But  this  time  the  wind  blew  from  hotter  and 


192    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

heavier  gardens  than  the  gardens  of  Italy. 
Edward  Fitzgerald,  a  cultured  eccentric,  a 
friend  of  Tennyson,  produced  what  professed 
to  be  a  translation  of  the  Persian  poet  Omar, 
who  wrote  quatrains  about  wine  and  roses 
and  things  in  general.  Whether  the  Persian 
original,  in  its  own  Persian  way,  was  greater 
or  less  than  this  version  I  must  not  discuss 
here,  and  could  not  discuss  anywhere.  But  it 
is  quite  clear  that  Fitzgerald's  work  is  much 
too  good  to  be  a  good  translation.  It  is  as 
personal  and  creative  a  thing  as  ever  was 
written;  and  the  best  expression  of  a  bad 
mood,  a  mood  that  may,  for  all  I  know,  be 
permanent  in  Persia,  but  was  certainly  at 
this  time  particularly  fashionable  in  England. 
In  the  technical  sense  of  literature  it  is  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  achievements  of  that 
age;  as  poetical  as  Swinburne  and  far  more 
perfect.  In  this  verbal  sense  its  most  arresting 
quality  is  a  combination  of  something  haunt- 
ing and  harmonious  that  flows  by  like  a  river 
or  a  song,  with  something  else  that  is  compact 


THE  GREAT  VICTORIAN  POETS     193 

and  pregnant  like  a  pithy  saying  picked  out 
in  rock  by  the  chisel  of  some  pagan  philoso- 
pher. It  is  at  once  a  tune  that  escapes  and 
an  inscription  that  remains.  Thus,  alone 
among  the  reckless  and  romantic  verses  that 
first  rose  in  Coleridge  or  Keats,  it  preserves 
something  also  of  the  wit  and  civilisation  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  Lines  like  "  a  Muezzin 
from  the  tower  of  darkness  cries,"  or  "  Their 
mouths  are  stopped  with  dust  "  are  successful 
in  the  same  sense  as  "  Pinnacled  dim  in 
the  intense  inane  "  or  "  Through  verdurous 
glooms  and  winding  mossy  ways."     But — 

"  Indeed,  indeed,  repentance  oft  before 
I  swore;   but  was  I  sober  when  I  swore  ?  " 

is  equally  successful  in  the  same  sense  as — 

'  Damn  with   faint   praise,  assent  with   civil 

leer 
And    without    sneering   teach    the    rest    to 
sneer." 


194    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

It  thus  earned  a  right  to  be  considered  the 
complete  expression  of  that  scepticism  and 
sensual   sadness   into   which   later   Victorian 
literature  was  more  and  more  falling  away  : 
a  sort  of  bible  of  unbelief.     For  a  cold  fit  had 
followed  the  hot  fit  of  Swinburne,  which  was 
of  a  feverish  sort:  he  had  set  out  to  break 
down  without  having,  or  even  thinking  he 
had,   the    rudiments   of    rebuilding  in   him; 
and    he    effected    nothing   national    even   in 
the  way  of  destruction.     The  Tennysonians 
still  walked  past  him  as  primly  as  a  young 
ladies'   school — the   Browningites   still   inked 
their  eyebrows  and  minds  in  looking  for  the 
lost   syntax   of   Browning;     while   Browning 
himself   was   away   looking  for   God,   rather 
in    the   spirit   of    a  truant    boy   from    their 
school   looking   for   birds'   nests.     The  nine- 
teenth-century sceptics  did  not  really  shake 
the   respectable   world  and   alter  it,   as   the 
eighteenth-century    sceptics    had    done;    but 
that    was     because    the    eighteenth-century 
sceptics  were  something  more  than  sceptics, 


THE   GREAT   VICTORIAN   POETS     195 

and  believed  in  Greek  tragedies,  in  Roman 
laws,  in  the  Republic.  The  Swinburnian 
sceptics  had  nothing  to  fight  for  but  a  frame 
of  mind;  and  when  ordinary  English  people 
listened  to  it,  they  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  was  a  frame  of  mind  they  would  rather 
hear  about  than  experience.  But  these  later 
poets  did,  so  to  speak,  spread  their  soul  in 
all  the  empty  spaces;  weaker  brethren, 
disappointed  artists,  unattached  individuals, 
very  young  people,  were  sapped  or  swept 
away  by  these  songs;  which,  so  far  as  any 
particular  sense  in  them  goes,  were  almost 
songs  without  words.  It  is  because  there  is 
something  which  is  after  all  indescribably 
manly,  intellectual,  firm  about  Fitzgerald's 
way  of  phrasing  the  pessimism  that  he  towers 
above  the  slope  that  was  tumbling  down  to 
the  decadents.  But  it  is  still  pessimism,  a 
thing  unfit  for  a  white  man;  a  thing  like 
opium,  that  may  often  be  a  poison  and  some- 
times a  medicine,  but  never  a  food  for  us, 
who  are  driven   by  an   inner  command  not 

K"  2 


196    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

only  to  think  but  to  live,  not  only  to  live 
but  to  grow,  and  not  only  to  grow  but  to 
build. 

And,  indeed,  we  see  the  insufficiency  of 
such  sad  extremes  even  in  the  next  name 
among  the  major  poets;  we  see  the  Swin- 
burnian  parody  of  medievalism,  the  inverted 
Catholicism  of  the  decadents,  struggling  to 
get  back  somehow  on  its  feet.  The  aesthetic 
school  had,  not  quite  unjustly,  the  name  of 
mere  dilettanti.  But  it  is  fair  to  say  that  in 
the  next  of  them,  a  workman  and  a  tradesman, 
we  already  feel  something  of  that  return  to 
real  issues  leading  up  to  the  real  revolts  that 
broke  up  Victorianism  at  last.  In  the  mere 
art  of  words,  indeed,  William  Morris  carried 
much  further  than  Swinburne,  or  Rossetti 
the  mere  imitation  of  stiff  mediaeval  orna- 
ment. The  other  medievalists  had  their 
modern  moments;  which  were  (if  they  had 
only  known  it)  much  more  mediaeval  than 
their  mediaeval  moments.  Swinburne  could 
write — 


THE   GREAT   VICTORIAN  POETS     197 


.. 


We  shall  see  Buonaparte  the  bastard 
Kick  heels  with  his  throat  in  a  rope." 


One  has  an  uneasy  feeling  that  William  Morris 
would  have  written  something  like — 


. . 


And  the  kin  of  the  ill  king  Bonaparte 
Hath  a  high  gallows  for  all  his  part." 


Rossetti  could,  for  once  in  a  way,  write  poetry 
about  a  real  woman  and  call  her  "  Jenny." 
One  has  a  disturbed  suspicion  that  Morris 
would  have  called  her  "  Jehanne." 

But  all  that  seems  at  first  more  archaic  and 
decorative  about  Morris  really  arose  from  the 
fact  that  he  was  more  virile  and  real  than 
either  Swinburne  or  Rossetti.  It  arose  from 
the  fact  that  he  really  was,  what  he  so  often 
called  himself,  a  craftsman.  He  had  enough 
masculine  strength  to  be  tidy  :  that  is,  after 
the  masculine  manner,  tidy  about  his  own 
trade.  If  his  poems  were  too  like  wallpapers, 
it  was  because  he  really  could  make  wall- 


198    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

papers.  He  knew  that  lines  of  poetry  ought 
to  be  in  a  row,  as  palings  ought  to  be  in  a  row ; 
and  he  knew  that  neither  palings  nor  poetry- 
look  any  the  worse  for  being  simple  or  even 
severe.  In  a  sense  Morris  was  all  the  more 
creative  because  he  felt  the  hard  limits  of 
creation  as  he  would  have  felt  them  if  he  were 
not  working  in  words  but  in  wood ;  and  if  he 
was  unduly  dominated  by  the  mere  conven- 
tions of  the  mediaevals,  it  was  largely  because 
they  were  (whatever  else  they  were)  the  very 
finest  fraternity  of  free  workmen  the  world  is 
ever  likely  to  see. 

The  very  things  that  were  urged  against 
Morris  are  in  this  sense  part  of  his  ethical 
importance ;  part  of  the  more  promising  and 
wholesome  turn  he  was  half  unconsciously 
giving  to  the  movement  of  modern  art.  His 
hazier  fellow-Socialists  blamed  him  because 
he  made  money ;  but  this  was  at  least  in  some 
degree  because  he  made  other  things  to  make 
money  :  it  was  part  of  the  real  and  refreshing 
fact  that  at  last  an  aesthete  had  appeared  who 


THE   GREAT  VICTORIAN   POETS     199 

could  make  something.  If  he  was  a  capitalist, 
at  least  he  was  what  later  capitalists  cannot  or 
will  not  be — something  higher  than  a  capital- 
ist, a  tradesman.  As  compared  with  aristo- 
crats like  Swinburne  or  aliens  like  Rossetti, 
he  was  vitally  English  and  vitally  Victorian. 
He  inherits  some  of  that  paradoxical  glory 
which  Napoleon  gave  reluctantly  to  a  nation 
of  shopkeepers.  He  was  the  last  of  that 
nation ;  he  did  not  go  out  golfing  :  like  that 
founder  of  the  artistic  shopman,  Samuel 
Richardson,  "  he  kept  his  shop,  and  his  shop 
kept  him."  The  importance  of  his  Socialism 
can  easily  be  exaggerated.  Among  other 
lesser  points,  he  was  not  a  Socialist ;  he  was  a 
sort  of  Dickensian  anarchist.  His  instinct 
for  titles  was  always  exquisite.  It  is  part  of 
his  instinct  of  decoration  :  for  on  a  page  the 
title  always  looks  important  and  the  printed 
mass  of  matter  a  mere  dado  under  it.  And 
no  one  had  ever  nobler  titles  than  The  Roots 
of  the  Mountains  or  The  Wood  at  the  End  of  the 
World.     The  reader  feels  he  hardly  need  read 


200    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

the  fairy-tale  because  the  title  is  so  suggestive. 
But,  when  all  is  said,  he  never  chose  a  better 
title  than  that  of  his  social  Utopia,  News 
from  Nowhere.  He  wrote  it  while  the  last 
Victorians  were  already  embarked  on  their 
bold  task  of  fixing  the  future — of  narrating 
to-day  what  has  happened  to-morrow.  They 
named  their  books  by  cold  titles  suggesting 
straight  corridors  of  marble — titles  like 
Looking  Backward.  But  Morris  was  an 
artist  as  well  as  an  anarchist.  News  from 
Nowhere  is  an  irresponsible  title ;  and  it  is  an 
irresponsible  book.  It  does  not  describe  the 
problem  solved;  it  does  not  describe  wealth 
either  wielded  by  the  State  or  divided  equally 
among  the  citizens.  It  simply  describes  an 
undiscovered  country  where  every  one  feels 
good-natured  all  day.  That  he  could  even 
dream  so  is  his  true  dignity  as  a  poet.  He  was 
the  first  of  the  ^Esthetes  to  smell  medievalism 
as  a  smell  of  the  morning ;  and  not  as  a  mere 
scent  of  decay. 

With  him  the  poetry  that  had  been  pecu- 


THE  GREAT  VICTORIAN  POETS    201 

liarly  Victorian  practically  ends ;  and,  on  the 
whole,  it  is  a  happy  ending.  There  are  many 
other  minor  names  of  major  importance ;  but 
for  one  reason  or  other  they  do  not  derive 
from  the  schools  that  had  dominated  this 
epoch  as  such.  Thus  Thompson,  the  author 
of  Tlie  City  of  Dreadful  Night,  was  a  fine  poet ; 
but  his  pessimism  combined  with  a  close 
pugnacity  does  not  follow  any  of  the  large 
but  loose  lines  of  the  Swinburnian  age.  But 
he  was  a  great  person — he  knew  how  to  be 
democratic  in  the  dark.  Thus  Coventry  Pat- 
more  was  a  much  greater  person.  He  was 
bursting  with  ideas,  like  Browning — and  truer 
ideas  as  a  rule.  He  was  as  eccentric  and  florid 
and  Elizabethan  as  Browning;  and  often  in 
moods  and  metres  that  even  Browning  was 
never  wild  enough  to  think  of.  No  one  will 
ever  forget  the  first  time  he  read  Patmore's 
hint  that  the  cosmos  is  a  thing  that  God  made 
huge  only  "  to  make  dirt  cheap";  just  as 
nobody  will  ever  forget  the  sudden  shout  he 
uttered  when  he  first  heard  Mrs.  Todgers  asked 


202    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

for  the  rough  outline  of  a  wooden  leg.  These 
things  are  not  jokes,  but  discoveries.  But  the 
very  fact  that  Patmore  was,  as  it  were,  the 
Catholic  Browning,  keeps  him  out  of  the 
Victorian  atmosphere  as  such.  The  Victorian 
English  simply  thought  him  an  indecent 
sentimentalist,  as  they  did  all  the  hot  and 
humble  religious  diarists  of  Italy  or  Spain. 
Something  of  the  same  fate  followed  the  most 
powerful  of  that  last  Victorian  group  who  were 
called  "  Minor  Poets/'  They  numbered  many 
other  fine  artists :  notably  Mr.  William 
Watson,  who  is  truly  Victorian  in  that  he 
made  a  manly  attempt  to  tread  down  the 
decadents  and  return  to  the  right  reason  of 
Wordsworth — 

"  I  have  not  paid  the  wTorld 
The  evil  and  the  insolent  courtesy 
Of  offering  it  my  baseness  as  a  gift." 

But  none  of  them  were  able  even  to  under- 
stand  Francis    Thompson;   his   sky-scraping 


THE   GREAT  VICTORIAN   POETS     203 

humility,  his  mountains  of  mystical  detail, 
his  occasional  and  unashamed  weakness,  his 
sudden  and  sacred  blasphemies.  Perhaps  the 
shortest  definition  of  the  Victorian  Age  is  that 
he  stood  outside  it. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE 

If  it  be  curiously  and  carefully  considered 
it  will,  I  think,  appear  more  and  more  true 
that  the  struggle  between  the  old  spiritual 
theory  and  the  new  material  theory  in  England 
ended  simply  in  a  deadlock;  and  a  deadlock 
that  has  endured.  It  is  still  impossible  to 
say  absolutely  that  England  is  a  Christian 
country  or  a  heathen  country ;  almost  exactly 
as  it  was  impossible  when  Herbert  Spencer 
began  to  write.  Separate  elements  of  both 
sorts  are  alive,  and  even  increasingly  alive. 
But  neither  the  believer  nor  the  unbeliever 
has  the  impudence  to  call  himself  the  English- 
man. Certainly  the  great  Victorian  rational- 
ism has  succeeded  in  doing  a  damage  to 
religion.  It  has  done  what  is  perhaps  the 
worst  of  all  damages  to  religion.     It  has  driven 

204 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE  205 

it  entirely  into  the  power  ot  tne  religious 
people.  Men  like  Newman,  men  like  Coventry 
Patmore,  men  who  would  have  been  mystics 
in  any  case,  were  driven  back  upon  being  much 
more  extravagantly  religious  than  they  would 
have  been  in  a  religious  country.  Men  like 
Huxley,  men  like  Kingsley,  men  like  most 
Victorian  men,  were  equally  driven  back  on 
being  irreligious;  that  is,  on  doubting  things 
which  men's  normal  imagination  does  not 
necessarily  doubt.  But  certainly  the  most 
final  and  forcible  fact  is  that  this  war  ended 
like  the  battle  of  Sherrifmuir,  as  the  poet  says ; 
they  both  did  fight,  and  both  did  beat,  and 
both  did  run  away.  They  have  left  to  their 
descendants  a  treaty  that  has  become  a  dull 
torture.  Men  may  believe  in  immortality, 
and  none  of  the  men  know  why.  Men  may 
not  believe  in  miracles,  and  none  of  the  men 
know  why.  The  Christian  Church  had  been 
just  strong  enough  to  check  the  conquest  of 
her  chief  citadels.  The  rationalist  movement 
had  been  just  strong  enough  to  conquer  some 


206    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

of  her  outposts,  as  it  seemed,  for  ever.  Neither 
was  strong  enough  to  expel  the  other;  and 
Victorian  England  was  in  a  state  which  some 
call  liberty  and  some  call  lockjaw. 

But  the  situation  can  be  stated  another 
way.  There  came  a  time,  roughly  somewhere 
about  1880,  when  the  two  great  positive 
enthusiasms  of  Western  Europe  had  for  the 
time  exhausted  each  other — Christianity  and 
the  French  Revolution.  About  that  time 
there  used  to  be  a  sad  and  not  unsympathetic 
jest  going  about  to  the  effect  that  Queen 
Victoria  might  very  well  live  longer  than  the 
Prince  of  Wales.  Somewhat  in  the  same  way, 
though  the  republican  impulse  was  hardly  a 
hundred  years  old  and  the  religious  impulse 
nearly  two  thousand,  yet  as  far  as  England 
was  concerned,  the  old  wave  and  the  new 
seemed  to  be  spent  at  the  same  time.  On  the 
one  hand  Darwin,  especially  through  the 
strong  journalistic  genius  of  Huxley,  had  won 
a  very  wide  spread  though  an  exceedingly 
vague  victory.     I  do  not  mean  that  Darwin's 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     207 

own  doctrine  was  vague;  his  was  merely  one 
particular  hypothesis  about  how  animal 
variety  might  have  arisen;  and  that  par- 
ticular hypothesis,  though  it  will  always  be 
interesting,  is  now  very  much  the  reverse 
of  secure.  But  it  is  only  in  the  strictly 
scientific  world  and  among  strictly  scientific 
men  that  Darwin's  detailed  suggestion  has 
largely  broken  down.  The  general  public 
impression  that  he  had  entirely  proved  his 
case  (whatever  it  was)  was  early  arrived  at, 
and  still  remains.  It  was  and  is  hazily 
associated  with  the  negation  of  religion. 
But  (and  this  is  the  important  point)  it  was 
also  associated  with  the  negation  of  demo- 
cracy. The  same  Mid-Victorian  muddle- 
headedness  that  made  people  think  that 
"  evolution  "  meant  that  we  need  not  admit 
the  supremacy  of  God,  also  made  them  think 
that  "  survival  "  meant  that  we  must  admit 
the  supremacy  of  men.  Huxley  had  no  hand 
in  spreading  these  fallacies;  he  was  a  fair 
fighter;    and  he  told  his  own  followers,  who 


208    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

spoke  thus,  most  emphatically  not  to  play  the 
fool.  He  said  most  strongly  that  his  or  any 
theory  of  evolution  left  the  old  philosophical 
arguments  for  a  creator,  right  or  wrong, 
exactly  where  they  were  before.  He  also  said 
most  emphatically  that  any  one  who  used  the 
argument  of  Nature  against  the  ideal  of  justice 
or  an  equal  law,  was  as  senseless  as  a  gardener 
who  should  fight  on  the  side  of  the  ill  weeds 
merely  because  they  grew  apace.  I  wish, 
indeed,  that  in  such  a  rude  summary  as  this, 
I  had  space  to  do  justice  to  Huxley  as  a 
literary  man  and  a  moralist.  He  had  a  live 
taste  and  talent  for  the  English  tongue,  which 
-he  devoted  to  the  task  of  keeping  Victorian 
rationalism  rational.  He  did  not  succeed. 
As  so  often  happens  when  a  rather  unhealthy 
doubt  is  in  the  atmosphere,  the  strongest 
words  of  their  great  captain  could  not  keep 
the  growing  crowds  of  agnostics  back  from 
the  most  hopeless  and  inhuman  extremes  of 
-destructive  thought.  Nonsense  not  yet  quite 
.-dead  about  the  folly  of  allowing  the  unfit  to 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     209 

survive  began  to  be  more  and  more  wildly 
whispered.  Such  helpless  specimens  of  "  ad- 
vanced thought "  are,  of  course,  quite  as 
inconsistent  with  Darwinism  as  they  are  with 
democracy  or  with  any  other  intelligent 
proposition  ever  offered.  But  these  unintel- 
ligent propositions  were  offered;  and  the 
ultimate  result  was  this  rather  important  one  : 
that  the  harshness  of  Utilitarianism  began  to 
turn  into  downright  tyranny.  That  beautiful 
faith  in  human  nature  and  in  freedom  which 
had  made  delicate  the  dry  air  of  John  Stuart 
Mill;  that  robust,  romantic  sense  of  justice 
which  had  redeemed  even  the  injustices  of 
Macaulay — all  that  seemed  slowly  and  sadly 
to  be  drying  up.  Under  the  shock  of  Darwin- 
ism all  that  was  good  in  the  Victorian  rational- 
ism shook  and  dissolved  like  dust.  All  that 
was  bad  in  it  abode  and  clung  like  clay.  The 
magnificent  emancipation  evaporated ;  the 
mean  calculation  remained.  One  could  still 
calculate  in  clear  statistical  tables,  how  many 

men  lived,  how  many  men  died.     One  must 
o 


210    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

not  ask  how  they  lived;  for  that  is  politics. 
One  must  not  ask  how  they  died ;  for  that  is 
religion.  And  religion  and  politics  were  ruled 
out  of  all  the  Later  Victorian  debating  clubs ; 
even  including  the  debating  club  at  West- 
minster. What  third  thing  they  were  dis- 
cussing, which  was  neither  religion  nor  politics, 
I  do  not  know.  I  have  tried  the  experiment 
of  reading  solidly  through  a  vast  number  of 
their  records  and  reviews  and  discussions; 
and  still  I  do  not  know.  The  only  third  thing 
I  can  think  of  to  balance  religion  and  politics 
is  art ;  and  no  one  well  acquainted  with  the 
debates  at  St.  Stephen's  will  imagine  that  the 
art  of  extreme  eloquence  was  the  cause  of 
the  confusion.  None  will  maintain  that  our 
political  masters  are  removed  from  us  by  an 
infinite  artistic  superiority  in  the  choice  of 
words.  The  politicians  know  nothing  of 
politics,  which  is  their  own  affair  :  they  know 
nothing  of  religion,  which  is  certainly  not  their 
affair  :  it  may  legitimately  be  said  that  they 
have  to  do  with  nothing;   they  have  reached 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     211 

that  low  and  last  level  where  a  man  knows  as 
little  about  his  own  claim,  as  he  does  about 
his  enemies'.  In  any  case  there  can  be  no 
doubt  about  the  effect  of  this  particular 
situation  on  the  problem  of  ethics  and  science* 
The  duty  of  dragging  truth  out  by  the  tail 
or  the  hind  leg  or  any  other  corner  one  can 
possibly  get  hold  of,  a  perfectly  sound  duty  in 
itself,  had  somehow  come  into  collision  with 
the  older  and  larger  duty  of  knowing  some- 
thing about  the  organism  and  ends  of  a 
creature;  or,  in  the  everyday  phrase,  being 
able  to  make  head  or  tail  of  it.  This  paradox 
pursued  and  tormented  the  Victorians.  They 
could  not  or  would  not  see  that  humanity 
repels  or  welcomes  the  railway-train,  simply 
according  to  what  people  come  by  it.  They 
could  not  see  that  one  welcomes  or  smashes 
the  telephone,  according  to  what  words  one 
hears  in  it.  They  really  seem  to  have  felt 
that  the  train  could  be  a  substitute  for  its 
own  passengers ;  or  the  telephone  a  substitute 
for  its  own  voice. 

O  2 


212    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

In  any  case  it  is  clear  that  a  change  had 
begun  to  pass  over  scientific  inquiry,  of  which 
we  have  seen  the  culmination  in  our  own  day. 
There  had  begun  that  easy  automatic  habit, 
of  science  as  an  oiled  and  smooth-running 
machine,  that  habit  of  treating  things  as 
obviously  unquestionable,  when,  indeed,  they 
are  obviously  questionable.  This  began  with 
vaccination  in  the  Early  Victorian  Age;  it 
extended  to  the  early  licence  of  vivisection 
in  its  later  age ;  it  has  found  a  sort  of  fitting 
foolscap,  or  crown  of  crime  and  folly,  in  the 
thing  called  Eugenics.  In  all  three  cases  the 
point  was  not  so  much  that  the  pioneers  had 
not  proved  their  case ;  it  was  rather  that,  by 
an  unexpressed  rule  of  respectability,  they 
were  not  required  to  prove  it.  This  rather 
abrupt  twist  of  the  rationalistic  mind  in  the 
direction  of  arbitrary  power,  certainly  weak- 
ened the  Liberal  movement  from  within. 
And  meanwhile  it  was  being  weakened  by 
heavy  blows  from  without. 

There  is  a  week  that  is  the  turn  of  the  year ; 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE    213 

there  was  a  year  that  was  the  turn  of  the 
century.  About  1870  the  force  of  the  French 
Revolution  faltered  and  fell  :  the  year  that 
was  everywhere  the  death  of  Liberal  ideas  :  the 
year  when  Paris  fell  :  the  year  when  Dickens 
died.  While  the  new  foes  of  freedom,  the 
sceptics  and  scientists,  were  damaging  demo- 
cracy in  ideas,  the  old  foes  of  freedom,  the 
emperors  and  the  kings,  were  damaging  her 
more  heavily  in  arms.  For  a  moment  it 
almost  seemed  that  the  old  Tory  ring  of  iron, 
the  Holy  Alliance,  had  recombined  against 
France.  But  there  was  just  this  difference  : 
that  the  Holy  Alliance  was  now  not  arguably, 
but  almost  avowedly,  an  Unholy  Alliance. 
It  was  an  alliance  between  those  who  still 
thought  they  could  deny  the  dignity  of  man 
and  those  who  had  recently  begun  to  have  a 
bright  hope  of  denying  even  the  dignity  of 
God.  Eighteenth-century  Prussia  was  Protes- 
tant and  probably  religious.  Nineteenth- 
century  Prussia  was  almost  utterly  atheist. 
Thus  the  old  spirit  of  liberty  felt  itself  shut 


214    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

up  at  both  ends,  that  which  was  called  pro- 
gressive and  that  which  was  called  reactionary : 
barricaded  by  Bismarck  with  blood  and 
iron  and  by  Darwin  by  blood  and  bones. 
The  enormous  depression  which  infects  manj 
excellent  people  born  about  this  time,  prob- 
ably has  this  cause. 

It  was  a  great  calamity  that  the  freedom  of 
Wilkes  and  the  faith  of  Dr.  Johnson  fought 
each  other.  But  it  was  an  even  worse 
calamity  that  they  practically  killed  each 
other.  They  killed  each  other  almost  simul- 
taneously, like  Herminius  and  Mamilius. 
Liberalism  (in  Newman's  sense)  really  did 
strike  Christianity  through  headpiece  and 
through  head;  that  is,  it  did  daze  and  stun 
the  ignorant  and  ill-prepared  intellect  of 
the  English  Christian.  And  Christianity  did 
smite  Liberalism  through  breastplate  and 
through  breast;  that  is,  it  did  succeed, 
through  arms  and  all  sorts  of  awful  accidents, 
in  piercing  more  or  less  to  the  heart  of  the 
Utilitarian — and   finding  that  he   had  none. 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     215 

Victorian  Protestantism  had  not  head  enough 
for  the  business;  Victorian  Radicalism  had 
not  heart  enough  for  the  business.  Down  fell 
they  dead  together,  exactly  as  Macaulay's  Lay 
says,  and  still  stood  all  who  saw  them  fall 
almost  until  the  hour  at  which  I  write. 

This  coincident  collapse  of  both  religious 
and  political  idealism  produced  a  curious  cold 
air  of  emptiness  and  real  subconscious  agnosti- 
cism such  as  is  extremely  unusual  in  the 
history  of  mankind.  It  is  what  Mr.  Wells, 
with  his  usual  verbal  delicacy  and  accuracy, 
spoke  of  as  that  ironical  silence  that  follows 
a  great  controversy.  It  is  what  people  less 
intelligent  than  Mr.  Wells  meant  by  calling 
themselves  fin  de  Steele  ;  though,  of  course, 
rationally  speaking,  there  is  no  more  reason 
for  being  sad  towards  the  end  of  a  hundred 
years  than  towards  the  end  of  five  hundred 
fortnights.  There  was  no  arithmetical  au- 
tumn, but  there  was  a  spiritual  one.  And  it 
came  from  the  fact  suggested  in  the  para- 
graphs above ;  the  sense  that  man's  two  great 


216    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

inspirations  had  failed  him  together.  The 
Christian  religion  was  much  more  dead  in  the 
eighteenth  century  than  it  was  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  But  the  republican  enthusi- 
asm was  also  much  more  alive.  If  their 
scepticism  was  cold,  and  their  faith  even 
colder,  their  practical  politics  were  wildly 
idealistic;  and  if  they  doubted  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  they  were  gloriously  credulous 
about  the  chances  of  it  coming  on  earth. 
In  the  same  way  the  old  pagan  republican 
feeling  was  much  more  dead  in  the  feudal 
darkness  of  the  eleventh  or  twelfth  centuries, 
than  it  was  even  a  century  later;  but  if 
creative  politics  were  at  their  lowest,  creative 
theology  was  almost  at  its  highest  point  of 
energy. 

The  modern  world,  in  fact,  had  fallen 
between  two  stools.  It  had  fallen  between 
that  austere  old  three-legged  stool  which  was 
the  tripod  of  the  cold  priestess  of  Apollo; 
and  that  other  mystical  and  mediaeval  stool 
that  may  well  be  called  the  Stool  of  Repent- 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     217 

ance.  It  kept  neither  of  the  two  values  as 
intensel  v  valuable.     It  could  not  believe  in 

m 

the  bonds  that  bound  men ;  but,  then,  neither 
could  it  believe  in  the  men  they  bound.  It 
was  always  restrained  in  its  hatred  of  slavery 
by  a  half  remembrance  of  its  yet  greater 
hatred  of  liberty.  They  were  almost  alone, 
I  think,  in  thus  carrying  to  its  extreme  the 
negative  attitude  already  noted  in  Miss 
Arabella  Allen.  Anselm  would  have  despised 
a  civic  crown,  but  he  would  not  have  despised 
a  relic.  Voltaire  would  have  despised  a  relic ; 
but  he  would  not  have  despised  a  vote.  We 
hardly  find  them  both  despised  till  we  come  to 
the  age  of  Oscar  Wilde. 

These  years  that  followed  on  that  double 
disillusionment  were  like  one  long  afternoon 
in  a  rich  house  on  a  rainy  day.  It  was  not 
merely  that  everybody  believed  that  nothing 
would  happen;  it  was  also  that  everybody 
believed  that  anything  happening  was  even 
duller  than  nothing  happening.  It  was  in 
this  stale  atmosphere  that  a  few  flickers  of 


218    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

the  old  Swinburnian  flame  survived ;  and  were 
called  Art.  The  great  men  of  the  older 
artistic  movement  did  not  live  in  this  time; 
rather  they  lived  through  it.  But  this  time 
did  produce  an  interregnum  of  art  that  had 
a  truth  of  its  own ;  though  that  truth  was  near 
to  being  only  a  consistent  lie. 

The  movement  of  those  called  ^Esthetes  (as 
satirised  in  Patience)  and  the  movement  of 
those  afterwards  called  Decadents  (satirised 
in  Mr.  Street's  delightful  Autobiography  of  a 
Boy)  had  the  same  captain;  or  at  any  rate 
the  same  bandmaster.  Oscar  Wilde  walked 
in  front  of  the  first  procession  wearing  a  sun- 
flower, and  in  front  of  the  second  procession 
wearing  a  green  carnation.  With  the  aesthetic 
movement  and  its  more  serious  elements,  I 
deal  elsewhere ;  but  the  second  appearance  of 
Wilde  is  also  connected  with  real  intellectual 
influences,  largely  negative,  indeed,  but  subtle 
and  influential.  The  mark  in  most  of  the 
arts  of  this  time  was  a  certain  quality  which 
those  who  like  it  would  call  "  uniqueness  of 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     219 

aspect,"  and  those  who  do  not  like  it  "  not 
quite  coming  off."  I  mean  the  thing  meant 
something  from  one  standpoint;  but  its 
mark  was  that  the  smallest  change  of  stand- 
point made  it  unmeaning  and  unthinkable 
— a  foolish  joke.  A  beggar  painted  by  Rem- 
brandt is  as  solid  as  a  statue,  however  roughly 
he  is  sketched  in ;  the  soul  can  walk  all  round 
him  like  a  public  monument.  We  see  he 
would  have  other  aspects;  and  that  they 
would  all  be  the  aspects  of  a  beggar.  Even 
if  one  did  not  admit  the  extraordinary 
qualities  in  the  painting,  one  would  have  to 
admit  the  ordinary  qualities  in  the  sitter.  If 
it  is  not  a  masterpiece  it  is  a  man.  But  a 
nocturne  by  Whistler  of  mist  on  the  Thames 
is  either  a  masterpiece  or  it  is  nothing; 
it  is  either  a  nocturne  or  a  nightmare  of 
childish  nonsense.  Made  in  a  certain  mood, 
viewed  through  a  certain  temperament,  con- 
ceived under  certain  conventions,  it  may  be, 
it  often  is,  an  unreplaceable  poem,  a  vision 
that    may    never    be    seen    again.     But    the 


220    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

moment  it  ceases  to  be  a  splendid  picture  it 
ceases  to  be  a  picture  at  all.  Or,  again,  if 
Hamlet  is  not  a  great  tragedy  it  is  an  un- 
commonly good  tale.  The  people  and  the 
posture  of  affairs  would  still  be  there  even  if 
one  thought  that  Shakespeare's  moral  attitude 
was  wrong.  Just  as  one  could  imagine  all 
the  other  sides  of  Rembrandt's  beggar,  so, 
with  the  mind's  eye  (Horatio),  one  can  see 
all  four  sides  of  the  castle  of  Elsinore.  One 
might  tell  the  tale  from  the  point  of  view  of 
Laertes  or  Claudius  or  Polonius  or  the  grave- 
digger  ;  and  it  would  still  be  a  good  tale  and 
the  same  tale.  But  if  we  take  a  play  like 
Pelias  and  Melisande,  we  shall  find  that  unless 
we  grasp  the  particular  fairy  thread  of 
thought  the  poet  rather  hazily  flings  to  us, 
we  cannot  grasp  anything  whatever.  Except 
from  one  extreme  poetic  point  of  view,  the 
thing  is  not  a  play ;  it  is  not  a  bad  play,  it  is 
a  mass  of  clotted  nonsense.  One  whole  act 
describes  the  lovers  going  to  look  for  a  ring  in 
a  distant  cave  when  they  both  know  they 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE    221 

have  dropped  it  down  a  well.  Seen  from 
some  secret  window  on  some  special  side  of 
the  soul's  turret,  this  might  convey  a  sense  of 
faerie  futility  in  our  human  life.  But  it  is 
quite  obvious  that  unless  it  called  forth  that 
one  kind  of  sympathy,  it  would  call  forth 
nothing  but  laughter  and  rotten  eggs.  In 
the  same  play  the  husband  chases  his  wife 
with  a  drawn  sword,  the  wife  remarking  at 
intervals  "  I  am  not  gay."  Now  there  may 
really  be  an  idea  in  this ;  the  idea  of  human 
misfortune  coming  most  cruelly  upon  the 
optimism  of  innocence;  that  the  lonely 
human  heart  says,  like  a  child  at  a  party, 
"  I  am  not  enjoying  myself  as  I  thought  I 
should."  But  it  is  plain  that  unless  one 
thinks  of  this  idea  (and  of  this  idea  only)  the 
expression  is  not  in  the  least  unsuccessful 
pathos ;  it  is  very  broad  and  highly  successful 
farce.  Maeterlinck  and  the  decadents,  in 
short,  may  fairly  boast  of  being  subtle;  but 
they  must  not  mind  if  they  are  called  narrow. 
This  is  the  spirit  of  Wilde's  work  and  of 


222    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

most  of  literary  work  done  in  that  time  and 
fashion.  It  is,  as  Mr.  Arthur  Symons  said, 
an  attitude ;  but  it  is  an  attitude  in  the  flat, 
not  in  the  round ;  not  a  statue,  but  the  card- 
board king  in  a  toy-theatre,  which  can  only 
be  looked  at  from  the  front.  In  Wilde's  own 
poetry  we  have  particularly  a  perpetually 
toppling  possibility  of  the  absurd;  a  sense  of 
just  falling  too  short  or  just  going  too  far. 
"  Plant  lilies  at  my  head "  has  something 
wrong  about  it;  something  silly  that  is  not 
there  in — 

"  And  put  a  grey  stone  at  my  head  " 

in  the  old  ballad.  But  even  where  Wilde 
was  right,  he  had  a  way  of  being  right  with 
this  excessive  strain  on  the  reader's  sympathy 
(and  gravity)  which  was  the  mark  of  all  these 
men  with  a  "  point  of  view."  There  is  a  very 
sound  sonnet  of  his  in  which  he  begins  by 
lamenting  mere  anarchy,  as  hostile  to  the  art 
and  civilisation  that  were  his  only  gods ;  but 
ends  by  saying — 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     223 


CC 


l< 


And  yet 

These  Christs  that  die  upon  the  barricades 
God  knows  that  I  am  with  them — in  some 
ways." 


Now  that  is  really  very  true ;  that  is  the  way 
a  man  of  wide  reading  and  worldly  experience, 
but  not  ungenerous  impulses,  does  feel  about 
the  mere  fanatic,  who  is  at  once  a  nuisance  to 
humanity  and  an  honour  to  human  nature. 
Yet  who  can  read  that  last  line  without  feeling 
that  Wilde  is  poised  on  the  edge  of  a  precipice 
of  bathos;  that  the  phrase  comes  very  near 
to  being  quite  startlingly  silly.  It  is  as  in 
the  case  of  Maeterlinck,  let  the  reader  move 
his  standpoint  one  inch  nearer  the  popular 
standpoint,  and  there  is  nothing  for  the 
thing  but  harsh,  hostile,  unconquerable  mirth. 
Somehow  the  image  of  Wilde  lolling  like  an 
elegant  leviathan  on  a  sofa,  and  saying 
between  the  whiffs  of  a  scented  cigarette  that 
martyrdom  is  martyrdom  in  some  respects, 
has  seized  on  and  mastered  all  more  delicate 


224    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

considerations  in  the  mind.     It  is  unwise  in 
a  poet  to  goad  the  sleeping  lion  of  laughter. 

In  less  dexterous  hands  the  decadent  idea, 
what  there  was  of  it,  went  entirely  to  pieces, 
which  nobody  has  troubled  to  pick  up. 
Oddly  enough  (unless  this  be  always  the 
Nemesis  of  excess)  it  began  to  be  insupportable 
in  the  very  ways  in  which  it  claimed  specially 
to  be  subtle  and  tactful;  in  the  feeling  for 
different  art -forms,  in  the  welding  of  subject 
and  style,  in  the  appropriateness  of  the 
epithet  and  the  unity  of  the  mood.  Wilde 
himself  wrote  some  things  that  were  not 
immorality,  but  merely  bad  taste;  not  the 
bad  taste  of  the  conservative  suburbs,  which 
merely  means  anything  violent  or  shocking, 
but  real  bad  taste;  as  in  a  stern  subject 
treated  in  a  florid  style;  an  over-dressed 
woman  at  a  supper  of  old  friends;  or  a  bad 
joke  that  nobody  had  time  to  laugh  at.  This 
mixture  of  sensibility  and  coarseness  in  the 
man  was  very  curious ;  and  I  for  one  cannot 
endure    (for    example)    his    sensual    way    of 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     225 

speaking  of  dead  substances,  satin  or  marble 
or  velvet,  as  if  he  were  stroking  a  lot  of  dogs 
and  cats.  But  there  was  a  sort  of  power — or 
at  least  weight — in  his  coarseness.  His  lapses 
were  those  proper  to  the  one  good  thing  he 
really  was,  an  Irish  swashbuckler — a  fighter. 
Some  of  the  Roman  Emperors  might  have  had 
the  same  luxuriousness  and  yet  the  same 
courage.  But  the  later  decadents  were  far 
worse,  especially  the  decadent  critics,  the 
decadent  illustrators — there  were  even  deca- 
dent publishers.  And  they  utterly  lost  the 
light  and  reason  of  their  existence  :  they  were 
masters  of  the  clumsy  and  the  incongruous. 
I  will  take  only  one  example.  Aubrey 
Beardsley  may  be  admired  as  an  artist  or 
no ;  he  does  not  enter  into  the  scope  of  this 
book.  But  it  is  true  that  there  is  a  certain 
brief  mood,  a  certain  narrow  aspect  of  life, 
which  he  renders  to  the  imagination  rightly. 
It  is  mostly  felt  under  white,  deathly  lights  in 
Piccadilly,  with  the  black  hollow  of  heaven 
behind  shiny  hats  or  painted  faces  :  a  horrible 


226    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

impression  that  all  mankind  are  masks.  This 
being  the  thing  Beardsley  could  express  (and 
the  only  thing  he  could  express),  it  is  the 
solemn  and  awful  fact  that  he  was  set 
down  to  illustrate  Malory's  Morte  Darthur. 
There  is  no  need  to  say  more;  taste,  in  the 
artist's  sense,  must  have  been  utterly  dead. 
They  might  as  well  have  employed  Burne 
Jones  to  illustrate  Martin  Chuzzlewit.  It 
would  not  have  been  more  ludicrous  than 
putting  this  portrayer  of  evil  puppets,  with 
their  thin  lines  like  wire  and  their  small  faces 
like  perverted  children's,  to  trace  against  the 
grand  barbaric  forests  the  sin  and  the  sorrow 
of  Lancelot. 

To  return  to  the  chief  of  the  decadents,  I 
will  not  speak  of  the  end  of  the  individual 
story  :  there  was  horror  and  there  wras  ex- 
piation. And,  as  my  conscience  goes  at 
least,  no  man  should  say  one  word  that  could 
weaken  the  horror — or  the  pardon.  But 
there  is  one  literary  consequence  of  the  thing 
which  must  be  mentioned,  because  it  bears 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE    227 

us  on  to  that  much  breezier  movement  which 
first  began  to  break  in  upon  all  this  ghastly 
idleness — I  mean  the  Socialist  Movement. 
I  do  not  mean  "  De  Profundis " ;  I  do  not 
think  he  had  got  to  the  real  depths  when  he 
wrote  that  book.  I  mean  the  one  real  thing 
he  ever  wrote :  The  Ballad  of  Reading 
Gaol;  in  which  we  hear  a  cry  for  common 
justice  and  brotherhood  very  much  deeper, 
more  democratic  and  more  true  to  the  real 
trend  of  the  populace  to-day,  than  anything 
the  Socialists  ever  uttered  even  in  the  boldest 
pages  of  Bernard  Shaw. 

Before  we  pass  on  to  the  two  expansive 
movements  in  which  the  Victorian  Age  really 
ended,  the  accident  of  a  distinguished  artist 
is  available  for  estimating  this  somewhat  cool 
and  sad  afternoon  of  the  epoch  at  its  pur- 
est; not  in  lounging  pessimism  or  luxurious 
aberrations,  but  in  earnest  skill  and  a  high 
devotion  to  letters.  This  change  that  had 
come,  like  the  change  from  a  golden  sunset 
to  a  grey  twilight,  can  be  very  adequately 

P2 


228    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

measured  if  we  compare  the  insight  and 
intricacy  of  Meredith  with  the  insight  and 
intricacy  of  Mr.  Henry  James.  The  characters 
of  both  are  delicate  and  indisputable ;  but  we 
must  all  have  had  a  feeling  that  the  characters 
in  Meredith  are  gods,  but  that  the  characters 
in  Henry  James  are  ghosts.  I  do  not  mean 
that  they  are  unreal  :  I  believe  in  ghosts. 
So  does  Mr.  Henry  James;  he  has  written 
some  of  his  very  finest  literature  about  the 
little  habits  of  these  creatures.  He  is  in  the 
deep  sense  of  a  dishonoured  word,  a  Spiritualist 
if  ever  there  was  one.  But  Meredith  was  a 
materialist  as  well.  The  difference  is  that 
a  ghost  is  a  disembodied  spirit ;  while  a  god 
(to  be  worth  worrying  about)  must  be  an 
embodied  spirit.  The  presence  of  soul  and 
substance  together  involves  one  of  the  two 
or  three  things  which  most  of  the  Victorians 
did  not  understand — the  thing  called  a  sacra- 
ment. It  is  because  he  had  a  natural  affinity 
for  this  mystical  materialism  that  Meredith, 
in  spite  of  his  affectations,  is  a  poet :  and, 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     229 

in  spite  of  his  Victorian  Agnosticism  (or 
ignorance)  is  a  pious  Pagan  and  not  a  mere 
Pantheist.  Mr.  Henry  James  is  at  the  other 
extreme.  His  thrill  is  not  so  much  in  symbol 
or  mysterious  emblem  as  in  the  absence  of 
interventions  and  protections  between  mind 
and  mind.  It  is  not  mystery  :  it  is  rather  a 
sort  of  terror  at  knowing  too  much.  He  lives 
in  glass  houses ;  he  is  akin  to  Maeterlinck  in  a 
feeling  of  the  nakedness  of  souls.  None  of 
the  Meredithian  things,  wind  or  wine  or  sex 
or  stark  nonsense  ever  gets  between  Mr.  James 
and  his  prey.  But  the  thing  is  a  deficiency 
as  well  as  a  talent :  we  cannot  but  admire  the 
figures  that  walk  about  in  his  afternoon 
drawing-rooms;  but  we  have  a  certain  sense 
that  they  are  figures  that  have  no  faces. 

For  the  rest,  he  is  most  widely  known,  or 
perhaps  only  most  widely  chaffed,  because  of 
a  literary  style  that  lends  itself  to  parody  and 
is  a  glorious  feast  for  Mr.  Max  Beerbohm.  It 
may  be  called  The  Hampered,  or  Obstacle  Race 
Style,   in   which   one   continually  trips   over 


230    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

commas  and  relative  clauses;  and  where  the 
sense  has  to  be  perpetually  qualified  lest  it 
should  mean  too  much.  But  such  satire ; 
however  friendlv,  is  in  some  sense  unfair  to 
him ;  because  it  leaves  out  his  sense  of  general 
artistic  design,  which  is  not  only  high,  but 
bold.  This  appears,  I  think,  most  strongly 
in  his  short  stories;  in  his  long  novels  the 
reader  (or  at  least  one  reader)  does  get  rather 
tired  of  everybody  treating  everybody  else 
in  a  manner  which  in  real  life  would  be  an 
impossible  intellectual  strain.  But  in  his 
short  studies  there  is  the  unanswerable  thing 
called  real  originality;  especially  in  the  very 
shape  and  point  of  the  tale.  It  may  sound 
odd  to  compare  him  to  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling  : 
but  he  is  like  Kipling  and  also  like  Wells  in 
this  practical  sense  :  that  no  one  ever  wrote 
a  story  at  all  like  the  Mark  of  the  Beast ;  no 
one  ever  wTote  a  story  at  all  like  A  Kink  in 
Space :  and  in  the  same  sense  no  one  ever  wrote 
a  storv  like  The  Great  Good  Place.  It  is  alone 
in  order  and  species ;  and  it  is  masterly.     He 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     231 

struck  his  deepest  note  in  that  terrible  story, 
The  Turn  of  the  Screw  ;  and  though  there  is 
in  the  heart  of  that  horror  a  truth  of  repent- 
ance and  religion,  it  is  again  notable  of  the 
Victorian  writers  that  the  only  supernatural 
note  they  can  strike  assuredly  is  the  tragic 
and  almost  the  diabolic.  Only  Mr.  Max 
Beerbohm  has  been  able  to  imagine  Mr. 
Henry  James  writing  about  Christmas. 

Now  upon  this  interregnum,  this  cold  and 
brilliant  waiting-room  which  was  Henry 
James  at  its  highest  and  Wilde  at  its  worst, 
there  broke  in  two  positive  movements,  largely 
honest  though  essentially  unhistoric  and 
profane,  which  were  destined  to  crack  up 
the  old  Victorian  solidity  past  repair.  The 
first  was  Bernard  Shaw  and  the  Socialists: 
the  second  was  Rudyard  Kipling  and  the 
Imperialists.  I  take  the  Socialists  first  not 
because  they  necessarily  came  so  in  order  of 
time,  but  because  they  were  less  the  note 
upon  which  the  epoch  actually  ended. 

William  Morris,  of  whom  we  have  alreadv 


232    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

spoken,  may  be  said  to  introduce  the  Socialists, 
but  rather  in  a  social  sense  than  a  philosophi- 
cal. He  was  their  friend,  and  in  a  sort  of 
political  way,  their  father;  but  he  was  not 
their  founder,  for  he  would  not  have  believed 
a  word  of  what  they  ultimately  came  to  say. 
Nor  is  this  the  conventional  notion  of  the 
old  man  not  keeping  pace  with  the  audacity 
of  the  young.  Morris  would  have  been  dis- 
gusted not  with  the  wildness,  but  the  tame- 
ness  of  our  tidy  Fabians.  He  was  not  a 
Socialist,  but  he  was  a  Revolutionist ;  he  didn't 
know  much  more  about  what  he  was;  but 
he  knew  that.  In  this  way,  being  a  full- 
blooded  fellow,  he  rather  repeats  the  genial 
sulkiness  of  Dickens.  And  if  we  take  this 
fact  about  him  first,  we  shall  find  it  a  key 
to  the  whole  movement  of  this  time.  For 
the  one  dominating  truth  which  overshadows 
everything  else  at  this  point  is  a  political  and 
economic  one.  The  Industrial  System,  run 
by  a  small  class  of  Capitalists  on  a  theory  of 
competitive  contract,  had  been  quite  honestly 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     233 

established  by  the  early  Victorians  and  was 
one  of  the  primary  beliefs  of  Victorianism. 
The  Industrial  System,  so  run,  had  become 
another  name  for  hell.  By  Morris's  time  and 
ever  since,  England  has  been  divided  into 
three  classes :  Knaves,  Fools  and  Revolu- 
tionists. 

History  is  full  of  forgotten  controversies ; 
and  those  who  speak  of  Socialism  now  have 
nearly  all  forgotten  that  for  some  time  it  was 
an  almost  equal  fight  between  Socialism  and 
Anarchism  for  the  leadership  of  the  exodus 
from  Capitalism.  It  is  here  that  Herbert 
Spencer  comes  in  logically,  though  not  chrono- 
logically; also  that  much  more  interesting 
man,  Auberon  Herbert.  Spencer  has  no 
special  place  as  a  man  of  letters ;  and  a  vastly 
exaggerated  place  as  a  philosopher.  His  real 
importance  was  that  he  was  very  nearly  an 
Anarchist.  The  indefinable  greatness  there 
is  about  him  after  all,  in  spite  of  the  silliest 
and  smuggest  limitations,  is  in  a  certain 
consistency  and  completeness  from  his  own 


2U    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

point  of  view.  There  is  something  mediaeval, 
and  therefore  manful,  about  writing  a  book 
about  everything  in  the  world.  Now  this 
simplicity  expressed  itself  in  politics  in  carry- 
ing the  Victorian  worship  of  liberty  to  the 
most  ridiculous  lengths ;  almost  to  the  length 
of  voluntary  taxes  and  voluntary  insurance 
against  murder.  He  tried,  in  short,  to  solve 
the  problem  of  the  State  by  eliminating 
the  State  from  it.  He  was  resisted  in  this  by 
the  powerful  good  sense  of  Huxley;  but  his 
books  became  sacred  books  for  a  rising 
generation  of  rather  bewildered  rebels,  who 
thought  we  might  perhaps  get  out  of  the 
mess  if  everybody  did  as  he  liked. 

Thus  the  Anarchists  and  Socialists  fought 
a  battle  over  the  death- bed  of  Victorian  Indus- 
trialism; in  which  the  Socialists  (that  is, 
those  who  stood  for  increasing  instead  of 
diminishing  the  power  of  Government)  won 
a  complete  victory  and  have  almost  extermi- 
nated their  enemy.  The  Anarchist  one  meets 
here  and  there  nowadays  is  a  sad  sight ;  he  is 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE    235 

disappointed  with  the  future,  as  well  as  with 
the  past. 

This  victory  of  the  Socialists  was  largely  a 
literary  victory;  because  it  was  effected  and 
popularised  not  only  by  a  wit,  but  by  a  sincere 
wit;  and  one  who  had  the  same  sort  of 
militant  lucidity  that  Huxley  had  shown  in 
the  last  generation  and  Voltaire  in  the  last 
century.  A  young  Irish  journalist,  impatient 
of  the  impoverished  Protestantism  and 
Liberalism  to  which  he  had  been  bred,  came 
out  as  the  champion  of  Socialism  not  as  a 
matter  of  sentiment,  but  as  a  matter  of  common 
sense.  The  primary  position  of  Bernard 
Shaw  towards  the  Victorian  Age  may  be 
roughly  summarised  thus  :  the  typical  Vic- 
torian said  coolly :  "  Our  system  may  not  be 
a  perfect  system,  but  it  works."  Bernard 
Shaw  replied,  even  more  coolly:  "  It  may  be 
a  perfect  system,  for  all  I  know  or  care.  But 
it  does  not  work."  He  and  a  society  called 
the  Fabians,  which  once  exercised  considerable 
influence,  followed    this    shrewd    and    sound 


236    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

strategic  hint  to  avoid  mere  emotional  attack 
on  the  cruelty  of  Capitalism ;  and  to  concen- 
trate on  its  clumsiness,  its  ludicrous  incapacity 
to  do  its  own  work.  This  campaign  succeeded, 
in  the  sense  that  while  (in  the  educated  world) 
it  was  the  Socialist  who  looked  the  fool  at 
the  beginning  of  that  campaign,  it  is  the 
Anti-Socialist  who  looks  the  fool  at  the  end 
of  it.  But  while  it  won  the  educated  classes 
it  lost  the  populace  for  ever.  It  dried  up 
those  springs  of  blood  and  tears  out  of  which 
all  revolt  must  come  if  it  is  to  be  anything 
but  bureaucratic  readjustment.  We  began 
this  book  with  the  fires  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion still  burning,  but  burning  low.  Bernard 
Shaw  was  honestly  in  revolt  in  his  own  way  : 
but  it  was  Bernard  Shaw  who  trod  out  the 
last  ember  of  the  Great  Revolution. 

Bernard  Shaw  proceeded  to  apply  to  many 
other  things  the  same  sort  of  hilarious  realism 
which  he  thus  successfully  applied  to  the  indus- 
trial problem.  He  also  enjoyed  giving  people 
a  piece  of  his  mind ;  but  a  piece  of  his  mind 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     237 

was  ft  more  appetising  and  less  raw-looking 
object  than  a  piece  of  Hardy's.  There  were 
many  modes  of  revolt  growing  all  around  him ; 
Shaw  supported  them — and  supplanted  them. 
Many  were  pitting  the  realism  of  war  against 
the  romance  of  war  :  they  succeeded  in  making 
the  fight  dreary  and  repulsive,  but  the  book 
dreary  and  repulsive  too.  Shaw,  in  Arms 
and  the  Man,  did  manage  to  make  war  funny 
as  well  as  frightful.  Many  were  questioning 
the  right  of  revenge  or  punishment;  but  they 
wrote  their  books  in  such  a  way  that  the 
reader  was  ready  to  release  all  mankind  if  he 
might  revenge  himself  on  the  author.  Shaw, 
in  Captain  Brassbound's  Conversion,  really 
showed  at  its  best  the  merry  mercy  of  the 
pagan;  that  beautiful  human  nature  that 
can  neither  rise  to  penance  nor  sink  to  revenge. 
Many  had  proved  that  even  the  most  indepen- 
dent incomes  drank  blood  out  of  the  veins  of 
the  oppressed  :  but  they  wrote  it  in  such  a 
style  that  their  readers  knew  more  about 
depression    than    oppression.     In    Widowers' 


238    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

Houses  Shaw  very  nearly  (but  not  quite) 
succeeded  in  making  a  farce  out  of  statistics. 
And  the  ultimate  utility  of  his  brilliant 
interruption  can  best  be  expressed  in  the 
very  title  of  that  play.  When  ages  of  essential 
European  ethics  have  said  "  widows'  houses,5' 
it  suddenly  occurs  to  him  to  say  "  but  what 
about  widowers'  houses  ?  "  There  is  a  sort 
of  insane  equity  about  it  which  was  what 
Bernard  Shaw  had  the  power  to  give,  and 
gave. 

Out  of  the  same  social  ferment  arose  a 
man  of  equally  unquestionable  genius,  Sir 
H.  G.  Wells.  His  first  importance  was  that 
he  wrote  great  adventure  stories  in  the  new 
world  the  men  of  science  had  discovered. 
He  walked  on  a  round  slippery  world  as  boldly 
as  Ulvsses  or  Tom  Jones  had  worked  on  a 
flat  one.  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  or  Baron 
Munchausen,  or  other  typical  men  of  science, 
had  treated  the  moon  as  a  mere  flat  silver 
mirror  in  which  Man  saw  his  own  image — the 
Man  in  the  Moon.     Wells  treated  the  moon 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     239 

as  a  globe,  like  our  own;  bringing  forth 
monsters  as  moonish  as  we  are  earthy.  The 
exquisitely  penetrating  political  and  social 
satire  he  afterwards  wrote  belong  to  an  age 
later  than  the  Victorian.  But  because,  even 
from  the  beginning,  his  whole  trend  was 
Socialist,  it  is  right  to  place  him  here. 

While  the  old  Victorian  ideas  were  being 
disturbed  by  an  increasing  torture  at  home, 
they  were  also  intoxicated  by  a  new  romance 
from  abroad.  It  did  not  come  from  Italy 
with  Rossetti  and  Browning,  or  from  Persia 
with  Fitzgerald  :  but  it  came  from  countries 
as  remote,  countries  which  were  (as  the  simple 
phrase  of  that  period  ran)  "  painted  red  "  on 
the  map.  It  was  an  attempt  to  reform 
England  through  the  newer  nations;  by  the 
criticism  of  the  forgotten  colonies,  rather 
than  of  the  forgotten  classes.  Both  Socialism 
and  Imperialism  were  utterly  alien  to  the 
Victorian  idea.  From  the  point  of  view  of  a 
Victorian  aristocrat  like  Palmerston,  Socialism 
would  be  the  cheek  of  gutter  snipes ;  Imperial- 


240    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

ism  would  be  the  intrusion  of  cads.     But  cads 
are  not  alone  concerned. 

Broadly,  the  phase  in  which  the  Victorian 
epoch  closed  was  what  can  only  be  called 
the  Imperialist  phase.  Between  that  and  us 
stands  a  very  individual  artist  who  must 
nevertheless  be  connected  with  that  phase. 
As  I  said  at  the  beginning,  Macaulay  (or, 
rather,  the  mind  Macaulay  shared  with  most 
of  his  powerful  middle  class)  remains  as  a 
sort  of  pavement  or  flat  foundation  under  all 
the  Victorians.  They  discussed  the  dogmas 
rather  than  denied  them.  Now  one  of  the 
dogmas  of  Macaulay  was  the  dogma  of 
progress.  A  fair  statement  of  the  truth  in  it 
is  not  really  so  hard.  Investigation  of  any- 
thing naturally  takes  some  little  time.  It 
takes  some  time  to  sort  letters  so  as  to  find 
a  letter  :  it  takes  some  time  to  test  a  gas- 
bracket so  as  to  find  the  leak;  it  takes  some 
time  to  sift  evidence  so  as  to  find  the  truth. 
Now  the  curse  that  fell  on  the  later  Victorians 
was  this :  that  they  began  to  value  the  time 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE    241 

more  than  the  truth.  One  felt  so  secretarial 
when  sorting  letters  that  one  never  found  the 
letter;  one  felt  so  scientific  in  explaining  gas 
that  one  never  found  the  leak;  and  one  felt 
so  judicial,  so  impartial,  in  weighing  evidence 
that  one  had  to  be  bribed  to  come  to  any  con- 
clusion at  all.  This  was  the  last  note  of  the 
Victorians :  procrastination  was  called  progress. 
Now  if  we  look  for  the  worst  fruits  of 
this  fallacy  we  shall  find  them  in  historical 
criticism.  There  is  a  curious  habit  of  treating 
any  one  who  comes  before  a  strong  movement 
as  the  "  forerunner "  of  that  movement. 
That  is,  he  is  treated  as  a  sort  of  slave  running 
in  advance  of  a  great  army.  Obviously,  the 
analogy  really  arises  from  St.  John  the  Baptist, 
for  whom  the  phrase  "  forerunner  "  was  rather 
peculiarly  invented.  Equally  obviously, 
such  a  phrase  only  applies  to  an  alleged  or 
real  divine  event  :  otherwise  the  forerunner 
would  be  a  founder.  Unless  Jesus  had  been 
the   Baptist's   God,   He   would   simply   have 

been  his  disciple. 
Q 


242    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

Nevertheless  the  fallacy  of  the  "  fore- 
runner" has  been  largely  used  in  literature. 
Thus  men  will  call  a  universal  satirist  like 
Langland  a  "  morning  star  of  the  Reforma- 
tion," or  some  such  rubbish;  whereas  the 
Reformation  was  not  larger,  but  much  smaller 
than  Langland.  It  was  simply  the  victory 
of  one  class  of  his  foes,  the  greedy  merchants, 
over  another  class  of  his  foes,  the  lazy  abbots. 
In  real  history  this  constantly  occurs ;  that 
some  small  movement  happens  to  favour  one 
of  the  million  things  suggested  by  some  great 
man ;  whereupon  the  great  man  is  turned  into 
the  running  slave  of  the  small  movement. 
Thus  certain  sectarian  movements  borrowed 
the  sensationalism  without  the  sacramentalism 
of  Wesley.  Thus  certain  groups  of  decadents 
found  it  easier  to  imitate  De  Quincey's  opium 
than  his  eloquence.  Unless  we  grasp  this 
plain  common  sense  (that  you  or  I  are  not 
responsible  for  what  some  ridiculous  sect  a 
hundred  years  hence  may  choose  to  do  with 
what  we  say)  the  peculiar  position  of  Stevenson 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     243 

in  later  Victorian  letters  cannot  begin  to  be 
understood.  For  he  was  a  very  universal  man  ; 
and  talked  some  sense  not  only  on  every 
subject,  but,  so  far  as  it  is  logically  possible,  in 
every  sense.  But  the  glaring  deficiencies  of 
the  Victorian  compromise  had  by  that  time 
begun  to  gape  so  wide  that  he  was  forced,  by 
mere  freedom  of  philosophy  and  fancy,  to 
urge  the  neglected  things.  And  yet  this  very 
urgency  certainly  brought  on  an  opposite 
fever,  which  he  would  not  have  liked  if  he 
had  lived  to  understand  it.  He  liked  Kipling, 
though  with  many  healthy  hesitations;  but 
he  would  not  have  liked  the  triumph  of 
Kipling  :  which  was  the  success  of  the  poli- 
tician and  the  failure  of  the  poet.  Yet  wrhen 
we  look  back  up  the  false  perspective  of  time, 
Stevenson  does  seem  in  a  sense  to  have 
prepared  that  imperial  and  downward  path. 

I  shall  not  talk  here,  any  more  than  any- 
where else  in  this  book,  about  the  "  sedulous 
ape  "  business.     No  man  ever  wrote  as  well 

as  Stevenson  who  cared  only  about  writing. 

Q  2 


244    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

Yet  there  is  a  sense,  though  a  misleading  one, 
in  which  his  original  inspirations  were  artistic 
rather  than  purely  philosophical.  To  put  the 
point  in  that  curt  covenanting  way  which  he 
himself  could  sometimes  command,  he  thought 
it  immoral  to  neglect  romance.  The  whole  of 
his  real  position  was  expressed  in  that  phrase 
of  one  of  his  letters  "  our  civilisation  is  a  dingy 
ungentlemanly  business  :  it  drops  so  much 
out  of  a  man."  On  the  whole  he  concluded 
that  what  had  been  dropped  out  of  the  man  was 
the  boy.  He  pursued  pirates  as  Defoe  would 
have  fled  from  them;  and  summed  up  his 
simplest  emotions  in  that  touching  cri  de  coeur 
"  shall  we  never  shed  blood  ?  "  He  did  for 
the  penny  dreadful  what  Coleridge  had  done 
for  the  penny  ballad.  He  proved  that,  because 
it  was  really  human,  it  could  really  rise  as 
near  to  heaven  as  human  nature  could  take 
it.  If  Thackeray  is  our  youth,  Stevenson  is 
our  boyhood  :  and  though  this  is  not  the 
most  artistic  thing  in  him,  it  is  the  most 
important  thing  in  the  history  of  Victorian 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE     245 

art.  All  the  other  fine  things  he  did  were, 
for  curious  reasons,  remote  from  the  current 
of  his  age.  For  instance,  he  had  the  good  as 
well  as  the  bad  of  coming  from  a  Scotch 
Calvinist's  house.  No  man  in  that  age  had  so 
healthy  an  instinct  for  the  actuality  of  positive 
evil.  In  The  Master  of  Ballantree  he  did  prove 
with  a  pen  of  steel,  that  the  Devil  is  a  gentleman 
— but  is  none  the  less  the  Devil.  It  is  also 
characteristic  of  him  (and  of  the  revolt  from 
Victorian  respectability  in  general)  that  his 
most  blood-and-thunder  sensational  tale  is  also 
that  which  contains  his  most  intimate  and 
bitter  truth.  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde 
is  a  double  triumph ;  it  has  the  outside  excite- 
ment that  belongs  to  Conan  Doyle  with  the 
inside  excitement  that  belongs  to  Henry 
James.  Alas,  it  is  equally  characteristic  of 
the  Victorian  time  that  while  nearly  every 
Englishman  has  enjoyed  the  anecdote,  hardly 
one  Englishman  has  seen  the  joke — I  mean 
the  point.  You  will  find  twenty  allusions  to 
Jekyll  and  Hyde  in  a  day's  newspaper  reading. 


246    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

You  will  also  find  that  all  such  allusions 
suppose  the  two  personalities  to  be  equal, 
neither  caring  for  the  other.  Or  more  roughly, 
thev  think  the  book  means  that  man  can  be 

m 

cloven  into  two  creatures,  good  and  evil.  The 
whole  stab  of  the  story  is  that  man  carCt: 
because  while  evil  does  not  care  for  good,  good 
must  care  for  evil.  Or,  in  other  words,  man 
cannot  escape  from  God,  because  good  is  the 
God  in  man ;  and  insists  on  omniscience.  This 
point  which  is  good  psychology  and  also  good 
theology  and  also  good  art,  has  missed  its 
main  intention  merely  because  it  was  also 
good  story-telling. 

If  the  rather  vague  Victorian  public  did 
not  appreciate  the  deep  and  even  tragic  ethics 
with  which  Stevenson  was  concerned,  still 
less  were  they  of  a  sort  to  appreciate  the 
French  finish  and  fastidiousness  of  his  style; 
in  which  he  seemed  to  pick  the  right  word  up 
on  the  point  of  his  pen,  like  a  man  playing 
spillikins.  But  that  style  also  had  a  quality 
that  could  be  felt ;  it  had  a  military  edge  to  it, 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE    247 

an  acies  ;  and  there  was  a  kind  of  swordsman- 
ship about  it.  Thus  all  the  circumstances 
led,  not  so  much  to  the  narrowing  of  Stevenson 
to  the  romance  of  the  fighting  spirit ;  but  the 
narrowing  of  his  influence  to  that  romance. 
He  had  a  great  many  other  things  to  say ;  but 
this  was  what  we  were  willing  to  hear  :  a 
reaction  against  the  gross  contempt  for 
soldiering  which  had  really  given  a  certain 
Chinese  deadness  to  the  Victorians.  Yet 
another  circumstance  thrust  him  down  the 
same  path;  and  in  a  manner  not  wholly 
fortunate.  The  fact  that  he  was  a  sick  man 
immeasurably  increases  the  credit  to  his 
manhood  in  preaching  a  sane  levity  and 
pugnacious  optimism.  But  it  also  forbade 
him  full  familiarity  with  the  actualities  of 
sport,  war,  or  comradeship :  and  here  and  there 
his  note  is  false  in  these  matters  ;  and  reminds 
one  (though  very  remotely)  of  the  mere 
provincial  bully  that  Henley  sometimes  sank 
to  be. 

For  Stevenson  had  at  his  elbow  a  friend,  an 


248    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

invalid  like  himself,  a  man  of  courage  and 
stoicism  like  himself;  but  a  man  in  whom 
everything  that  Stevenson  made  delicate  and 
rational  became  unbalanced  and  blind.  The 
difference  is,  moreover,  that  Stevenson  was 
quite  right  in  claiming  that  he  could  treat  his 
limitation  as  an  accident;  that  his  medicines 
"  did  not  colour  his  life."  His  life  was  really 
coloured  out  of  a  shilling  paint-box,  like  his 
toy-theatre  :  such  high  spirits  as  he  had  are 
the  key  to  him  :  his  sufferings  are  not  the  key 
to  him.  But  Henley's  sufferings  are  the  key 
to  Henley;  much  must  be  excused  him,  and 
there  is  much  to  be  excused.  The  result  was 
that  while  there  was  always  a  certain  dainty 
equity  about  Stevenson's  judgments,  even 
when  he  was  wrong,  Henley  seemed  to  think 
that  on  the  right  side  the  wronger  you  were 
the  better.  There  was  much  that  was  femi- 
nine in  him ;  and  he  is  most  understandable 
when  surprised  in  those  little  solitary  poems 
which  speak  of  emotions  mellowed,  of  sunset 
and  a  quiet  end.     Henley  hurled  himself  into 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE    249 

the  new  fashion  of  praising  Colonial  adventure 
at  the  expense  both  of  the  Christian  and  the 
republican  traditions;  but  the  sentiment  did 
not  spread  widely  until  the  note  was  struck 
outside  England  in  one  of  the  conquered 
countries ;  and  a  writer  of  Anglo-Indian  short 
stories  showed  the  stamp  of  the  thing  called 
genius ;  that  indefinable,  dangerous  and  often 
temporary  thing. 

For  it  is  really  impossible  to  criticise 
Rudyard  Kipling  as  part  of  Victorian  litera- 
ture, because  he  is  the  end  of  such  literature. 
He  has  many  other  powerful  elements;  an 
Indian  element,  which  makes  him  exquisitely 
sympathetic  with  the  Indian;  a  vague  Jingo 
influence  which  makes  him  sympathetic  with 
the  man  that  crushes  the  Indian;  a  vague 
journalistic  sympathy  with  the  men  that 
misrepresent  everything  that  has  happened 
to  the  Indian;  but  of  the  Victorian  virtues, 
nothing. 

All  that  was  right  or  wrong  in  Kipling  was 
expressed   in   the   final    convulsion   that   he 


250    VICTORIAN  AGE  IN  LITERATURE 

almost  in  person  managed  to  achieve.  The 
nearest  that  any  honest  man  can  come  to 
the  thing  called  "  impartiality  "  is  to  confess 
that  he  is  partial.  I  therefore  confess  that 
I  think  this  last  turn  of  the  Victorian  Age  was 
an  unfortunate  turn ;  much  on  the  other  side 
can  be  said,  and  I  hope  will  be  said.  But 
about  the  facts  there  can  be  no  question.  The 
Imperialism  of  Kipling  was  equally  remote 
from  the  Victorian  caution  and  the  Victorian 
idealism  :  and  our  subject  does  quite  seriously 
end  here.  The  world  was  full  of  the  trampling 
of  totally  new  forces,  gold  was  sighted  from 
far  in  a  sort  of  cynical  romanticism :  the 
guns   opened   across   Africa;    and   the  great 

queen  died. 

***** 

Of  what  will  now  be  the  future  of  so  separate 
and  almost  secretive  an  adventure  of  the 
English,  the  present  writer  will  not  permit 
himself,  even  for  an  instant,  to  prophesy. 
The  Victorian  Age  made  one  or  two  mistakes 
but    they    were    mistakes    that    were    really 


BREAK-UP  OF  THE  COMPROMISE    251 

useful;  that  is,  mistakes  that  were  really 
mistaken.  They  thought  that  commerce  out- 
side a  country  must  extend  peace  :  it  has 
certainly  often  extended  war.  They  thought 
that  commerce  inside  a  country  must  certainly 
promote  prosperity;  it  has  largely  promoted 
poverty.  But  for  them  these  were  experi- 
ments; for  us  they  ought  to  be  lessons.  If 
we  continue  the  capitalist  use  of  the  populace 
— if  we  continue  the  capitalist  use  of  external 
arms,  it  will  lie  heavy  on  the  living.  The 
dishonour  will  not  be  on  the  dead. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


After  having  surveyed  the  immense  field  presented  in  such 
a  volume  as  Mr.  George  Mair's  Modern  English  Literature  i 
this  series,  or,  more  fully,  in  the  Cambridge  History  of  Modern 
Literature,  the  later  volume  of  Chambers'  English  Literature, 
Mr.  Gosse's  History  of  Modern  English  Literature,  or  Henry 
Morley's  English  Literature  in  the  Reign  of  Victoria,  the  wise 
reader  will  choose  some  portion  for  closer  study,  and  will  go 
straight  to  the  originals  Wore  he  has  any  further  traffic  with 
critics  or  commentators,  however  able. 

He  will  then  need  the  aid  of  fuller  biographies.  Some 
Victorian  Lives  are  already  classic,  or  nearly  so,  among  them 
Sir  G.  Trevelyan's  Macaulay,  Forster's  Dickens,  Mrs.  Gaskell's 
Charlotte  Bronte,  Froude's  Carlyle,  and  Sir  E.  T.  Cook's 
Buskin.  With  these  may  be  ranged  the  great  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography.  The  "English  Men  of  Letters"  Series 
includes  H.  D.  Traill's  Coleridge,  Ainger's  Lamb,  Trollope's 
Thackeray,  Leslie  Stephen's  George  Eliot,  Herbert  Paul's 
Matthew  Arnold,  Sir  A.  Lyall's  Tennyson,  G.  K.  Chesterton's 
Robert  Browning,  and  A.  C.  Benson's  Fitzgerald.  At  least 
two  autobiographies  must  be  named,  those  of  Herbert  Spencer 
and  John  Stuart  Mill,  and,  as  antidote  to  Newman's  Apologia, 
the  gay  self- revelations  of  Borrow,  and  Jeffenes'  Story  of  My 
Heart.  Other  considerable  volumes  are  W.  J.  Cross's  George 
Eliot,  Lionel  Johnson's  Art  of  Thomas  Hardy,  Mr.  W.  M. 
Rossetti's  Dante  G.  Rossetti,  Colvin's  R.  L.  Stevenson,  J.  W. 
Mackail's  William  Morris,  Holman  Hunt's  Pre-Raphaelite 
Brotherhood,  Sir  Leslie  Stephen's  The  Utilitarians,  Buxton 
Forman's  Our  Living  Poets,  Edward  Thomas's  Swinburne, 
Mony penny's  Disraeli,  Dawson's  Victorian  Novelists,  and 
Stedman's  Victorian  Poets.  The  M Everyman"  Short  Bio- 
graphical Dictionary  of  English  Literature  is  useful  for  dates. 

The  latter  half  of  the  second  volume  of  Mr.  F.  A.  Murnby's 
Letters  of  Literary  Men  is  devoted  to  the  Victorian  Age. 
There  are  fuller  collections  of  the  Letters  of  Leigh  Hunt, 
Thackeray,    Dickens,    the    Brownings,     Fitzgerald,     Charles 

253 


254        BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

Kingsley,  Matthew  Arnold,  and  more  recently  the  Letters  of 
George  Meredith,  edited  by  his  son. 

Among  the  important  critical  writers  of  the  period,  Matthew 
Arnold  {Essays  in  Criticism,  Study  of  Celtic  Literature,  etc.) 
stands  easily  first.  Others  are  John,  now  Lord,  Morley  {Studies 
in  Literature,  etc.),  Augustine  Birrell  {Obiter  Dicta,  Essays), 
W.  E.  Henley  {Views  and  Reviews),  J.  Addington  Symonds 
{Essays),  J.  Churton  Collins,  Richard  Garnet  t,  Stopford  A. 
Brooke,  George  E.  B.  Saintsbury  {History  of  Criticism),  R.  H. 
Hutton  {Contemporary  Thought),  J.  M.  Robertson  {Modern 
Humanists,  Buckle,  etc.),  Frederic  Harrison  {The  Choice  of 
Books,  etc.),  Andrew  Lang,  Walter  Bagehot,  Edmund  Gosse, 
Prof.  Dowden,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  and  Sir  A.  T.  Quiller 
Couch. 


INDEX 


Aestheteb,    the,  and   Decadents, 

218-27 
Arnold,  Matthew,  73-79,  8T 
Austen,  Jane,  92,  105,  109 

Bentham,  36 

Blake,  20 

Borrow,  151 

Bronte,  Charlotte,  92,  104,  110-14 

,  Emily,  113 

Browning,  R.,  40-41,  159,  162-63 

,  Elizabeth  B.,  17G-81 

Byron,  22 

Carlyle,  40,  49-62, 15S 
Carroll,  Lewis,  163 
Cobbett,  16-17,  88,  161 
Coleridge,  20 
Collins,  Wilkio,  130,  132 

Darwin,  38,  206-7,  209 
De  Quincey,  23-25,  65 
Dickens,  40,  79-89,  100,  106,  119- 

28,  129,  131 
Disraeli,  42,  135 

Eliot,  George,  92,  102-9,  157 

Faber,  46 

Fitzgerald,  192-95 

French  Revolution,   Influence  of, 

18-21 
Froude,  60,  62 

Gaskell,  Mrs.,  94 
Gilbert,  154 

Hardy,  Thomas,  13&-6«,  143-45 
Hazlitt,  23 

Henley,  W.  E.,  247-48 
Hood,  Thomas,  25-27 
Hughes,  Tom,  72 


Humour,  Victorian,  152  55 
Hunt,  Leigh,  28 
Huxley,  39-40,  205 

Imperialism,  60,  239 

James,  Henry,  228-31 

Keats,  22 

Keble,  45 

Kingsley,  40,  59,  64,  72,  134  35 

Kipling,  R.,  60,  249-60 

Lamb,  23 

Landor,  23 

Lear,  Edward,  153 

Literary  temperament,  the   Fie 

lish,  13-16 
Lytton,  Bulwer,  135-87 

Macaulay,  28-36,  55 
Macdonald,  George,  152 
Maurice,  F.  D.,  40,  73 
Melbourne,  Lord,  41-42 
Meredith,  George,  138-49,  22€ 
Mill,  J.  S.,  36-37,  65 
Morris,  Wm.,  196-200,  232 

Newman,  38,  40,  45-i8,  78,  151' 
Novel,  The  Modern,  90-99 

Oliphant,  Mrs.,  116-17 

"Ouida."  117 

Oxford  Movement,  42-45 

Pater,  Walter,  69-71 
Patmore,  48,  201-2 
Pre-Raphaelite  School,  68,  71 

Reade.  Charles,  134 


255 


256 


INDEX 


Rosaetti,  D.  G.,  and  C.,  71,  188-91 
Ruskin,  40,  63-8,  70,  158 

Science,  Victorian,  208-12 

8haw,  G.  B.,  60,235-58 

Shelley,  22-23 

Shorthouse,  149-50 

Socialism,   60,   67,   122,    198,    227, 

231-39 
Spencer,  Herbert,  75,  233-34 
Sterenson,  R.  L.,  242-49 


Swinburne,  69,  159,  181-88 

Tennyson.  40,  64,  160-69 
Thackeray,  100,  110,  123-30,  158 
Thompson,  Francis,  48,  201,  202 
Trollope,  Anthony,  130,  182-33 

Watson,  Wra.,202 
Wells,  H.  G.,  238-39 
Wilde,  Oscar,  2 1 8-23 
Women,  Victorian,  91,  99, 104, 115- 
16,  140 


Richard  Clay  <b  Sons,  Limited,  London  and  Bungay. 


Th 


e 


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History  and  Geography 


3-  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION 

By  Hilaire  Belloc,  M.A.  (With  Maps.)  M  It  is  coloured  with  all  the 
militancy  of  the  author's  temperament." — Daily  News. 

4.  HISTORY  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE 

By  G.  H.  Perris.  The  Rt.  Hon.  James  Bryce  writes  :  "  I  have  read  it  with 
much  interest  and  pleasure,  admiring  the  skill  with  which  you  have  managed 
to  compress  so  many  facts  and  views  into  so  small  a  volume." 

8.  POLAR  EXPLORATION 

By  Dr  W.  S.  Bruce,  F.R.S.E.,  Leader  of  the  "Scotia"  Expedition.  (With 
Maps.)  "A  very  freshly  written  and  interesting  narrative." — The  Times. 
"  A  fascinating  book." — Portsmouth  Times. 

12.  THE  OPENING-  UP  OF  AFRICA 

By  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston,  G.C.M.G.,  K.C.B.,  D.Sc,  F.Z.S.    (With  Maps.) 

"The  Home  University  Library  is  much  enriched  by  this  excellent  work." — 
Daily  Mail. 

13.  MEDIAEVAL  EUROPE 

By  H.  W.  C.  Davis,  M.A.  (WTith  Maps.)  "One  more  illustration  of  the 
fact  that  it  takes  a  complete  master  of  the  subject  to  write  briefly  upon  it." — 
Manchester  Guardian. 

14.  THE  PAPACY  &  MODERN  TIMES  (1303-1870) 

By  William  Barry,  D.D.  "  Dr  Barry  has  a  wide  range  of  knowledge 
and  an  artist's  power  of  selection." — Manchester  Guardian. 

23.  HISTORY  OF  OUR  TIME,  1885-1911 

By  G.  P.  Gooch,  M.A.  "  Mr  Gooch  contrives  to  breathe  vitality  into  his  story, 
and  to  give  us  the  flesh  as  well  as  the  bones  of  recent  happenings." — Observer. 

25.  THE  CIVILISATION  OF  CHINA 

By  H.  A.  Giles,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Chinese  in  the  University  of  Cambridge. 
"In  all  the  mass  of  facts,  Professor  Giles  never  becomes  dull.  He  is  always 
ready  with  a  ghost  story  or  a  street  adventure  for  the  reader's  recreation." — 
Spectator. 

29.  THE  DA  WN  OF  HISTORY 

By  J.  L.  Myres,  M.  A.,  F.S.  A.,  Wykeham  Professor  of  Ancient  History,  Oxford. 
"  There  is  not  a  page  in  it  that  is  not  suggestive." — Manchester  Guardian. 

33.  THE  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND: 

A  Study  in  Political  Evolution. 

By  Prof.  A.  F.  Pollard,  M.A.  With  a  Chronological  Table.  "  It  takes  its 
place  at  once  among  the  authoritative  works  on  English  history." — Observer. 

34.  CANADA 

By  A.  G.  Bradley.  "  Who  knows  Canada  better  than  Mr  A.  G.  Bradley?  "— 
Daily  Chronicle.  "The  volume  makes  an  immediate  appeal  to  the  man  who 
wants  to  know  something  vivid  and  true  about  Canada." — Canadian  Gazette. 


V7. 


37.  PEOPLES  &  PROBLEMS  OF  INDIA 

By  Sir  T.  W.  Holderness,  K.C.S.I.,  Secretary  of  the  Revenue,  Statistics, 
and  Commerce  Department  of  the  India  Office.  "Just  the  book  which  news- 
paper readers  require  to-day,  and  a  marvel  of  comprehensiveness." — Pall 
Mall  Gazette. 

42.  ROME 

By  W.  Warde  Fowler,  M.A.  "  A  masterly  sketch  of  Roman  character  and 
of  what  it  did  for  the  world." — The  Spectator.  "It  has  all  the  lucidity  and 
charm  of  presentation  we  expect  from  this  writer." — Manchester  Guardian. 

48.  THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL   WAR 

By  F.  L.  Paxson,  Professor  of  American  History,  Wisconsin  University. 
(With  Maps.)     "A  stirring  study." — The  Guardian. 

51.   WARFARE  IN  BRITAIN 

By  Hii.aire  Belloc,  M.A.  An  account  of  how  and  where  great  battles  of  the 
past  were  fought  on  British  soil,  the  roads  and  physical  conditions  determining 
the  island's  strategy,  the  castles,  walled  towns,  etc. 

55.  MASTER  MARINERS 

By  J.  R.  Spears.  The  romance  of  the  sea,  the  great  voyages  of  discovery. 
naval  battles,  the  heroism  of  the  sailor,  and  the  development  of  the  ship,  from 
ancient  times  to  to-day. 

In  Preparation 

ANCIENT  GREECE.    By  Prof.  Gilbert  Murray,  D.Litt.,  LL.D.,  F.B.A 
ANCIENT  EGYPT.     By  F.  Ll.  Griffith,  M.A. 
THE  ANCIENT  EAST.    By  D.  G.  Hogarth,  M.A.,  F.B.A. 
A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  EUROPE.     By  Herbert  Fisher,  M.  A.,  F.B.A. 
PREHISTORIC  BRITAIN.     By  Robert  Munro,  M.A.,  M.D.,  LL.D. 
THE  BYZANTINE  EMPIRE.    By  Norman  H.  Baynes. 
THE  REFORMATION.      By  Principal  Lindsay,  LL.D. 
NAPOLEON.    By  Herbert  Fisher,  M.A.,  F.B.A. 
A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  RUSSIA.     By  Prof.  Milyoukov. 
MODERN  TURKEY.     By  D.  G.  Hogarth,  M.A. 
FRANCE  OF  TO-DAY.     By  Albert  Thomas. 
GERMANY  OF  TO -DA  Y.    By  Charles  Tower. 
THE  NA  VY  AND  SEA  POWER.    By  David  Hannay. 
HISTORY  OF  SCOTLAND.    By  R.  S.  Rait,  M.A. 
SOUTH  AMERICA.     By  Prof.  W.  R.  Shepherd. 
LONDON.    By  Sir  Laurence  Gomme,  F.S.A. 

HISTORY  AND  LITERATURE  OF  SPAIN.     By  J.  Fitzmaurice- 
Kelly,  F.B.A.,  Litt.D. 


Literature  and  *Art 


2.  SHAKESPEARE 

By  John  Masefield.  "  The  book  is  a  joy.  We  have  had  half-a-dozen  more 
learned  books  on  Shakespeare  in  the  last  few  years,  but  not  one  so  wise." — 
Manchester  Guardian. 

27.  ENGLISH  LITERATURE:  MODERN 

By  G.  H.  Mair,  M.A.     "Altogether  a  fresh  and  individual  book." — Observer. 

35.  LANDMARKS  IN FRENCH LITER  A  TURE 

By  G.  L.  Strachey.  "  Mr  Strachey  is  to  be  congratulated  on  his  courage  and 
success.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  a  better  account  of  French  Literature 
could  be  given  in  250  small  pages  than  he  has  given  here." — The  Times. 


39-  ARCHITECTURE 

By  Prof.  W.  R.  Lethaby.  (Over  forty  Illustrations.)  "  Popular  guide-books 
to  architecture  are,  as  a  rule,  not  worth  much.  This  volume  is  a  welcome  excep. 
tion." — Building  News.     "  Delightfully  bright  reading. " — Christian  World. 

43.  ENGLISH  LITERATURE:    MEDIAEVAL 

By  Prof.  W.  P.  Ker,  M.A.  "  Prof.  Ker  has  long  proved  his  worth  as  one  of 
the  soundest  scholars  in  English  we  have,  and  he  is  the  very  man  to  put  an 
outline  of  English  Mediaeval  Literature  before  the  uninstructed  public.  His 
knowledge  and  taste  are  unimpeachable,  and  his  style  is  effective,  simple,  yet 
never  dry." — The  Athenoeum. 

45.  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE 

By  L.  Pearsall  Smith,  M.A.  "A  wholly  fascinating  study  of  the  different 
streams  that  went  to  the  making  of  the  great  river  of  the  English  speech." — 
Daily  News. 

52.  GREAT  WRITERS  OF  AMERICA 

By  Prof.  J.  Erskine  and  Prof.  W.  P.  Trent.  A  popular  sketch  by  two 
foremost  authorities. 

In  Preparation 

ANCIENT  ART  AND  RITUAL.     By  Miss  Jane  Harrison,  LL.D., 

D.Litt. 
GR  EEK  LIT  ERA  TURE.    By  Prof.  Gilbert  Murray,  D.Litt. 
LA  TIN  LITER  A  TURE.     By  Prof.  J.  S.  Phillimore. 
CHA  UCER  A  ND  HIS  'TIME.    By  Miss  G.  E.  Hadow. 
THE  RENAISSANCE.     By  Mrs  R.  A.  Taylor. 

ITALIAN  ART  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE.     By  Roger  E.  Fry,  M.A. 
THE  ART  OF  PAINTING.    By  Sir  Frederick  Wedmore. 
DR  JOHNSON  AND  HIS  CIRCLE.     By  Tohn  Bailey,  M.A 
>    THE  VICTORIAN  AGE.    By  G.  K.  Chesterton. 

ENGLISH  COMPOSITION.     By  Prof.  Wm.  T.  Brewster. 

GREA  T  WRITERS  OF  R  USSIA.     By  C.  T.  Hagberg  Wright,  LL.D. 

THE  LITERATURE  OF  GERMANY.      By  Prof.  J.  G.  Robertson. 

M.A.,  Ph.D. 
SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY  AND   LITERATURE.      By    T.    C. 

Snow,    M.A. 


7.  MODERN  GEOGRAPHY 

By  Dr  Marion  Newbigin.  (Illustrated.)  "Geography,  again:  what  a  dull, 
tedious  study  that  was  wont  to  be  !  .  .  .  But  Miss  Marion  Newbigin  invests  its 
dry  bones  with  the  flesh  and  blood  of  romantic  interest,  taking  stock  of 
geography  as  a  fairy-book  of  science." — Daily  Telegraph. 

9.  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  PLANTS 


familiar  style  makes  the  difficult  subject  both  fascinating  and  easy." — 
Gardeners'  Chronicle. 

17.  HEALTH  AND  DISEASE 

By  W.  Leslie  Mackenzie,  M.D.,  Local  Government  Board,  Edinburgh. 
"  The  science  of  public  health  administration  has  had  no  abler  or  more  attractive 
exponent  than  Dr  Mackenzie.  He  adds  to  a  thorough  grasp  of  the  problems 
an  illuminating  style,  and  an  arresting  manner  of  treating  a  subject  often 
dull  and  sometimes  unsavoury." — Economist. 

UPB 


1 8.  INTRODUCTION  TO  MATHEMATICS 

By  A-  N.  Whitehead,  Sc.D.,  F.R.S.  (With  Diagrams.)  "Mr  Whitehead 
has  discharged  with  conspicuous  success  the  task  he  is  so  exceptionally  qualified 
to  undertake.  For  he  is  one  of  our  great  authorities  upon  the  foundations  of  the 
science,  and  has  the  breadth  of  view  which  is  so  requisite  in  presenting  to  the 
reader  its  aims.     His  exposition  is  clear  and  striking." — Westminster  Gazette, 

19.  THE  ANIMAL    WORLD 

By  Professor  F.  W.  Gamble,  D.Sc,  F.R.S.  With  Introduction  by  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge.  (Many  Illustrations.)  "  A  delightful  and  instructive  epitome  of  animal 
(and  vegetable)  life.  ...  A  most  fascinating  and  suggestive  survey." — Morning 
Post. 

20.  EVOLUTION 

By  Professor  J.  Arthur  Thomson  and  Professor  Patrick  Geddes.  "A 
many-coloured  and  romantic  panorama,  opening  up,  like  no  other  book  we  know, 
a  rational  vision  of  world-development." — Belfast  News-Letter. 

22.  CRIME  AND  INSANITY 

ByDr  C.  A.  Mercier,  F.R.C.P.,  F.R.C.S.,  Author  of  "  Text-Book  of  In- 
sanity," etc.  "  Furnishes  much  valuable  information  from  one  occupying  the 
highest  position  among  medico -legal  psychologists." — Asylum  Neivs. 

28.  PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH 

By  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett,  F.R.S.,  Professor  of  Physics,  Royal  College  of  Science, 
Dublin,  1873-1910.  "Asa  former  President  of  the  Psychical  Research  Society, 
he  is  familiar  with  all  the  developments  of  this  most  fascinating  branch  of  science, 
and  thus  what  he  has  to  say  on  thought-reading,  hypnotism,  telepathy,  crystal- 
vision,  spiritualism,  divinings,  and  so  on,  will  be  read  with  avidity." — Dundee 
Courier. 

31.  ASTRONOMY 

By  A.  R.  Hinks,  M.A.,  Chief  Assistant,  Cambridge  Observatory.  "Original 
in  thought,  eclectic  in  substance,  and  critical  in  treatment.  .  .  .  No  better 
little  book  is  available." — School  World. 

32.  INTRODUCTION  TO   SCIENCE 

By  J.  Arthur  Thomson,  M.A.,  Regius  Professor  of  Natural  History,  Aberdeen 
University.  "  Professor  Thomson's  delightful  literary  style  is  well  known  ;  and 
here  he  discourses  freshly  and  easily  on  the  methods  of  science  and  its  relations 
with  philosophy,  art,  religion,  and  practical  life." — Aberdeen  Journal. 

36.  CLIMATE  AND    WEATHER 

By  H.  N.  Dickson,  D.Sc.Oxon.,  M.A.,  F.R.S.E.,  President  of  the  Royal 
Meteorological  Society  ;  Professor  of  Geography  in  University  College,  Reading. 
(With  Diagrams.)  "  The  author  has  succeeded  in  presenting  in  a  very  lucid 
and  agreeable  manner  the  causes  of  the  movement  of  the  atmosphere  and  of 
the  more  stable  winds." — Manchester  Guardian. 

41.  ANTHROPOLOGY 

By  R.  R.  Marett,  M.A.,  Reader  in  Social  Anthropology  in  Oxford  University. 
"An  absolutely  perfect  handbook,  so  clear  that  a  child  could  understand  it,  so 
fascinating  and  human  that  it  beats  fiction  '  to  a  frazzle.' " — Morning  Leader. 

44.  THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  PHYSIOLOGY 

By  Prof.  J.  G.  McKendrick,  M.D.  "  It  is  a  delightful  and  wonderfully  com- 
prehensive handling  of  a  subject  which,  while  of  importance  to  all,  does  not 
readily  lend  itself  to  untechnical  explanation.  .  .  .  The  little  book  is  more  than 
a  mere  repository  of  knowledge ;  upon  every  page  of  it  is  stamped  the  impress 
of  a  creative  imagination." — Glasgow  Herald. 


46.  MATTER  AND  ENERGY 

By  F.  Soddy,  M.A.,  F.R.S.  "A  most  fascinating  and  instructive  account  of 
the  great  facts  of  physical  science,  concerning  which  our  knowledge,  of  later 
years,  has  made  such  wonderful  progress." — The  Bookseller. 

49.  PSYCHOLOGY,   THE  STUDY  OF  BEHAVIOUR 

By  Prof.  W.  McDougall,  F.R.S.,  M.B.  ;'A  happy  example  of  the  non- 
technical handling  of  an  unwieldy  science,  suggesting  rather  than  dogmatising. 
It  should  whet  appetites  for  deeper  study." — Christian  World. 

53.  THE  MAKING  OF  THE  EARTH 

By  Prof.  J.  W.  Gregory,  F.R.S.  (With  38  Maps  and  Figures.)  The  Professor 
of  Geology  at  Glasgow  describes  the  origin  of  the  earth,  the  formation  and 
changes  of  its  surface  and  structure,  its  geological  history,  the  first  appearance 
of  life,  and  its  influence  upon  the  globe. 

57.  THE  HUMAN  BODY 

By  A.  Keith,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Conservator  of  Museum  and  Hunterian  Pro- 
fessor, Royal  College  of  Surgeons.  (Illustrated.)  The  work  of  the  dissecting- 
room  is  described,  and  among  other  subjects  dealt  with  are  :  the  development 
of  the  body  ;  malformations  and  monstrosities  ;  changes  of  youth  and  age  ;  sex 
differences,  are  they  increasing  or  decreasing?  race  characters  ;  bodily  features 
as  indexes  of  mental  character ;  degeneration  and  regeneration  ;  and  the 
genealogy  and  antiquity  of  man. 

58.  ELECTRICITY 

By  Gisbert  Kapp,  D.Eng.,  M.I.E.E.,  M.I.C.E.,  Professor  of  Electrical 
Engineering  in  the  University  of  Birmingham.  (Illustrated.)  Deals  with 
frictional  and  contact  electricity ;  potential ;  electrification  by  mechanical 
means  ;  the  electric  current  ;  the  dynamics  of  electric  currents ;  alternating 
currents  ;  the  distribution  of  electricity,  etc. 

In  Preparation 

CHEMISTRY.     Py  Prof.  R.  Meldola,  F.R.S. 

THE  MINERAL  WORLD.     Bv  Sir  T.  H.  Holland,  K.C.I.E.,  D.Sc. 

PLANT  LIFE.     By  Prof.  J.  B.  Farmer,  F.R.S. 

NERVES.     By  Prof.  D.  Fraser  Harris,  M.D.,  D.Sc. 

A  STUDY  OF  SEX.    By  Prof.  J.  A.  Thomson  and  Prof.  Patrick  Geddes. 

THE  GROWTH  OF  EUROPE.      By  Prof.  Grenville  Cole. 


Philosophy  and  Religion 


15.  MOHAMMEDANISM 

By  Prof.  D.  S.  Margoliouth,  M.A.,  D.Litt.  "This  generous  shilling's 
worth  of  wisdom.  ...  A  delicate,  humorous,  and  most  responsible  tractate 
by  an  illuminative  professor." — Daily  Mail. 

40.  THE  PROBLEMS  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

By  the  Hon.  Bertrand  Russell,  F.R.S.  A  book  that  the  '  man  in  the 
street '  will  recognise  at  once  to  be  a  boon.  .  .  .  Consistently  lucid  and  non- 
technical throughout." — Christian  World. 

47.  BUDDHISM 

By  Mrs  Rhys  Davids,  M.A.  u  A  very  able  and  concise  '  study  of  the  Buddhist 
norm.'  .  .  .  The  author  presents  very  attractively  as  well  as  very  learnedly 
the  philosophy  of  Buddhism  as  the  greatest  scholars  of  the  day  interpret  it." — 
Daily  News. 

6 


5o.  NONCONFORMITY:  Its  ORIGIN  and  PROGRESS 

By  Principal  W.  B.  Seleie,  M.A.  "The  historical  part  is  brilliant  in  its 
insight,  clarity,  and  proportion,  and  in  the  later  chapters  on  the  present  position 
and  aims  of  Nonconformity  Dr  Selbie  proves  himself  to  be  an  ideal  exponent 
of  sound  and  moderate  views." — Christian  World. 

54.  ETHICS 

By  G.  E.  Moore,  M.A.,  Lecturer  in  Moral  Science  in  Cambridge  University. 
Discusses  Utilitarianism,  the  Objectivity  of  Moral  Judgments,  the  Test  of 
Right  and  Wrong,  Free  Will,  and  Intrinsic  Value. 

56.   THE  MAKING  OF  THE  NE  W  TESTAMENT 

By  Prof.  B.  W.  Bacon,  LL.  D.,  D.D.  An  authoritative  summary  of  the  results 
of  modern  critical  research  with  regard  to  the  origins  of  the  New  Testament,  in 
11  the  formative  period  when  conscious  inspiration  was  still  in  its  full  glow  rather 
than  the  period  of  collection  into  an  official  canon,"  showing  the  mingling  of  the 
two  great  currents  of  Christian  thought — M  Pauline  and  'Apostolic,'  the  Greek- 
Christian  gospel  about  Jesus,  and  the  Jewish-Christian  gospel  of  Jesus,  the 
gospel  of  the  Spirit  and  the  gospel  of  authority." 

60.  MISSIONS:  THETR  RISE  and  DEVELOPMENT 

By  Mrs  Creighton.  The  beginning  of  modern  missions  after  the  Reforma- 
tion and  their  growth  are  traced,  and  an  account  is  given  of  their  present 
work,  its  extent  and  character. 

In  Preparation 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     By  Prof.  George  Moore,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
BETWEEN  THE  OLD  AND  NEW   TESTAMENTS.      By    R.    H. 

Chaples    ID  D 
COMPARA  TIVE  RELIGION.     By  Prof.  J.  Estlin  Carpenter,  D.Litt. 
A  HISTORY  of  FREEDOM  of  THOUGHT.   By  Prof.  J.  B.  Bury,  LL.D. 
A  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY.      By  Clement  Webb,  M.A. 


i.  PARLIAMENT 

Its  History,  Constitution,  and  Practice.  By  Sir  Courtenay  P.  Ilbert, 
K.C.B.,  K.C.S.I.,  Clerk  of  the  House  of  Commons.  "The  best  book  on  the 
history  and  practice  of  the  House  of  Commons  since  Bagehot's  'Constitution.'" — 
Yorkshire  Post. 

5.  THE  STOCK  EXCHANGE 

By  F.  W.  Hirst,  Editor  of  "  The  Economist."  M  To  an  unfinancial  mind  must 
be  a  revelation.  .  .  .  The  book  is  as  clear,  vigorous,  and  sane  as  Bagehot's  '  Lom- 
bard Street,'  than  which  there  is  no  higher  compliment." — Morning  Leader. 

6.  IRISH  NATIONALITY 

By  Mrs  J.  R.  Green.  "  As  glowing  as  it  is  learned.  No  book  could  be  more 
timely." — Daily  News.  "A  powerful  study.  .  .  .  A  magnificent  demonstration 
of  the  deserved  vitality  of  the  Gaelic  spirit." — Freeman  s  fournal. 

10.  THE  SOCIALIST  MOVEMENT 

By  J.  Ramsay  MacDonald,  M.P.  "Admirably  adapted  for  the  purpose  of 
exposition." — The  Times.  "Mr  MacDonald  is  a  very  lucid  exponent.  .  .  .  The 
volume  will  be  of  great  use  in  dispelling  illusions  about  the  tendencies  of 
Socialism  in  this  country." — The  Nation. 

11.  CONSERVATISM 

By  Lord  Hugh  Cecil,  M.A.,  M.P.  "One  of  those  great  little  books  which 
seldom  appear  more  than  once  in  a  generation." — Morning  Post. 

7 


1 6.   THE  SCIENCE  OF  WEALTH 

By  J.  A.  Hobson,  M.A.  "Mr  J.  A.  Hobson  holds  an  unique  position  among 
living  economists.  .  .  .  The  text-book  produced  is  altogether  admirable. 
Original,  reasonable,  and  illuminating." — The  Nation. 

21.  LIBERALISM 

By  L.  T.  Hobhouse,  M.  A.,  Professor  of  Sociology  in  the  University  of  London. 
"A  book  of  rare  quality.  .  .  .  We  have  nothing  but  praise  for  the  rapid  and 
masterly  summaries  of  the  arguments  from  first  principles  which  form  a  large 
part  of  this  book." — Westminster  Gazette. 

24.   THE  EVOLUTION  OF  INDUSTRY 

By  D.  H.  Macgregor,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  the  University 
of  Leeds.  "A  volume  so  dispassionate  in  terms  may  be  read  with  profit  by  all 
interested  in  the  present  state  of  unrest."— A berdeen  Journal. 

26.  AGRICULTURE 

By  Prof.  W.  Somerville,  F.L.S.  "  It  makes  the  results  of  laboratory  work 
at  the  University  accessible  to  the  practical  farmer." — Athenteunt. 

30.  ELEMENTS  OF  ENGLISH  LA  W 

By  W.  M.  Geldart,  M.A.,  B.C.L.,  Vinerian  Professor  of  English  Law  at 
Oxford.  "Contains  a  very  clear  account  of  the  elementary  principles  under- 
lying the  rules^  of  English  law  ;  and  we  can  recommend  it  to  all  who  wish  to 
become  acquainted  with  these  elementary  principles  with  a  minimum  of 
trouble." — Scots  Law  Times. 

38.  THE  SCHOOL 

An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Education. 

By  J.  J.  Findlay,  M.A.,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Education  in  Manchester 
University.  "An  amazingly  comprehensive  volume.  .  .  .  It  is  a  remarkable 
performance,  distinguished  in  its  crisp,  striking  phraseology  as  well  as  its 
inclusiveness  of  subject-matter." — Morning  Post. 

59.  ELEMENTS  OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY 

By  S.  J.  Chapman,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  Manchester 
University.  ^  A  simple  explanation,  in  the  light  of  the  latest  economic  thought, 
of  the  working  of  demand  and  supply  ;  the  nature  of  monopoly  ;  money  and 
international  trade  ;  the  relation  of  wages,  profit,  interest,  and  rent ;  and  the 
effects  of  labour  combination — prefaced  by  a  short  sketch  of  economic  study 
since  Adam  Smith. 

In    Preparation 

THE    CRIMINAL    AND     THE    COMMUNITY.      By  Viscount  St. 

Cyres    M.A. 
COMMONSENSE  IN  LA  W.     By  Prof.  P.  Vinogradoff,  D.C.L. 
THE  CIVIL  SERVICE.     By  Graham  Wallas,  M.A. 
PRACTICAL  IDEALISM.     By  Maurice  Hewlett. 
NEWSPAPERS.     By  G.  Binney  Dibblee. 
ENGLISH  VILLAGE  LIRE.    By  E.  N.  Bennett,  M.A. 
CO-PARTNERSHIP     A  AD    PROFIT-SHARING.      By    Aneurin 

Williams,  J. P. 
THE  SOCIAL   SETTLEMENT.     By  Jane  Addams  and  R.  A.  Woods. 
GREA  T  INVENTIONS.     By  Prof.  J.  L.  Myres,  M.A.,  F.S.A. 
TOWN  PLANNING.     By  Raymond  Unwin. 
POLITICAL   THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND:    From  Bentham   to  J.  S. 

Mill.     By  Prof.  W.  L.  Davidson. 
POLITICAL    THOUGHT    IN    ENGLAND:    From  Herbert  Spencer 

to  To-day.    By  Ernest  Barker,  M.A. 

London:    WILLIAMS  AND   NORGATE 

And  of  all  Bookshops  and  Bookstalls.