Chapter XLVI: Introduction: To W. M. Thackeray's "the Four Georges" (5)

Perhaps this might have occurred in any country, and a comedy of The Pedant, discovering the greedy humanity within the dusty scholar, would not bring it home to one in particular. I am mindful that it was in Germany, when I observe that the Germans have gone through no comic training to warn them of the sly, wise emanation eyeing them from aloft, nor much of satirical. Heinrich Heine has not been enough to cause them to smart and meditate. Nationally, as well as individually, when they are excited they are in danger of the grotesque, as when, for instance, they decline to listen to evidence, and raise a national outcry because one of German blood has been convicted of crime in a foreign country. They are acute critics, yet they still wield clubs in controversy. Compare them in this respect with the people schooled in La Bruyere, La Fontaine, Moliere; with the people who have the figures of a Trissotin and a Vadius before them for a comic warning of the personal vanities of the caressed professor. It is more than difference of race. It is the difference of traditions, temper, and style, which comes of schooling.

The French controversialist is a polished swordsman, to be dreaded in his graces and courtesies. The German is Orson, or the mob, or a marching army, in defence of a good case or a bad--a big or a little. His irony is a missile of terrific tonnage: sarcasm he emits like a blast from a dragon's mouth. He must and will be Titan. He stamps his foe underfoot, and is astonished that the creature is not dead, but stinging; for, in truth, the Titan is contending, by comparison, with a god.

When the Germans lie on their arms, looking across the Alsatian frontier at the crowds of Frenchmen rushing to applaud L'ami Fritz at the Theatre Francais, looking and considering the meaning of that applause, which is grimly comic in its political response to the domestic moral of the play--when the Germans watch and are silent, their force of character tells. They are kings in music, we may say princes in poetry, good speculators in philosophy, and our leaders in scholarship. That so gifted a race, possessed moreover of the stern good sense which collects the waters of laughter to make the wells, should show at a disadvantage, I hold for a proof, instructive to us, that the discipline of the comic spirit is needful to their growth. We see what they can reach to in that great figure of modern manhood, Goethe. They are a growing people; they are conversable as well; and when their men, as in France, and at intervals at Berlin tea-tables, consent to talk on equal terms with their women, and to listen to them, their growth will be accelerated and be shapelier. Comedy, or in any form the Comic spirit, will then come to them to cut some figures out of the block, show them the mirror, enliven and irradiate the social intelligence.

Modern French comedy is commendable for the directness of the study of actual life, as far as that, which is but the early step in such a scholarship, can be of service in composing and colouring the picture. A consequence of this crude, though well-meant, realism is the collision of the writers in their scenes and incidents, and in their characters. The Muse of most of them is an Aventuriere. She is clever, and a certain diversion exists in the united scheme for confounding her. The object of this person is to reinstate herself in the decorous world; and either, having accomplished this purpose through deceit, she has a nostalgie de la boue, that eventually casts her back into it, or she is exposed in her course of deception when she is about to gain her end. A very good, innocent young man is her victim, or a very astute, goodish young man obstructs her path. This latter is enabled to be the champion of the decorous world by knowing the indecorous well. He has assisted in the progress of Aventurieres downward; he will not help them to ascend. The world is with him; and certainly it is not much of an ascension they aspire to; but what sort of a figure is he? The triumph of a candid realism is to show him no hero. You are to admire him (for it must be supposed that realism pretends to waken some admiration) as a credibly living young man; no better, only a little firmer and shrewder, than the rest. If, however, you think at all, after the curtain has fallen, you are likely to think that the Aventurieres have a case to plead against him. True, and the author has not said anything to the contrary; he has but painted from the life; he leaves his audience to the reflections of unphilosophic minds upon life, from the specimen he has presented in the bright and narrow circle of a spy-glass.

I do not know that the fly in amber is of any particular use, but the Comic idea enclosed in a comedy makes it more generally perceptible and portable, and that is an advantage. There is a benefit to men in taking the lessons of Comedy in congregations, for it enlivens the wits; and to writers it is beneficial, for they must have a clear scheme, and even if they have no idea to present, they must prove that they have made the public sit to them before the sitting to see the picture. And writing for the stage would be a corrective of a too-incrusted scholarly style, into which some great ones fall at times. It keeps minor writers to a definite plan, and to English. Many of them now swelling a plethoric market, in the composition of novels, in pun-manufactories and in journalism; attached to the machinery forcing perishable matter on a public that swallows voraciously and groans; might, with encouragement, be attending to the study of art in literature. Our critics appear to be fascinated by the quaintness of our public, as the world is when our beast-garden has a new importation of magnitude, and the creatures appetite is reverently consulted. They stipulate for a writer's popularity before they will do much more than take the position of umpires to record his failure or success. Now the pig supplies the most popular of dishes, but it is not accounted the most honoured of animals, unless it be by the cottager. Our public might surely be led to try other, perhaps finer, meat. It has good taste in song. It might be taught as justly, on the whole, and the sooner when the cottager's view of the feast shall cease to be the humble one of our literary critics, to extend this capacity for delicate choosing in the direction of the matter arousing laughter.

Footnotes:

{1} A lecture delivered at the London Institution, February 1st, 1877.

{2} Realism in the writing is carried to such a pitch in THE OLD BACHELOR, that husband and wife use imbecile connubial epithets to one another.

{3} Tallemant des Reaux, in his rough portrait of the Duke, shows the foundation of the character of Alceste.

{4} See Tom Jones, book viii. chapter I, for Fielding's opinion of our Comedy. But he puts it simply; not as an exercise in the quasi-philosophical bathetic.

{5} Femmes Savantes:

BELISE: Veux-tu toute la vie offenser la grammaire?

MARTINE: Qui parle d'offenser grand'mere ni grand-pere?'

The pun is delivered in all sincerity, from the mouth of a rustic.

{6} Maskwell seems to have been carved on the model of Iago, as by the hand of an enterprising urchin. He apostrophizes his 'invention' repeatedly. 'Thanks, my invention.' He hits on an invention, to say: 'Was it my brain or Providence? no matter which.' It is no matter which, but it was not his brain.

{7} Imaginary Conversations: Alfieri and the Jew Salomon.

{8} Terence did not please the rough old conservative Romans; they liked Plautus better, and the recurring mention of the vetus poeta in his prologues, who plagued him with the crusty critical view of his productions, has in the end a comic effect on the reader.

{9} The exclamation of Lady Booby, when Joseph defends himself: 'YOUR VIRTUE! I shall never survive it!' etc., is another instance.--Joseph Andrews. Also that of Miss Mathews in her narrative to Booth: 'But such are the friendships of women.'--Amelia.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE PG SHORT WORKS OF MEREDITH:

A wise man will not squander his laughter if he can help it
A woman is hurt if you do not confide to her your plans
A generous enemy is a friend on the wrong side
A very doubtful benefit
A great oration may be a sedative
A male devotee is within an inch of a miracle
Above Nature, I tell him, or, we shall be very much below
Adversary at once offensive and helpless provokes brutality
All are friends who sit at table
All flattery is at somebody's expense
Americans forgivingly remember, without mentioning
As becomes them, they do not look ahead
As in all great oratory! The key of it is the pathos
Back from the altar to discover that she has chained herself
Be what you seem, my little one
Be philosophical, but accept your personal dues
Bed was a rock of refuge and fortified defence
But I leave it to you
Can believe a woman to be any age when her cheeks are tinted
Causes him to be popularly weighed
Charges of cynicism are common against all satirists
Civil tongue and rosy smiles sweeten even sour wine
Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive parasite
Dangerous things are uttered after the third glass
Distinguished by his not allowing himself to be provoked
Distrust us, and it is a declaration of war
Eccentric behaviour in trifles
Everywhere the badge of subjection is a poor stomach
Excess of a merit is a capital offence in morality
Excited, glad of catastrophe if it but killed monotony
Face betokening the perpetual smack of lemon
Fourth of the Georges
Generally he noticed nothing
Gentleman in a good state of preservation
Good jokes are not always good policy
Gratitude never was a woman's gift
Happiness in love is a match between ecstasy and compliance
Here and there a plain good soul to whom he was affectionate
His idea of marriage is, the taking of the woman into custody
Holy images, and other miraculous objects are sold
I who respect the state of marriage by refusing
I make a point of never recommending my own house
I like him, I like him, of course, but I want to breathe
I am a discordant instrument I do not readily vibrate
If I do not speak of payment
Imparting the usual chorus of yesses to his own mind
In every difficulty, patience is a life-belt
Indulged in their privilege of thinking what they liked
Infants are said to have their ideas, and why not young ladies?
Intellectual contempt of easy dupes
Invite indecision to exhaust their scruples
Is not one month of brightness as much as we can ask for?
It was harder to be near and not close
It is well to learn manners without having them imposed on us
Knew my friend to be one of the most absent-minded of men
Lend him your own generosity
Love and war have been compared--Both require strategy
Loving in this land: they all go mad, straight off
Men love to boast of things nobody else has seen
Men overweeningly in love with their creations
Modest are the most easily intoxicated when they sip at vanity
Must be the moralist in the satirist if satire is to strike
Nature is not of necessity always roaring
Naughtily Australian and kangarooly
Never reckon on womankind for a wise act
No flattery for me at the expense of my sisters
Not a page of his books reveals malevolence or a sneer
Not in love--She was only not unwilling to be in love
Nothing desirable will you have which is not coveted
Only to be described in the tongue of auctioneers
Peace, I do pray, for the husband-haunted wife
Period of his life a man becomes too voraciously constant
Petty concessions are signs of weakness to the unsatisfied
Pitiful conceit in men
Primitive appetite for noise
Rapture of obliviousness
Rejoicing they have in their common agreement
Respected the vegetable yet more than he esteemed the flower
Rich and poor 's all right, if I'm rich and you're poor
Self-incense
Self-worship, which is often self-distrust
She seems honest, and that is the most we can hope of girls
She sought, by looking hard, to understand it better
She might turn out good, if well guarded for a time
She began to feel that this was life in earnest
She dealt in the flashes which connect ideas
Sign that the evil had reached from pricks to pokes
So are great deeds judged when the danger's past (as easy)
Soft slumber of a strength never yet called forth
Spare me that word "female" as long as you live
Statesman who stooped to conquer fact through fiction
Sunning itself in the glass of Envy
Suspects all young men and most young women
Suspicion was her best witness
Sweet treasure before which lies a dragon sleeping
Telling her anything, she makes half a face in anticipation
That which fine cookery does for the cementing of couples
The intricate, which she takes for the infinite
The social world he looked at did not show him heroes
The alternative is, a garter and the bedpost
The exhaustion ensuing we named tranquillity
The mildness of assured dictatorship
Their idol pitched before them on the floor
They miss their pleasure in pursuing it
This mania of young people for pleasure, eternal pleasure
Tossed him from repulsion to incredulity, and so back
Two principal roads by which poor sinners come to a conscience
Utterance of generous and patriotic cries is not sufficient
We grew accustomed to periods of Irish fever
We like well whatso we have done good work for
We trust them or we crush them
Weak reeds who are easily vanquished and never overcome
Weak stomach is certainly more carnally virtuous than a full one
Were I chained, For liberty I would sell liberty
When we see our veterans tottering to their fall
When you have done laughing with her, you can laugh at her
Wins everywhere back a reflection of its own kindliness
Wits, which are ordinarily less productive than land
Woman descending from her ideal to the gross reality of man
Your devotion craves an enormous exchange