Chapter VIII: The Victorian Age (1837-1901) (2)

SONGS IN MANY KEYS. In calling attention to the above-named poets, we have merely indicated a few who seem to be chief; but the judgment is a personal one, and subject to challenge. The American critic Stedman, in his _Victorian Anthology_, recognizes two hundred and fifty singers; of these eighty are represented by five or more poems; and of the eighty a few are given higher places than those we have selected as typical. There are many readers who prefer the _Goblin Market_ of Christina Rossetti to anything produced by her gifted brother, who place Jean Ingelow above Elizabeth Barrett, who find more pleasure in Edwin Arnold's _Light of Asia_ than in all the poems of Matthew Arnold, and who cannot be interested in even the best of Pre-Raphaelite verse because of its unreality. Many men, many minds! Time has not yet recorded its verdict on the Victorians, and until there is some settled criticism which shall express the judgment of several generations of men, the best plan for the beginner is to make acquaintance with all the minor poets in an anthology or book of selections. It may even be a mistake to call any of these poets minor; for he who has written one song that lives in the hearts of men has produced a work more enduring than the pyramids.

* * * * *

II. THE VICTORIAN NOVELISTS

CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)

Among the Victorian novelists were two men who were frequent rivals in the race for fame and fortune. Thackeray, well born and well bred, with artistic tastes and literary culture, looked doubtfully at the bustling life around him, found his inspiration in a past age, and tried to uphold the best traditions of English literature. Dickens, with little education and less interest in literary culture, looked with joy upon the struggle for democracy, and with an observation that was almost microscopic saw all its picturesque details of speech and character and incident. He was the eye of the mighty Victorian age, as Tennyson was its ear, and Browning its psychologist, and Carlyle its chronic grumbler.

LIFE. In the childhood of Dickens one may see a forecast of his
entire career. His father, a good-natured but shiftless man
(caricatured as Mr. Micawber in _David Copperfield_), was a
clerk in the Navy Pay Office, at Portsmouth. There Dickens was born
in 1812. The father's salary was £80 per year, enough at that time
to warrant living in middle-class comfort rather than in the
poverty of the lower classes, with whom Dickens is commonly
associated. The mother was a sentimental woman, whom Dickens, with
questionable taste, has caricatured as Mrs. Micawber and again as
Mrs. Nickleby. Both parents were somewhat neglectful of their
children, and uncommonly fond of creature comforts, especially of
good dinners and a bowl of punch. Though there is nothing in such a
family to explain Dickens's character, there is much to throw light
on the characters that appear in his novels.

[Sidenote: THE STAGE]

The boy himself was far from robust. Having no taste for sports, he
amused himself by reading romances or by listening to his nurse's
tales,--beautiful tales, he thought, which "almost scared him into
fits." His elfish fancy in childhood is probably reflected in Pip,
of _Great Expectations_. He had a strong dramatic instinct to
act a story, or sing a song, or imitate a neighbor's speech, and
the father used to amuse his friends by putting little Charles on a
chair and encouraging him to mimicry,--a dangerous proceeding,
though it happened to turn out well in the case of Dickens.

This stagey tendency increased as the boy grew older. He had a
passion for private theatricals, and when he wrote a good story was
not satisfied till he had read it in public. When _Pickwick_
appeared (1837) the young man, till then an unknown reporter, was
brought before an immense audience which included a large part of
England and America. Thereafter he was never satisfied unless he
was in the public eye; his career was a succession of theatrical
incidents, of big successes, big lecture tours, big
audiences,--always the footlights, till he lay at last between the
pale wax tapers. But we are far ahead of our story.

[Sidenote: THE LONDON STREETS]

When Dickens was nine years old his family moved to London. There
the father fell into debt, and by the brutal laws of the period was
thrown into prison. The boy went to work in the cellar of a
blacking factory, and there began that intimate acquaintance with
lowly characters which he used later to such advantage. He has
described his bitter experience so often (in _David
Copperfield_ for instance) that the biographer may well pass
over it. We note only this significant fact: that wherever Dickens
went he had an instinct for exploration like that of a farm dog,
which will not rest in a place till he has first examined all the
neighborhood, putting his nose into every likely or unlikely spot
that may shelter friend or enemy. So Dickens used his spare hours
in roaming the byways of London by night, so he gained his
marvelous knowledge of that foreign land called The Street, with
its flitting life of gamins and nondescripts, through which we pass
daily as through an unknown country.

[Sidenote: THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE]

A small inheritance brought the father from prison, the family was
again united, and for two years the boy attended the academy which
he has held up to the laughter and scorn of two continents. There
the genius of Dickens seemed suddenly to awaken. He studied little,
being given to pranks and theatricals, but he discovered within him
an immense ambition, an imperious will to win a place and a name in
the great world, and a hopeful temper that must carry him over or
under all obstacles.

No sooner was his discovery made than he left school and entered a
law office, where he picked up enough knowledge to make court
practices forever ridiculous, in _Bleak House_ and other
stories. He studied shorthand and quickly mastered it; then
undertook to report parliamentary speeches (a good training in
oratory) and presently began a prosperous career as a reporter.
This had two advantages; it developed his natural taste for odd
people and picturesque incidents, and it brought him close to the
great reading public. To please that public, to humor its whims and
prejudices, its love for fun and tears and sentimentality, was
thereafter the ruling motive in Dickens's life.

[Sidenote: LITERARY VENTURES]

His first literary success came with some short stories contributed
to the magazines, which appeared in book form as _Sketches by
Boz_ (1835). A publisher marked these sketches, engaged Dickens
to write the text or letterpress for some comic pictures, and the
result was _Pickwick_, which took England and America by
storm. Then followed _Oliver Twist_, _Nicholas Nickleby_,
_Old Curiosity Shop_,--a flood of works that made readers rub
their eyes, wondering if such a fountain of laughter and tears were
inexhaustible.

There is little else to record except this: that from the time of
his first triumph Dickens held his place as the most popular writer
in English. With his novels he was not satisfied, but wrote a
history of England, and edited various popular magazines, such as
_Household Words_. Also he gave public readings, reveling in
the applause, the lionizing, which greeted him wherever he went. He
earned much money; he bought the place "Gadshill," near Rochester,
which he had coveted since childhood; but he was a free spender,
and his great income was less than his fancied need. To increase
his revenue he "toured" the States in a series of readings from his
own works, and capitalized his experience in _American Notes_
and parts of _Martin Chuzzlewit_.

A question of taste must arise even now in connection with these
works. Dickens had gone to a foreign country for just two things,
money and applause; he received both in full measure; then he bit
the friendly hand which had given him what he wanted. [Footnote:
The chief source of Dickens's irritation was the money loss
resulting from the "pirating" of his stories. There was no
international copyright in those days; the works of any popular
writer were freely appropriated by foreign publishers. This custom
was wrong, undoubtedly, but it had been in use for centuries.
Scott's novels had been pirated the same way; and until Cooper got
to windward of the pirates (by arranging for foreign copyrights)
his work was stolen freely in England and on the Continent. But
Dickens saw only his own grievance, and even at public dinners was
apt to make his hosts uncomfortable by proclaiming his rights or
denouncing their moral standards. Moreover, he had a vast conceit
of himself, and, like most visitors of a week, thought he knew
America like a book. It was as if he looked once at the welter cast
ashore by mighty Lake Superior in a storm, and said, "What a dirty
sea!"] Thackeray, who followed him to America, had a finer sense of
the laws of hospitality and good breeding.

[Sidenote: THE PRICE OF POPULARITY]

In 1844 Dickens resolved to make both ends meet, and carried out
his resolve with promptness and precision. To decrease expenses he
went to the Continent, and lived there, hungry for the footlights,
till a series of stories ending with _Dombey and Son_ put his
finances on a secure basis. Then he returned to London, wrote more
novels, and saved a fortune for his descendants, who promptly spent
it. Evidently it was a family trait. More and more he lived on his
nerves, grew imperious, exacting, till he separated from his wife
and made wreck of domestic happiness. The self-esteem of which he
made comedy in his novels was for him a tragedy. Also he resumed
the public readings, with their false glory and nervous wear and
tear, which finally brought him to the grave.

He died, worn out by his own exertions, in 1870. He had steadily
refused titles and decorations, but a grateful nation laid his body
to rest in the Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey. It is doubtful
whether he would have accepted this honor, which was forced upon
him, for he had declared proudly that by his works alone he would
live in the memory of his countrymen.

WORKS OF DICKENS. In the early stories of Dickens is a promise of all the rest. His first work was called _Sketches by Boz_, and "Boz" was invented by some little girl (was it in _The Vicar of Wakefield?_) who could not say "Moses"; also it was a pet name for a small brother of Dickens. There was, therefore, something childlike in this first title, and childhood was to enter very largely into the novelist's work. He could hardly finish a story without bringing a child into it; not an ordinary child, to make us smile, but a wistful or pathetic child whose sorrows, since we cannot help them, are apt to make our hearts ache.

[Sidenote: THE PATHETIC ELEMENT]

Dickens is charged with exaggerating the woes of his children, and the charge is true; but he had a very human reason for his method. In the first place, the pathetic quality of his children is due to this simple fact, that they bear the burden and the care of age. And burdens which men or women accept for themselves without complaint seem all wrong, and are wrong, when laid upon a child's innocent shoulders. Again, Dickens sought to show us our error in thinking, as most grown-ups do, that childish troubles are of small account. So they are, to us; but to the child they are desperately real. Later in life we learn that troubles are not permanent, and so give them their proper place; but in childhood a trouble is the whole world; and a very hopeless world it is while it lasts. Dickens knew and loved children, as he knew the public whom he made to cry with his Little Nell and Tiny Tim; and he had discovered that tears are the key to many a heart at which reason knocks in vain.

[Sidenote: PICKWICKIAN HUMOR]

The second work, _Pickwick,_ written in a harum-scarum way, is even more typical of Dickens in its spirit of fun and laughter. He had been engaged, as we have noted, to furnish a text for some comic drawings, thus reversing the usual order of illustration. The pictures were intended to poke fun at a club of sportsmen; and Dickens, who knew nothing of sport, bravely set out with Mr. Winkle on his rook-shooting. Then, while the story was appearing in monthly numbers, the illustrator committed suicide; Dickens was left with Mr. Pickwick on his hands, and that innocent old gentleman promptly ran away with the author. Not being in the least adventurous, Mr. Pickwick was precisely the person for whom adventures were lying in wait; but with his chivalrous heart within him, and Sam Weller on guard outside, he was not to be trifled with by cabman or constable. So these two took to the open road, and to the inns where punch, good cheer and the unexpected were awaiting them. Never was such another book! It is not a novel; it is a medley of fun and drollery resulting from high animal spirits.

[Sidenote: THE MOTIVE OF HORROR]

In his next novel, _Oliver Twist_, the author makes a new departure by using the motive of horror. One of his heroes is an unfortunate child, but when our sympathies for the little fellow are stretched to the point of tears, Dickens turns over a page and relieves us by Pickwickian laughter. Also he has his usual medley of picturesque characters and incidents, but the shadow of Fagin is over them all. One cannot go into any house in the book, and lock the door and draw the shades, without feeling that somewhere in the outer darkness this horrible creature is prowling. The horror which Fagin inspires is never morbid; for Dickens with his healthy spirit could not err in this direction. It is a boyish, melodramatic horror, such as immature minds seek in "movies," dime novels, secret societies, detective stories and "thrillers" at the circus.

In the fourth work, _Nicholas Nickleby_, Dickens shows that he is nearing the limit of his invention so far as plot is concerned. In this novel he seems to rest a bit by writing an old-fashioned romance, with its hero and villain and moral ending. But if you study this or any subsequent work of Dickens, you are apt to find the four elements already noted; namely, an unfortunate child, humorous interludes, a grotesque or horrible creature who serves as a foil to virtue or innocence, and a medley of characters good or bad that might be transferred without change to any other story. The most interesting thing about Dickens's men and women is that they are human enough to make themselves at home anywhere.

WHAT TO READ. Whether one wants to study the method of Dickens or to enjoy his works, there is hardly a better plan for the beginner than to read in succession _Pickwick_, _Oliver Twist_ and _Nicholas Nickleby_, which are as the seed plot out of which grow all his stories. For the rest, the reader must follow his own fancy. If one must choose a single work, perhaps _Copperfield_ is the most typical. "Of all my books," said Dickens, "I like this the best; like many parents I have my favorite child, and his name is David Copperfield." Some of the heroines of this book are rather stagey, but the Peggotys, Betsy Trotwood, Mrs. Gummidge, the Micawbers,--all these are unrivaled. "There is no writing against such power," said Thackeray, who was himself writing _Pendennis_ while Dickens was at work on his masterpiece.

[Sidenote: TALE OF TWO CITIES]

Opinion is divided on the matter of _A Tale of Two Cities_. Some critics regard it as the finest of Dickens's work, revealing as it does his powers of description and of character-drawing without his usual exaggeration. Other critics, who regard the exaggeration of Dickens as his most characteristic quality, see in _Two Cities_ only an evidence of his weakening power. It has perhaps this advantage over other works of the author, that of them we remember only the extraordinary scenes or characters, while the entire story of _Two Cities_ remains with us as a finished and impressive thing. But there is also this disadvantage, that the story ends and is done with, while _Pickwick_ goes on forever. We may lose sight of the heroes, but we have the conviction, as Chesterton says, that they are still on the road of adventure, that Mr. Pickwick is somewhere drinking punch or making a speech, and that Sam Weller may step out from behind the next stable and ask with a droll wink what we are up to now.

It is hardly necessary to add that our reading of Dickens must not end until we are familiar with some of his Yuletide stories, in which he gladly followed the lead of Washington Irving. The best of all his short stories is _A Christmas Carol_, which one must read but not criticize. At best it is a farce, but a glorious, care-lifting, heart-warming farce. Would there were more of the same kind!

A CRITICISM OF DICKENS. The first quality of Dickens is his extravagant humor. This was due to the fact that he was alive, so thoroughly, consciously alive that his vitality overflowed like a spring. Here, in a word, is the secret of that bubbling spirit of prodigality which occasions the criticism that Dickens produced not characters but caricatures.

[Sidenote: HIS EXAGGERATION]

The criticism is true; but it proclaims the strength of the novelist rather than his weakness. Indeed, it is in the very exaggeration of Dickens that his astonishing creative power is most clearly manifest. There is something primal, stupendous, in his grotesque characters which reminds us of the uncouth monsters that nature created in her sportive moods. Some readers, meeting with Bunsby, are reminded of a walrus; and who ever saw a walrus without thinking of the creature as nature's Bunsby? So with Quilp, Toots, Squeers, Pumblechook; so with giraffes, baboons, dodoes, dromedaries,--all are freaks from the æsthetic viewpoint, but think of the overflowing energy implied in creating them!

The same sense of prodigality characterized Dickens even in his sober moods, when he portrayed hundreds of human characters, and not a dead or dull person among them. To be sure they are all exaggerated; they weep too copiously, eat or drink too intemperately, laugh too uproariously for normal men; but to criticize their superabundant vitality is to criticize Beowulf or Ulysses or Hiawatha; nay, it is to criticize life itself, which at high tide is wont to overflow in heroics or absurdity. The exuberance of Pickwick, Micawber, Pecksniff, Sairey Gamp, Sam Weller and a host of others is perhaps the most normal thing about them; it is as the rattling of a safety valve, which speaks not of stagnant water but of a full head of steam. For Dickens deals with life, and you can exaggerate life as much as you please, since there is no end to either its wisdom or foolishness. Nothing but a question can be added to the silent simplicity of death.

[Sidenote: HIS MOTIVE AND METHOD]

Aside from his purpose of portraying life as he saw it, in all its strange complexity, Dickens had a twofold object in writing. He was a radical democrat, and he aimed to show the immense hopefulness and compassion of Democracy on its upward way to liberty. He was also a reformer, with a profound respect for the poor, but no respect whatever for ancient laws or institutions that stood in the way of justice. The influence of his novels in establishing better schools, prisons, workhouses, is beyond measure; but we are not so much interested in his reforms as in his method, which was unique. He aimed to make men understand the oppressed, and to make a laughing stock of the oppressors; and he succeeded as no other had ever done in making literature a power in the land. Thus, the man or the law that stands defiantly against public opinion is beaten the moment you make that man or that law look like a joke; and Dickens made a huge joke of the parish beadle (as Mr. Bumble) and of many another meddlesome British institution. Moreover, he was master of this paradox: that to cure misery you must meet it with a merry heart,--this is on the principle that what the poor need is not charity but comradeship. By showing that humble folk might be as poor as the Cratchits and yet have the medicine of mirth, the divine gift of laughter, he made men rejoice with the poor even while they relieved the poverty.

[Sidenote: HIS FAULTS]

As for the shortcomings of Dickens, they are so apparent that he who runs may read. We may say of him, as of Shakespeare, that his taste is questionable, that he is too fond of a mere show, that his style is often melodramatic, that there is hardly a fault in the whole critical category of which he is not habitually guilty. But we may say of him also that he is never petty or mean or morbid or unclean; and he could not be dull if he tried. His faults, if you analyze them, spring from precisely the same source as his virtues; that is, from his abundant vitality, from his excess of life and animal spirits. So we pardon, nay, we rejoice over him as over a boy who must throw a handspring or raise a _whillilew_ when he breaks loose from school. For Dickens, when he started his triumphal progress with _Pickwick_, had a glorious sense of taking his cue from life and of breaking loose from literary traditions. In comparison with Ruskin or Thackeray he is not a good writer, but something more--a splendidly great writer. If you would limit or define his greatness, try first to marshal his array of characters, characters so vital and human that we can hardly think of them as fictitious or imaginary creatures; then remember the millions of men and women to whom he has given pure and lasting pleasure.

* * * * *

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863)

In fiction Thackeray stands to Dickens as Hamilton to Jefferson in the field of politics. The radical difference between the novelists is exemplified in their attitude toward the public. Thackeray, who lived among the privileged classes, spoke of "this great stupid public," and thought that the only way to get a hearing from the common people was to "take them by the ears." He was a true Hamiltonian. Dickens had an immense sympathy for the common people, a profound respect for their elemental virtues; and in writing for them he was, as it were, the Jefferson, the triumphant democrat of English letters. Thackeray was intellectual; he looked at men with critical eyes, and was a realist and a pessimist. Dickens was emotional; he looked at men with kindled imagination, judged them by the dreams they cherished in their hearts, and was a romanticist and an optimist. Both men were humorists; but where Thackeray was delicately satirical, causing us a momentary smile, Dickens was broadly comic or farcical, winning us by hearty laughter.

LIFE. To one who has been trained, like Dickens, in the school of
hardship it seems the most natural thing in the world to pass over
into a state of affluence. It is another matter to fare sumptuously
every day till luxurious habits are formed, and then be cast
suddenly on one's own resources, face to face with the unexpected
monster of bread and butter. This was Thackeray's experience, and
it colored all his work.

A second important matter is that Thackeray had a great tenderness
for children, a longing for home and homely comforts; but as a
child he was sent far from his home in India, and was thrown among
young barbarians in various schools, one of which, the
"Charterhouse," was called the "Slaughterhouse" in the boy's
letters to his mother. "There are three hundred and seventy boys in
this school," wrote; "I wish there were only three hundred and
sixty-nine!" He married for love, and with great joy began
housekeeping; then a terrible accident happened, his wife was taken
to an insane asylum, and for the rest of his life Thackeray was a
wanderer amid the empty splendors of clubs and hotels.

These two experiences did not break Thackeray, but they bowed him.
They help to explain the languor, the melancholy, the gentle
pessimism, as if life had no more sunrises, of which we are vaguely
conscious in reading _The Virginians_ or _The Newcomes_.

[Sidenote: EARLY YEARS]

Thackeray was born (1811) in Calcutta, of a family of English
"nabobs" who had accumulated wealth and influence as factors or
civil officers. At the death of his father, who was a judge in
Bengal, the child was sent to England to be educated. Here is a
significant incident of the journey:

"Our ship touched at an island, where my black servant took
me a walk over rocks and hills till we passed a garden,
where we saw a man walking. 'That is Bonaparte,' said the
black; 'he eats three sheep every day, and all the children
he can lay hands on.'"

Napoleon was then safely imprisoned at St. Helena; but his shadow,
as of a terrible ogre, was still dark over Europe.

Thackeray's education, at the Charterhouse School and at Cambridge,
was neither a happy nor a profitable experience, as we judge from
his unflattering picture of English school life in
_Pendennis_. He had a strongly artistic bent, and after
leaving college studied art in Germany and France. Presently he
lost his fortune by gambling and bad investments, and was
confronted by the necessity of earning his living. He tried the
law, but gave it up because, as he said, it had no soul. He tried
illustrating, having a small talent for comic drawings, and sought
various civil appointments in vain. As a last resource he turned to
the magazines, wrote satires, sketches of travel, burlesques of
popular novelists, and, fighting all the time against his habit of
idleness, slowly but surely won his way.

[Sidenote: LITERARY LABOR]

His first notable work, _Vanity Fair_ (1847), won a few
readers' and the critics' judgment that it was "a book written by a
gentleman for gentlemen" was the foundation of Thackeray's
reputation as a writer for the upper classes. Other notable novels
followed, _Henry Esmond_, _Pendennis_, _The
Newcomes_, _The Virginians_, and two series of literary and
historical essays called _English Humorists_ and _The Four
Georges_. The latter were delivered as lectures in a successful
tour of England and America. Needless to say, Thackeray hated
lecturing and publicity; he was driven to his "dollar-hunting" by
necessity.

In 1860 his fame was firmly established, and he won his first
financial success by taking charge of the _Cornhill Magazine_,
which prospered greatly in his hands. He did not long enjoy his
new-found comfort, for he died in 1863. His early sketches had been
satirical in spirit, his first novels largely so; but his last
novels and his Cornhill essays were written in a different
spirit,--not kinder, for Thackeray's heart was always right, but
broader, wiser, more patient of human nature, and more hopeful.

In view of these later works some critics declare that Thackeray's
best novel was never written. His stories were produced not
joyously but laboriously, to earn his living; and when leisure came
at last, then came death also, and the work was over.

WORKS OF THACKERAY. It would be flying in the face of all the critics to suggest that the beginner might do well to postpone the famous novels of Thackeray, and to meet the author at his best, or cheerfulest, in such forgotten works as the _Book of Ballads_ and _The Rose and the Ring_. The latter is a kind of fairy story, with a poor little good princess, a rich little bad princess, a witch of a godmother, and such villainous characters as Hedzoff and Gruffanuff. It was written for some children whom Thackeray loved, and is almost the only book of his which leaves the impression that the author found any real pleasure in writing it.

[Sidenote: HENRY ESMOND]

If one must begin with a novel, then _Henry Esmond_ (1852) is the book. This is an historical novel; the scene is laid in the eighteenth century, during the reign of Queen Anne; and it differs from most other historical novels in this important respect: the author knows his ground thoroughly, is familiar not only with political events but with the thoughts, ideals, books, even the literary style of the age which he describes. The hero of the novel, Colonel Esmond, is represented as telling his own story; he speaks as a gentleman spoke in those days, telling us about the politicians, soldiers, ladies and literary men of his time, with frank exposure of their manners or morals. As a realistic portrayal of an age gone by, not only of its thoughts but of the very language in which those thoughts were expressed, _Esmond_ is the most remarkable novel of its kind in our language. It is a prodigy of realism, and it is written in a charming prose style.

One must add frankly that _Esmond_ is not an inspiring work, that the atmosphere is gloomy, and the plot a disappointment. The hero, after ten years of devotion to a woman, ends his romance by happily marrying with her mother. Any reader could have told him that this is what he ought to have done, or tried to do, in the beginning; but Thackeray's heroes will never take the reader's good advice. In this respect they are quite human.

[Sidenote: VANITY FAIR]

The two social satires of Thackeray are _Vanity Fair_ (1847) and _The History of Arthur Pendennis_ (1849). The former takes its title from that fair described in _Pilgrim's Progress_, where all sorts of cheats are exposed for sale; and Thackeray makes his novel a moralizing exposition of the shams of society. The slight action of the story revolves about two unlovely heroines, the unprincipled Becky Sharp and the spineless Amelia. We call them both unlovely, though Thackeray tries hard to make us admire his tearful Amelia and to detest his more interesting Becky. Meeting these two contrasting characters is a variety of fools and snobs, mostly well-drawn, all carefully analyzed to show the weakness or villainy that is in them.

One interesting but unnoticed thing about these minor characters is that they all have their life-size prototypes in the novels of Dickens. Thackeray's characters, as he explains in his preface, are "mere puppets," who must move when he pulls the strings. Dickens does not have to explain that his characters are men and women who do very much as they please. That is, perhaps, the chief difference between the two novelists.

[Sidenote: PENDENNIS]

_Pendennis_ is a more readable novel than _Vanity Fair_ in this respect, that its interest centers in one character rather than in a variety of knaves or fools. Thackeray takes a youthful hero, follows him through school and later life, and shows the steady degeneration of a man who is governed not by vicious but by selfish impulses. From beginning to end _Pendennis_ is a penetrating ethical study (like George Eliot's _Romola_), and the story is often interrupted while we listen to the author's moralizing. To some readers this is an offense; to others it is a pleasure, since it makes them better acquainted with the mind and heart of Thackeray, the gentlest of Victorian moralists.

[Sidenote: AFTERTHOUGHTS]

The last notable works of Thackeray are like afterthoughts. _The Virginians_ continues the story of Colonel Esmond, and _The Newcomes_ recounts the later fortunes of Arthur Pendennis. _The Virginians_ has two or three splendid scenes, and some critics regard _The Newcomes_ as the finest expression of the author's genius; but both works, which appeared in the leisurely form of monthly instalments, are too languid in action for sustained interest. We grow acquainted with certain characters, and are heartily glad when they make their exit; perhaps someone else will come, some adventurer from the road or the inn, to relieve the dullness. The door opens, and in comes the bore again to take another leave. That is realism, undoubtedly; and Laura Pendennis is as realistic as the mumps, which one may catch a second time. The atmosphere of both novels--indeed, of all Thackeray's greater works, with the exception of _English Humorists_ and _The Four Georges_--is rather depressing. One gets the impression that life among "the quality" is a dreary experience, hardly worth the effort of living.

THACKERAY: A CRITICISM. It is significant that Thackeray's first work appeared in a college leaflet called "The Snob," and that it showed a talent for satire. In his earlier stories he plainly followed his natural bent, for his _Vanity Fair_, _Barry Lyndon_ (a story of a scoundrelly adventurer) and several minor works are all satires on the general snobbery of society. This tendency of the author reached a climax in 1848, when he wrote _The Book of Snobs._ It is still an entertaining book, witty, and with a kind of merciless fairness about its cruel passages; yet some readers will remember what the author himself said later, that he was something of a snob himself to write such a book. The chief trouble with the half of his work is that he was so obsessed with the idea of snobbery that he did injustice to humanity, or rather to his countrymen; for Thackeray was very English, and interest in his characters depends largely on familiarity with the life he describes. His pictures of English servants, for instance, are wonderfully deft, though one might wish that he had drawn them with a more sympathetic pencil.

[Sidenote: THE PERSONAL ELEMENT]

In the later part of his life the essential kindness of the man came to the surface, but still was he hampered by his experience and his philosophy. His experience was that life is too big to be grasped, too mysterious to be understood; therefore he faced life doubtfully, with a mixture of timidity and respect, as in _Henry Esmond_. His philosophy was that every person is at heart an egoist, is selfish in spite of himself; therefore is every man or woman unhappy, because selfishness is the eternal enemy of happiness. This is the lesson written large in _Pendennis_. He lived in the small world of his own class, while the great world of Dickens--the world of the common people, with their sympathy, their eternal hopefulness, their enjoyment of whatever good they find in life--passed unnoticed outside his club windows. He conceived it to be the business of a novelist to view the world with his own eyes, to describe it as he saw it; and it was not his fault that his world was a small one. Fate was answerable for that. So far as he went, Thackeray did his work admirably, portraying the few virtues and the many shams of his set with candor and sincerity. Though he used satire freely (and satire is a two-edged weapon), his object was never malicious or vindictive but corrective; he aimed to win or drive men to virtue by exposing the native ugliness of vice.

The result of his effort may be summed up as follows: Thackeray is a novelist for the few who can enjoy his accurate but petty views of society, and his cultivated prose style. He is not very cheerful; he does not seek the blue flower that grows in every field, or the gold that is at every rainbow's end, or the romance that hides in every human heart whether of rich or poor. Therefore are the young not conspicuous among his followers.

* * * * *

MARY ANN EVANS, "GEORGE ELIOT" (1819-1880)

More than other Victorian story-tellers George Eliot regarded her work with great seriousness as a means of public instruction. Her purpose was to show that human life is effective only as it follows its sense of duty, and that society is as much in need of the moral law as of daily bread. Other novelists moralized more or less, Thackeray especially; but George Eliot made the teaching of morality her chief business.

LIFE. In the work as in the face of George Eliot there is a certain
masculine quality which is apt to mislead one who reads _Adam
Bede_ or studies a portrait of the author. Even those who knew
her well, and who tried to express the charm of her personality,
seem to have overlooked the fact that they were describing a woman.
For example, a friend wrote:

"Everything in her aspect and presence was in keeping with
the bent of her soul. The deeply lined face, the too marked
and massive features, were united with an air of delicate
refinement, which in one way was the more impressive,
because it seemed to proceed so entirely from within. Nay,
the inward beauty would sometimes quite transform the
outward harshness; there would be moments when the thin
hands that entwined themselves in their eagerness, the
earnest figure that bowed forward to speak and hear, the
deep gaze moving from one face to another with a grave
appeal,--all these seemed the transparent symbols that
showed the presence of a wise, benignant soul."

[Sidenote: A CLINGING VINE]

That is very good, but somehow it is not feminine. So the
impression has gone forth that George Eliot was a "strong-minded"
woman; but that is far from the truth. One might emphasize her
affectionate nature, her timidity, her lack of confidence in her
own judgment; but the essence of the matter is this, that so
dependent was she on masculine support that she was always
idealizing some man, and looking up to him as a superior being. In
short, she was one of "the clinging kind." Though some may regard
this as traditional nonsense, it was nevertheless the most
characteristic quality of the woman with whom we are dealing.

[Sidenote: HER GIRLHOOD]

Mary Ann Evans, or Marian as she was called, was born (1819) and
spent her childhood in Shakespeare's county of Warwickshire. Her
father (whose portrait she has faintly drawn in the characters of
Adam Bede and Caleb Garth) was a strong, quiet man, a farmer and
land agent, who made a companion of his daughter rather than of his
son, the two being described more or less faithfully in the
characters of Maggie and Tom Tulliver in _The Mill on the
Floss_. At twelve years of age she was sent to a boarding
school; at fifteen her mother died, and she was brought home to
manage her father's house. The rest of her education--which
included music and a reading knowledge of German, Italian and
Greek--was obtained by solitary study at intervals of rest from
domestic work. That the intervals were neither long nor frequent
may be inferred from the fact that her work included not only her
father's accounts and the thousand duties of housekeeping but also
the managing of a poultry yard, the making of butter, and other
farm or dairy matters which at that time were left wholly to women.

The first marked change in her life came at the age of twenty-two,
when the household removed to Coventry, and Miss Evans was there
brought in contact with the family of a wealthy ribbon-maker named
Bray. He was a man of some culture, and the atmosphere of his
house, with its numerous guests, was decidedly skeptical. To Miss
Evans, brought up in a home ruled by early Methodist ideals of
piety, the change was a little startling. Soon she was listening to
glib evolutionary theories that settled everything from an
earthworm to a cosmos; next she was eagerly reading such unbaked
works as Bray's _Philosophy of Necessity_ and the essays of
certain young scientists who, without knowledge of either
philosophy or religion, were cocksure of their ability to provide
"modern" substitutes for both at an hour's notice.

Miss Evans went over rather impulsively to the crude skepticism of
her friends; then, finding no soul or comfort in their theories,
she invented for herself a creed of duty and morality, without
however tracing either to its origin. She was naturally a religious
woman, and there is no evidence that she found her new creed very
satisfactory. Indeed, her melancholy and the gloom of her novels
are both traceable to the loss of her early religious ideals.

[Sidenote: HER UNION WITH LEWES]

A trip abroad (1849) was followed by some editorial work on _The
Westminster Review_, then the organ of the freethinkers. This in
turn led to her association with Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill
and other liberals, and to her union with George Henry Lewes in
1854. Of that union little need be said except this: though it
lacked the law and the sacrament, it seems to have been in other
respects a fair covenant which was honestly kept by both parties.
[Footnote: Lewes was separated from his first wife, from whom he
was unable to obtain a legal divorce. This was the only obstacle to
a regular marriage, and after facing the obstacle for a time the
couple decided to ignore it. The moral element in George Eliot's
works is due largely, no doubt, to her own moral sense; but it was
greatly influenced by the fact that, in her union with Lewes, she
had placed herself in a false position and was morally on the
defensive against society.]

Encouraged by Lewes she began to write fiction. Her first attempt,
"Amos Barton," was an excellent short story, and in 1859 she
produced her first novel, _Adam Bede_, being then about forty
years old. The great success of this work had the unusual effect of
discouraging the author. She despaired of her ability, and began to
agonize, as she said, over her work; but her material was not yet
exhausted, and in _The Mill on the Floss_ and _Silas
Marner_ she repeated her triumph.

[Sidenote: ON A PEDESTAL]

The rest of her life seems a matter of growth or of atrophy,
according to your point of view. She grew more scientific, as she
fancied, but she lost the freshness and inspiration of her earlier
novels. The reason seems to be that her head was turned by her fame
as a moralist and exponent of culture; so she forgot that she "was
born to please," and attempted something else for which she had no
particular ability: an historical novel in _Romola_, a drama
in _The Spanish Gypsy_, a theory of social reform in _Felix
Holt_, a study of the Hebrew race in _Daniel Deronda_, a
book of elephantine gambols in _The Opinions of Theophrastus
Such_. More and more she "agonized" over these works, and though
each of them contained some scene or passage of rare power, it was
evident even to her admirers that the pleasing novelist of the
earlier days had been sacrificed to the moral philosopher.

[Sidenote: SHE RENEWS HER YOUTH]

The death of Lewes (1878) made an end, as she believed, of all
earthly happiness. For twenty-four years he had been husband,
friend and literary adviser, encouraging her talent, shielding her
from every hostile criticism. Left suddenly alone in the world, she
felt like an abandoned child; her writing stopped, and her letters
echoed the old gleeman's song, "All is gone, both life and light."
Then she surprised everybody by marrying an American banker, many
years her junior, who had been an intimate friend of the Lewes
household. Once more she found the world "intensely interesting,"
for at sixty she was the same clinging vine, the same
hero-worshiper, as at sixteen. The marriage occurred in 1880, and
her death the same year. An elaborate biography, interesting but
too fulsome, was written by her husband, John Walter Cross.

WORKS. George Eliot's first works in fiction were the magazine stories which she published later as _Scenes of Clerical Life_ (1858). These were produced comparatively late in life, and they indicate both originality and maturity, as if the author had a message of her own, and had pondered it well before writing it. That message, as reflected in "Amos Barton" and "Janet's Repentance," may be summarized in four cardinal principles: that duty is the supreme law of life; that the humblest life is as interesting as the most exalted, since both are subject to the same law; that our daily choices have deep moral significance, since they all react on character and their total result is either happiness or misery; and that there is no possible escape from the reward or punishment that is due to one's individual action.

Such is the message of the author's first work. In its stern insistence on the moral quality of life and of every human action, it distinguishes George Eliot from all other fiction writers of the period.

[Sidenote: HER BEST NOVELS]

In her first three novels she repeats the same message with more detail, and with a gleam of humor here and there to light up the gloomy places. _Adam Bede_ (1859) has been called a story of early Methodism, but in reality it is a story of moral principles which work their inevitable ends among simple country people. The same may be said of _The Mill on the Floss_ (1860) and of _Silas Marner_ (1861). The former is as interesting to readers of George Eliot as _Copperfield_ is to readers of Dickens, because much of it is a reflection of a personal experience; but the latter work, having more unity, more story interest and more cheerfulness, is a better novel with which to begin our acquaintance with the author.

The scene of all these novels is laid in the country; the characters are true to life, and move naturally in an almost perfect setting. One secret of their success is that they deal with people whom the author knew well, and with scenes in which she was as much at home as Dickens was in the London streets. Each of the novels, notwithstanding its faulty or melancholy conclusion, leaves an impression so powerful that we gladly, and perhaps uncritically, place it among the great literary works of the Victorian era.

[Sidenote: LATER WORKS]

Of the later novels one cannot speak so confidently. They move some critics to enthusiasm, and put others to sleep. Thus, _Daniel Deronda_ has some excellent passages, and Gwendolen is perhaps the best-drawn of all George Eliot's characters; but for many readers the novel is spoiled by scientific jargon, by essay writing on the Jews and other matters of which the author knew little or nothing at first hand. In _Middlemarch_ she returned to the scenes with which she was familiar and produced a novel which some critics rank very high, while others point to its superfluous essays and its proneness to moralizing instead of telling a story.

[Sidenote: ROMOLA]

_Romola_ is another labored novel, a study of Italy during the Renaissance, and a profound ethical lesson. If you can read this work without criticizing its Italian views, you may find in the characters of Tito and Romola, one selfish and the other generous, the best example of George Eliot's moral method, which is to show the cumulative effect on character of everyday choices or actions. You will find also a good story, one of the best that the author told. But if you read _Romola_ as an historical novel, with some knowledge of Italy and the Renaissance, you may decide that George Eliot--though she slaved at this novel until, as she said, it made an old woman of her--did not understand the people or the country which she tried to describe. She portrayed life not as she had seen and known and loved it, but as she found it reflected at second hand in the works of other writers.

THE QUALITY OF GEORGE ELIOT. Of the moral quality of George Eliot we have already said enough. To our summary of her method this should be added, that she tried to make each of her characters not individual but typical. In other words, if Tito came finally to grief, and Adam arrived at a state of gloomy satisfaction (there is no real happiness in George Eliot's world), it was not because Tito and Adam lived in different times or circumstances, but because both were subject to the same eternal laws. Each must have gone to his own place whether he lived in wealth or poverty, in Florence or England, in the fifteenth or the nineteenth century. The moral law is universal and unchanging; it has no favorites, and makes no exceptions. It is more like the old Greek conception of Nemesis, or the Anglo-Saxon conception of Wyrd, or Fate, than anything else you will find in modern fiction.

[Sidenote: FATE AND SELF-SACRIFICE]

In this last respect George Eliot again differs radically from her contemporaries. In her gloomy view of life as an unanswerable puzzle she is like Thackeray; but where Thackeray offers a cultured resignation, a gentlemanly making the best of a bad case, George Eliot advocates self-sacrifice for the good of others. In her portrayal of weak or sinful characters she is quite as compassionate as Dickens, and more thoughtfully charitable; for where Dickens sometimes makes light of misery, and relieves it by the easy expedient of good dinners and all-around comfort for saints and sinners, George Eliot remembers the broken moral law and the suffering of the innocent for the guilty. Behind every one of her characters that does wrong follows an avenging fate, waiting the moment to exact the full penalty; and before every character that does right hovers a vision of sacrifice and redemption.

Her real philosophy, therefore, was quite different from that which her scientific friends formulated for her, and was not modern but ancient as the hills. On the one hand, she never quite freed herself from the old pagan conception of Nemesis, or Fate; on the other, her early Methodist training entered deep into her soul and made her mindful of the Cross that forever towers above humanity.

* * * * *

OTHER VICTORIAN NOVELISTS

We have followed literary custom rather than individual judgment in studying Dickens, Thackeray and George Eliot as the typical Victorian novelists. On Dickens, as the most original genius of the age, most people are agreed; but the rank of the other two is open to question. There are critics besides Swinburne who regard Charlotte Brontë as a greater genius than George Eliot; and many uncritical readers find more pleasure or profit in the Barchester novels of Anthony Trollope than in anything written by Thackeray. It may even be that the three or four leading novels of the age were none of them written by the novelists in question; but it is still essential to know their works if only for these reasons: that they greatly influenced other story-tellers of the period, and that they furnish us a standard by which to judge all modern fiction.

To treat the many Victorian novelists adequately would in itself require a volume. We shall note here only a few leading figures, naming in each case a novel or two which may serve as an invitation to a better acquaintance with their authors.

The Brontë sisters, Charlotte and Emily, made a tremendous sensation in England when, from their retirement, they sent out certain works of such passionate intensity that readers who had long been familiar with novels were startled into renewed attention. Reading these works now we recognize the genius of the writers, but we recognize also a morbid, unwholesome quality, which is a reflection not of English life but of the personal and unhappy temperament of two girls who looked on life first as a gorgeous romance and then as a gloomy tragedy.

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) was perhaps the more gifted of the two sisters, and her best-known works are _Jane Eyre_ and _Villette_. The date of the latter novel (1853) was made noteworthy by the masterpiece of another woman novelist, Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), who was the exact opposite of the Brontë sisters,--serene, well-balanced, and with a fund of delicious humor. All these qualities and more appeared in _Cranford_ (1853), a series of sketches of country life (first contributed to Dickens's _Household Words_) which together form one of the most charming stories produced during the Victorian era. The same author wrote a few other novels and an admirable _Life of Charlotte Brontë_.

[Sidenote: CHARLES READE]

Charles Reade (1814-1884) was a follower of Dickens in his earlier novels, such as _Peg Woffington_; but he made one notable departure when he wrote _The Cloister and the Hearth_ (1861). This is a story of student life and vagabond life in Europe, in the stirring times that followed the invention of printing. The action moves rapidly; many different characters appear; the scene shifts from Holland across Europe to Italy, and back again; adventures of a startling kind meet the hero at every stage of his foot journey. It is a stirring tale, remarkably well told; so much will every uncritical reader gladly acknowledge. Moreover, there are critics who, after studying _The Cloister and the Hearth_, rank it with the best historical novels in all literature.

[Sidenote: TROLLOPE]