literary skill there cannot be a moment's question; but if we for a
moment yield to the enchantment, we feel ashamed, at the next moment,
of our weakness. We have been moved on false pretences; and we seem to
see the sham Yorick with that unpleasant leer upon his too expressive
face, chuckling quietly at his successful imposition. It is no wonder
if many of his readers have revolted, and even been provoked to an
excessive reaction of feeling. The criticism was too obvious to be
missed. Horace Walpole indulged in a characteristic sneer at the
genius who neglected a mother and snivelled over a dead donkey. (The
neglect of a mother, we may note in passing, is certainly not proven.)
Walpole was too much of a cynic, it may be said, to distinguish
between sentimentalism and genuine sentiment, or rather so much of
a cynic that one is surprised at his not liking the sentimentalism
more. But Goldsmith at least was a man of real feeling, and as an
artist in some respects superior even to Sterne. He was moved to his
bitterest outburst of satire by 'Tristram Shandy.' He despised the
charlatan who eked out his defects of humour by the paltry mechanical
devices of blank pages, disordered chapters, and a profuse indulgence
in dashes. He pointed out with undeniable truth the many grievous
stains by which Sterne's pages are defaced. He spoke with disgust of
the ladies who worshipped the author of a book which they should have
been ashamed to read, and found the whole secret of Sterne's success
in his pertness and indecency. Goldsmith may have been yielding
unconsciously to a not unnatural jealousy, and his criticism certainly
omits to take into account Sterne's legitimate claims to admiration.
It is happily needless to insist at the present day upon the palpable
errors by which the delicate and pure-minded Goldsmith was offended.
It is enough to indulge in a passing word of regret that a man of
Sterne's genius should have descended so often to mere buffoonery or
to the most degrading methods of meeting his reader's interest. 'The
Sentimental Journey' is a book of simply marvellous cleverness, to
which one can find no nearer parallel than Heine's 'Reisebilder.'
But one often closes it with a mixture of disgust and regret. The
disgust needs no explanation; the regret is caused by our feeling that
something has been missed which ought to have been in the writer's
power. He has so keen an eye for picturesque effects; he is so
sensitive to a thousand little incidents which your ordinary traveller
passes with eyes riveted to his guide-book, or which 'Smelfungus'
Smollett disregarded in his surly British pomposity; he is so quick at
appreciating some delicate courtesy in humble life or some pathetic
touch of commonplace suffering, that one grows angry when he spoils a
graceful scene by some prurient double meaning and wastes whole pages
in telling a story fit only for John Hall Stevenson. One feels that
one has been rambling with a discreditable parson, who is so glad to
be free from the restraints of his parish or of Mrs. Sterne's company
that he is always peeping into forbidden corners, and anxious to
prove to you that he is as knowing in the ways of a wicked world as a
raffish undergraduate enjoying a stolen visit to London. Goldsmith's
idyllic pictures of country life may be a little too rose-coloured,
but at least they are harmonious. Sterne's sudden excursions into the
nauseous are like the brutal practical jokes of a dirty boy who should
put filth into a scent bottle. We feel that if he had entered the
rustic paradise, of which Dr. and Mrs. Primrose were the Adam and Eve,
half his sympathies would have been with the wicked Squire Thornhill;
he would have been quite as able to suit that gentleman's tastes as
to wheedle the excellent Vicar; and his homage to Miss Olivia would
have partaken of the nature of an insult. A man of Sterne's admirable
delicacy of genius, writing always with an eye to the canons of taste
approved in Crazy Castle, must necessarily produce painful discords,
and throw away admirable workmanship upon contemptible ribaldry. But
the very feeling proves that there was really a finer element in
him. Had he been thoroughly steeped in the noxious element, there
would have been no discord. We might simply have set him down as a
very clever reprobate. But, with some exceptions, we can generally
recognise something so amiable and attractive as to excite our regret
for the waste of genius even in his more questionable passages.
Coleridge points out, with his usual critical acuteness, that much of
'Tristram Shandy' would produce simple disgust were it not for the
presence of that wonderful group of characters who are antagonistic
to the spurious wit based upon simple shocks to a sense of decency.
That group redeems the book, and we may say that it is the book. We
must therefore admit that the creator of Uncle Toby and his family
must not be unreservedly condemned. To admit that one thoroughly
dislikes Sterne is not to assert that he was a thorough hypocrite of
the downright Tartufe variety. His good feelings must be something
more than a mere sham or empty formula; they are not a flimsy veil
thrown over degrading selfishness or sensuality. When he is attacked
upon this ground, his apologists may have an easy triumph. The
true statement is rather that Sterne was a man who understood to
perfection the art of enjoying his own good feelings as a luxury
without humbling himself to translate them into practice. This is the
definition of sentimentalism when the word is used in a bad sense.
Many admirable teachers of mankind have held the doctrine that all
artistic indulgence is universally immoral, because it is all more
or less obnoxious to this objection. So far as a man saves up his
good feelings merely to use them as the raw material of poems, he is
wasting a force which ought to be applied to the improvement of the
world. What have we to do with singing and painting when there are
so many of our fellow-creatures whose sufferings might be relieved
and whose characters might be purified if we turned our songs into
sermons, and, instead of staining canvas, tried to purify the
dwellings of the poor? There is a good deal to be said for the thesis
that all fiction is really a kind of lying, and that art in general is
a luxurious indulgence, to which we have no right whilst crime and
disease are rampant in the outer world.
I think, indeed, that I could detect some flaws in the logic by which
this conclusion is supported, but I confess that it often seems to
possess a considerable plausibility. The peculiar sentimentalism
of which Sterne was one of the first mouthpieces would supply many
effective illustrations of the argument; for it is a continuous
manifestation of extraordinary skill in providing 'sweet poison for
the ages' tooth.' He was exactly the man for his time, though, indeed,
so clever a man would probably have been equally able to flatter the
prevailing impulse of any time in which his lot had been cast. M.
Taine has lately described with great skill the sort of fashion of
philanthropy which became popular among the upper classes in France in
the pre-revolutionary generation. The fine ladies and gentlemen who
were so soon to be crushed as tyrannical oppressors of the people had
really a strong impression that benevolence was a branch of social
elegance which ought to be assiduously cultivated by persons of taste
and refinement. A similar tendency, though less strongly marked, is
observable amongst the corresponding class in English society. From
causes which may be analysed by historians, the upper social stratum
was becoming penetrated with a vague discontent with the existing
order and a desire to find new outlets for emotional activity.
Between the reign of comfortable common-sense, represented by Pope
and his school, and the fierce outbreak of passion which accompanied
the crash of the revolution, there was an interregnum marked by a
semi-conscious fore-feeling of some approaching catastrophe; a longing
for fresh excitement, and tentative excursions into various regions
of thought, which have since been explored in a more systematic
fashion. Sentimentalism was the word which represented one phase of
this inarticulate longing, and which expresses pretty accurately
the need of having some keen sensations without very well knowing
in what particular channels they were to be directed. The growth of
the feminine influence in literature had no doubt some share in this
development. Women were no longer content to be simply the pretty
fools of the 'Spectator,' unworthy to learn the Latin grammar or to
be admitted to the circle of wits; though they seldom presumed to be
independent authors, they were of sufficient importance to have a
literature composed for their benefit.
The phrase 'sentimentalism' became common towards the middle of the
century, as I have remarked in speaking of Richardson. Some time
earlier Sterne was writing a love letter to his future wife, lamenting
the 'quiet and sentimental repasts' which they had had together, and
weeping 'like a child' (so he writes) at the sight of his single
knife and fork and plate. We have known the same spirit in many
incarnations in later days. Sterne, who made the word popular in
literature, represents what may be considered as sentimentalism in its
purest form; that which corresponds most closely to its definition as
sentiment running to waste; for in Sterne there is no thought of any
moral, or political, or philosophical application. He is as entirely
free as a man can be from any suspicion of 'purpose.' He tells us as
frankly as possible that he is simply putting on the cap and bells
for our amusement. He must weep and laugh just as the fancy takes
him; his pen, he declares, is the master of him, not he the master
of his pen. This, being interpreted, means, of course, something
rather different from its obvious sense. Nobody, it is abundantly
clear, could be a more careful and deliberate artist, though he
aims at giving a whimsical and arbitrary appearance to his most
skilfully devised effects. The author Sterne has a thorough command
of his pen; he only means that the parson Sterne is not allowed to
interfere in the management. He has no doctrine which he is in the
least ambitious of expounding. He does not even wish to tell us,
like some of his successors, that the world is out of joint; that
happiness is a delusion, and misery the only reality; nor, what often
comes to just the same thing, is he anxious to be optimistic, and to
declare, in the vein of some later humourists, that the world should
be regarded through a rose-coloured mask, and that a little effusion
of benevolence will summarily remove all its rough places. Undoubtedly
it would be easy to argue—were it worth the trouble—that Sterne's
peculiarities of temperament would have rendered certain political
and religious teachings more congenial to him than others. But he did
not live in stirring times, when every man is forced to translate
his temperament by a definite creed. He could be as thoroughgoing
and consistent an Epicurean as he pleased. Nothing matters very much
(that seems to be his main doctrine), so long as you possess a good
temper, a soft heart, and have a flirtation or two with pretty women.
Though both men may be called sentimentalists, Sterne must have
regarded Rousseau's vehement social enthusiasm as so much insanity.
The poor man took life in desperate earnest, and instead of keeping
his sensibility to warm his own hearth, wanted to set the world on
fire. When rambling through France, Sterne had an eye for every pretty
vignette by the roadside, for peasants' dances, for begging monks, or
smart Parisian grisettes; he received and repaid the flattery of the
drawing-rooms, and was, one may suppose, as absolutely indifferent to
omens of coming difficulties as any of the freethinking or free-living
abbés who were his most congenial company. Horace Walpole was no
philosopher, but he shook his head in amazement over the audacious
scepticism of French society. Sterne, so far as one can judge from his
letters, saw and heard nothing in this direction; and one would as
soon expect to find a reflection upon such matters in the 'Sentimental
Journey' as to come upon a serious discussion of theological
controversy in 'Tristram Shandy.' Now and then some such question just
shows itself for an instant in the background. A negro wanted him to
write against slavery; and the letter came just as Trim was telling a
pathetic story to Uncle Toby, and suggesting doubtfully that a black
might have a soul. 'I am not much versed, Corporal,' quoth my Uncle
Toby, 'in things of that kind; but I suppose God would not have made
him without one any more than thee or me.' Sterne was quite ready to
aid the cause of emancipation by adding as many picturesque touches
as he could devise to Uncle Toby, or sentimentalising over jackdaws
and prisoners in the 'Sentimental Journey;' but more direct agitation
would have been as little in his line as travelling through France
in the spirit of Arthur Young to collect statistics about rent and
wages. Sterne's sermons, to which one might possibly turn with a view
to discovering some serious opinions, are not without an interest of
their own. They show touches of the Shandy style and efforts to escape
from the dead level. But Sterne could not be really at home in the
pulpit, and all that can be called original is an occasional infusion
of a more pungent criticism of life into the moral commonplaces of
which sermons were then chiefly composed. The sermon in 'Tristram
Shandy' supplies a happy background to Uncle Toby's comments; but even
Sterne could not manage to interweave them into the text.
The very essence of the Shandy character implies this absolute
disengagement from all actual contact with sublunary affairs.
Neither Fielding nor Goldsmith can be accused of preaching in the
objectionable sense; they do not attempt to supply us with pamphlets
in the shape of novels, but in so far as they draw from real life
they inevitably suggest some practical conclusions. Reformers, for
example, might point to the prison experiences of Dr. Primrose or of
Captain Booth, as well as to the actual facts which they represent;
and Smollett's account of the British navy is a more valuable
historical document than any quantity of official reports. But in
Uncle Toby's bowling-green we have fairly shut the door upon the
real world. We are in a region as far removed from the prosaic fact
as in Aladdin's wondrous subterranean garden. We mount the magical
hobby-horse, and straightway are in an enchanted land, 'as though of
hemlock we had drunk,' and if the region is not altogether so full of
delicious perfume as that haunted by Keats's nightingale, and even
admits occasional puffs of rather unsavoury odours, it has a singular
and characteristic influence of its own. Uncle Toby, so far as his
intellect is concerned, is a full-grown child; he plays with his toys,
and rejoices over the manufacture of cannon from a pair of jack-boots,
precisely as if he were still in petticoats; he lives in a continuous
daydream framed from the materials of adult experience, but as
unsubstantial as any childish fancies; and when he speaks of realities
it is with the voice of one half-awake, and in whose mind the melting
vision still blends with the tangible realities. Mr. Shandy has a
more direct and conscious antipathy to reality. The actual world is
commonplace; the events there have a trick of happening in obedience
to the laws of nature; and people not unfrequently feel what one
might have expected beforehand that they would feel. One can express
them in cut-and dried formulæ. Mr. Shandy detests this monotony. He
differs from the ordinary pedant in so far as he values theories not
in proportion to their dusty antiquity, but in proportion to their
unreality, the pure whimsicality and irrationality of the heads which
contained them. He is a sort of inverted philosopher, who loves the
antithesis of the reasonable as passionately as your commonplace
philosopher professes to love the reasonable. He is ready to welcome a
_reductio ad absurdum_ for a demonstration; yet he values the society
of men of the ordinary turn of mind precisely because his love of
oddities makes him relish a contradiction. He is enabled to enjoy the
full flavour of his preposterous notions by the reaction of other
men's astonished common-sense. The sensation of standing upon his head
is intensified by the presence of others in the normal position. He
delights in the society of the pragmatic and contradictious Dr. Slop,
because Slop is like a fish always ready to rise at the bait of a
palpable paradox, and quite unable to see with the prosaic humorist
that paradoxes are the salt of philosophy. Poor Mrs. Shandy drives him
to distraction by the detestable acquiescence with which she receives
his most extravagant theories, and the consequent impossibility of
ever (in the vulgar phrase) getting a rise out of her.