THE next time that I came over to Worth-Ashton it was raining, and I
found my friends in the study.
“Well, Dunsford,” said Ellesmere, “is it not comfortable to have our
sessions here for once, and to be looking out on a good solid English wet
day?”
_Dunsford_. Rather a fluid than a solid. But I agree with you in
thinking it is very comfortable here.
_Ellesmere_. I like to look upon the backs of books. First I think how
much of the owner’s inner life and character is shown in his books; then
perhaps I wonder how he got such a book which seems so remote from all
that I know of him—
_Milverton_. I shall turn my books the wrong side upwards when you come
into the study.
_Ellesmere_. But what amuses me most is to see the odd way in which
books get together, especially in the library of a man who reads his
books and puts them up again wherever there is room. Now here is a
charming party: “A Treatise on the Steam-Engine” between “Locke on
Christianity” and Madame de Stael’s “Corinne.” I wonder what they talk
about at night when we are all asleep. Here is another happy
juxtaposition: old Clarendon next to a modern metaphysician whom he would
positively loathe. Here is Sadler next to Malthus, and Horsley next to
Priestley; but this sort of thing happens most in the best regulated
libraries. It is a charming reflection for controversial writers, that
their works will be put together on the same shelves, often between the
same covers; and that, in the minds of educated men, the name of one
writer will be sure to recall the name of the other. So they go down to
posterity as a brotherhood.
_Milverton_. To complete Ellesmere’s theory, we may say that all those
injuries to books which we choose to throw upon some wretched worm, are
but the wounds from rival books.
_Ellesmere_. Certainly. But now let us proceed to polish up the weapons
of another of these spiteful creatures.
_Dunsford_. Yes. What is to be our essay to-day, Milverton?
_Milverton_. Fiction.
_Ellesmere_. Now, that is really unfortunate. Fiction is just the
subject to be discussed—no, not discussed, talked over—out of doors on a
hot day, all of us lying about in easy attitudes on the grass, Dunsford
with his gaiters forming a most picturesque and prominent figure. But
there is nothing complete in this life. “Surgit amari aliquid:” and so
we must listen to Fiction in arm-chairs.
FICTION.
The influence of works of fiction is unbounded. Even the minds of
well-informed people are often more stored with characters from
acknowledged fiction than from history or biography, or the real life
around them. We dispute about these characters as if they were
realities. Their experience is our experience; we adopt their feelings,
and imitate their acts. And so there comes to be something traditional
even in the management of the passions. Shakespeare’s historical plays
were the only history to the Duke of Marlborough. Thousands of Greeks
acted under the influence of what Achilles or Ulysses did, in Homer. The
poet sings of the deeds that shall be. He imagines the past; he forms
the future.
Yet how surpassingly interesting is real life when we get an insight into
it. Occasionally a great genius lifts up the veil of history, and we see
men who once really were alive, who did not always live only in history;
or, amidst the dreary page of battles, levies, sieges, and the
sleep-inducing weavings and unweavings of political combination, we come,
ourselves, across some spoken or written words of the great actors of the
time, and are then fascinated by the life and reality of these things.
Could you have the life of any man really portrayed to you, sun-drawn as
it were, its hopes, its fears, its revolutions of opinion in each day,
its most anxious wishes attained, and then, perhaps, crystallising into
its blackest regrets—such a work would go far to contain all histories,
and be the greatest lesson of love, humility, and tolerance, that men had
ever read.
Now fiction does attempt something like the above. In history we are
cramped by impertinent facts that must, however, be set down; by theories
that must be answered; evidence that must be weighed; views that must be
taken. Our facts constantly break off just where we should wish to
examine them most closely. The writer of fiction follows his characters
into the recesses of their hearts. There are no closed doors for him.
His puppets have no secrets from their master. He plagues you with no
doubts, no half-views, no criticism. Thus they thought, he tells you;
thus they looked, thus they acted. Then, with every opportunity for
scenic arrangement (for though his characters are confidential with him,
he is only as confidential with his reader as the interest of the story
will allow), it is not to be wondered at that the majority of readers
should look upon history as a task, but tales of fiction as a delight.
The greatest merit of fiction is the one so ably put forward by Sir James
Mackintosh, namely, that it creates and nourishes sympathy. It extends
this sympathy, too, in directions where, otherwise, we hardly see when it
would have come. But it may be objected that this sympathy is
indiscriminate, and that we are in danger of mixing up virtue and vice,
and blurring both, if we are led to sympathise with all manner of
wrong-doers. But, in the first place, virtue and vice are so mixed in
real life, that it is well to be somewhat prepared for that fact; and,
moreover, the sympathy is not wrongly directed. Who has not felt intense
sympathy for Macbeth? Yet could he be alive again, with evil thoughts
against “the gracious Duncan,” and could he see into all that has been
felt for him, would that be an encouragement to murder? The intense pity
of wise people for the crimes of others, when rightly represented, is one
of the strongest antidotes against crime. We have taken the extreme case
of sympathy being directed towards bad men. How often has fiction made
us sympathise with obscure suffering and retiring greatness, with the
world-despised, and especially with those mixed characters in whom we
might otherwise see but one colour—with Shylock and with Hamlet, with
Jeanie Deans and with Claverhouse, with Sancho Panza as well as with Don
Quixote.
* * * * *
On the other hand, there is a danger of too much converse with fiction
leading us into dream-land, or rather into lubber-land. Of course this
“too much converse” implies large converse with inferior writers. Such
writers are too apt to make life as they would have it for themselves.
Sometimes, also, they must make it to suit booksellers’ rules. Having
such power over their puppets they abuse it. They can kill these
puppets, change their natures suddenly, reward or punish them so easily,
that it is no wonder they are led to play fantastic tricks with them.
Now, if a sedulous reader of the works of such writers should form his
notions of real life from them, he would occasionally meet with rude
shocks when he encountered the realities of that life.
* * * * *
For my own part, notwithstanding all the charms of life in
swiftly-written novels, I prefer real life. It is true that, in the
former, everything breaks off round, every little event tends to some
great thing, everybody one meets is to exercise some great influence for
good or ill upon one’s fate. I take it for granted one fancies oneself
the hero. Then all one’s fancy is paid in ready money, or at least one
can draw upon it at the end of the third volume. One leaps to remote
wealth and honour by hairbreadth chances; and one’s uncle in India always
dies opportunely. To be sure the thought occurs, that if this novel life
could be turned into real life, one might be the uncle in India and not
the hero of the tale. But that is a trifling matter, for at any rate one
should carry on with spirit somebody else’s story. On the whole,
however, as I said before, I prefer real life, where nothing is tied up
neatly, but all in odds and ends; where the doctrine of compensation
enters largely, where we are often most blamed when we least deserve it,
where there is no third volume to make things straight, and where many an
Augustus marries many a Belinda, and, instead of being happy ever
afterwards, finds that there is a growth of trials and troubles for each
successive period of man’s life.
* * * * *
In considering the subject of fiction, the responsibility of the writers
thereof is a matter worth pointing out. We see clearly enough that
historians are to be limited by facts and probabilities; but we are apt
to make a large allowance for the fancies of writers of fiction. We must
remember, however, that fiction is not falsehood. If a writer puts
abstract virtues into book-clothing, and sends them upon stilts into the
world, he is a bad writer: if he classifies men, and attributes all
virtue to one class and all vice to another, he is a false writer. Then,
again, if his ideal is so poor, that he fancies man’s welfare to consist
in immediate happiness; if he means to paint a great man and paints only
a greedy one, he is a mischievous writer and not the less so, although by
lamplight and amongst a juvenile audience, his coarse scene-painting
should be thought very grand. He may be true to his own fancy, but he is
false to Nature. A writer, of course, cannot get beyond his own ideal:
but at least he should see that he works up to it: and if it is a poor
one, he had better write histories of the utmost concentration of
dulness, than amuse us with unjust and untrue imaginings.
* * * * *
_Ellesmere_. I am glad you have kept to the obvious things about
fiction. It would have been a great nuisance to have had to follow you
through intricate theories about what fiction consists in, and what are
its limits, and so on. Then we should have got into questions touching
the laws of representation generally, and then into art, of which,
between ourselves, you know very little.
_Dunsford_. Talking of representation, what do you two, who have now
seen something of the world, think about representative government?
_Ellesmere_. Dunsford plumps down upon us sometimes with awful
questions: what do you think of all philosophy? or what is your opinion
of life in general? Could not you throw in a few small questions of that
kind, together with your representative one, and we might try to answer
them all at once. Dunsford is only laughing at us, Milverton.
_Milverton_. No, I know what was in Dunsford’s mind when he asked that
question. He has had his doubts and misgivings, when he has been reading
a six nights’ debate (for the people in the country I daresay do read
those things), whether representative government is the most complete
device the human mind could suggest for getting at wise rulers.
_Ellesmere_. It is a doubt which has crossed my mind.
_Milverton_. And mine; but the doubt, if it has ever been more than mere
petulance, has not had much practical weight with me. Look how the
business of the world is managed. There are a few people who think out
things, and a few who execute. The former are not to be secured by any
device. They are gifts. The latter may be well chosen, have often been
well chosen, under other forms of government than the representative one.
I believe that the favourites of kings have been a superior race of men.
Even a fool does not choose a fool for a favourite. He knows better than
that: he must have something to lean against. But between the thinkers
and the doers (if, indeed, we ought to make such a distinction), _what a
number of useful links there are in a representative government_ on
account of the much larger number of people admitted into some share of
government. What general cultivation must come from that, and what
security! Of course, everything has its wrong side; and from this number
of people let in there comes declamation and claptrap and mob-service,
which is much the same thing as courtiership was in other times. But
then, to make the comparison a fair one, you must take the wrong side of
any other form of government that has been devised.
_Dunsford_. Well, but so much power centring in the lower house of
Parliament, and the getting into Parliament being a thing which is not
very inviting to the kind of people one would most like to see there, do
you not think that the ablest men are kept away?
_Milverton_. Yes; but if you make your governing body a unit or a ten,
or any small number, how is this power, unless it is Argus-eyed, and
myriad-minded, and right-minded too, to choose the right men any better
than they are found now? The great danger, as it appears to me, of
representative government is lest it should slide down from
representative government to delegate government. In my opinion, the
welfare of England, in great measure, depends upon what takes place at
the hustings. If, in the majority of instances, there were abject
conduct there, electors and elected would be alike debased; upright
public men could not be expected to arise from such beginnings; and
thoughtful persons would begin to consider whether some other form of
government could not forthwith be made out.
_Ellesmere_. I have a supreme disgust for the man who at the hustings
has no opinion beyond or above the clamour round him. How such a fellow
would have kissed the ground before a Pompadour, or waited for hours in a
Buckingham’s antechamber, only to catch the faintest beam of reflected
light from royalty.
But I declare we have been just like schoolboys talking about forms of
government and so on.
“For forms of government let fools contest,
That which is _worst_ administered is best,”—
that is, representative government.
_Milverton_. I should not like either of you to fancy, from what I have
been saying about representative government, that I do not see the
dangers and the evils of it. In fact, it is a frequent thought with me
of what importance the House of Lords is at present, and of how much
greater importance it might be made. If there were Peers for life, and
official members of the House of Commons, it would, I think, meet most of
your objections, Dunsford.
_Dunsford_. I suppose I am becoming a little rusty and disposed to
grumble, as I grow old; but there is a good deal in modern government
which seems to me very rude and absurd. There comes a clamour, partly
reasonable; power is deaf to it, overlooks it, says there is no such
thing; then great clamour; after a time, power welcomes that, takes it to
its arms, says that now it is loud it is very wise, wishes it had always
been clamour itself.
_Ellesmere_. How many acres do you farm, Dunsford? How spiteful you
are!
_Dunsford_. I am not thinking of Corn Laws alone, as you fancy, Master
Ellesmere. But to go to other things. I quite agree, Milverton, with
what you were saying just now about the business of the world being
carried on by few, and the thinking few being in the nature of gifts to
the world, not elicited by King or Kaiser.
_Milverton_. The mill-streams that turn the clappers of the world arise
in solitary places.
_Ellesmere_. Not a bad metaphor, but untrue. Aristotle, Bacon—
_Milverton_. Well, I believe it would be much wiser to say, that we
cannot lay down rules about the highest work; either when it is done,
where it will be done, or how it can be made to be done. It is too
immaterial for our measurement; for the highest part even of the mere
business of the world is in dealing with ideas. It is very amusing to
observe the misconceptions of men on these points. They call for what is
outward—can understand that, can praise it. Fussiness and the forms of
activity in all ages get great praise. Imagine an active, bustling
little prætor under Augustus, how he probably pointed out Horace to his
sons as a moony kind of man, whose ways were much to be avoided, and told
them it was a weakness in Augustus to like such idle men about him
instead of men of business.
_Ellesmere_. Or fancy a bustling Glasgow merchant of Adam Smith’s day
watching him. How little would the merchant have dreamt what a number of
vessels were to be floated away by the ink in the Professor’s inkstand;
and what crashing of axes, and clearing of forests in distant lands, the
noise of his pen upon the paper portended.
_Milverton_. It is not only the effect of the still-working man that the
busy man cannot anticipate, but neither can he comprehend the present
labour. If Horace had told my prætor that
“Abstinuit Venere et vino, sudavit et alsit,”
“What, to write a few lines!” would his prætorship have cried out. “Why,
I can live well and enjoy life; and I flatter myself no one in Rome does
more business.”
_Dunsford_. All of it only goes to show how little we know of each
other, and how tolerant we ought to be of others’ efforts.
_Milverton_. The trials that there must be every day without any
incident that even the most minute household chronicler could set down:
the labours without show or noise!
_Ellesmere_. The deep things that there are which, with unthinking
people, pass for shallow things, merely because they are clear as well as
deep. My fable of the other day, for instance—which instead of producing
any moral effect upon you two, only seemed to make you both inclined to
giggle.
_Milverton_. I am so glad you reminded me of that. I, too, fired with a
noble emulation, have invented a fable since we last met which I want you
to hear. I assure you I did not mean to laugh at yours: it was only that
it came rather unexpectedly upon me. You are not exactly the person from
whom one should expect fables.
_Dunsford_. Now for the fable.
_Milverton_. There was a gathering together of creatures hurtful and
terrible to man, to name their king. Blight, mildew, darkness, mighty
waves, fierce winds, Will-o’-the-wisps, and shadows of grim objects, told
fearfully their doings and preferred their claims, none prevailing. But
when evening came on, a thin mist curled up, derisively, amidst the
assemblage, and said, “I gather round a man going to his own home over
paths made by his daily footsteps; and he becomes at once helpless and
tame as a child. The lights meant to assist him, then betray. You find
him wandering, or need the aid of other Terrors to subdue him. I am,
alone, confusion to him.” And all the assemblage bowed before the mist,
and made it king, and set it on the brow of many a mountain, where, when
it is not doing evil, it may be often seen to this day.
_Dunsford_. Well, I like that fable: only I am not quite clear about the
meaning.
_Ellesmere_. You had no doubt about mine.
_Dunsford_. Is the mist calumny, Milverton?
_Ellesmere_. No, prejudice, I am sure.
_Dunsford_. Familiarity with the things around us, obscuring knowledge?
_Milverton_. I would rather not explain. Each of you make your own
fable of it.
_Dunsford_. Well, if ever I make a fable, it shall be one of the
old-fashioned sort, with animals for the speakers, and a good easy moral.
_Ellesmere_. Not a thing requiring the notes of seven German
metaphysicians. I must go and talk a little to my friends the trees, and
see if I can get any explanation from them. It is turning out a
beautiful day after all, notwithstanding my praise of its solidity.