For nearly ten years after Hallam's death Tennyson published nothing, and

his movements are hard to trace as the family went here and there, seeking

peace and a home in various parts of England. But though silent, he

continued to write poetry, and it was in these sad wandering days that he

began his immortal _In Memoriam_ and his _Idylls of the King_. In 1842 his

friends persuaded him to give his work to the world, and with some

hesitation he published his _Poems_. The success of this work was almost

instantaneous, and we can appreciate the favor with which it was received

when we read the noble blank verse of "Ulysses" and "Morte d'Arthur," the

perfect little song of grief for Hallam which we have already mentioned,

and the exquisite idyls like "Dora" and "The Gardener's Daughter," which

aroused even Wordsworth's enthusiasm and brought from him a letter saying

that he had been trying all his life to write such an English pastoral as

"Dora" and had failed. From this time forward Tennyson, with increasing

confidence in himself and his message, steadily maintained his place as the

best known and best loved poet in England.

The year 1850 was a happy one for Tennyson. He was appointed poet laureate,

to succeed Wordsworth; and he married Emily Sellwood,

Her whose gentle will has changed my fate

And made my life a perfumed altar flame,

whom he had loved for thirteen years, but whom his poverty had prevented

him from marrying. The year is made further remarkable by the publication

of _In Memoriam_, probably the most enduring of his poems, upon which he

had worked at intervals for sixteen years. Three years later, with the

money that his work now brought him, he leased the house Farringford, in

the Isle of Wight, and settled in the first permanent home he had known

since he left the rectory at Somersby.

For the remaining forty years of his life he lived, like Wordsworth, "in

the stillness of a great peace," writing steadily, and enjoying the

friendship of a large number of people, some distinguished, some obscure,

from the kindly and sympathetic Victoria to the servants on his own farm.

All of these he called with equal sincerity his friends, and to each one he

was the same man, simple, strong, kindly, and noble. Carlyle describes him

as "a fine, large-featured, dim-eyed, bronze-colored, shaggy-headed man,

... most restful, brotherly, solid-hearted." Loving solitude and hating

publicity as he did, the numerous tourists from both sides of the ocean,

who sought him out in his retreat and insisted upon seeing him, made his

life at times intolerable. Influenced partly by the desire to escape such

popularity, he bought land and built for himself a new house, Aldworth, in

Surrey, though he made his home in Farringford for the greater part of the

year.

His labor during these years and his marvelous freshness and youthfulness

of feeling are best understood by a glance at the contents of his complete

works. Inferior poems, like _The Princess_, which was written in the first

flush of his success, and his dramas, which were written against the advice

of his best friends, may easily be criticised; but the bulk of his verse

shows an astonishing originality and vigor to the very end. He died very

quietly at Aldworth, with his family about him in the moonlight, and beside

him a volume of Shakespeare, open at the dirge in _Cymbeline:_

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,

Nor the furious winter's rages;

Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.

The strong and noble spirit of his life is reflected in one of his best

known poems, "Crossing the Bar," which was written in his eighty-first

year, and which he desired should be placed at the end of his collected

works:

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as, moving, seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

WORKS. At the outset of our study of Tennyson's works it may be well to

record two things, by way of suggestion. First, Tennyson's poetry is not so

much to be studied as to be read and appreciated; he is a poet to have open

on one's table, and to enjoy as one enjoys his daily exercise. And second,

we should by all means begin to get acquainted with Tennyson in the days of

our youth. Unlike Browning, who is generally appreciated by more mature

minds, Tennyson is for enjoyment, for inspiration, rather than for

instruction. Only youth can fully appreciate him; and youth, unfortunately,

except in a few rare, beautiful cases, is something which does not dwell

with us long after our school days. The secret of poetry, especially of

Tennyson's poetry, is to be eternally young, and, like Adam in Paradise, to

find every morning a new world, fresh, wonderful, inspiring, as if just

from the hands of God.

Except by the student, eager to understand the whoje range of poetry in

this age, Tennyson's earlier poems and his later dramas may well be

omitted. Opinions vary about both; but the general judgment seems to be

that the earlier poems show too much of Byron's influence, and their

crudeness suffers by comparison with the exquisitely finished work of

Tennyson's middle life. Of dramatic works he wrote seven, his great

ambition being to present a large part of the history of England in a

series of dramas. _Becket_ was one of the best of these works and met with

considerable favor on the stage; but, like all the others, it indicates

that Tennyson lacked the dramatic power and the humor necessary for a

successful playwright.

Among the remaining poems there is such a wide variety that every reader

must be left largely to follow his own delightful choice.[235] Of the

_Poems_ of 1842 we have already mentioned those best worth reading. _The

Princess, a Medley_ (1847), a long poem of over three thousand lines of

blank verse, is Tennyson's answer to the question of woman's rights and

woman's sphere, which was then, as in our own day, strongly agitating the

public mind. In this poem a baby finally solves the problem which

philosophers have pondered ever since men began to think connectedly about

human society. A few exquisite songs, like "Tears, Idle Tears," "Bugle

Song," and "Sweet and Low," form the most delightful part of this poem,

which in general is hardly up to the standard of the poet's later work.

_Maud_ (1855) is what is called in literature a monodrama, telling the

story of a lover who passes from morbidness to ecstasy, then to anger and

murder, followed by insanity and recovery. This was Tennyson's favorite,

and among his friends he read aloud from it more than from any other poem.

Perhaps if we could hear Tennyson read it, we should appreciate it better;

but, on the whole, it seems overwrought and melodramatic. Even its lyrics,

like "Come into the Garden, Maud," which make this work a favorite with

young lovers, are characterized by "prettiness" rather than by beauty or

strength.

Perhaps the most loved of all Tennyson's works is _In Memoriam_, which, on

account of both its theme and its exquisite workmanship, is "one of the few

immortal names that were not born to die." The immediate occasion of this

remarkable poem was Tennyson's profound personal grief at the death of his

friend Hallam. As he wrote lyric after lyric, inspired by this sad subject,

the poet's grief became less personal, and the greater grief of humanity

mourning for its dead and questioning its immortality took possession of

him. Gradually the poem became an expression, first, of universal doubt,

and then of universal faith, a faith which rests ultimately not on reason

or philosophy but on the soul's instinct for immortality. The immortality

of human love is the theme of the poem, which is made up of over one

hundred different lyrics. The movement takes us through three years, rising

slowly from poignant sorrow and doubt to a calm peace and hope, and ending

with a noble hymn of courage and faith,--a modest courage and a humble

faith, love-inspired,--which will be a favorite as long as saddened men

turn to literature for consolation. Though Darwin's greatest books had not

yet been written, science had already overturned many old conceptions of

life; and Tennyson, who lived apart and thought deeply on all the problems

of his day, gave this poem to the world as his own answer to the doubts and

questionings of men. This universal human interest, together with its

exquisite form and melody, makes the poem, in popular favor at least, the

supreme threnody, or elegiac poem, of our literature; though Milton's

_Lycidas_ is, from the critical view point, undoubtedly a more artistic

work.

_The Idylls of the King_ ranks among the greatest of Tennyson's later

works. Its general subject is the Celtic legends of King Arthur and his

knights of the Round Table, and the chief source of its material is

Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_. Here, in this mass of beautiful legends, is

certainly the subject of a great national epic; yet after four hundred

years, during which many poets have used the material, the great epic is

still unwritten. Milton and Spenser, as we have already noted, considered

this material carefully; and Milton alone, of all English writers, had

perhaps the power to use it in a great epic. Tennyson began to use these

legends in his _Morte d'Arthur_ (1842); but the epic idea probably occurred

to him later, in 1856, when he began "Geraint and Enid," and he added the

stories of "Vivien," "Elaine," "Guinevere," and other heroes and heroines

at intervals, until "Balin," the last of the _Idylls_, appeared in 1885.

Later these works were gathered together and arranged with an attempt at

unity. The result is in no sense an epic poem, but rather a series of

single poems loosely connected by a thread of interest in Arthur, the

central personage, and in his unsuccessful attempt to found an ideal

kingdom.

Entirely different in spirit is another collection of poems called _English

Idyls,_[236] which began in the _Poems_ of 1842, and which Tennyson

intended should reflect the ideals of widely different types of English

life. Of these varied poems, "Dora," "The Gardener's Daughter," "Ulysses,"

"Locksley Hall" and "Sir Galahad" are the best; but all are worthy of

study. One of the most famous of this series is "Enoch Arden" (1864), in

which Tennyson turns from mediæval knights, from lords, heroes, and fair

ladies, to find the material for true poetry among the lowly people that

make up the bulk of English life. Its rare melody, its sympathy for common

life, and its revelation of the beauty and heroism which hide in humble men

and women everywhere, made this work an instant favorite. Judged by its

sales alone, it was the most popular of his works during the poet's

lifetime.

Tennyson's later volumes, like the _Ballads_ (1880) and _Demeter_ (1889),

should not be overlooked, since they contain some of his best work. The

former contains stirring war songs, like "The Defence of Lucknow," and

pictures of wild passionate grief, like "Rizpah"; the latter is notable for

"Romney's Remorse," a wonderful piece of work; "Merlin and The Gleam,"

which expresses the poet's lifelong ideal; and several exquisite little

songs, like "The Throstle," and "The Oak," which show how marvelously the

aged poet retained his youthful freshness and inspiration. Here certainly

is variety enough to give us long years of literary enjoyment; and we need

hardly mention miscellaneous poems, like "The Brook" and "The Charge of the

Light Brigade," which are known to every schoolboy; and "Wages" and "The

Higher Pantheism," which should be read by every man who thinks about the

old, old problem of life and death.

CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON'S POETRY. If we attempt to sum up the quality

of Tennyson, as shown in all these works, the task is a difficult one; but

three things stand out more or less plainly. First, Tennyson is essentially

the artist. No other in his age studied the art of poetry so constantly or

with such singleness of purpose; and only Swinburne rivals him in melody

and the perfect finish of his verse. Second, like all the great writers of

his age, he is emphatically a teacher, often a leader. In the preceding

age, as the result of the turmoil produced by the French Revolution,

lawlessness was more or less common, and individuality was the rule in

literature. Tennyson's theme, so characteristic of his age, is the reign of

order,--of law in the physical world, producing evolution, and of law in

the spiritual world, working out the perfect man. _In Memoriam, Idylls of

the King, The Princess_,-here are three widely different poems; yet the

theme of each, so far as poetry is a kind of spiritual philosophy and

weighs its words before it utters them, is the orderly development of law

in the natural and in the spiritual world.

This certainly is a new doctrine in poetry, but the message does not end

here. Law implies a source, a method, an object. Tennyson, after facing his

doubts honestly and manfully, finds law even in the sorrows and losses of

humanity. He gives this law an infinite and personal source, and finds the

supreme purpose of all law to be a revelation of divine love. All earthly

love, therefore, becomes an image of the heavenly. What first perhaps

attracted readers to Tennyson, as to Shakespeare, was the character of his

women,--pure, gentle, refined beings, whom we must revere as our Anglo-

Saxon forefathers revered the women they loved. Like Browning, the poet had

loved one good woman supremely, and her love made clear the meaning of all

life. The message goes one step farther. Because law and love are in the

world, faith is the only reasonable attitude toward life and death, even

though we understand them not. Such, in a few words, seems to be Tennyson's

whole message and philosophy.

If we attempt now to fix Tennyson's permanent place in literature, as the

result of his life and work, we must apply to him the same test that we

applied to Milton and Wordsworth, and, indeed, to all our great poets, and

ask with the German critics, "What new thing has he said to the world or

even to his own country?" The answer is, frankly, that we do not yet know

surely; that we are still too near Tennyson to judge him impersonally. This

much, however, is clear. In a marvelously complex age, and amid a hundred

great men, he was regarded as a leader. For a full half century he was the

voice of England, loved and honored as a man and a poet, not simply by a

few discerning critics, but by a whole people that do not easily give their

allegiance to any one man. And that, for the present, is Tennyson's

sufficient eulogy.

ROBERT BROWNING (1812-1889)

How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ

All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy!

In this new song of David, from Browning's _Saul_, we have a suggestion of

the astonishing vigor and hope that characterize all the works of Browning,

the one poet of the age who, after thirty years of continuous work, was

finally recognized and placed beside Tennyson, and whom future ages may

judge to be a greater poet,--perhaps, even, the greatest in our literature

since Shakespeare.

The chief difficulty in reading Browning is the obscurity of his style,

which the critics of half a century ago held up to ridicule. Their attitude

towards the poet's early work may be inferred from Tennyson's humorous

criticism of _Sordello_. It may be remembered that the first line of this

obscure poem is, "Who will may hear Sordello's story told"; and that the

last line is, "Who would has heard Sordello's story told." Tennyson

remarked that these were the only lines in the whole poem that he

understood, and that they were evidently both lies. If we attempt to

explain this obscurity, which puzzled Tennyson and many less friendly

critics, we find that it has many sources. First, the poet's thought is

often obscure, or else so extremely subtle that language expresses it

imperfectly,--

Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,

Fancies that broke through language and escaped.

Second, Browning is led from one thing to another by his own mental

associations, and forgets that the reader's associations may be of an

entirely different kind. Third, Browning is careless in his English, and

frequently clips his speech, giving us a series of ejaculations. As we do

not quite understand his processes of thought, we must stop between the

ejaculations to trace out the connections. Fourth, Browning's, allusions

are often far-fetched, referring to some odd scrap of information which he

has picked up in his wide reading, and the ordinary reader finds it

difficult to trace and understand them. Finally, Browning wrote too much

and revised too Little. The time which he should have given to making one

thought clear was used in expressing other thoughts that flitted through

his head like a flock of swallows. His field was the individual soul, never

exactly alike in any two men, and he sought to express the hidden motives

and principles which govern individual action. In this field he is like a

miner delving underground, sending up masses of mingled earth and ore; and

the reader must sift all this material to separate the gold from the dross.

Here, certainly, are sufficient reasons for Browning's obscurity; and we

must add the word that the fault seems unpardonable, for the simple reason

that Browning shows himself capable, at times, of writing directly,

melodiously, and with noble simplicity.

So much for the faults, which must be faced and overlooked before one finds

the treasure that is hidden in Browning's poetry. Of all the poets in our

literature, no other is so completely, so consciously, so magnificently a

teacher of men. He feels his mission of faith and courage in a world of

doubt and timidity. For thirty years he faced indifference or ridicule,

working bravely and cheerfully the while, until he made the world recognize

and follow him. The spirit of his whole life is well expressed in his

_Paracelsus_, written when he was only twenty-two years old:

I see my way as birds their trackless way.

I shall arrive,--what time, what circuit first,

I ask not; but unless God send his hail

Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow,

In some time, his good time, I shall arrive;

He guides me and the bird. In his good time.

He is not, like so many others, an entertaining poet. One cannot read him

after dinner, or when settled in a comfortable easy-chair. One must sit up,

and think, and be alert when he reads Browning. If we accept these

conditions, we shall probably find that Browning is the most stimulating

poet in our language. His influence upon our life is positive and

tremendous. His strength, his joy of life, his robust faith, and his

invincible optimism enter into us, making us different and better men after

reading him. And perhaps the best thing he can say of Browning is that his

thought is slowly but surely taking possession of all well-educated men and

women.

LIFE. Browning's father was outwardly a business man, a clerk for fifty

years in the Bank of England; inwardly he was an interesting combination of

the scholar and the artist, with the best tastes of both. His mother was a

sensitive, musical woman, evidently very lovely in character, the daughter

of a German shipowner and merchant who had settled in Scotland. She was of

Celtic descent, and Carlyle describes her as the true type of a Scottish

gentlewoman. From his neck down, Browning was the typical Briton,--short,

stocky, large-chested, robust; but even in the lifeless portrait his face

changes as we view it from different angles. Now it is like an English

business man, now like a German scientist, and now it has a curious

suggestion of Uncle Remus,--these being, no doubt, so many different

reflections of his mixed and unremembered ancestors.

He was born in Camberwell, on the outskirts of London, in 1812. From his

home and from his first school, at Peckham, he could see London; and the

city lights by night and the smoky chimneys by day had the same powerful

fascination for the child that the woods and fields and the beautiful

country had for his friend Tennyson. His schooling was short and desultory,

his education being attended to by private tutors and by his father, who

left the boy largely to follow his own inclination. Like the young Milton,

Browning was fond of music, and in many of his poems, especially in "Abt

Vogler" and "A Toccata of Galuppi's," he interprets the musical temperament

better, perhaps, than any other writer in our literature. But unlike

Milton, through whose poetry there runs a great melody, music seems to have

had no consistent effect upon his verse, which is often so jarring that one

must wonder how a musical ear could have endured it.

Like Tennyson, this boy found his work very early, and for fifty years

hardly a week passed that he did not write poetry. He began at six to

produce verses, in imitation of Byron; but fortunately this early work has

been lost. Then he fell under the influence of Shelley, and his first known

work, _Pauline_ (1833), must be considered as a tribute to Shelley and his

poetry. Tennyson's earliest work, _Poems by Two Brothers_, had been

published and well paid for, five years before; but Browning could find no

publisher who would even consider _Pauline_, and the work was published by

means of money furnished by an indulgent relative. This poem received scant

notice from the reviewers, who had pounced like hawks on a dovecote upon

Tennyson's first two modest volumes. Two years later appeared _Paracelsus_,

and then his tragedy _Strafford_ was put upon the stage; but not till

_Sordello_ was published, in 1840, did he attract attention enough to be

denounced for the obscurity and vagaries of his style. Six years later, in

1846, he suddenly became famous, not because he finished in that year his

_Bells and Pomegranates_ (which is Browning's symbolic name for "poetry and

thought" or "singing and sermonizing"), but because he eloped with the best

known literary woman in England, Elizabeth Barrett, whose fame was for many

years, both before and after her marriage, much greater than Browning's,

and who was at first considered superior to Tennyson. Thereafter, until his

own work compelled attention, he was known chiefly as the man who married

Elizabeth Barrett. For years this lady had been an almost helpless invalid,

and it seemed a quixotic thing when Browning, having failed to gain her

family's consent to the marriage, carried her off romantically. Love and

Italy proved better than her physicians, and for fifteen years Browning and

his wife lived an ideally happy life in Pisa and in Florence. The exquisite

romance of their love is preserved in Mrs. Browning's _Sonnets from the

Portuguese_, and in the volume of _Letters_ recently published,--wonderful

letters, but so tender and intimate that it seems almost a sacrilege for

inquisitive eyes to read them.

Mrs. Browning died in Florence in 1861. The loss seemed at first too much

to bear, and Browning fled with his son to England. For the remainder of

his life he lived alternately in London and in various parts of Italy,

especially at the Palazzo Rezzonico, in Venice, which is now an object of

pilgrimage to almost every tourist who visits the beautiful city. Wherever

he went he mingled with men and women, sociable, well dressed, courteous,

loving crowds and popular applause, the very reverse of his friend

Tennyson. His earlier work had been much better appreciated in America than

in England; but with the publication of _The Ring and the Book_, in 1868,

he was at last recognized by his countrymen as one of the greatest of

English poets. He died in Venice, on December 12, 1889, the same day that

saw the publication of his last work, _Asolando_. Though Italy offered him

an honored resting place, England claimed him for her own, and he lies

buried beside Tennyson in Westminster Abbey. The spirit of his whole life

is magnificently expressed in his own lines, in the Epilogue of his last

book:

One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward,

Never doubted clouds would break,

Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph,

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

Sleep to wake.

WORKS. A glance at even the titles which Browning gave to his best known

volumes--_Dramatic Lyrics_ (1842), _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_ (1845),

_Men and Women_ (1853), _Dramatis Persona_ (1864)--will suggest how strong

the dramatic element is in all his work. Indeed, all his poems may be

divided into three classes,--pure dramas, like _Strafford_ and _A Blot in

the 'Scutcheon_; dramatic narratives, like _Pippa Passes_, which are

dramatic in form, but were not meant to be acted; and dramatic lyrics, like

_The Last Ride Together_, which are short poems expressing some strong

personal emotion, or describing some dramatic episode in human life, and in

which the hero himself generally tells the story.

Though Browning is often compared with Shakespeare, the reader will

understand that he has very little of Shakespeare's dramatic talent. He

cannot bring a group of people together and let the actions and words of

his characters show us the comedy and tragedy of human life. Neither can

the author be disinterested, satisfied, as Shakespeare was, with life

itself, without drawing any moral conclusions. Browning has always a moral

ready, and insists upon giving us his own views of life, which Shakespeare

never does. His dramatic power lies in depicting what he himself calls the

history of a soul. Sometimes, as in _Paracelsus_, he endeavors to trace the

progress of the human spirit. More often he takes some dramatic moment in

life, some crisis in the ceaseless struggle between good and evil, and

describes with wonderful insight the hero's own thoughts and feelings; but

he almost invariably tells us how, at such and such a point, the good or

the evil in his hero must inevitably have triumphed. And generally, as in

"My Last Duchess," the speaker adds a word here and there, aside from the

story, which unconsciously shows the kind of man he is. It is this power of

revealing the soul from within that causes Browning to fascinate those who

study him long enough. His range is enormous, and brings all sorts and

conditions of men under analysis. The musician in "Abt Vogler," the artist

in "Andrea del Sarto," the early Christian in "A Death in the Desert," the

Arab horseman in "Muteykeh," the sailor in "Herve Kiel," the mediæval

knight in "Childe Roland," the Hebrew in "Saul," the Greek in "Balaustion's

Adventure," the monster in "Caliban," the immortal dead in "Karshish,"--all

these and a hundred more histories of the soul show Browning's marvelous

versatility. It is this great range of sympathy with many different types

of life that constitutes Browning's chief likeness to Shakespeare, though

otherwise there is no comparison between the two men.

If we separate all these dramatic poems into three main periods,--the

early, from 1833 to 1841; the middle, from 1841 to 1868; and the late, from

1868 to 1889,--the work of the beginner will be much more easily

designated. Of his early soul studies, _Pauline_ (1833), _Paracelsus_

(1835), and _Sordello_ (1840), little need be said here, except perhaps

this: that if we begin with these works, we shall probably never read

anything else by Browning. And that were a pity. It is better to leave

these obscure works until his better poems have so attracted us to Browning

that we will cheerfully endure his worst faults for the sake of his

undoubted virtues. The same criticism applies, though in less degree, to

his first drama, _Strafford_ (1837), which belongs to the early period of

his work.

The merciless criticism which greeted _Sordello_ had a wholesome effect on

Browning, as is shown in the better work of his second period. Moreover,

his new power was developing rapidly, as may be seen by comparing the eight

numbers of his famous _Bells and Pomegranates_ series (1841-1846) with his

earlier work. Thus, the first number of this wonderful series, published in

1841, contains _Pippa Passes_, which is, on the whole, the most perfect of

his longer poems; and another number contains _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_,

which is the most readable of his dramas. Even a beginner must be thrilled

by the beauty and the power of these two works. Two other noteworthy dramas

of the period are _Colombe's Birthday_ (1844) and _In a Balcony_ (1855),

which, however, met with scant appreciation on the stage, having too much

subtle analysis and too little action to satisfy the public. Nearly all his

best lyrics, dramas, and dramatic poems belong to this middle period of

labor; and when _The Ring and the Book_ appeared, in 1868, he had given to

the world the noblest expression of his poetic genius.

In the third period, beginning when Browning was nearly sixty years old, he

wrote even more industriously than before, and published on an average

nearly a volume of poetry a year. Such volumes as _Fifine at the Fair, Red

Cotton Night-Cap Country, The Inn Album, Jocoseria_, and many others, show

how Browning gains steadily in the power of revealing the hidden springs of

human action; but he often rambles most tiresomely, and in general his work

loses in sustained interest. It is perhaps significant that most of his

best work was done under Mrs. Browning's influence.

WHAT TO READ. Of the short miscellaneous poems there is such an unusual

variety that one must hesitate a little in suggesting this or that to the

beginner's attention. "My Star," "Evelyn Hope," "Wanting is--What?" "Home

Thoughts from Abroad," "Meeting at Night," "One Word More" (an exquisite

tribute to his dead wife), "Prospice" (Look Forward); songs from _Pippa

Passes;_ various love poems like "By the Fireside" and "The Last Ride

Together"; the inimitable "Pied Piper," and the ballads like "Hervé Riel"

and "How They Brought the Good News,"--these are a mere suggestion,

expressing only the writer's personal preference; but a glance at the

contents of Browning's volumes will reveal scores of other poems, which

another writer might recommend as being better in themselves or more

characteristic of Browning.[237]

Among Browning's dramatic soul studies there is also a very wide choice.

"Andrea del Sarto" is one of the best, revealing as it does the strength

and the weakness of "the perfect painter," whose love for a soulless woman

with a pretty face saddens his life and hampers his best work. Next in

importance to "Andrea" stands "An Epistle," reciting the experiences of

Karshish, an Arab physician, which is one of the best examples of

Browning's peculiar method of presenting the truth. The half-scoffing,

half-earnest, and wholly bewildered state of this Oriental scientist's mind

is clearly indicated between the lines of his letter to his old master. His

description of Lazarus, whom he meets by chance, and of the state of mind

of one who, having seen the glories of immortality, must live again in the

midst of the jumble of trivial and stupendous things which constitute our

life, forms one of the most original and suggestive poems in our

literature. "My Last Duchess" is a short but very keen analysis of the soul

of a selfish man, who reveals his character unconsciously by his words of

praise concerning his dead wife's picture. In "The Bishop Orders his Tomb"

we have another extraordinarily interesting revelation of the mind of a

vain and worldly man, this time a churchman, whose words tell you far more

than he dreams about his own character. "Abt Vogler," undoubtedly one of

Browning's finest poems, is the study of a musician's soul. "Muléykeh"

gives us the soul of an Arab, vain and proud of his fast horse, which was

never beaten in a race. A rival steals the horse and rides away upon her

back; but, used as she is to her master's touch, she will not show her best

pace to the stranger. Muléykeh rides up furiously; but instead of striking

the thief from his saddle, he boasts about his peerless mare, saying that

if a certain spot on her neck were touched with the rein, she could never

be overtaken. Instantly the robber touches the spot, and the mare answers

with a burst of speed that makes pursuit hopeless. Muléykeh has lost his

mare; but he has kept his pride in the unbeaten one, and is satisfied.

"Rabbi Ben Ezra," which refuses analysis, and which must be read entire to

be appreciated, is perhaps the most quoted of all Browning's works, and

contains the best expression of his own faith in life, both here and

hereafter. All these wonderful poems are, again, merely a suggestion. They

indicate simply the works to which one reader turns when he feels mentally

vigorous enough to pick up Browning. Another list of soul studies, citing

"A Toccata of Galuppi's," "A Grammarian's Funeral," "Fra Lippo Lippi,"

"Saul," "Cleon," "A Death in the Desert," and "Soliloquy of the Spanish

Cloister," might, in another's judgment, be more interesting and

suggestive.

[Pippa Passes] Among Browning's longer poems there are two, at least, that

well deserve our study. _Pippa Passes_, aside from its rare poetical

qualities, is a study of unconscious influence. The idea of the poem was

suggested to Browning while listening to a gypsy girl singing in the woods

near his home; but he transfers the scene of the action to the little

mountain town of Asolo, in Italy. Pippa is a little silk weaver, who goes

out in the morning to enjoy her one holiday of the whole year. As she

thinks of her own happiness she is vaguely wishing that she might share it,

and do some good. Then, with her childish imagination, she begins to weave

a little romance in which she shares in the happiness of the four greatest

and happiest people in Asolo. It never occurs to her that perhaps there is

more of misery than of happiness in the four great ones of whom she dreams;

and so she goes on her way singing,

The year's at the spring

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hillside's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn:

God's in his heaven--

All's right with the world!

Fate wills it that the words and music of her little songs should come to

the ears of four different groups of people at the moment when they are

facing the greatest crises of their lives, and turn the scale from evil to

good. But Pippa knows nothing of this. She enjoys her holiday, and goes to

bed still singing, entirely ignorant of the good she has done in the world.

With one exception, it is the most perfect of all Browning's works. At best

it is not easy, nor merely entertaining reading; but it richly repays

whatever hours we spend in studying it.

_The Ring and the Book_ is Browning's masterpiece. It is an immense poem,

twice as long as _Paradise Lost_, and longer by some two thousand lines

than the _Iliad;_ and before we begin the undoubted task of reading it, we

must understand that there is no interesting story or dramatic development

to carry us along. In the beginning we have an outline of the story, such

as it is--a horrible story of Count Guido's murder of his beautiful young

wife; and Browning tells us in detail just when and how he found a book

containing the record of the crime and the trial. There the story element

ends, and the symbolism of the book begins. The title of the poem is

explained by the habit of the old Etruscan goldsmiths who, in making one of

their elaborately chased rings, would mix the pure gold with an alloy, in

order to harden it. When the ring was finished, acid was poured upon it;

and the acid ate out the alloy, leaving the beautiful design in pure gold.

Browning purposes to follow the same plan with his literary material, which

consists simply of the evidence given at the trial of Guido in Rome, in

1698. He intends to mix a poet's fancy with the crude facts, and create a

beautiful and artistic work.

The result of Browning's purpose is a series of monologues, in which the

same story is retold nine different times by the different actors in the

drama. The count, the young wife, the suspected priest, the lawyers, the

Pope who presides at the trial,--each tells the story, and each

unconsciously reveals the depths of his own nature in the recital. The most

interesting of the characters are Guido, the husband, who changes from bold

defiance to abject fear; Caponsacchi, the young priest, who aids the wife

in her flight from her brutal husband, and is unjustly accused of false

motives; Pompilia, the young wife, one of the noblest characters in

literature, fit in all respects to rank with Shakespeare's great heroines;

and the Pope, a splendid figure, the strongest of all Browning's masculine

characters. When we have read the story, as told by these four different

actors, we have the best of the poet's work, and of the most original poem

in our language.

BROWNING'S PLACE AND MESSAGE. Browning's place in our literature will be

better appreciated by comparison with his friend Tennyson, whom we have

just studied. In one respect, at least, these poets are in perfect accord.

Each finds in love the supreme purpose and meaning of life. In other

respects, especially in their methods of approaching the truth, the two men

are the exact opposites. Tennyson is first the artist and then the teacher;

but with Browning the message is always the important thing, and he is

careless, too careless, of the form in which it is expressed. Again,

Tennyson is under the influence of the romantic revival, and chooses his

subjects daintily; but "all's fish" that comes to Browning's net. He takes

comely and ugly subjects with equal pleasure, and aims to show that truth

lies hidden in both the evil and the good. This contrast is all the more

striking when we remember that Browning's essentially scientific attitude

was taken by a man who refused to study science. Tennyson, whose work is

always artistic, never studied art, but was devoted to the sciences; while

Browning, whose work is seldom artistic in form, thought that art was the

most suitable subject for a man's study.

The two poets differ even more widely in their respective messages.

Tennyson's message reflects the growing order of the age, and is summed up

in the word "law." in his view, the individual will must be suppressed; the

self must always be subordinate. His resignation is at times almost

Oriental in its fatalism, and occasionally it suggests Schopenhauer in its

mixture of fate and pessimism. Browning's message, on the other hand, is

the triumph of the individual will over all obstacles; the self is not

subordinate but supreme. There is nothing Oriental, nothing doubtful,

nothing pessimistic in the whole range of his poetry. His is the voice of

the Anglo-Saxon, standing up in the face of all obstacles and saying, "I

can and I will." He is, therefore, far more radically English than is

Tennyson; and it may be for this reason that he is the more studied, and

that, while youth delights in Tennyson, manhood is better satisfied with

Browning. Because of his invincible will and optimism, Browning is at

present regarded as the poet who has spoken the strongest word of faith to

an age of doubt. His energy, his cheerful courage, his faith in life and in

the development that awaits us beyond the portals of death, are like a

bugle-call to good living. This sums up his present influence upon the

minds of those who have learned to appreciate him. Of the future we can

only say that, both at home and abroad, he seems to be gaining steadily in

appreciation as the years go by.

MINOR POETS OF THE VISTORIAN AGE

ELIZABETH BARRETT. Among the minor poets of the past century Elizabeth

Barrett (Mrs. Browning) occupies perhaps the highest place in popular

favor. She was born at Coxhoe Hall, near Durham, in 1806; but her childhood

and early youth were spent in Herefordshire, among the Malvern Hills made

famous by _Piers Plowman_. In 1835 the Barrett family moved to London,

where Elizabeth gained a literary reputation by the publication of _The

Seraphim and Other Poems_ (1838). Then illness and the shock caused by the

tragic death of her brother, in 1840, placed her frail life in danger, and

for six years she was confined to her own room. The innate strength and

beauty of her spirit here showed itself strongly in her daily study, her

poetry, and especially in her interest in the social problems which sooner

or later occupied all the Victorian writers. "My mind to me a kingdom is"

might well have been written over the door of the room where this delicate

invalid worked and suffered in loneliness and in silence.

In 1844 Miss Barrett published her _Poems_, which, though somewhat

impulsive and overwrought, met with remarkable public favor. Such poems as

"The Cry of the Children," which voices the protest of humanity against

child labor, appealed tremendously to the readers of the age, and this

young woman's fame as a poet temporarily overshadowed that of Tennyson and

Browning. Indeed, as late as 1850, when Wordsworth died, she was seriously

considered for the position of poet laureate, which was finally given to

Tennyson. A reference to Browning, in "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," is

supposed to have first led the poet to write to Miss Barrett in 1845. Soon

afterwards he visited the invalid; they fell in love almost at first sight,

and the following year, against the wishes of her father,--who was

evidently a selfish old tyrant,--Browning carried her off and married her.

The exquisite romance of their love is reflected in Mrs. Browning's

_Sonnets from the Portuguese_ (1850). This is a noble and inspiring book of

love poems; and Stedman regards the opening sonnet, "I thought once how

Theocritus had sung," as equal to any in our language.

For fifteen years the Brownings lived an ideally happy life at Pisa, and at

Casa Guidi, Florence, sharing the same poetical ambitions. And love was the

greatest thing in the world,--

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise;

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith;

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints--I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Mrs. Browning entered with whole-souled enthusiasm into the aspirations of

Italy in its struggle against the tyranny of Austria; and her _Casa Guidi

Windows_ (1851) is a combination of poetry and politics, both, it must be

confessed, a little too emotional. In 1856 she published _Aurora Leigh_, a

novel in verse, having for its hero a young social reformer, and for its

heroine a young woman, poetical and enthusiastic, who strongly suggests

Elizabeth Barrett herself. It emphasizes in verse precisely the same moral

and social ideals which Dickens and George Eliot were proclaiming in all

their novels. Her last two volumes were _Poems before Congress_ (1860), and

_Last Poems_, published after her death. She died suddenly in 1861 and was

buried in Florence. Browning's famous line, "O lyric love, half angel and

half bird," may well apply to her frail life and aerial spirit.

ROSSETTI. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), the son of an exiled Italian

painter and scholar, was distinguished both as a painter and as a poet. He

was a leader in the Pre-Raphaelite movement[238] and published in the first

numbers of _The Germ_ his "Hand and Soul," a delicate prose study, and his

famous "The Blessed Damozel," beginning,

The blessed damozel leaned out

From the gold bar of Heaven;

Her eyes were deeper than the depth

Of waters stilled at even;

She had three lilies in her hand,

And the stars in her hair were seven.

These two early works, especially "The Blessed Damozel," with its

simplicity and exquisite spiritual quality, are characteristic of the

ideals of the Pre-Raphaelites.

In 1860, after a long engagement, Rossetti married Elizabeth Siddal, a

delicate, beautiful English girl, whom he has immortalized both in his

pictures and in his poetry. She died two years later, and Rossetti never

entirely recovered from the shock. At her burial he placed in her coffin

the manuscripts of all his unpublished poems, and only at the persistent

demands of his friends did he allow them to be exhumed and printed in 1870.

The publication of this volume of love poems created a sensation in

literary circles, and Rossetti was hailed as one of the greatest of living

poets. In 1881 he published his _Ballads and Sonnets_, a remarkable volume

containing, among other poems, "The Confession," modeled after Browning;

"The Ballad of Sister Helen," founded on a mediæval superstition; "The

King's Tragedy," a masterpiece of dramatic narrative; and "The House of

Life," a collection of one hundred and one sonnets reflecting the poet's

love and loss. This last collection deserves to rank with Mrs. Browning's

_Sonnets from the Portuguese_ and with Shakespeare's _Sonnets_, as one of

the three great cycles of love poems in our language. It has been well said

that both Rossetti and Morris paint pictures as well in their poems as on

their canvases, and this pictorial quality of their verse is its chief

characteristic.

MORRIS. William Morris (1834-1896) is a most interesting combination of

literary man and artist. In the latter capacity, as architect, designer,

and manufacturer of furniture, carpets, and wall paper, and as founder of

the Kelmscott Press for artistic printing and bookbinding, he has laid us

all under an immense debt of gratitude. From boyhood he had steeped himself

in the legends and ideals of the Middle Ages, and his best literary work is

wholly mediæval in spirit. _The Earthly Paradise_ (1868-1870) is generally

regarded as his masterpiece. This delightful collection of stories in verse

tells of a roving band of Vikings, who are wrecked on the fabled island of

Atlantis, and who discover there a superior race of men having the

characteristics of ideal Greeks. The Vikings remain for a year, telling

stories of their own Northland, and listening to the classic and Oriental

tales of their hosts. Morris's interest in Icelandic literature is further

shown by his _Sigurd the Volsung_, an epic founded upon one of the old

sagas, and by his prose romances, _The House of the Wolfings, The Story of

the Glittering Plain_, and _The Roots of the Mountains_. Later in life he

became deeply interested in socialism, and two other romances, _The Dream

of John Ball_ and _News from Nowhere_, are interesting as modern attempts

at depicting an ideal society governed by the principles of More's

_Utopia_.

SWINBURNE. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) is, chronologically, the

last of the Victorian poets. As an artist in technique--having perfect

command of all old English verse forms and a remarkable faculty for

inventing new--he seems at the present time to rank among the best in our

literature. Indeed, as Stedman says, "before his advent we did not realize

the full scope of English verse." This refers to the melodious and

constantly changing form rather than to the content of Swinburne's poetry.

At the death of Tennyson, in 1892, he was undoubtedly the greatest living

poet, and only his liberal opinions, his scorn of royalty and of

conventions, and the prejudice aroused by the pagan spirit of his early

work prevented his appointment as poet laureate. He has written a very

large number of poems, dramas, and essays in literary criticism; but we are

still too near to judge of the permanence of his work or of his place in

literature. Those who would read and estimate his work for themselves will

do well to begin with a volume of selected poems, especially those which

show his love of the sea and his exquisite appreciation of child life. His

_Atalanta in Calydon_ (1864), a beautiful lyric drama modeled on the Greek

tragedy, is generally regarded as his masterpiece. In all his work

Swinburne carries Tennyson's love of melody to an extreme, and often

sacrifices sense to sound. His poetry is always musical, and, like music,

appeals almost exclusively to the emotions.

* * * * *

We have chosen, somewhat arbitrarily, these four writers--Mrs. Browning, D.

G. Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne--as representative of the minor poets of

the age; but there are many others who are worthy of study,--Arthur Hugh

Clough and Matthew Arnold,[239] who are often called the poets of

skepticism, but who in reality represent a reverent seeking for truth

through reason and human experience; Frederick William Faber, the Catholic

mystic, author of some exquisite hymns; and the scholarly John Keble,

author of _The Christian Year_, our best known book of devotional verse;

and among the women poets, Adelaide Procter, Jean Ingelow, and Christina

Rossetti, each of whom had a large, admiring circle of readers. It would be

a hopeless task at the present time to inquire into the relative merits of

all these minor poets. We note only their careful workmanship and exquisite

melody, their wide range of thought and feeling, their eager search for

truth, each in his own way, and especially the note of freshness and

vitality which they have given to English poetry.

II. THE NOVELISTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)

When we consider Dickens's life and work, in comparison with that of the

two great poets we have been studying, the contrast is startling. While

Tennyson and Browning were being educated for the life of literature, and

shielded most tenderly from the hardships of the world, Dickens, a poor,

obscure, and suffering child, was helping to support a shiftless family by

pasting labels on blacking bottles, sleeping under a counter like a

homeless cat, and once a week timidly approaching the big prison where his

father was confined for debt. In 1836 his _Pickwick_ was published, and

life was changed as if a magician had waved his wand over him. While the

two great poets were slowly struggling for recognition, Dickens, with

plenty of money and too much fame, was the acknowledged literary hero of

England, the idol of immense audiences which gathered to applaud him

wherever he appeared. And there is also this striking contrast between the

novelist and the poets,--that while the whole tendency of the age was

toward realism, away from the extremes of the romanticists and from the

oddities and absurdities of the early novel writers, it was precisely by

emphasizing oddities and absurdities, by making caricatures rather than

characters, that Dickens first achieved his popularity.

LIFE. In Dickens's early life we see a stern but unrecognized preparation

for the work that he was to do. Never was there a better illustration of

the fact that a boy's early hardship and suffering are sometimes only

divine messengers disguised, and that circumstances which seem only evil

are often the source of a man's strength and of the influence which he is

to wield in the world. He was the second of eight poor children, and was

born at Landport in 1812. His father, who is supposed to be the original of

Mr. Micawber, was a clerk in a navy office. He could never make both ends

meet, and after struggling with debts in his native town for many years,

moved to London when Dickens was nine years old. The debts still pursued

him, and after two years of grandiloquent misfortune he was thrown into the

poor-debtors' prison. His wife, the original of Mrs. Micawber, then set up

the famous Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies; but, in Dickens's

words, no young ladies ever came. The only visitors were creditors, and

they were quite ferocious. In the picture of the Micawber family, with its

tears and smiles and general shiftlessness, we have a suggestion of

Dickens's own family life.

At eleven years of age the boy was taken out of school and went to work in

the cellar of a blacking factory. At this time he was, in his own words, a

"queer small boy," who suffered as he worked; and we can appreciate the boy

and the suffering more when we find both reflected in the character of

David Copperfield. It is a heart-rending picture, this sensitive child

working from dawn till dark for a few pennies, and associating with toughs

and waifs in his brief intervals of labor; but we can see in it the sources

of that intimate knowledge of the hearts of the poor and outcast which was

soon to be reflected in literature and to startle all England by its appeal

for sympathy. A small legacy ended this wretchedness, bringing the father

from the prison and sending the boy to Wellington House Academy,--a

worthless and brutal school, evidently, whose head master was, in Dickens's

words, a most ignorant fellow and a tyrant. He learned little at this

place, being interested chiefly in stories, and in acting out the heroic

parts which appealed to his imagination; but again his personal experience

was of immense value, and resulted in his famous picture of Dotheboys Hall,

in _Nicholas Nickleby_, which helped largely to mitigate the evils of

private schools in England. Wherever he went, Dickens was a marvelously

keen observer, with an active imagination which made stories out of

incidents and characters that ordinary men would have hardly noticed.

Moreover he was a born actor, and was at one time the leading spirit of a

band of amateurs who gave entertainments for charity all over England.

These three things, his keen observation, his active imagination, and the

actor's spirit which animated him, furnish a key to his life and writings.

When only fifteen years old, he left the school and again went to work,

this time as clerk in a lawyer's office. By night he studied shorthand, in

order to fit himself to be a reporter,--this in imitation of his father,

who was now engaged by a newspaper to report the speeches in Parliament.

Everything that Dickens attempted seems to have been done with vigor and

intensity, and within two years we find him reporting important speeches,

and writing out his notes as the heavy coach lurched and rolled through the

mud of country roads on its dark way to London town. It was largely during

this period that he gained his extraordinary knowledge of inns and stables

and "horsey" persons, which is reflected in his novels. He also grew

ambitious, and began to write on his own account. At the age of twenty-one

he dropped his first little sketch "stealthily, with fear and trembling,

into a dark letter-box, in a dark office up a dark court in Fleet Street."

The name of this first sketch was "Mr. Minns and his Cousin," and it

appeared with other stories in his first book, _Sketches by Boz_, in 1835.

One who reads these sketches now, with their intimate knowledge of the

hidden life of London, can understand Dickens's first newspaper success

perfectly. His best known work, _Pickwick_, was published serially in

1836-1837, and Dickens's fame and fortune were made. Never before had a

novel appeared so full of vitality and merriment. Though crude in design, a

mere jumble of exaggerated characters and incidents, it fairly bubbled over

with the kind of humor in which the British public delights, and it still

remains, after three quarters of a century, one of our most care-dispelling

books.

The remainder of Dickens's life is largely a record of personal triumphs.

_Pickwick_ was followed rapidly by _Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Old

Curiosity Shop_, and by many other works which seemed to indicate that

there was no limit to the new author's invention of odd, grotesque,

uproarious, and sentimental characters. In the intervals of his novel

writing he attempted several times to edit a weekly paper; but his power

lay in other directions, and with the exception of _Household Words_, his

journalistic ventures were not a marked success. Again the actor came to

the surface, and after managing a company of amateur actors successfully,

Dickens began to give dramatic readings from his own works. As he was

already the most popular writer in the English language, these readings

were very successful. Crowds thronged to hear him, and his journeys became

a continuous ovation. Money poured into his pockets from his novels and

from his readings, and he bought for himself a home, Gadshill Place, which

he had always desired, and which is forever associated with his memory.

Though he spent the greater part of his time and strength in travel at this

period, nothing is more characteristic of the man than the intense energy

with which he turned from his lecturing to his novels, and then, for

relaxation, gave himself up to what he called the magic lantern of the

London streets.

In 1842, while still a young man, Dickens was invited to visit the United

States and Canada, where his works were even better known than in England,

and where he was received as the guest of the nation and treated with every

mark of honor and appreciation. At this time America was, to most

Europeans, a kind of huge fairyland, where money sprang out of the earth,

and life was happy as a long holiday. Dickens evidently shared this rosy

view, and his romantic expectations were naturally disappointed. The crude,

unfinished look of the big country seems to have roused a strong prejudice

in his mind, which was not overcome at the time of his second visit,

twenty-five years later, and which brought forth the harsh criticism of his

_American Notes_ (1842) and of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ (1843-1844). These two

unkind books struck a false note, and Dickens began to lose something of

his great popularity. In addition he had spent money beyond his income. His

domestic life, which had been at first very happy, became more and more

irritating, until he separated from his wife in 1858. To get inspiration,

which seemed for a time to have failed, he journeyed to Italy, but was

disappointed. Then he turned back to the London streets, and in the five

years from 1848 to 1853 appeared _Dombey and Son, David Copperfield_, and

_Bleak House_,--three remarkable novels, which indicate that he had

rediscovered his own power and genius. Later he resumed the public

readings, with their public triumph and applause, which soon came to be a

necessity to one who craved popularity as a hungry man craves bread. These

excitements exhausted Dickens, physically and spiritually, and death was

the inevitable result. He died in 1870, over his unfinished _Edwin Drood_,

and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

DICKENS'S WORK IN VIEW OF HIS LIFE. A glance through even this

unsatisfactory biography gives us certain illuminating suggestions in

regard to all of Dickens's work. First, as a child, poor and lonely,

longing for love and for society, he laid the foundation for those

heartrending pictures of children, which have moved so many readers to

unaccustomed tears. Second, as clerk in a lawyer's office and in the

courts, he gained his knowledge of an entirely different side of human

life. Here he learned to understand both the enemies and the victims of

society, between whom the harsh laws of that day frequently made no

distinction. Third, as a reporter, and afterwards as manager of various

newspapers, he learned the trick of racy writing, and of knowing to a

nicety what would suit the popular taste. Fourth, as an actor, always an

actor in spirit, he seized upon every dramatic possibility, every tense

situation, every peculiarity of voice and gesture in the people whom he

met, and reproduced these things in his novels, exaggerating them in the

way that most pleased his audience.

When we turn from his outward training to his inner disposition we find two

strongly marked elements. The first is his excessive imagination, which

made good stories out of incidents that ordinarily pass unnoticed, and

which described the commonest things--a street, a shop, a fog, a lamp-post,

a stagecoach--with a wealth of detail and of romantic suggestion that makes

many of his descriptions like lyric poems. The second element is his

extreme sensibility, which finds relief only in laughter and tears. Like

shadow and sunshine these follow one another closely throughout all his

books.

Remembering these two things, his training and disposition, we can easily

foresee the kind of novel he must produce. He will be sentimental,

especially over children and outcasts; he will excuse the individual in

view of the faults of society; he will be dramatic or melodramatic; and his

sensibility will keep him always close to the public, studying its tastes

and playing with its smiles and tears. If pleasing the public be in itself

an art, then Dickens is one of our greatest artists. And it is well to

remember that in pleasing his public there was nothing of the hypocrite or

demagogue in his make-up. He was essentially a part of the great drifting

panoramic crowd that he loved. His sympathetic soul made all their joys and

griefs his own. He fought against injustice; he championed the weak against

the strong; he gave courage to the faint, and hope to the weary in heart;

and in the love which the public gave him in return he found his best

reward. Here is the secret of Dickens's unprecedented popular success, and

we may note here a very significant parallel with Shakespeare. The great

different in the genius and work of the two men does not change the fact

that each won success largely because he studied and pleased his public.

GENERAL PLAN OF DICKENS'S NOVELS. An interesting suggestion comes to us

from a study of the conditions which led to Dickens's first three novels.

_Pickwick_ was written, at the suggestion of an editor, for serial

publication. Each chapter was to be accompanied by a cartoon by Seymor (a

comic artist of the day), and the object was to amuse the public, and,

incidentally, to sell the paper. The result was a series of characters and

scenes and incidents which for vigor and boundless fun have never been

equaled in our language. Thereafter, no matter what he wrote, Dickins was

lbeled a humorist. Like a certain American writer of our own generation,

everything he said, whether for a feast or a funeral, was spposed to

contain a laugh. In a word, he was the victim of his own book. Dickens was

keen enough to understand his danger, and his next novel, _Oliver Twist_,

had the serious purpose of mitigating the evils under which the poor were

suffering. Its hero was a poor child, the unfortunate victim of society;

and, in order to draw attention to the real need, Dickens exaggerated the

woeful condition of the poor, and filled his pages with sentiment which

easily slipped over into sentimentality. This also was a popular success,

and in his third novel, _Nicholas Nickleby,_ and indeed in most of his

remaining works, Dickens combined the principles of his first two books,

giving us mirth on the one hand, injustice and suffering on the other;

mingling humor and pathos, tears and laughter, as we find them in life

itself. And in order to increase the lights and shadows in his scenes, and

to give greater dramatic effect to his narrative, he introduced odious and

lothsome characters, and made vice more hateful by contrasting it with

innocence and virtue.

We find, therefore, in most of Dickens's novels three or four widely

different types of character: first, the innocent little child, like

Oliver, Joe, Paul, Tiny Tim, and Little Nell, appealing powerfully to the

child love in every human heart; scond, the horrible or grotesque foil,

like Sqeers, Fagin, Quilp, Uriah Heep, and Bill Sykes; third, the

grandiloquent or broadly humorous fellow, the fun maker, like Micawber and

Sam Weller; and fourth, a tenderly or powerfully drawn figure, like Lady

Deadlock of _Bleak House,_ and Sydney Carton of _A Tale of Two Cities,_

which rise to the dignity of true characters. We note also that most of

Dickens's novels belong decidely to the class of purpose or problem novels.

Thus _Bleak House_ attacks "the law's delays"; _Little Dorrit,_ the

injustice which persecutes poor debtors; _Nicholas Nickleby,_ the abuses of

charity schools and brutal schoolmasters; and _Oliver Twist,_ the

unnecessary degradation and suffering of the poor in English workhouses.

Dickens's serious purpose was to make the novel the instrument of morality

and justice, and whatver we may think of the exaggeration of his

characters, it is certain that his stories did more to correct the general

selfishness and injustice of society toward the poor than all the works of

other literary men of his age combined.

THE LIMITATIONS OF DICKENS. Any severe criticism of Dickens as a novelist

must seem, at first glance, unkind an unnecessary. In almost every house he

is a welcome guest, a personal friend who has beguiled many an hour with

his stories, and who has furnished us much good laughter and a few good

tears. Moreover, he has always a cheery message. He emphasizes the fact

that this is an excellant world; that some errors have crept into it, due

largely to thoughtlessness, but that they can be easily remedied by a

little human sympathy. That is a most welcome creed to an age overburdened

with social problems; and to criticise our cheery companion seems as

discourteous as to speak unkindly of a guest who has just left our home.

But we must consider Dickens not merely as a friend, but as a novelist, and

apply to his work the same standards of art which we apply to other

writers; and when we do this we are sometimes a little disappointed. We

must confess that his novels, while they contain many realistic details,

seldom give the impression of reality. His characters, though we laugh or

weep or shudder at them, are sometimes only caricatures, each one an

exaggeration of some peculiarity, which suggest Ben Jonson's _Every Man in

His Humour_. It is Dickens's art to give his heroes sufficient reality to

make them suggest certain types of men and women whom we know; but in

reading him we find ourselves often in the mental state of a man who is

watching through a microscope the swarming life of a water drop. Here are

lively, bustling, extraordinary creatures, some beautiful, some grotesque,

but all far apart from the life that we know in daily experience. It is

certainly not the reality of these characters, but rather the genius of the

author in managing them, which interests us and holds our attention.

Notwithstanding this criticism, which we would gladly have omitted, Dickens

is excellent reading, and his novels will continue to be popular just so

long as men enjoy a wholesome and absorbing story.

WHAT TO READ. Aside from the reforms in schools and prisons and workhouses

which Dickens accomplished, he has laid us all, rich and poor alike, under

a debt of gratitude. After the year 1843 the one literary work which he

never neglected was to furnish a Christmas story for his readers; and it is

due in some measure to the help of these stories, brimming over with good

cheer, that Christmas has become in all English-speaking countries a season

of gladness, of gift giving at home, and of remembering those less

fortunate than ourselves, who are still members of a common brotherhood. If

we read nothing else of Dickens, once a year, at Christmas time, we should

remember him and renew our youth by reading one of his holiday stories,--

_The Cricket on the Hearth, The Chimes_, and above all the unrivaled

_Christmas Carol_. The latter especially will be read and loved as long as

men are moved by the spirit of Christmas.

Of the novels, _David Copperfield_ is regarded by many as Dickens's

masterpiece. It is well to begin with this novel, not simply for the

unusual interest of the story, but also for the glimpse it gives us of the

author's own boyhood and family. For pure fun and hilarity _Pickwick_ will

always be a favorite; but for artistic finish, and for the portrayal of one

great character, Sydney Carton, nothing else that Dickens wrote is

comparable to _A Tale of Two Cities_. Here is an absorbing story, with a

carefully constructed plot, and the action moves swiftly to its thrilling,

inevitable conclusion. Usually Dickens introduces several pathetic or

grotesque or laughable characters besides the main actors, and records

various unnecessary dramatic episodes for their own sake; but in _A Tale of

Two Cities_ everything has its place in the development of the main story.

There are, as usual, many characters,--Sydney Carton, the outcast, who lays

down his life for the happiness of one whom he loves; Charles Darnay, an

exiled young French noble; Dr. Manette, who has been "recalled to life"

from a frightful imprisonment, and his gentle daughter Lucie, the heroine;

Jarvis Lorry, a lovable, old-fashioned clerk in the big banking house; the

terrible Madame Defarge, knitting calmly at the door of her wine shop and

recording, with the ferocity of a tiger licking its chops, the names of all

those who are marked for vengeance; and a dozen others, each well drawn,

who play minor parts in the tragedy. The scene is laid in London and Paris,

at the time of the French Revolution; and, though careless of historical

details, Dickens reproduces the spirit of the Reign of Terror so well that

_A Tale of Two Cities_ is an excellent supplement to the history of the

period. It is written in Dickens's usual picturesque style, and reveals his

usual imaginative outlook on life and his fondness for fine sentiments and

dramatic episodes. Indeed, all his qualities are here shown, not

brilliantly or garishly, as in other novels, but subdued and softened, like

a shaded light, for artistic effect.

Those who are interested in Dickens's growth and methods can hardly do

better than to read in succession his first three novels, _Pickwick, Oliver

Twist_, and _Nicholas Nickleby_, which, as we have indicated, show clearly

how he passed from fun to serious purpose, and which furnish in combination

the general plan of all his later works. For the rest, we can only indicate

those which, in our personal judgment, seem best worth reading,--_Bleak

House, Dombey and Son, Our Mutual Friend_, and _Old Curiosity Shop_,--but

we are not yet far enough away from the first popular success of these

works to determine their permanent value and influence.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863)

As the two most successful novelists of their day, it is natural for us, as

it was for their personal friends and admirers, to compare Dickens and

Thackeray with respect to their life and work, and their attitude toward

the world in which they lived. Dickens, after a desperately hard struggle

in his boyhood, without friends or higher education, comes into manhood

cheery, self-confident, energetic, filled with the joy of his work; and in

the world, which had at first treated him so harshly, he finds good

everywhere, even in the jails and in the slums, simply because he is

looking for it. Thackeray, after a boyhood spent in the best of English

schools, with money, friends, and comforts of every kind, faces life

timidly, distrustfully, and dislikes the literary work which makes him

famous. He has a gracious and lovable personality, is kind of heart, and

reveres all that is pure and good in life; yet he is almost cynical toward

the world which uses him so well, and finds shams, deceptions, vanities

everywhere, because he looks for them. One finds what one seeks in this

world, but it is perhaps significant that Dickens sought his golden fleece

among plain people, and Thackeray in high society. The chief difference

between the two novelists, however, is not one of environment but of

temperament. Put Thackeray in a workhouse, and he will still find material

for another _Book of Snobs;_ put Dickens in society, and he cannot help

finding undreamed-of possibilities among bewigged and bepowdered high lords

and ladies. For Dickens is romantic and emotional, and interprets the world

largely through his imagination; Thackeray is the realist and moralist, who

judges solely by observation and reflection. He aims to give us a true

picture of the society of his day, and as he finds it pervaded by intrigues

and snobbery he proceeds to satirize it and point out its moral evils. In

his novels he is influenced by Swift and Fielding, but he is entirely free

from the bitterness of the one and the coarseness of the other, and his

satire is generally softened by a noble tenderness. Taken together, the

novels of Dickens and Thackeray give us a remarkable picture of all classes

of English society in the middle of the nineteenth century.

LIFE. Thackeray was born in 1811, in Calcutta, where his father held a

civil position under the Indian government. When the boy was five years old

his father died, and the mother returned with her child to England.

Presently she married again, and Thackeray was sent to the famous

Charterhouse school, of which he has given us a vivid picture in _The

Newcomes_. Such a school would have been a veritable heaven to Dickens, who

at this time was tossed about between poverty and ambition; but Thackeray

detested it for its rude manners, and occasionally referred to it as the

"Slaughterhouse." Writing to his mother he says: "There are three hundred

and seventy boys in the school. I wish, there were only three hundred and

sixty-nine."

In 1829 Thackeray entered Trinity College, Cambridge, but left after less

than two years, without taking a degree, and went to Germany and France

where he studied with the idea of becoming an artist. When he became of

age, in 1832, he came into possession of a comfortable fortune, returned to

England, and settled down in the Temple to study law. Soon he began to

dislike the profession intensely, and we have in _Pendennis_ a reflection

of his mental attitude toward the law and the young men who studied it. He

soon lost his fortune, partly by gambling and speculation, partly by

unsuccessful attempts at running a newspaper, and at twenty-two began for

the first time to earn his own living, as an artist and illustrator. An

interesting meeting between Thackeray and Dickens at this time (1836)

suggests the relative importance of the two writers. Seymour, who was

illustrating the _Pickwick Papers_, had just died, and Thackeray called

upon Dickens with a few drawings and asked to be allowed to continue the

illustrations. Dickens was at this time at the beginning of his great

popularity. The better literary artist, whose drawings were refused, was

almost unknown, and had to work hard for more than ten years before he

received recognition. Disappointed by his failure as an illustrator, he

began his literary career by writing satires on society for _Fraser's

Magazine_. This was the beginning of his success; but though the

_Yellowplush Papers, The Great Hoggarty Diamond, Catherine, The Fitz

Boodlers, The Book of Snobs, Barry Lyndon_, and various other immature

works made him known to a few readers of _Punch_ and of _Fraser's

Magazine_, it was not till the publication of _Vanity Fair_ (1847-1848)

that he began to be recognized as one of the great novelists of his day.

All his earlier works are satires, some upon society, others upon the

popular novelists,--Bulwer, Disraeli, and especially Dickens,--with whose

sentimental heroes and heroines he had no patience whatever. He had

married, meanwhile, in 1836, and for a few years was very happy in his

home. Then disease and insanity fastened upon his young wife, and she was

placed in an asylum. The whole after life of our novelist was darkened by

this loss worse than death. He became a man of the clubs, rather than of

his own home, and though his wit and kindness made him the most welcome of

clubmen, there was an undercurrent of sadness in all that he wrote. Long

afterwards he said that, though his marriage ended in shipwreck, he "would

do it over again; for behold Love is the crown and completion of all

earthly good."

After the moderate success of _Vanity Fair_, Thackeray wrote the three

novels of his middle life upon which his fame chiefly rests,--_Pendennis_

in 1850, _Henry Esmond_ in 1852, and _The Newcomes_ in 1855. Dickens's

great popular success as a lecturer and dramatic reader had led to a

general desire on the part of the public to see and to hear literary men,

and Thackeray, to increase his income, gave two remarkable courses of

lectures, the first being _English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_,

and the second _The Four Georges_,--both courses being delivered with

gratifying success in England and especially in America. Dickens, as we

have seen, was disappointed in America and vented his displeasure in

outrageous criticism; but Thackeray, with his usual good breeding, saw only

the best side of his generous entertainers, and in both his public and

private utterances emphasized the virtues of the new land, whose restless

energy seemed to fascinate him. Unlike Dickens, he had no confidence in

himself when he faced an audience, and like most literary men he disliked

lecturing, and soon gave it up. In 1860 he became editor of the _Cornhill

Magazine_, which prospered in his hands, and with a comfortable income he

seemed just ready to do his best work for the world (which has always

believed that he was capable of even better things than he ever wrote) when

he died suddenly in 1863. His body lies buried in Kensal Green, and only a

bust does honor to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

WORKS OF THACKERAY. The beginner will do well to omit the earlier satires

of Thackeray, written while he was struggling to earn a living from the

magazines, and open _Henry Esmond_ (1852), his most perfect novel, though

not the most widely known and read. The fine historical and literary,

flavor of this story is one of its most marked characteristics, and only

one who knows something of the history and literature of the eighteenth

century can appreciate its value. The hero, Colonel Esmond; relates his own

story, carrying the reader through the courts and camps of Queen Anne's

reign, and giving the most complete and accurate picture of a past age that

has ever appeared in a novel. Thackeray is, as we have said, a realist, and

he begins his story by adopting the style and manner of a scholarly

gentleman of the period he is describing. He has an extraordinary knowledge

of eighteenth-century literature, and he reproduces its style in detail,

going so far as to insert in his narrative an alleged essay from the

_Tatler_. And so perfectly is it done that it is impossible to say wherein

it differs from the style of Addison and Steele.

In his matter also Thackeray is realistic, reflecting not the pride and

pomp of war, which are largely delusions, but its brutality and barbarism,

which are all too real; painting generals and leaders, not as the newspaper

heroes to whom we are accustomed, but as moved by intrigues, petty

jealousies, and selfish ambitions; showing us the great Duke of Marlborough

not as the military hero, the idol of war-crazed multitudes, but as without

personal honor, and governed by despicable avarice. In a word, Thackeray

gives us the "back stairs" view of war, which is, as a rule, totally

neglected in our histories. When he deals with the literary men of the

period, he uses the same frank realism, showing us Steele and Addison and

other leaders, not with halos about their heads, as popular authors, but in

slippers and dressing gowns, smoking a pipe in their own rooms, or else

growing tipsy and hilarious in the taverns,--just as they appeared in daily

life. Both in style and in matter, therefore, _Esmond_ deserves to rank as

probably the best historical novel in our language.

The plot of the story is, like most of Thackeray's plots, very slight, but

perfectly suited to the novelist's purpose. The plans of his characters

fail; their ideals grow dim; there is a general disappearance of youthful

ambitions. There is a love story at the center; but the element of romance,

which furnishes the light and music and fragrance of love, is

inconspicuous. The hero, after ten years of devotion to a young woman, a

paragon of beauty, finally marries her mother, and ends with a few pious

observations concerning Heaven's mercy and his own happy lot. Such an

ending seems disappointing, almost bizarre, in view of the romantic novels

to which we are accustomed; but we must remember that Thackeray's purpose

was to paint life as he saw it, and that in life men and things often take

a different way from that described in romances. As we grow acquainted with

Thackeray's characters, we realize that no other ending was possible to his

story, and conclude that his plot, like his style, is perhaps as near

perfection as a realistic novelist can ever come.

_Vanity Fair_ (1847--1848) is the best known of Thackeray's novels. It was

his first great work, and was intended to express his own views of the

social life about him, and to protest against the overdrawn heroes of

popular novels. He takes for his subject that Vanity Fair to which

Christian and Faithful were conducted on their way to the Heavenly City, as

recorded in _Pilgrim's Progress_. In this fair there are many different

booths, given over to the sale of "all sorts of vanities," and as we go

from one to another we come in contact with "juggling, cheats, games,

plays, fools, apes, knaves, rogues, and that of every kind." Evidently this

is a picture of one side of social life; but the difference between Bunyan

and Thackeray is simply this,--that Bunyan made Vanity Fair a small

incident in a long journey, a place through which most of us pass on our

way to better things; while Thackeray, describing high society in his own

day, makes it a place of long sojourn, wherein his characters spend the

greater part of their lives. Thackeray styles this work "a novel without a

hero." The whole action of the story, which is without plot or development,

revolves about two women,--Amelia, a meek creature of the milk-and-water

type, and Becky Sharp, a keen, unprincipled intriguer, who lets nothing

stand in the way of her selfish desire to get the most out of the fools who

largely constitute society. On the whole, it is the most powerful but not

the most wholesome of Thackeray's works.

In his second important novel, _Pendennis_ (1849-1850), we have a

continuation of the satire on society begun in _Vanity Fair_. This novel,

which the beginner should read after _Esmond_, is interesting to us for two

reasons,--because it reflects more of the details of Thackeray's life than

all his other writings, and because it contains one powerfully drawn

character who is a perpetual reminder of the danger of selfishness. The

hero is "neither angel nor imp," in Thackeray's words, but the typical

young man of society, whom he knows thoroughly, and whom he paints exactly

as he is,--a careless, good-natured but essentially selfish person, who

goes through life intent on his own interests. _Pendennis_ is a profound

moral study, and the most powerful arraignment of well-meaning selfishness

in our literature, not even excepting George Eliot's _Romola_, which it

suggests.

Two other novels, _The Newcomes_ (1855) and _The Virginians_ (1859),

complete the list of Thackeray's great works of fiction. The former is a

sequel to _Pendennis_, and the latter to _Henry Esmond;_ and both share the

general fate of sequels in not being quite equal in power or interest to

their predecessors. _The Newcomes_, however, deserves a very high place,--

some critics, indeed, placing it at the head of the author's works. Like

all Thackeray's novels, it is a story of human frailty; but here the

author's innate gentleness and kindness are seen at their best, and the

hero is perhaps the most genuine and lovable of all his characters.

Thackeray is known in English literature as an essayist as well as a

novelist. His _English Humorists_ and _The Four Georges_ are among the

finest essays of the nineteenth century. In the former especially,

Thackeray shows not only a wide knowledge but an extraordinary

understanding of his subject. Apparently this nineteenth-century writer

knows Addison, Fielding, Swift, Smollett, and other great writers of the

past century almost as intimately as one knows his nearest friend; and he

gives us the fine flavor of their humor in a way which no other writer,

save perhaps Larnb, has ever rivaled.[240] _The Four Georges_ is in a vein

of delicate satire, and presents a rather unflattering picture of four of

England's rulers and of the courts in which they moved. Both these works

are remarkable for their exquisite style, their gentle humor, their keen

literary criticisms, and for the intimate knowledge and sympathy which

makes the' people of a past age live once more in the written pages.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. In treating of Thackeray's view of life, as

reflected in his novels, critics vary greatly, and the following summary

must be taken not as a positive judgment but only as an attempt to express

the general impression of his works on an uncritical reader. He is first of

a realist, who paints life as he sees it. As he says himself, "I have no

brains above my eyes; I describe what I see.". His pictures of certain

types, notably the weak and vicious elements of society, are accurate and

true to life, but they seem to play too large a part in his books, and have

perhaps too greatly influenced his general judgment of humanity. An

excessive sensibility, or the capacity for fine feelings and emotions, is a

marked characteristic of Thackeray, as it is of Dickens and Carlyle. He is

easily offended, as they are, by the shams of society; but he cannot find

an outlet, as Dickens does, in laughter and tears, and he is too gentle to

follow Carlyle in violent denunciations and prophecies. He turns to

satire,--influenced, doubtless, by eighteenth-century literature which he

knew so well, and in which satire played too large a part.[241] His satire

is never personal, like Pope's, or brutal, like Swift's, and is tempered by

kindness and humor; but it is used too freely, and generally lays too much

emphasis on faults and foibles to be considered a true picture of any large

class of English society.

Besides being a realist and satirist, Thackeray is essentially a moralist,

like Addison, aiming definitely in all his work at producing a moral

impression. So much does he revere goodness, and so determined is he that

his Pendennis or his Becky Sharp shall be judged at their true value, that

he is not content, like Shakespeare, to be simply an artist, to tell an

artistic tale and let it speak its own message; he must explain and

emphasize the moral significance of his work. There is no need to consult

our own conscience over the actions of Thackeray's characters; the beauty

of virtue and the ugliness of vice are evident on every page.

Whatever we may think of Thackeray's matter, there is one point in which

critics are agreed,--that he is master of a pure and simple English style.

Whether his thought be sad or humorous, commonplace or profound, he

expresses it perfectly, without effort or affectation. In all his work

there is a subtle charm, impossible to describe, which gives the impression

that we are listening to a gentleman. And it is the ease, the refinement,

the exquisite naturalness of Thackeray's style that furnishes a large part

of our pleasure in reading him.

MARY ANN EVANS, GEORGE ELIOT (1819-1880)

In nearly all the writers of the Victorian Age we note, on the one hand, a

strong intellectual tendency to analyze the problems of life, and on the

other a tendency to teach, that is, to explain to men the method by which

these problems may be solved. The novels especially seem to lose sight of

the purely artistic ideal of writing, and to aim definitely at moral

instruction. In George Eliot both these tendencies reach a climax. She is

more obviously, more consciously a preacher and moralizer than any of her

great contemporaries. Though profoundly religious at heart, she was largely

occupied by the scientific spirit of the age; and finding no religious

creed or political system satisfactory, she fell back upon duty as the

supreme law of life. All her novels aim, first, to show in individuals the

play of universal moral forces, and second, to establish the moral law as

the basis of human society. Aside from this moral teaching, we look to

George Eliot for the reflection of country life in England, just as we look

to Dickens for pictures of the city streets, and to Thackeray for the

vanities of society. Of all the women writer's who have helped and are

still helping to place our English novels at the head of the world's

fiction, she holds at present unquestionably the highest rank.

LIFE. Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans, known to us by her pen name of George

Eliot, began to write late in life, when nearly forty years of age, and

attained the leading position among living English novelists in the ten

years between 1870 and 1880, after Thackeray and Dickens had passed away.

She was born at Arbury Farm, Warwickshire, some twenty miles from

Stratford-on-Avon, in 1819. Her parents were plain, honest folk, of the

farmer class, who brought her up in the somewhat strict religious manner of

those days. Her father seems to have been a man of sterling integrity and

of practical English sense,--one of those essentially noble characters who

do the world's work silently and well, and who by their solid worth obtain

a position of influence among their fellow-men.

A few months after George Eliot's birth the family moved to another home,

in the parish of Griff, where her childhood was largely passed. The scenery

of the Midland counties and many details of her own family life are

reflected in her earlier novels. Thus we find her and her brother, as

Maggie and Tom Tulliver, in _The Mill on the Floss;_ her aunt, as Dinah

Morris, and her mother, as Mrs. Poyser, in _Adam Bede_. We have a

suggestion of her father in the hero of the latter novel, but the picture

is more fully drawn as Caleb Garth, in _Middlemarch_. For a few years she

studied at two private schools for young ladies, at Nuneaton and Coventry;

but the death of her mother called her, at seventeen years of age, to take

entire charge of the household. Thereafter her education was gained wholly

by miscellaneous reading. We have a suggestion of her method in one of her

early letters, in which she says: "My mind presents an assemblage of

disjointed specimens of history, ancient and modern; scraps of poetry

picked up from Shakespeare, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Milton; newspaper

topics, morsels of Addison and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry, entomology,

and chemistry; reviews and metaphysics, all arrested and petrified and

smothered by the fast-thickening everyday accession of actual events,

relative anxieties, and household cares and vexations."

When Mary was twenty-one years old the family again moved, this time to

Foleshill Road, near Coventry. Here she became acquainted with the family

of Charles Bray, a prosperous ribbon manufacturer, whose house was a

gathering place for the freethinkers of the neighborhood. The effect of

this liberal atmosphere upon Miss Evans, brought up in a narrow way, with

no knowledge of the world, was to unsettle many of her youthful

convictions. From a narrow, intense dogmatism, she went to the other

extreme of radicalism; then (about 1860) she lost all sympathy with the

freethinkers, and, being instinctively religious, seemed to be groping

after a definite faith while following the ideal of duty. This spiritual

struggle, which suggests that of Carlyle, is undoubtedly the cause of that

gloom and depression which hang, like an English fog, over much of her

work; though her biographer, Cross, tells us that she was not by any means

a sad or gloomy woman.

In 1849 Miss Evans's father died, and the Brays took her abroad for a tour

of the continent. On her return to England she wrote several liberal

articles for the _Westminster Review_, and presently was made assistant

editor of that magazine. Her residence in London at this time marks a

turning point in her career and the real beginning of her literary life.

She made strong friendships with Spencer, Mill, and other scientists of the

day, and through Spencer met George Henry Lewes, a miscellaneous writer,

whom she afterwards married.

Under his sympathetic influence she began to write fiction for the

magazines, her first story being "Amos Barton" (1857), which was later

included in the _Scenes of Clerical Life_ (1858). Her first long novel,

_Adam Bede_, appeared early in 1859 and met with such popular favor that to

the end of her life she despaired of ever again repeating her triumph. But

the unexpected success proved to be an inspiration, and she completed _The

Mill on the Floss_ and began _Silas Marner_ during the following year. Not

until the great success of these works led to an insistent demand to know

the author did the English public learn that it was a woman, and not an

English clergyman, as they supposed, who had suddenly jumped to the front

rank of living writers.

Up to this point George Eliot had confined herself to English country life,

but now she suddenly abandoned the scenes and the people with whom she was

most familiar in order to write an historical novel. It was in 1860, while

traveling in Italy, that she formed "the great project" of _Romola_,--a

mingling of fiction and moral philosophy, against the background of the

mighty Renaissance movement. In this she was writing of things of which she

had no personal knowledge, and the book cost her many months of hard and

depressing labor. She said herself that she was a young woman when she

began the work, and an old woman when she finished it. _Romola_ (1862--

1863) was not successful with the public, and the same may be said of

_Felix Holt the Radical_ (1866) and _The Spanish Gypsy_ (1868). The

last-named work was the result of the author's ambition to write a dramatic

poem which should duplicate the lesson of _Romola_; and for the purpose of

gathering material she visited Spain, which she had decided upon as the

scene of her poetical effort. With the publication of _Middlemarch_

(1871-1872) George Eliot came back again into popular favor, though this

work is less spontaneous, and more labored and pedantic, than her earlier

novels. The fault of too much analysis and moralizing was even more

conspicuous in _Daniei Deronda_ (1876), which she regarded as her greatest

book. Her life during all this time was singularly uneventful, and the

chief milestones along the road mark the publication of her successive

novels.

During all the years of her literary success her husband Lewes had been a

most sympathetic friend and critic, and when he died, in 1878, the loss

seemed to be more than she could bear. Her letters of this period are

touching in their loneliness and their craving for sympathy. Later she

astonished everybody by marrying John Walter Cross, much younger than

herself, who is known as her biographer. "Deep down below there is a river

of sadness, but ... I am able to enjoy my newly re-opened life," writes

this woman of sixty, who, ever since she was the girl whom we know as

Maggie Tulliver, must always have some one to love and to depend upon. Her

new interest in life lasted but a few months, for she died in December of

the same year (1880). One of the best indications of her strength and her

limitations is her portrait, with its strong masculine features, suggesting

both by resemblance and by contrast that wonderful portrait of Savonarola

which hangs over his old desk in the monastery at Florence.

WORKS OF GEORGE ELIOT. These are conveniently divided into three groups,

corresponding to the three periods of her life. The first group includes

all her early essays and miscellaneous work, from her translation of

Strauss's _Leben Jesu_, in 1846, to her union with Lewes in 1854. The

second group includes _Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, Mill on the

Floss_, and _Silas Marner_, all published between 1858 and 1861. These four

novels of the middle period are founded on the author's own life and

experience; their scenes are laid in the country, and their characters are

taken from the stolid people of the Midlands, with whom George Eliot had

been familiar since childhood. They are probably the author's most enduring

works. They have a naturalness, a spontaneity, at times a flash of real

humor, which are lacking in her later novels; and they show a rapid

development of literary power which reaches a climax in _Silas Marner_.

The novel of Italian life, _Romola_ (1862-1863), marks a transition to the

third group, which includes three more novels,--_Felix Holt_ (1866),

_Middlemarch_ (1871-1872), _Daniel Deronda_ (1876), the ambitious dramatic

poem _The Spanish Gypsy_ (1868), and a collection of miscellaneous essays

called _The Impressions of Theophrastus Such_ (1879). The general

impression, of these works is not so favorable as that produced by the

novels of the middle period. They are more labored and less interesting;

they contain much deep reflection and analysis of character, but less

observation, less delight in picturing country life as it is, and very

little of what we call inspiration. We must add, however, that this does

not express a unanimous literary judgment, for critics are not wanting who

assert that _Daniel Deronda_ is the highest expression of the author's

genius.

The general character of all these novels may be described, in the author's

own term, as psychologic realism. This means that George Eliot sought to do

in her novels what Browning attempted in his poetry; that is, to represent

the inner struggle of a soul, and to reveal the motives, impulses, and

hereditary influences which govern human action. Browning generally stops

when he tells his story, and either lets you draw your own conclusion or

else gives you his in a few striking lines. But George Eliot is not content

until she has minutely explained the motives of her characters and the

moral lesson to be learned from them. Moreover, it is the development of a

soul, the slow growth or decline of moral power, which chiefly interests

her. Her heroes and heroines differ radically from those of Dickens and

Thackeray in this respect,--that when we meet the men and women of the

latter novelists, their characters are already formed, and we are

reasonably sure what they will do under given circumstances. In George

Eliot's novels the characters develop gradually as we come to know them.

They go from weakness to strength, or from strength to weakness, according

to the works that they do and the thoughts that they cherish. In _Romola_,

for instance, Tito, as we first meet him, may be either good or bad, and we

know not whether he will finally turn to the right hand or to the left. As

time passes, we see him degenerate steadily because he follows his selfish

impulses, while Romola, whose character is at first only faintly indicated,

grows into beauty and strength with every act of self-renunciation.

In these two characters, Tito and Romola, we have an epitome of our

author's moral teaching. The principle of law was in the air during the

Victorian era, and we have already noted how deeply Tennyson was influenced

by it. With George Eliot law is like fate; it overwhelms personal freedom

and inclination. Moral law was to her as inevitable, as automatic, as

gravitation. Tito's degeneration, and the sad failure of Dorothea and

Lydgate in _Middlemarch_, may be explained as simply as the fall of an

apple, or as a bruised knee when a man loses his balance. A certain act

produces a definite moral effect on the individual; and character is the

added sum of all, the acts of a man's; life,--just as the weight of a body

is the sum of the weights of many different atoms which constitute it. The

matter of rewards and punishments, therefore, needs no final judge or

judgment, since these things take care of themselves automatically in a

world of inviolable moral law.

Perhaps one thing more should be added to the general characteristics of

George Eliot's novels,--they are all rather depressing. The gladsomeness of

life, the sunshine of smiles and laughter, is denied her. It is said that

once, when her husband remarked that her novels were all essentially sad,

she wept, and answered that she must describe life as she had found it.

WHAT TO READ. George Eliot's first stories are in some respects her best,

though her literary power increases during her second period, culminating

in _Silas Marner_, and her psychological analysis is more evident in

_Daniel Deronda_. On the whole, it is an excellent way to begin with the

freshness and inspiration of the _Scenes of Clerical Life_ and read her

books in the order in which they were written. In the first group of novels

_Adam Bede_ is the most natural, and probably interests more readers than

all the others combined. _The Mill on the Floss_ has a larger personal

interest, because it reflects much of George Eliot's history and the scenes

and the friends of her early life. The lack of proportion in this story,

which gives rather too much space to the girl-and-boy experiences, is

naturally explained by the tendency in every man and woman to linger over

early memories.

_Silas Marner_ is artistically the most perfect of George Eliot's novels,

and we venture to analyze it as typical of her ideals and methods. We note

first the style, which is heavy and a little self-conscious, lacking the

vigor and picturesqueness of Dickens, and the grace and naturalness of

Thackeray. The characters are the common people of the Midlands, the hero

being a linen weaver, a lonely outcast who hoards and gloats over his

hard-earned money, is robbed, thrown into utter despair, and brought back

to life and happiness by the coming of an abandoned child to his fire. In

the development of her story the author shows herself, first, a realist, by

the naturalness of her characters and the minute accuracy with which she

reproduces their ways and even the accents of their speech; second, a

psychologist, by the continual analysis and explanation of motives; third,

a moralist, by showing in each individual the action and reaction of

universal moral forces, and especially by making every evil act bring

inevitable punishment to the man who does it. Tragedy, therefore, plays a

large part in the story; for, according to George Eliot, tragedy and

suffering walk close behind us, or lurk at every turn in the road of life.

Like all her novels, _Silas Marner_ is depressing. We turn away from even

the wedding of Eppie--which is just as it should be--with a sense of

sadness and incompleteness. Finally, as we close the book, we are conscious

of a powerful and enduring impression of reality. Silas, the poor weaver;

Godfrey Cass, the well-meaning, selfish man; Mr. Macey, the garrulous, and

observant parish clerk; Dolly Winthrop, the kind-hearted countrywoman who

cannot understand the mysteries of religion and so interprets God in terms

of human love,--these are real people, whom having once met we can never

forget.

_Romola_ has the same general moral theme as the English novels; but the

scenes are entirely different, and opinion is divided as to the comparative

merit of the work. It is a study, a very profound study of moral

development in one character and of moral degeneracy in another. Its

characters and its scenes are both Italian, and the action takes place

during a critical period of the Renaissance movement, when Savonarola was

at the height of his power in Florence. Here is a magnificent theme and a

superb background for a great novel, and George Eliot read and studied till

she felt sure that she understood the place, the time, and the people of

her story. _Romola_ is therefore interesting reading, in many respects the

most interesting of her works. It has been called one of our greatest

historical novels; but as such it has one grievous fault. It is not quite

true to the people or even to the locality which it endeavors to represent.

One who reads it here, in a new and different land, thinks only of the

story and of the novelist's power; but one who reads it on the spot which

it describes, and amidst the life which it pictures, is continually haunted

by the suggestion that George Eliot understood neither Italy nor the

Italians. It is this lack of harmony with Italian life itself which caused

Morris and Rossetti and even Browning, with all his admiration for the

author, to lay aside the book, unable to read it with pleasure or profit.

In a word, _Romola_ is a great moral study and a very interesting book; but

the characters are not Italian, and the novel as a whole lacks the strong

reality which marks George Eliot's English studies.

MINOR NOVELISTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

In the three great novelists just considered we have an epitome of the

fiction of the age, Dickens using the novel to solve social problems,

Thackeray to paint the life of society as he saw it, and George Eliot to

teach the fundamental principles of morality. The influence of these three

writers is reflected in all the minor novelists of the Victorian Age. Thus,

Dickens is reflected in Charles Reade, Thackeray in Anthony Trollope and

the Brontë sisters, and George Eliot's psychology finds artistic expression

in George Meredith. To these social and moral and realistic studies we

should add the element of romance, from which few of our modern novelist's

can long escape. The nineteenth century, which began with the romanticism

of Walter Scott, returns to its first love, like a man glad to be home, in

its delight over Blackmore's _Lorna Doone_ and the romances of Robert Louis

Stevenson.

CHARLES READE. In his fondness for stage effects, for picturing the

romantic side of common life, and for using the novel as the instrument of

social reform, there is a strong suggestion of Dickens in the work of

Charles Reade (1814-1884). Thus his _Peg Woffington_ is a study of stage

life from behind the scenes; _A Terrible Temptation_ is a study of social

reforms and reformers; and _Put yourself in his Place_ is the picture of a

workingman who struggles against the injustice of the trades unions. His

masterpiece, _The Cloister and the Hearth_ (1861), one of our best

historical novels, is a somewhat laborious study of student and vagabond

life in Europe in the days of the German Renaissance. It has small

resemblance to George Eliot's _Romola_, whose scene is laid in Italy during

the same period; but the two works may well be read in succession, as the

efforts of two very different novelists of the same period to restore the

life of an age long past.

ANTHONY TROLLOPE. In his realism, and especially in his conception of the

novel as the entertainment of an idle hour, Trollope (1815-1882) is a

reflection of Thackeray. It would be hard to find a better duplicate of

Becky Sharp, the heroine of _Vanity Fair_, for instance, than is found in

Lizzie Eustace, the heroine of _The Eustace Diamonds_. Trollope was the

most industrious and systematic of modern novelists, writing a definite

amount each day, and the wide range of his characters suggests the _Human

Comedy_ of Balzac. His masterpiece is _Barchester Towers_ (1857). This is a

study of life in a cathedral town, and is remarkable for its minute

pictures of bishops and clergymen, with their families and dependents. It

would be well to read this novel in connection with _The Warden_ (1855),

_The Last Chronicle of Barset_ (1867), and other novels of the same series,

since the scenes and characters are the same in all these books, and they

are undoubtedly the best expression of the author's genius. Hawthorne says

of his novels: "They precisely suit my taste,--solid and substantial, and

... just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth

and put it under a glass case, with all the inhabitants going about their

daily business and not suspecting that they were being made a show of."

CHARLOTTE BRONTë. We have another suggestion of Thackeray in the work of

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855). She aimed to make her novels a realistic

picture of society, but she added to Thackeray's realism the element of

passionate and somewhat unbalanced romanticism. The latter element was

partly the expression of Miss Brontë's own nature, and partly the result of

her lonely and grief-stricken life, which was darkened by a succession of

family tragedies. It will help us to understand her work if we remember

that both Charlotte Brontë and her sister Emily[242] turned to literature

because they found their work as governess and teacher unendurable, and

sought to relieve the loneliness and sadness of their own lot by creating a

new world of the imagination. In this new world, however, the sadness of

the old remains, and all the Brontë novels have behind them an aching

heart. Charlotte Brontë's best known work is _Jane Eyre_ (1847), which,

with all its faults, is a powerful and fascinating study of elemental love

and hate, reminding us vaguely of one of Marlowe's tragedies. This work won

instant favor with the public, and the author was placed in the front rank

of living novelists. Aside from its value as a novel, it is interesting, in

many of its early passages, as the reflection of the author's own life and

experience. _Shirley_ (1849) and _Villette_ (1853) make up the trio of

novels by which this gifted woman is generally remembered.

BULWER LYTTON. Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873) was an extremely versatile

writer, who tried almost every kind of novel known to the nineteenth

century. In his early life he wrote poems and dramas, under the influence

of Byron; but his first notable work, _Pelham_ (1828), one of the best of

his novels, was a kind of burlesque on the Byronic type of gentleman. As a

study of contemporary manners in high society, _Pelham_ has a suggestion of

Thackeray, and the resemblance is more noticeable in other novels of the

same type, such as _Ernest Maltravers_ (1837), _The Caxtons_ (1848-1849),

_My Novel_ (1853), and _Kenelm Chillingly_ (1873). We have a suggestion of

Dickens in at least two of Lytton's novels, _Paul Clifford_ and _Eugene

Aram_, the heroes of which are criminals, pictured as the victims rather

than as the oppressors of society. Lytton essayed also, with considerable

popular success, the romantic novel in _The Pilgrims of the Rhine_ and

_Zanoni_, and tried the ghost story in _The Haunted and the Haunters_. His

fame at the present day rests largely upon his historical novels, in

imitation of Walter Scott, _The Last Days of Pompeii_ (1834), _Riettza_

(1835), and _Harold_ (1848), the last being his most ambitious attempt to

make the novel the supplement of history. In all his novels Lytton is

inclined to sentimentalism and sensationalism, and his works, though

generally interesting, seem hardly worthy of a high place in the history of

fiction.

KINGSLEY. Entirely different in spirit are the novels of the scholarly

clergyman, Charles Kingsley (1819-1875). His works naturally divide

themselves into three classes. In the first are his social studies and

problem novels, such as _Alton Locke_ (1850), having for its hero a London

tailor and poet, and _Yeast_ (1848), which deals with the problem of the

agricultural laborer. In the second class are his historical novels,

_Hereward the Wake, Hypatia_, and _Westward Ho! Hypatia_ is a dramatic

story of Christianity in contact with paganism, having its scene laid in

Alexandria at the beginning of the fifth century. _Westward Ho_! (1855),

his best known work, is a stirring tale of English conquest by land and sea

in the days of Elizabeth. In the third class are his various miscellaneous

works, not the least of which is _Water-Babies_, a fascinating story of a

chimney sweep, which mothers read to their children at bedtime,--to the

great delight of the round-eyed little listeners under the counterpane.

MRS. GASKELL. Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) began, like Kingsley, with

the idea of making the novel the instrument of social reform. As the wife

of a clergyman in Manchester, she had come in close contact with the

struggles and ideals of the industrial poor of a great city, and she

reflected her sympathy as well as her observation in _Mary Barton_ (1848)

and in _North and South_ (1855). Between these two problem novels she

published her masterpiece, _Cranford_, in 1853. The original of this

country village, which is given over to spinsters, is undoubtedly

Knutsford, in Cheshire, where Mrs. Gaskell had spent her childhood. The

sympathy, the keen observation, and the gentle humor with which the small

affairs of a country village are described make _Cranford_ one of the most

delightful stories in the English language. We are indebted to Mrs. Gaskell

also for the _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, which is one of our best

biographies.

BLACKMORE. Richard Doddridge Blackrhore (1825--1900) was a prolific writer,

but he owes his fame almost entirely to one splendid novel, _Lorna Doone_,

which was published in 1869. The scene of this fascinating romance is laid

in Exmoor in the seventeenth century. The story abounds in romantic scenes

and incidents; its descriptions of natural scenery are unsurpassed; the

rhythmic language is at times almost equal to poetry; and the whole tone of

the book is wholesome and refreshing. Altogether it would be hard to find a

more delightful romance in any language, and it well deserves the place it

has won as one of the classics of our literature. Other works of Blackmore

which will repay the reader are _Clara Vaughan_ (1864), his first novel,

_The Maid of Sker_ (1872), _Springhaven_ (1887), _Perlycross_ (1894), and

_Tales from the Telling House_ (1896); but none of these, though he counted

them his best work, has met with the same favor as _Lorna Doone_.

MEREDITH. So much does George Meredith (1828-1909) belong to our own day

that it is difficult to think of him as one of the Victorian novelists. His

first notable work, _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_, was published in 1859,

the same year as George Eliot's _Adam Bede;_ but it was not till the

publication of _Diana of the Crossways_ in 1885, that his power as a

novelist was widely recognized. He resembles Browning not only in his

condensed style, packed with thought, but also in this respect,--that he

labored for years in obscurity, and after much of his best work was

published and apparently forgotten he slowly won the leading place in

English fiction. We are still too near him to speak of the permanence of

his work, but a casual reading of any of his novels suggests a comparison

and a contrast with George Eliot. Like her, he is a realist and a

psychologist; but while George Eliot uses tragedy to teach a moral lesson,

Meredith depends more upon comedy, making vice not terrible but ridiculous.

For the hero or heroine of her novel George Eliot invariably takes an

individual, and shows in each one the play of universal moral forces.

Meredith constructs a type-man as a hero, and makes this type express his

purpose and meaning. So his characters seldom speak naturally, as George

Eliot's do; they are more like Browning's characters in packing a whole

paragraph into a single sentence or an exclamation. On account of his

enigmatic style and his psychology, Meredith will never be popular; but by

thoughtful men and women he will probably be ranked among our greatest

writers of fiction. The simplest and easiest of his novels for a beginner

is _The Adventures of Henry Richmond_ (1871). Among the best of his works,

besides the two mentioned above, are _Beauchamp's Career_ (1876) and _The

Egoist_ (1879). The latter is, in our personal judgment, one of the

strongest and most convincing novels of the Victorian Age.

HARDY. Thomas Hardy (1840-) seems, like Meredith, to belong to the present

rather than to a past age, and an interesting comparison may be drawn

between these two novelists. In style, Meredith is obscure and difficult,

while Hardy is direct and simple, aiming at realism in all things. Meredith

makes man the most important phenomenon in the universe; and the struggles

of men are brightened by the hope of victory. Hardy makes man an

insignificant part of the world, struggling against powers greater than

himself,--sometimes against systems which he cannot reach or influence,

sometimes against a kind of grim world-spirit who delights in making human

affairs go wrong. He is, therefore, hardly a realist, but rather a man

blinded by pessimism; and his novels, though generally powerful and

sometimes fascinating, are not pleasant or wholesome reading. From the

reader's view point some of his earlier works, like the idyllic love story

_Under the Greenwood Tree_ (1872) and _A Pair of Blue Eyes_ (1873), are the

most interesting. Hardy became noted, however, when he published _Far from

the Madding Crowd_, a book which, when it appeared anonymously in the

_Cornhill Magazine_ (1874), was generally attributed to George Eliot, for

the simple reason that no other novelist was supposed to be capable of

writing it. _The Return of the Native_ (1878) and _The Woodlanders_ are

generally regarded as Hardy's masterpieces; but two novels of our own day,

_Tess of the D'Ubervilles_ (1891) and _Jude the Obscure_ (1895), are better

expressions of Hardy's literary art and of his gloomy philosophy.

STEVENSON. In pleasing contrast with Hardy is Robert Louis Stevenson

(1850-1894), a brave, cheery, wholesome spirit, who has made us all braver

and cheerier by what he has written. Aside from their intrinsic value,

Stevenson's novels are interesting in this respect,--that they mark a

return to the pure romanticism of Walter Scott. The novel of the nineteenth

century had, as we have shown, a very definite purpose. It aimed not only

to represent life but to correct it, and to offer a solution to pressing

moral and social problems. At the end of the century Hardy's gloom in the

face of modern social conditions became oppressive, and Stevenson broke

away from it into that land of delightful romance in which youth finds an

answer to all its questions. Problems differ, but youth is ever the same,

and therefore Stevenson will probably be regarded by future generations as

one of our most enduring writers. To his life, with its "heroically happy"

struggle, first against poverty, then against physical illness, it is

impossible to do justice in a short article. Even a longer biography is

inadequate, for Stevenson's spirit, not the incidents of his life, is the

important thing; and the spirit has no biographer. Though he had written

much better work earlier, he first gained fame by his _Treasure Island_

(1883), an absorbing story of pirates and of a hunt for buried gold. _Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ (1886) is a profound ethical parable, in which,

however, Stevenson leaves the psychology and the minute analysis of

character to his readers, and makes the story the chief thing in his novel.

_Kidnapped_ (1886), _The Master of Ballantrae_ (1889), and _David Balfour_

(1893) are novels of adventure, giving us vivid pictures of Scotch life.

Two romances left unfinished by his early death in Samoa are _The Weir of

Hermiston_ and _St. Ives_. The latter was finished by Quiller-Couch in

1897; the former is happily just as Stevenson left it, and though

unfinished is generally regarded as his masterpiece. In addition to these

novels, Stevenson wrote a large number of essays, the best of which are

collected in _Virginibus Puerisque, Familiar Studies of Men and Books_, and

_Memories and Portraits_. Delightful sketches of his travels are found in

_An Inland Voyage_ (1878), _Travels with a Donkey_ (1879), _Across the

Plains_ (1892), and _The Amateur Emigrant_ (1894). _Underwoods_ (1887) is

an exquisite little volume of poetry, and _A Child's Garden of Verses_ is

one of the books that mothers will always keep to read to their children.

In all his books Stevenson gives the impression of a man at play rather

than at work, and the reader soon shares in the happy spirit of the author.

Because of his beautiful personality, and because of the love and

admiration he awakened for himself in multitudes of readers, we are

naturally inclined to exaggerate his importance as a writer. However that

may be, a study of his works shows him to be a consummate literary artist.

His style is always simple, often perfect, and both in his manner and in

his matter he exercises a profound influence, on the writers of the present

generation.

III. ESSAYISTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800-1859)

Macaulay is one of the most typical figures of the nineteenth century.

Though not a great writer, if we compare him with Browning or Thackeray, he

was more closely associated than any of his literary contemporaries with

the social and political struggles of the age. While Carlyle was

proclaiming the gospel of labor, and Dickens writing novels to better the

condition of the poor, Macaulay went vigorously to work on what he thought

to be the most important task of the hour, and by his brilliant speeches

did perhaps more than any other single man to force the passage of the

famous Reform Bill. Like many of the Elizabethans, he was a practical man

of affairs rather than a literary man, and though we miss in his writings

the imagination and the spiritual insight which stamp the literary genius,

we have the impression always of a keen, practical, honest mind, which

looks at present problems in the light of past experience. Moreover, the

man himself, with his marvelous mind, his happy spirit, and his absolute

integrity of character, is an inspiration to better living.

LIFE. Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, in 1800. His

father, of Scotch descent, was at one time governor of the Sierra Leone

colony for liberated negroes, and devoted a large part of his life to the

abolition of the slave trade. His mother, of Quaker parentage, was a

brilliant, sensitive woman, whose character is reflected in that of her

son. The influence of these two, and the son's loyal devotion to his

family, can best be read in Trevelyan's interesting biography.

As a child, Macaulay is strongly suggestive of Coleridge. At three years of

age he began to read eagerly; at five he "talked like a book"; at ten he

had written a compendium of universal history, besides various hymns, verse

romances, arguments for Christianity, and one ambitious epic poem. The

habit of rapid reading, begun in childhood, continued throughout his life,

and the number and vari ety of books which he read is almost incredible.

His memory was phenomenal. He could repeat long poems and essays after a

single reading; he could quote not only passages but the greater part of

many books, including _Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost_, and various

novels like _Clarissa_. Once, to test his memory, he recited two newspaper

poems which he had read in a coffeehouse forty years before, and which he

had never thought of in the interval.

At twelve years of age this remarkable boy was sent to a private school at

Little Shelford, and at eighteen he eqgered Trinity College, Cambridge.

Here he made a reputation as a classical scholar and a brilliant talker,

but made a failure of his mathematics. In a letter to his mother he wrote:

"Oh for words to express my abomination of that science.... Discipline of

the mind! Say rather starvation, confinement, torture, annihilation!" We

quote this as a commentary on Macaulay's later writings, which are

frequently lacking in the exactness and the logical sequence of the science

which he detested.

After his college course Macaulay studied law, was admitted to the bar,

devoted himself largely to politics, entered Parliament in 1830, and almost

immediately won a reputation as the best debater and the most eloquent

speaker, of the Liberal or Whig party. Gladstone says of him: "Whenever he

arose to speak it was a summons like a trumpet call to fill the benches."

At the time of his election he was poor, and the loss of his father's

property threw upon him the support of his brothers and sisters; but he

took up the burden with cheerful courage, and by his own efforts soon

placed himself and his family in comfort. His political progress was rapid,

and was due not to favoritism or intrigue, but to his ability, his hard

work, and his sterling character. He was several times elected to

Parliament, was legal adviser to the Supreme Council of India, was a member

of the cabinet, and declined many offices for which other men labor a

lifetime. In 1857 his great ability and services to his country were

recognized by his being raised to the peerage with the title of Baron

Macaulay of Rothley.

Macaulay's literary work began in college with the contribution of various

ballads and essays to the magazines. In his later life practical affairs

claimed the greater part of his time, and his brilliant essays were written

in the early morning or late at night. His famous _Essay on Milton_

appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_ in 1825. It created a sensation, and

Macaulay, having gained the ear of the public, never once lost it during

the twenty years in which he was a contributor to the magazines. His _Lays

of Ancient Rome_ appeared in 1842, and in the following year three volumes

of his collected _Essays_. In 1847 he lost his seat in Parliament,

temporarily, through his zealous efforts in behalf of religious toleration;

and the loss was most fortunate, since it gave him opportunity to begin his

_History of England_,--a monumental work which he had been planning for

many years. The first two volumes appeared in 1848, and their success can

be compared only to that of the most popular novels. The third and fourth

volumes of the _History_ (1855) were even more successful, and Macaulay was

hard at work on the remaining volumes when he died, quite suddenly, in

1859. He was buried, near Addison, in the Poets' Corner of Westminster

Abbey. A paragraph from one of his letters, written at the height of his

fame and influence, may give us an insight into his life and work:

I can truly say that I have not, for many years, been so happy as I am at

present.... I am free. I am independent. I am in Parliament, as honorably

seated as man can be. My family is comfortably off. I have leisure for

literature, yet I am not reduced to the necessity of writing for money. If

I had to choose a lot from all that there are in human life, I am not sure

that I should prefer any to that which has fallen to me. I am sincerely and

thoroughly contented.