scott's example and success naturally attracted many writers towards the novel. byron, shelley, mrs. shelley, and claire clairmont, with polidori, byron's physician, all amused themselves with writing romances in the "truly horrid" style during a period of rainy weather on the lake of geneva. byron's first chapters of a romance of a vampire, with the opening scene, in the desert near ephesus, are admirable and tantalizing. completed as heaven pleased by polidori, the story was popular on the continent, was made the theme of more than one opera, and was dramatized by charles nodier. mrs. shelley's "frankenstein," highly praised by scott, really is very satisfactorily horrid; her later novels are forgotten.
so far, and also in the three scottish novels of miss susan ferrier (1782-1854) there was no imitation of scott, indeed her tale "marriage" (1818) was published four years after "waverley". this work, with "inheritance," and "destiny," contained humorous studies of scottish character—of these miss pratt is the best remembered.
john galt (1779-1839) was a man of affairs and a prolific general writer, an acquaintance of byron. the best of his books, "the annals of the parish," is very good indeed: the old innocent minister records the humours and sorrows of his flock from year to year, throughout the commercial "awakening of scotland". except for the fact that the book deals with scottish life it is not an imitation of sir walter; nor is "the provost," or "the ayrshire legatees," who travel south as humphry clinker travelled north of tweed, and, like humphry's company, narrate their adventures and record their reflections. galt's best books are still[pg 610] well worth reading; they, not scott's romances, are the ancestors of the modern "kailyard school," as it was called in its day.
beginning with an imitation of scott, william harrison ainsworth (born 1805) became a literary man very young, published for the first time in "a christmas box," scott's "bonny dundee," and, as editor, advertised himself colossally (he was a strikingly handsome person), and poured out historical novels, "the tower," "rookwood," "jack sheppard," and many others. he "crammed" for the historical details, of which he was too lavish, and, aided by cruikshank's designs, attained a wide popularity, which has vanished. he continued to write almost till his death in 1882.
g. p. r. james (1799-1860) is only remembered for his famous two horsemen in his opening scenes; long before his death his vogue had passed.
his contemporary, lord beaconsfield (benjamin disraeli, 1804-1881), for a man so active in politics, wrote a great mass of fiction, from the "vivian grey" of his boyhood, to more mature works in which many of the characters were easily recognized by contemporaries. the political novels, such as "coningsby" abound in satire, "sybil" in reflections on society; all are full of a fantasy rather oriental, and "lothair," in 1870, was as personal in its allusions as "coningsby". "ixion" and "the infernal marriage" are brief apologues, full of mocking mirth; everywhere there is brilliance; but substance in the way of human character and of "convincing" narrative is rare. the author was amusing himself and his world between the innings of a greater game. thackeray's burlesque "codlingsby" may survive "coningsby".
perhaps thackeray's "phil fogarty of the fighting onety oneth," may also outlive its originals, the military novels of charles lever (1806-1872), tales of the camp, the march and the battle. yet they lose great pleasure who neglect major monsoon, micky free, and baby blake, in lever's "charles o'malley"; the major is a jewel of a character. the early scenes at trinity college, dublin, and in the galway of the old days of claret and pistols are admirable; and lever knew many anecdotes of the peninsular war to[pg 611] which he does full justice. he was in his early years a most spirited narrator, full of humour, with sometimes a cloud of melancholy crossing the landscape which dwells in the memory. no man could always maintain the high spirits of "charles o'malley" and "harry lorrequer," and lever turned to tales of a more subdued and ordinary kind. one of them, "a day's ride: a life's romance," considerably lowered the circulation of dickens's "all the year round". but it will be in a sad kind of world that "charles o'malley" will die.
edward george bulwer lytton (1803-1873) was (perhaps after robert chambers, but far more conspicuously) the most versatile man of letters of his age. he entered parliament very early, before the passing of the reform bill, and already he had impressed scott by his novel "pelham". sir walter wrote to lockhart, curious about "pelham" and its author. lockhart, replied curtly that "pelham is a puppy," and its author, like disraeli, certainly aimed at being a dandy, and had a byronic pose. perhaps for this reason thackeray regarded lytton as a mass of affectations in thought and style, with his pretensions to classical learning and neo-platonic lore, and mysticism, and his affection for virtuous criminals as in "eugene aram". thackeray's burlesque of lytton, "george de barnwell," was his favourite among his own works, and is a joy for ever with its sham history, sham classics, and sham sentiment. when lytton, in a satire, attacked tennyson as "miss alfred" the poet finished the fight in a single round. however, lytton's novels continued to win admiration, whether they were historical romances (of these "the last days of pompeii" is probably the best of all tales which introduce early christians, and is still very readable) or whether they were stories of modern life. "zanoni" has several times defeated the present writer; but "the caxtons" is full of interest. there is no better romance of the supernormal than "a strange story"; and perhaps a kind of sketch for it, "the haunted and the haunters," is at least as good. the marvels, we may say, are "spread too thick," but lytton manifestly had in his mind the well-authenticated story of willington mill. to the last lytton kept changing his manner and working, with wonderful freshness, in new fields. he missed[pg 612] being in the first rank of novelists, and the bloom is very early off the rye of novelists who fall short of that rank.
of lockhart's novels, though he tried his hand four times (once in the unlucky early christian period with "valerius"), only one is read, "adam blair," a vigorous and gloomy study of the temptation and fall of a scottish parish minister. hogg's "confessions of a justified sinner" is a most astonishing work, when once it gets under way, anticipating r. l. stevenson's handling o the terrible in a lonely upland parish (see "thrawn janet"). but if the story is tardy in its earlier chapters, in the later, it rivals not only stevenson but hawthorne, yet few people can be induced to give it a trial.
captain frederick marryat (1792-1848) is a novelist of the days of nelson's fleet, and nothing is more surprising, nothing in the same field more distressing, than the neglect into which the nautical novels of the creator of "peter simple," "mr. midshipman easy," "masterman ready" and "snarley-yow" appear to have fallen. they are full of humour, high spirits, genuine adventures, and sound honest views of life and duty. carlyle ungratefully called them "nonsense," but he read them when under the blow of the destruction of his manuscript of the french revolution. they are the best sort of boys' books, but the inexplicable taste of boys leads them to prefer the works of mr. henty to those which their grandfathers read, the books of scott, dumas, thackeray, dickens, and captain marryat.
they were not so fond of michael scott's "tom cringle's log," and "the cruise of the midge," but they did read and shudder over mrs. shelley's best novel, "frankenstein". of infinitely more merit than these novelists are the glories of the victorian period, dickens, thackeray, and charlotte bront?.
dickens.
"a star danced and under that was he born" might have been the astrological explanation of the genius of charles dickens (born at portsmouth, 1812). explorers of "heredity" can find no source of the humour and art of dickens in his father (mr. micawber), a dockyard clerk whose fortunes were never so high as[pg 613] his buoyant hopes; and who was in prisons often for debt. as mrs. dickens, the mother, confessedly lent traits to mrs. nickleby, we need not look for genius on that side. dickens's early literary education was mainly derived from some old books which he found in a cupboard. there were "the arabian nights," for example, and fielding's novels (he played at being tom jones, a child's tom jones, an innocent creature), stories of shipwrecks (he went about in fear of savages and determined to sell his life dearly), in fact there was plenty of good reading. he seems also to have had a nurse who told stories delightfully "frightening". we see many traits of his fantastic childish thoughts and dreams in the early pip of "great expectations"; there are memories, too, in little dombey, and in the infancy of david copperfield. he was, in short, born with an elfish imagination; always he retained the primitive habit of giving souls and characters to lifeless things. his power of minute observation was precocious, and he was a dreamer of day-dreams till the poverty, and negligence, of his family sent him to win his tiny wages and choose his own poor meals, in the service of a warehouse.
all this bitter part of his life made him a close observer of poverty; a schemer of expedients; a little man of a child. the improvement of his family's affairs gave him some rather irregular schooling; it was enough to teach him to draw inimitably well the various kinds of schoolboy, except the cruel bully, whom he would have found rampant and abominable at any public school. like david copperfield he learned shorthand, was a reporter in parliament, and conceived a contempt for parliamentary institutions. we all know how he felt when his first magazine article was published: in 1836 papers of his appeared as "sketches by boz," and in them his peculiar humour, not without debt to theodore hook and other well forgotten comic contemporaries, is already conspicuous.
in 1836 he was asked to write papers of the comic and sporting sort, for illustrations of the adventures of a club of citizens. "i thought of mr. pickwick," he says, and, though mr. pickwick did not often run, he ran away with dickens's fancy as dugald dalgetty ran away with scott's. the peripatetic socrates[pg 614] of his younger companions, messrs. snodgrass, winkle, find tracy tupman, mr. pickwick kept on improving as vir pietate gravis, chivalrous as don quixote, adventurous as he, benevolent, and innocent as a child, yet dignified, and to be trifled with by no man or cabman. we remember mr. pickwick's idea of an attitude of self-defence! the influence of smollett is on dickens as on fanny burney; "pickwick" is a sequel of adventures of the road and of the inn, filled full of the highest animal-spirits, witness the adventure of the lady with yellow curl-papers! some extraneous stories are placed in the middle of the tale, as by fielding and smollett: the book is not a novel, it is something better, it is "pickwick"!
already, like fielding, and with more pertinacity, dickens was attacking social abuses, imprisonment for debt, the fleet prison, the law, as represented by messrs. dodson and fogg and mr. justice stareleigh. accidental happy thoughts occurred to him, mr. samuel weller for one, as the tale went on appearing in monthly numbers, and the author was never much ahead of the printer. this mode of publication is responsible for the length and diffuseness of many of the novels both of dickens and thackeray. the sheets had to be filled: compression and construction could not be attained; and, in later works, when dickens did labour hard to construct a plot, we find it, often, as involuted and obscure as the plots of congreve's comedies.
"pickwick" was an overwhelming success; dickens found himself famous and entangled in engagements to produce more concurrent fictions than even scott could have kept up simultaneously. yet his high animal spirits and glowing fancy poured themselves out in "nicholas nickleby," "oliver twist," "the old curiosity shop," "barnaby rudge," and "martin chuzzlewit" (the american scenes are due to his experiences of the united states), between 1838 and 1843. consider the immense variety, the humour, the crowd of eternally amusing characters; caricatures, if any one pleases, but the most laughable of caricatures. the squeerses, the crummleses, the dodger, mrs. nickleby, mr. pecksniff, bailey junior, mrs. gamp, mr. richard swiveller, the marchioness—he who loves them not knows them not![pg 615] the melodramatic and pathetic characters and scenes are less universally admired; ralph nickleby, monk, and jonas chuzzlewit rather try our belief, and all the world does not weep over little nell. to say, with r. l. stevenson, that dickens, in delineating little dombey, tiny tim, little nell, and dora in "david copperfield," "wallowed naked in the pathetic," is to offend many devout admirers. we can take chaucer's counsel and "turn the other page".
in "david copperfield" (1849-1850), with the charm of the infancy of david, the pain of his days in the warehouse, with mr. and mrs. micawber, spenlow and jorkins, peggotty, mr. dick, betsy trotwood, and the rest, dickens reached, perhaps, the highest mark of his genius. in "bleak house" (1852-1853), despite the jellybys, and harold skimpole, he was too much engaged in the work of reform, and trysted with too difficult a plot, to reach similar success. the plot of "little dorrit" (1855-1857) is not readily intelligible; the book was disappointing. in "a tale of two cities" he won the votes of very many readers who do not care for his lighter works: in "great expectations" he was himself again, and the plot is the best that he ever constructed, his pip, from childhood onwards, is a masterpiece; mr. wopsle, and mr. pumblechook are joys for ever; and miss havisham, though severely criticized, is not, perhaps, untrue to nature, or at least to the actual facts of the case on which dickens worked.
of "our mutual friend," it must be confessed that the plot is difficult: in "dombey and son" (1846-1848) dickens appears to have deserted his idea, on an important point, as scott did in "st. ronan's well," in deference to the wishes of a friend, and the same change seems to have been made, for a similar reason, in the fortunes of estella, in "great expectations".
in "edwin drood," written in the last year of dickens's life, (1869-1870), when he was outworn by the feverish energy of his nature, and by the fatigues of travel and of giving readings in hospitable america, dickens at least left an unsolved puzzle to his students. what was "the mystery" of edwin drood? did jasper murder him, or fail to murder him? some external and some internal evidence favours the idea that jasper succeeded, but[pg 616] we have seen that dickens was very capable of relenting at the last moment. in this novel, as in some of his short stories, dickens shows that leaning to the "supernormal" which he usually kept well in hand; so much, indeed, that in his "child's history of england," he treats jeanne d'arc as a conceited, hysterical little prig. dickens had none of the qualities of a historian, and all the contempt of a liberal of his day for the middle ages. he was not a man of much bookish knowledge: he was a unique genius presenting, as in a magic mirror, worlds that appeared to himself alone, but that all were rejoiced to see as he saw them.
he did not see the world of "society" as others see it who live in it (he avoided it), but then what world did he see as other people do? other worlds he beheld with more sympathy, indeed, but all things presented a kind of fantastic vividness in that enchanted crystal of his imagination. that some of his mannerisms are vexatious is not to be denied: that there are moments of want of balance, of excitement born of fatigue, of breaking into unconscious blank verse, in the great mass of his work is too manifest in his letters we see the causes and occasions of these defects. but it is ill work, in so brief a sketch, to find faults in the productions of a genius so unique that it has, in our literature, no parallel, and can never be an example. dickens had imitators, but he could not found a school: he was "the only boz". his defects were perfectly visible to the critics of his own day, who did not spare them, but the world did not suffer its pleasure to be darkened by the spots on the sun. we flatter ourselves that dickens is peculiarly english, and so he is in his idealization of punch and other creature comforts; yet he is remarkably popular, even in translations, among the french, and by the poles he is, among our authors, the most admired.
thackeray.
it has been the lot of thackeray to be constantly pitted against dickens, like gray against collins, and browning against tennyson. people have taken sides for one or another, as taste and fancy led, for they were contemporaries, they were novelists, humorists, satirists. but while dickens, like the minstrel of[pg 617] odysseus, was "self-taught," and was never a man of books, thackeray (born at calcutta in 1811) was educated at charterhouse, and, with tennyson, at trinity college, cambridge, where his career was not unlike that of his arthur pendennis, though he took no degree. to thackeray, charterhouse was what christ's hospital was to lamb, a constant rather rueful memory; a memory, in thackeray's case, of fagging, fights (in one he received an honourable scar), of idleness, story-telling, rhyming, caricaturing, and of the classics, stupidly taught. but, like fielding, he did not forget his classics. his bent was to the art of design: many of his sketches, though often out of drawing, are very humorous; his becky sharp, carrying a coal scuttle, is the actual becky, and emmy, in the dance at pumpernickel, wears the charming face that haunted his pencil. on leaving cambridge he visited germany and met goethe: he lost his patrimony, partly to mr. deuceace, partly in the attempt to found a newspaper. in paris, and in london, after an early marriage (1836), broken by a lifelong sorrow (mrs. thackeray survived him), he wrote for the press, continuing the vein of his scribbling in undergraduate papers like "the snob," and of his comic prize poem, "timbuctoo," with its dominant note "africa for the africans".
i see her sons the hill of glory mount
and sell their sugars on their own account.
his parisian miscellanies in "the paris sketchbook" (1840) are of varied quality, but are all characteristic. he had found his style, with its harmonies, as in the essay on george sand: and his british scorn of some french vagaries is offensive to many cosmopolitan minds. unlike dickens he is unpopular in france; he trod the soil with an air of remembering agincourt and waterloo. he wrote for "the times," and in "fraser," published the "yellowplush papers" of that great menial whose christian names, charles james, reveal the stuart "mistry" in which his "ma" wrapped up his "buth". jeames was a critic, much too personal, of bulwer lytton and dionysius lardner, that encyclop?dist; and, as a momentary capitalist, as de la pluche, is a satirist of the age of rapid railway-made fortunes. the simple humours[pg 618] of his spelling recall smollett's winifred jenkins in "humphry clinker"; while thackeray's major gahagan is a delightful irish captain bobadil. "catherine" was a burlesque on the heroes and heroines of novels of virtuous criminals, showing that knowledge of the eighteenth century which was thackeray's favourite period ("barry lyndon," "esmond," "the english humorists," "denis duval," "the four georges").
thackeray was much inclined to historical studies. "i like history, it is so gentlemanly," he said, but a man, not being a professor, cannot live by history alone, and he never finished, probably never began, his contemplated "reign of queen anne".
everywhere among his early essays and burlesques, his tenderness peeps out, his pathos, his love of children, and of goodness; and his haunting melancholy. these are especially conspicuous in "the shabby genteel story," written at a time of great sorrow and struggle with poverty. "barry lyndon" was overlooked, despite its masterly ironic study of the vain-glorious irish adventurer of the eighteenth century; its pictures, from the gambler's point of view, of berlin under frederick the great, of the little german duchies, of the wild half-ruined irish gentry; of the chevalier de balibari, so perfect as a catholic, a disillusioned jacobite, a gentleman, and a swindler. the later adventures of barry are drawn from robertson, and the dowager lady strathmore, and their squalid romance. this book, among thackeray's, corresponds to fielding's "jonathan wild," though the irony is broken by the author's comments, which are deemed inartistic. there are moments when barry's blackguardism breaks down, and he yields to what some may call sentiment, and others, the soul of good in things evil. nothing so great and nothing more unlike dickens, had appeared since fielding's day, but "barry lyndon" passed without a welcome.
"the irish sketchbook" (1843) was the best irish sketchbook since that of giraldus cambrensis, but neither that, nor "from cornhill to cairo" (1846) "caught this great stupid public by the ears". "mrs. perkins's ball" (1847), a christmas trifle, contains the immortal figure of the mulligan, to think of whom is to laugh as one writes. he was sketched from a well-known irishman of[pg 619] the day. the little vignettes of other guests of mrs. perkins are worthy of addison, down to the greengrocer butler.
in "punch," thackeray had been writing and drawing things good and things commonplace. his burlesques of novelists include "george de barnwell" (lytton) which he is said to have thought his masterpiece, and "codlingsby" (disraeli), which is hardly inferior; but lever was annoyed by his "phil fogarty of the fighting onety oneth". thackeray is the classic parodist; his gift of imitation is as wonderful in the "burlesques" as in "esmond". scott, who was privately on the side of rebecca, in "ivanhoe," and who had deliberately made rowena "very english," would not have been vexed, like lever, by thackeray's "rowena and rebecca," wherein, on false news of wilfrid's death, the english princess espouses athelstane.
it was "the book of snobs," with its cruel satire of our british vice, that came home, when republished from "punch," to men's bosoms. thackeray avowed that de me fabula, that he was a snob himself: and, to some readers, it is matter for regret that he dwelt so long and so intensely on the mean admiration of things mean. he told motley (1858) that he could not read "the book of snobs".
at last, in "vanity fair," which appeared, like dickens's novels, in monthly parts (with yellow covers), thackeray, after so many vain endeavours, "took this great stupid public by the ears". here was another epic, like "tom jones," of english life, from the year preceding waterloo: though the marquis of steyne was too closely studied from a contemporary wicked marquis. from the first chapter, the scene of becky with the dictionary, to the end where (quite out of character, say becky's admirers) she appears as a melodramatic clyt?mnestra, the author "never stoops his wing". never, surely, did man create, in a single novel, characters so many, so varied, so justly conceived, so immortal. fielding has not a quarter of thackeray's variousness, does not see so wide a vision of life. think of them; all the crawleys, the two sir pitts, rawdon (amo rawdon), jim crawley; miss crawley, the old patrician whig and sceptic; the two osbornes, the little boys, osborne iii. and little rawdon; mrs.[pg 620] o'dowd; the spunging-house keeper; mr. wenham, ensign stubble, lord steyne, the misses pinkerton, briggs, waterloo sedley, the belgian courier, glorvina, the lady bareacres,—the catalogue is endless. dobbin is as good as that honest gentleman can be made: we can only say that thackeray's good women are not at once as human and as angelic as fielding's sophia and amelia. emmy is not clever; emmy can be jealous; a vice from which mrs. rawdon crawley is nobly free. the nearest woman to sophia in thackeray is theo in "the virginians". but sophia is a paragon.
thackeray was now, by no fault of his, set up as the rival of dickens, whose works he constantly praised, in season and out of season, in public and in private. but as every man is born an aristotelian or a platonist, a whig or a tory, so men are born to take one side or other about the great twin brethren of english fiction, in place of admiring and enjoying both. each has his masterpieces, dickens with "pickwick," "david copperfield," and "great expectations"; thackeray with "vanity fair," "esmond," "the newcomes," and "pendennis". that admirable but lengthy picture of the life of school, of the university, literature, and society, and of mr. henry foker, bears traces, in discrepancies and fatigue, of a severe illness which affected the author's memory of part of the tale, as a malady swept from scott's the whole of "the bride of lammermoor".
the noble tour de force of "esmond" (1852) was, for the most part, dictated in disturbing conditions, which makes yet greater the marvel of its style of queen anne's date; not uniform, to be sure, not all antique (any more than colonel esmond's political views are all antique or uniform), but still, a kind of prodigy. beatrix esmond is indeed, as her lover said, a "paragon," and it is historically impossible that, in the end, she should have betrayed "the blameless king," king james iii., whom thackeray converted from a melancholy quietist into a witty and profligate prince. there was no "queen oglethorpe". scott never took this kind of liberty with an historical character, in fiction; and thackeray rivalled scott's other licences by making the duke of hamilton an unmarried man. but nobody thinks of these things[pg 621] when "esmond" admits him into the society of the augustan age, and when bolingbroke hiccups about jonathan's readiness to command the fleet.
"the newcomes" (1855) revived the public taste for thackeray; the public did not, it is said, quite understand "esmond". like all novels published in parts throughout two years, "the newcomes" is too long, and has its languors, but every one wept over the good colonel, loathed the campaigner, delighted in fred bayham, wished "to beat barnes newcome on the nose," was afraid of lady kew; sighed with clive, was more or less in love with ethel, and was anxious, vainly anxious, to see no more of laura pendennis: an angel perhaps, but a recording angel.
at rome, in winter, 1853, thackeray, to amuse some children, wrote "the rose and the ring," a classic of the nursery, of the schoolroom, and of the "grown up". he who writes was a child in 1855, and to him bulbo, hedzoff, king valoroso, and the countess gruffanuff, with the usual contrasted heroines, angelica and rosalba, were not dearer then than they are now. even then the equation was plain:—
{angelica rosalba}
fair and {becky emmy } dark and
false {blanche amory laura } true and
{rowena rebecca} tender.
thackeray's naughty women are "fair and false," his good women are "dark, and true, and tender".
the novelist's is a "dreadful trade". he has to raise ever new crops from soil more or less exhausted. dickens had his "dombey," his "little dorrit," his "mutual friend"; and thackeray had his "virginians," the grandsons of colonel esmond, with their kinswoman, beatrix esmond, fallen into an old age of cards, and rouge and powder. beatrix, for her beauty's sake, should have been translated, like the fairest woman of the ancient world, helen, to the plain elysian. we do not want to see her in old age, or to hear her last wild words, "mesdames, je suis la ——" la reine, the queen.
"the virginians" is full of excellent things, wonderful studies[pg 622] of the later eighteenth century; and harry is a deal, brave, stupid lad, and george is a sardonic, melancholy descendant of colonel esmond, and ancestor of "stunner warrington" in pendennis; and will esmond and chaplain sampson are worthy of fielding, but the author was tired; after "vanity fair" he was always tired, and the book has barren expanses and languors. "'the virginians,'" he said to motley, "is devilish stupid, but at the same time most admirable." thackeray's health was worn out; as a change of work he founded, but soon wearied of editing, "the cornhill magazine"; was at his lowest level in "lovel the widower"; was so weary in "philip" that he styled the hero "clive" by inadvertence, though he endowed his clumsy philip with one of his best women, charlotte. he ventured into melodrama, which he liked, but could not write well; yet his "roundabout papers" show that he was, as an essayist, equal to his younger self.
his "denis duval" seemed to promise a return of his genius, but christmas day, 1863, was a black christmas, for the author had died, suddenly and alone, in the night of christmas eve.
he had a great faculty of enjoyment, a generous heart sorely tried, a melancholy that was not causeless: immense kindness and love of the young, in short the character, in these respects, of molière and of charles lamb. let us confess that he was unjust to becky sharp and beatrix esmond. but he had a shakespearean tenderness for his rogues, and having conceived the draconic design of hanging colonel altamont, he respited that bold adventurer. from boyhood he had his own originality of style.
in the cultivated town of highbury
my father kept a circulating library,
are boyish lines of his, and we recognize him even there, beginning to be what he is in his "book of ballads," so various, so merry, so melancholy, so fresh as they are. though the influences of the prose of queen anne and of fielding helped to form his style, it is entirely his own; with the blended accents of his own humour and pathos, and harmonies before unheard; exquisite passages of verbal music.
[pg 623]
the bront? sisters.
concerning the bront? sisters much, mainly personal, has been written, in proportion to the amount of their works. their novels, especially those of charlotte ("jane eyre," "shirley," "villette," "the professor"), seem like the extraordinary and almost automatic products of their parentage and surroundings. the father, the rev. patrick prunty or bront?, was an irish protestant of county down, who, after struggles with circumstances, was educated at st. john's college, cambridge, and took holy orders. his protestantism and politics were those of an orangeman: his hero (who could have a better?) was the duke of wellington, and he was addicted to the composition of verse. his wife, a cornish woman, was of feeble health, and died after giving birth to six children, two of whom, maria and elizabeth, died in early youth; the others were charlotte (1816), branwell (1817), emily (1818), and anne (1820). on the mother's death the father lived a sequestered studious life in a bleak parsonage on the yorkshire moors, and the children were entirely devoted to drawing, reading books and magazines meant for their elders, to writing, day-dreaming, and to wandering from the grim rectory over the open moors. their health was blighted by the conditions of the school called lowood in "jane eyre"; their tempers were hardened and sharpened by poverty and the white slave's life of the governess, so much dreaded and so well understood by miss austen's jane fairfax in "emma". the unhappy branwell, in the end, haunted the rectory, an awful presence of intellect degraded, and while emily wrapped herself up in a kind of christian stoicism, charlotte was left to the contrast between the dreams of her fiery genius, and the facts of her narrow life. in 1842 charlotte and emily became inmates of the school of monsieur and madame heger at brussels, which later afforded to charlotte the scene and two characters in "villette". in 1846 the three sisters published "poems, by currer, ellis, and acton bell". of this book two copies were sold, of the poems emily's alone are still admired for their sombre energy and resolute spirit.
the sisters now wrote novels, emily, "wuthering heights,"[pg 624] charlotte, "the professor"; anne, "agnes grey". in august, 1846, charlotte began "jane eyre," which, when finished, came into the hands of thackeray's publishers, messrs. smith & elder, and filled them with amazement and enthusiasm. the book appeared in autumn, 1847, pleased lockhart, then editor of "the quarterly review," no less than it pleased mr. smith, and at once became the "daughter of debate," discussed everywhere, praised and reviled, and, in some unintelligible way, most reviled by "the quarterly". the critic detected in the author an unregenerate, violent rebel against society, and a woman who was a dishonour to her sex! certainly—
a wounded human spirit turns
here on its bed of pain.
the unparalleled vigour and genius of the early scenes, the cruelties which the lonely child supports with unconquered spirit, were things new in fiction, while the repressed passion of the plain yet seductive governess during the wooing of the too byronic mr. rochester, and in a house as terrible as the castle of mrs. radcliffe's "sicilian romance," excited a lively romantic interest, accompanied by a tendency to smile at an ignorant imagination. borrowed romance combined with instinctive realism, bitter experience blended with the day-dreams of a life, a frankness long forgotten by early victorian fiction, made the novel a strange and triumphantly successful combination. that mentor of young novelists, george lewes, recommended to the author the study of miss austen, whose novels charlotte bront? was not happy enough (because she never had been happy) to appreciate. that she had no humour we cannot say, but she had none of the kindly humour of her great predecessor.
meanwhile "wuthering heights," that strange and strenuous study of violent characters, was eclipsed by "jane eyre," though it has now come to its own, thanks to the appreciations of mr. matthew arnold and mr. swinburne. the author did not live to find herself famous; anne bront? also died, leaving their sister in deeper solitude. charlotte's "shirley" (1849), with its caricatures of the local curates, caused the discovery of her authorship: the curates were forgiving, and the novel was welcomed.[pg 625] miss bront? visited london, a shy and tameless lioness, and met thackeray, whom she had regarded as a saul among the prophets, and discovered to be something rather different. her shyness permitted her to rebuke him in good set terms, but blighted his guests. her last novel, "villette" (1852), with romantic situations, is a record of her personal experiences at brussels; unfortunate for her hosts, and a cause of much gossip and personal discussion. the book is not destitute of the hungry bitterness which matthew arnold detected and disliked; and we ask how in the nature of things it could be otherwise? her experience had been narrow, atrocious, and on her experience and from her experience she always drew when she did not borrow from her day-dreams. in life she did not find the love of which she dreamed: in 1854 (she had rejected several other suitors) she married the rev. mr. nicholls, her father's curate, and died in the following year. her life, her character, and her books were one, and were unique. "this little jeanne d'arc," as thackeray called her, this eager rebel and ardent tory, broke into the placidity of the contemporary novel, and opened a pathway unto many, who had little or none of her genius.
the best estimate of the bront?s, clear of and contemptuous of trivialities and gossip, is in french, "les s?urs bront?," by the abbé dimnet.
nathaniel hawthorne.
the end of all that greeks and trojans suffered for helen's sake was "that there might be a song in the ears of men of after times". in the view of the interests of art (and in no other) the end of puritanism in new england was to inspire the novels of nathaniel hawthorne (1804-1864). he was more certainly the classical author of american fiction than either thackeray or dickens is in england. they were prodigal of their genius, giving "as rich men give who care not for their gifts," or, if you please, as poor men when the printer's devil is at the door, even as did sir walter, who never thought about "art". but hawthorne hoarded his inspirations, and when he used them gave them in the best form which was within his means. the inspiration was always moral, and usually bizarre. in his published note-books we see his method; he conceived some strange situations; over some of these he brooded till the characters disengaged themselves[pg 626] and lived before his eyes, and worked out their wyrd under stress of sin and remorse. he thought of the effect of a sudden homicidal act on a character gay, innocent, and faunlike, and we have donatello in "the marble faun" (or "transformation"). he thought of the amour of a puritan preacher (like lockhart in "adam blair") and the idea grew into "the scarlet letter". he thought of the beautiful poisonous girl (an old legend) and we have "rappacini's daughter". the puritan sense of sin, and the old new england sorrows of the witchcraft trials, and the shadows of the woods, and the fear of the indians, among whom meikle john gibb (a covenanter who went too far even for the rev. mr. cargill) was a great medicine-man, dwelt in his imagination. he felt acutely, though not a man of religion, the horrors of the genevan creed, which did not make the people who believed in it more unhappy than their episcopalian neighbours. they were accustomed to the doctrines which horrified hawthorne's contemporaries in america, and, like the black laird of ormistoun, hanged for darnley's murder, and richly deserving to be hanged for his daily misdeeds, they saw their way out of a doom of eternal fire which hawthorne supposed them always to anticipate. nervousness had not set in, the climate had not produced its effect on the sturdy puritans of new england. by hawthorne's time the climate had produced its effect, and he brooded blackly over what his ancestors should have felt—but did not feel. the black laird of ormistoun had only to convince himself that he was of the elect, as he did, and death, to him, meant, as he said, that he should sup that night in paradise. not understanding this buoyancy of temperament, hawthorne dwelt on the horrors which he supposed his ancestors to have fed full of, and, in his stories, expressed his emotions in terms of imperishable art. though he had no theological basis he remained a puritan. he, to whom beauty was everything, talked of "the squeamish love of beauty". in europe he is said (like an excellent pope who had tin aprons made for the classic nude figures of graeco-roman sculpture) to have been horrified by the innocent nudities of ancient art. they had never seen anything so improper at salem, massachusetts, a decaying seaport where he was born, and lived for fourteen years after taking his degree[pg 627] at bowdoin in 1825. here he wrote short tales with little acceptance; and he did not till 1849-1854, publish his best known novels, "the scarlet letter," "the house of the seven gables," and (a result of a stay at a peaceful and purely amateur socialist settlement, brook farm) "the blithedale romance". his "tanglewood tales," from greek myths (in which hermes is called "quicksilver") at first repel, for obvious reasons, but, in fact and on reflection, have much charm, and with kingsley's "the heroes" ought not to be neglected by parents and guardians, but rather "placed in the hands" of children. though some amateurs may prefer "the house of the seven gables," haunted as it is by the blood which chokes the justice, and a little enlivened by the dusty humour of hepzibah, a decayed gentlewoman, and pervaded by the pretty charm of phoebe, "the scarlet letter" is probably hawthorne's masterpiece. it may be, and has been, denied by specialists that the hectic and craven rev. mr. dimmesdale could possibly have been the father of the elf-like child pearl, but these are "oppositions of science, falsely so called". hester's avenging husband may be, in conception, dickenslike, but the treatment is far from suggesting dickens, while the passion of hester is a masterpiece of poetical fiction. knots may be sought and found in any reed of fictitious narrative, but "the scarlet letter" remains, in its human characters and its dim lights, in its purposeful limitations, and hints at something unrevealed, a masterpiece of romance written under classical conditions. "the marble faun" (the plot and mystery were suggested by the murder, by a french duke, of his wife; miriam is the british governess in that unholy affair) has noble moments and passages, and unconsciously reveals what his note books publicly avow, that hawthorne was terribly ill at ease in europe, and among monuments of classic and mediaeval art. he had some scruple about enjoying them—they were not at all american, and he was rather bitterly patriotic, one might almost say parochial, in certain moods. but he had lived for most of his life in salem, massachusetts; he had, for several years, been american consul at liverpool; he was a genius of the most exquisite nature, and no more is needed to explain some acerbities and some misappreciations, while we can[pg 628] all sympathize with his criticisms of the adiposity of some british matrons.
oliver wendell holmes.
what has been said about longfellow may be whispered about oliver wendell holmes, who was at once poet, essayist, and novelist. both authors should be read first while the reader is young, and can enjoy their books with the freshness of an unsophisticated taste. this is not true of the very great things in literature, in these with advancing experience we ever find new merits, while in studying some early favourites we can scarcely recapture our original delight.
holmes was born in the same year as edgar allan poe (1809) at cambridge in new england, where his father was "orthodox minister of the first church". this appears to mean that he was a calvinist, while harvard, where the son was educated, was devoted to the unitarian creed, of which the articles are, to the writer, unknown. holmes accepted them. medicine was his profession, he held for some time a chair of anatomy; in boston, where he lived for the greater part of his life, he practised for some time, but his productions in verse and prose gradually caused him to occupy himself mainly with letters. in 1831 he first produced part of his "autocrat of the breakfast table," monologues with rare interruptions from the fellow guests of a pension. in 1857 he returned to this pleasant form of discursive essays, the other guests breaking in occasionally according to their ages and characters. hitherto holmes had been best known for "occasional verses," especially verses written for the phi beta kappa society of his university, and for college anniversaries. the "one hoss shay" is, in england, with "the nautilus," the best known of these social feats. in his discursive essays he frequently breaks a lance with his old enemy, calvinistic theology. this is not very exhilarating; at least to readers who never learned, or if they learned never attached any meaning to the shorter catechism. holmes, who, to be sure, had a minister as his tutor, and hawthorne, appear to have understood the doctrines, which were useful to holmes as a butt, and to hawthorne as a background in his[pg 629] novels, gloomy and alarming,—"the ghoul-haunted woodland of weir". naturally holmes found the sciences to which he was bred very useful in supplying anecdotes and illustrations to his essays and romances. in "elsie venner," the heroine, on good calvinistic principles, is of the seed of the serpent, and inherits its nature, owing to some mishap of her mother with a rattlesnake. whether this be scientifically conceivable or not, elsie is, by inheritance, a perfectly original young woman in an ordinary environment of new england. we do not expect to meet melusine so far from lusignan. in "the guardian angel" the heroine has several complex personalities, derived from different ancestors, one of them a red indian. these devices are in hawthorne's manner of fantastic invention, without hawthorne's grasp and power, but the heroines are surrounded by characters more humorous and natural than hawthorne's people, and the stories are extremely good reading, as are the discursive essays. there is abundance of knowledge of the world, of wit, of humour, and of kind good-humour. there is plenty of strange lore from old books of mystic medicine, and holmes confessed to being "a little superstitious". near the house of his boyhood there were "devil's footsteps" in a field, and a house from which a portion of the wall had been carried away "from within outward". the marks were associated with a story of a diabolical apparition at a hell fire club, just as at brasenose college, oxford. the terrors of his childhood left their mark on his books. there was the faintest touch of cotton mather in this foe of cotton's creed, which, out of fashion or not, was the nurse of many virtues inherited by its tireless opponent. his enduring fame rests on his "autocrat" and other essays. "no man in england," said thackeray in 1858, "can write with his charming mixture of wit, pathos, and imagination."
charles kingsley.
charles kingsley (1819-1875) was a novelist "by way of by-work," and had intellect and energy which might have found for themselves other fields; born thirty years earlier he might have distinguished himself under wellington or nelson. but in piping[pg 630] times of peace, after living the life of an athlete, sportsman, and reading man at magdalene, cambridge, he took holy orders, as colonel gardiner might have done, had he been earlier converted. as rector of eversley in hampshire, he was an energetic parish priest, and had opportunities of angling for those uneducated trout which he commemorates in his pleasant "chalk stream studies," for he was a born naturalist and observer of nature. the agitation among the labouring classes in the times of the chartists awakened him to social questions and "christian socialism"; but as the excitement of the populace lulled, his interest slackened. the fruits of it were the novels of "yeast" and "alton locke" (1848, 1850) which well deserve to be read, and repay the reader. it is almost incredible that cambridge crews, in kingsley's day, rowed in the may week after wine-parties and much eating of ices; but the sympathy with "sweated" artisans and the delineation of rural scenes and sports, are fiery, forcible, and sincere, whatever the truth may be about cambridge training at that distant date. in 1853 he produced "hypatia," a romance of the pagan girl-philosopher, torn to pieces by the christian mob of alexandria. the advent of goths who cut up these beasts is a welcome relief, but the jew who attempts humorous philosophy is merely a proof of kingsley's lack of humour and an example of his characteristically strenuous efforts to be humorous. the book is, indeed, a boy's book, and has something in it, kingsley's preoccupation with sexual ethics, which is not so agreeable to reflective seniors. somewhat of this, with an aggressive protestantism, and the sin of "jocking wi' deeficulty," mar the otherwise delightful romance of "westward ho!" the adventures of amyas leigh on the spanish main and in tropical forests in the great days of elizabethan adventure. kingsley hates and execrates the spaniards. we have ourselves exterminated some savage peoples, and nearly exterminated others, and have no right to throw the first stone at the spanish conquerors in america, odious beyond words as their dealings with aztecs and incas were; while the privy council, under cecil, could give points in cruelty to the spanish inquisition of the day. but the boy who reads, or ought to read, "westward ho!" has none of these chilling reflections, nor had kingsley.[pg 631] taking the facts as kingsley saw them, in the old english way, the novel is a superlatively excellent romance of english virtue and valour; and there is no doubt as to the valour and the adventurers had no doubts as to their own virtues. the whole is the work of a poet—for a poet kingsley was,—and of a patriot, sympathizing with drake's england in the crucial trial whence she emerged a victor. "where are the galleons of spain?"
"two years ago," a novel of the crimean war, must take its chances with the historical facts; and, in "hereward the wake," the bloodthirsty hero, despite the glory of his final fight, which rivals that of the brave bussy or of grettir the strong in the saga, in places awakes the smile even of the reflective schoolboy, to whom however, it may be recommended. "the water babies" is not always defective in humour, and would be excellent as a tale for children were it not for satire directed at the parents of the period. "the heroes" initiate the young into the glories of the romance of minyans and minoans, and can only be spoken of by those who read it in early boyhood with entire gratitude and the remembrance of delight. indeed, no one who has read kingsley after the age of 16 is a fair critic of an author who, like r. l. stevenson, was always at heart a boy; to appreciate him we must put away grown-up things; while, as to his verse, his songs and ballads, in "andromeda" (1858), and even his hexameters, deserve immortality. he was not fitted for the chair of history at cambridge.
froude thinks that kingsley's a divine,
and kingsley goes to froude for history,
said the poet. his controversy with cardinal newman brought him into contact with a prettier fighter, and he did not come up to time against the author of the "apologia". his essays, especially that on the puritan aversion to the caroline drama, are vigorous, and well worth reading.
the brother of charles kingsley, henry (1830-1876) either wanted leisure or lacked care and constructive faculty, but in his earlier works he displayed high spirits, and kind humour, with a good deal of skill in drawing character, and an engaging reckless manner. his most careful book, "geoffrey hamlyn," though[pg 632] promising, is not so dear to its readers as "ravenshoe," a delightful topsy-turvy romance. the children in henry kingsley's books are especially fascinating.
here we may briefly advert to two writers who with remarkable originality of character and outlook as novelists appeal to but small but devoted audiences. thomas love peacock (1785-1866) was an almost self-made classical scholar, and a friend of shelley's. his contributions to shelley's biography are those of a rather candid though intensely admiring friend. his novels, from the early "headlong hall" and "melincourt," and "nightmare abbey," to "gryll grange," at the end of his career, are not so much romances as discursive and satirical studies of, and dialogues about, contemporary society, opinion, and taste. some of the characters are drawn, in part, from real personages, for example, from shelley himself. the wit which shelley called so keen, occasionally yields place to somewhat florid burlesque. the interest of peacock is partly that which we feel in his own character and satiric views of life; partly it is historical.
george borrow (1803-1881), a norfolk man, who in childhood had followed his father's regiment as sterne had done, can be best estimated by a study of his "lavengro," really a sort of autobiography. here he paints himself as a genius in the study of many languages, a friend of gypsies and their fellow-wanderer; an expert in the art of boxing, and altogether as a character equally vigorous and eccentric, and a sturdy low churchman who hates papists, snobs, and sir walter scott. whether on the moors with the viper-catcher; or at horse-fairs with jockeys and thimble-riggers; or as the hack of a niggardly publisher; or fighting the flaming tinman under the eyes of the lovely but unconvincing isopel berners, borrow is always the strong, wild, tameless heroic figure. as an agent for the bible society in spain he was in a place which suited his genius, and his "the bible in spain" is at least as romantic as evangelical. "the romany rye" is of the same fantastically autobiographical form as "lavengro"; brilliantly capricious and picturesque. other books are "the gypsies in spain," and "wild wales". borrow plumed himself much on his wide range of philological learning, from welsh to[pg 633] manchu, but the strict modern science does not regard him as a very great scholar. there are dull stagnant places in his books, and there are passages aflame with genius.
mrs. oliphant (mary margaret wilson (1828-1897)) was a woman of letters who heroically undertook incessant labour for the sake of others who were dependent on her pen. consequently her gifts were diluted, and she must always be best known for the novels styled "the chronicles of carlingford," which are remarkable for their placid unstrained humour. more than once she displayed a very unusual power of dealing with the supernatural, especially in "a beleaguered city," and "old lady mary". in these pieces her manner is unique for tenderness and sympathy. in her historical biographies, as of molière and jeanne d'arc, she suffered from want of strict training, and if she found a good thing of apocryphal source, inserted it on its literary merits. her work on the publishing "house of blackwood" is valuable to the student of literature and literary lives in the days of wilson and lockhart. few who have written so much have written so well.
wilkie collins (1824-1889), a close associate of dickens, was an assiduous professional novelist, who strenuously did his best and achieved two or three immense popular successes. his main strength lay in the construction of plots which powerfully excited curiosity, as in "the woman in white," "no name," and "the moonstone"; the former was apparently suggested by the mystery of a french law suit, which dragged on from before the revolution to the reign of louis philippe. the central puzzle, a question of identity, never was solved. collins did his best to create characters, as well as to tell stories, but his humour was laboured (captain wragge is his chief success), and he shared with dickens the mannerism of constantly dwelling on the tricks and hobbies of his people. for a long and warm appreciation of collins, mr. swinburne's essay may be consulted. the work of his later years and overtasked fancy, such as "poor miss finch" and "the haunted hotel," may be neglected; some of his short stories are good.
popular novelists were major whyte-melville, best in tales of sport and the affections, but ranging all fields from ancient assyria[pg 634] to "the queen's maries"; george lawrence, the author of that joy of boyhood, "guy livingstone," "sword and gown," and other tales military and sporting. he was the intellectual father of "ouida" (miss de la ramée) with her magnificent guardsmen, and innocent descriptions of racing and of field sports. she was for long very prolific and very popular, she lashed the vices of society, and was the constant friend of animals. gorgeous is the epithet that may be applied to her style, and humour did not enter into her genius, which may be called "heroic" in the manner of the seventeenth century tragedies.
james payn, on the other hand, had almost too much humour for the purposes of a novelist, accompanied by the most delightful high spirits. these would have interfered with the success of his novels, from "lost sir massingberd" onwards, in which he provided the public with highly wrought melodramas,—the style of the serious characters being "heroic" in a high degree,—had the public perceived that he was laughing in his sleeve. but his domestic sentiment, and his spirited heroes and heroines, carried the serious reader on, while light-hearted readers were convulsed with laughter. his best novels proper are perhaps "by proxy" and "halves". he was one of the best and kindest of men, and most hospitable, as editor of "the cornhill magazine," to the work of younger authors, such as mr. stanley weyman and r. l. stevenson. the "john inglesant" of mr. shorthouse, a dignified and thoughtful novel of the great rebellion, which had a resonant success, mr. payn declined when it came before him in manuscript; he also took no pleasure in the works of ?schylus.
george meredith.
george meredith, novelist and poet, was, in his literary fortunes, a somewhat mysterious power; a somewhat thwarted force. his early novels, the comic oriental tale of "the shaving of shagpat," "the ordeal of richard feverel," "evan harrington," "rhoda fleming," were full of humour, wit, pathos, the charm of love's young dream; were peopled by delightful heroines, whose heroes were appropriate, brave, and not too staid. rose jocelyn, lucy, the countess, the dark rhoda fleming, the beautiful[pg 635] hapless dahlia, certainly very young readers in those old days of the early' sixties were in love with them—thought the aphorisms of "the pilgrim's scrip" the acme of witty wisdom; rejoiced in mrs. berry as in the nurse of julia, delighted in the hypochondriac hippy, and in adrian, the wise young man; nearly shed tears over clare doria forey, who let concealment, like the worm i' the bud, feed on her damask cheek; admired the glorious mel; laughed sympathetically over algernon, the young fool, and his derby day, and generally were a most favourable public. but the general public was unfavourable. meredith's "evan harrington" nearly ruined "once a week,"—even aided by charles keene's designs it was a failure; and the editor had to call in shirley brooks, with "the silver cord," which no man remembereth, perhaps, except him who writes. those early novels were not obscure, even to the reading boy; the wit was net too subtle and alembicated, or too profuse; the humour was english—beer and cricket were provided—there was pathos, comedy, character in abundance, but the novels did not appeal to that happy reading public which had still thackeray and dickens; and george eliot for the thoughtful, and miss braddon, in the full flush of her early genius, for all who liked a plain tale well told, a humorous melodrama (such as "the doctor's wife"); or while mrs. henry wood poured forth romances that deans and princes and everybody could appreciate. it is said to be a fact that her majesty queen victoria took pleasure in mrs. wood's novels; and it is quite certain that another lady, believed by many to be the great granddaughter of charles iii. (better known as prince charlie) shared the royal taste.
possibly this competition caused meredith's grace to be hid; possibly, curious as it may seem, he was best appreciated by readers in extreme youth. this is probably the truth, for, in much later years, the writer has seen quite unaffected young girls absorbed in "the egoist" or "diana of the crossways," while he, after gallant efforts, was defeated by both in a very early round, tripped up on every page by the leg of sir wilfrid, the egoist. too much seemed to be made of that limb. but with "the egoist," which is doubtless a triumph in wit and knowledge of[pg 636] human nature (as such it was rapturously hailed by r. l. stevenson), meredith's fortunes turned. the enthusiasm of young critics at last communicated itself to the more cultured public, and to the public which wished to seem cultured, a lucrative circle. it was like the success of mr. browning, which came so many years after "men and women". people then turned back on meredith's early novels, and discovered the manifold virtues which had been overlooked by contemporaries. they who had been boys in the 'sixties might think that by the 'eighties an over-excessive straining after wit and epigram, and a subtlety which was too near neighbour to obscurity, with a mannerism of style too precious and too easily imitable, had overtaken the master. the truth may be that age had dulled the wits of these critics; that they had lost wit and zest. to them the english prose of "one of our conquerors" seemed darkling and decadent, and in "the amazing marriage" the baby was the most astonishing element. whether they were in the right or in the wrong, the admiration of meredith, like the admiration of fitzgerald's "omar khayyám," had become, not only a "cult" (it had already, as in omar's case, been a cult with the few), but a cult with mysteries open to what coleridge did not love, "the reading public". be it as it may, the master came to his own, as a novelist who to wit, fancy, humour, and power of creating characters, added the still rarer qualities of a true though decidedly difficult poet.
anthony trollope.
"the pace is too good" in the world of novel-writing and of novel readers to inquire deeply into the characteristics of the genius of anthony trollope, who was born in the year of waterloo, held a place in the post office, pursued the fox; knew much of many sides of life in london, and much of a cathedral town, but did not make a great impression on public taste till, in 1855, he began his series of tales of barchester. the bishop, dr. proudie, his termagant wife, his chaplain, his archdeacon grantley, with the loves and marriages of their children, and the ecclesiastical politics of the age, were the farrago libelli. trollope had a good deal of humour, his heroines, lily dale and lucy robartes and[pg 637] the rest were, in various degrees, "nice girls," his political characters and dukes were of their date; he was extremely fluent; and he stamped his own ideas of his art and of the true method of composition on his brief life of thackeray.[1]
people who have read trollope will probably bear witness that many of his characters live in memory, and are friendly inmates of her cell. this can scarcely be said of the characters of lytton, for example, and in his power of creating characters trollope comes before any novelist of his own rank, and of his now neglected age. it would be easy to write a long catalogue of trollope's memorable people, mainly, but by no means solely, dwellers in barchester. the grantleys, the proudies, bertie stanhope and his sister, "the last of the neros," the crawleys (not of queen's crawley) adolphus crosby, johnny eames, amelia roper, "planty pal" (so justly driven back to the path of virtue by griselda), mr. slope, these are only a few of his creations. with this creative gift, trollope, though not refined, or "daring," or emancipated, or passionate, has a claim to be remembered; and the right readers will still find in his works abundance of entertainment.
george eliot.
in 1857 "blackwood's magazine," always notable for discovering good new hands, began to publish "scenes from clerical life," which at once attracted notice by their humour, tenderness, and quiet accomplished style. were they by a man or a woman? dickens voted that "george eliot" was a woman; he was right. she was miss mary ann evans, born in warwickshire in 1819. familiar from childhood with the rural characters whom she drew so admirably (perhaps this art was her true forte, in other fields her humour was inconspicuous or absent), she went to london, associated with advanced philosophers, such as mr. herbert spencer, changed her theological views and made her home with george henry lewes, author of a "life of goethe," and of a surprising "history of philosophy". he was a married man, separated[pg 638] from his wife with no chance of a divorce, and he was the constant mentor of the new novelist, though his own essays in the art of fiction were absolute failures. in 1859 george eliot made a very great success with "adam bede," which, to the merits of her "scenes from clerical life", added a plot and a story of a not heartless seducer who fights and is knocked out of time by a hardy carpenter, his rival, the hero. the little victim, hetty, is like a more heartless effie deans, and her crime, not committed by poor effie, caused many sympathetic tears. the jeanie deans of the story is a female preacher, with considerable strength of character. "the mill on the floss," which followed, is excellent in the humorous parts, and the heroine, maggie tulliver, is delightful as a child, less interesting when she falls in love with a distasteful admirer. "silas marner," a much shorter is perhaps a still better tale, and marks the central period of the author's genius. in "romola" (1863), a story of the florentine renaissance, the author was out of the environment which she knew, and was thought to be too moral and didactic. in "middlemarch" her heroes were, to men, distasteful, and they preferred her pretty to her noble heroine, while mr. casaubon, of the "key to all mythologies," was held to be too closely studied from the life. "daniel deronda" was very long, and a kind of scientific jargon had been taking the place of the old rustic humours. moreover people felt that they were being preached at, and mr. swinburne, contrasting charlotte bront? with george eliot, helped to turn the tide from worship of the living to adoration of the dead woman of genius. george eliot (mrs. cross after lewes's death, and her own marriage to mr. cross in 1880) wrote no more than a book of reflections, "the opinions of theophrastus such". she died in 1880. "culture," which had exaggerated her merits, began unjustly to disparage them. to understand the injustice it is only necessary to read her books written before "romola". there has been no better novelist since the death of dickens.
robert louis stevenson.
to robert louis stevenson (1850-1894) no one who found his works were sympathetic will deny the title of a man of genius.[pg 639] it is unnecessary to dwell on the details of his life; the essence of them is to be gathered from his own essays and from his published correspondence. from his earliest childhood his health was so unstable that he appeared to live on his astonishing intellectual and moral energy rather than on his physical basis. his education was casual and frequently interrupted by recurrent maladies; from childhood a dreamer of dreams and teller of tales, he educated himself, by study of great models mainly in old french and english, in the formation of style and the choice of words. his contributions to magazines, essays and short stories, revealed the last successor of the school of lamb and hazlitt, a scholar with a philosophy of life of his own, the philosophy of youth: see the essays collected and published in "virginibus puerisque" (1881), and "familiar studies of men and books" (1882). at the same time such brief tales of his as "a lodging for the night," and "the sire de malétroit's door," and "thrawn janet," in periodicals, proved him to be a master of romance, and a master with a thorough understanding of historical characters, surroundings, superstition, and the power of communicating the ancestral thrill of superstition. his interest in history was intense and sympathetic, and was even a danger in his path, as he would willingly have engaged himself in that unpopular study. but he was, as johnson told boswell that he was, "longer a boy than other people," and in 1878 he wrote for an obscure periodical "the new arabian nights," a fantasy of humour and of perilous adventure, "in a spirit of mockery" like his own "young man with the cream tarts". in 1881, in a boy's paper, he wrote "treasure island," a story meant for boys, but delightful to a critic so little apt to notice his juniors as mr. matthew arnold. "prince otto" (1885) is a court romance of the eighteenth century, full of brilliant passages, but confessedly written and rewritten again and again under the influence of george meredith. in 1886 "the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde," a fantasy not uninfluenced, perhaps, by edgar poe, but rich in his own philosophy, humour, and style, at last captured public attention, caused "a new shudder," and was rapturously welcomed, as a moral allegory, from the pulpits "of all denominations". the story, or at least the mechanism of the[pg 640] story, came, like "kubla khan," to the author in a dream. what is probably his best novel (without a woman in it), "kidnapped" was suggested by his studies of highland history after 1745. it was planned on a much larger scale, but now, as sometimes occurred, the pen simply dropped from the author's hand, in one of his many maladies. such studies of highland and lowland character as he gave in "kidnapped" (though the evil uncle is, in his own phrase, "too steep") are only equalled or excelled in those of sir walter scott, while the pictures of highland and lowland life and society at a period (just after culloden) untouched by scott, are historically accurate. the same period is again viewed in that bitter study of almost insane fraternal hatred, "the master of ballantrae" (1889), supposed to be narrated by a loyal servitor who is also a constitutional coward. there is little relief in this romance except that which comes from one of prince charles's irish officers, the inimitable chevalier bourke. in 1893 appeared "catriona," the sequel to "kidnapped," in which (for the first time except in the exotic "prince otto," and in a short story, "the pavilion on the links") stevenson introduced "the love-interest," and drew an admirably chivalrous and amiable heroine, catriona herself; with her even more attractive foil, the daring and dominating barbara grant. alan breck in this sequel is worthy of himself in "kidnapped," and james more macgregor is a masterly historical portrait.
"the wrong box" (1889) is a humorous fantasy somewhat in the manner of "the new arabian nights," with many scenes which provoke laughter unquenchable. "the wrecker" (1892) is rich in reminiscences of the author's youth in paris and of fontainebleau, and the plot, up to a certain point, strongly excites curiosity, but, despite the brilliance of some oceanic adventures, the story is not well constructed, and is rather disappointing. "the ebb tide" (1894) was spoken of by the author as "his blooming failure," for his colloquial style was not classical.[2] "st. ives" (1897), left unfinished, and completed by sir arthur quiller couch, shows signs of fatigue, but the fragment of "weir[pg 641] of hermiston," in which his foot is on his native heath, gave all promise of a masterpiece in its many delineations of character. in all his work, in whatever kind, the charm of his style accompanied the reader like the murmur of a burn that runs by the wayside.
of his verses, "a child's garden of verses" (1885) is the most like himself: a few of his serious poems in english have noble effects, but perhaps the best of his poems in the lowland vernacular are to be preferred. his plays, written in collaboration with mr. w. e. henley, were too literary, or for some other reason were unsuccessful on the stage ("deacon brodie," "beau austin," "admiral guinea").
when we consider the great variety of stevenson's works, their wide range, their tenderness, their sympathy, their mastery of terror and pity, their gloom and their gaiety; when we remember that his sympathy and knowledge are as conspicuous in his tales of the brown natives of the pacific ("the beach of falesa") as of highlanders and lowlanders, and the french of the fifteenth century; we can have little doubt concerning his place in literature.
minor novelists.
among other novelists not hitherto named, the author of charlotte bront?'s biography, mrs. gaskell (née stevenson) was born at chelsea, but lived and married in manchester, and in 1848 rendered the life of a manufacturing population, with their strikes and grimy lives, then a new theme for fiction, in her story of "mary barton" (1848). her "cranford" (1853), in a very different field, pictures the placid existence of maiden ladies in a quiet village. her "sylvia's lovers," "north and south," and her delightful (unfinished) "wives and daughters" (1866) (the author died in 1865), all deservedly hold their place among the classics of our fiction.
with them "a little clan" would place novels unjustly forgotten, "the school for fathers," by talbot gwynne, and "the initials," by the baroness tautph?us.
charles reade (1814-1884) was a very prominent and emphatic character of his age, a kind of lawrence boythorn, engaged in fiction and the drama. he was a fellow of magdalen,[pg 642] oxford, a barrister who did not practise, a philanthropist, some of whose novels had a purpose, a combatant whose lance was ever in rest, and as kind and generous as he was pugnacious. for a thoroughly appreciative study of reade a characteristic essay by mr. swinburne should be read. his "never too late to mend," a study, very painful, of the torture of prisoners in jails, and a much more pleasant picture of adventurous life in australia (jacky, the black fellow, is a jewel), was most successful (1856), and some reckon "the cloister and the hearth," a moving romance of latest mediaeval life in germany and italy, a masterpiece of historical fiction. the tone is perhaps too modern and certainly too "robustious". "peg woffington" (1852) is perhaps really better as a historical tale. "griffith gaunt" and "a terrible temptation," with "foul play" and "the wandering heir" (the claimant in the great annesley case of 1743) have but few to praise them, and the last mentioned is too manifestly made up of the materials in the never-decided law case; itself stranger than fiction, but destitute of a single sympathetic character.
space affords room for no more than a grateful mention of mr. william black, whose pictures of scottish characters, sport, and landscape gave much pleasure to his contemporaries; and of sir walter besant whose gift of humour in character and incident was combined, on occasion, with a singular power of fantasy, while his "dorothy forster," a tale of the rising of 1715, is probably the best historical romance of that period after "rob roy".
[1] "english men of letters series."
[2] in these three books mr. stevenson's stepson, mr. lloyd osbourne, collaborated.
