Outlines of English and American Literature Part 35

A trip abroad (1849) was followed by some editorial work on _The Westminster Review_, then the organ of the freethinkers. This in turn led to her a.s.sociation with Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill and other liberals, and to her union with George Henry Lewes in 1854. Of that union little need be said except this: though it lacked the law and the sacrament, it seems to have been in other respects a fair covenant which was honestly kept by both parties.

[Footnote: Lewes was separated from his first wife, from whom he was unable to obtain a legal divorce. This was the only obstacle to a regular marriage, and after facing the obstacle for a time the couple decided to ignore it. The moral element in George Eliot's works is due largely, no doubt, to her own moral sense; but it was greatly influenced by the fact that, in her union with Lewes, she had placed herself in a false position and was morally on the defensive against society.]

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

[Sidenote: ON A PEDESTAL]

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

[Sidenote: SHE RENEWS HER YOUTH]

The death of Lewes (1878) made an end, as she believed, of all earthly happiness. For twenty-four years he had been husband, friend and literary adviser, encouraging her talent, s.h.i.+elding her from every hostile criticism. Left suddenly alone in the world, she felt like an abandoned child; her writing stopped, and her letters echoed the old gleeman's song, "All is gone, both life and light."

Then she surprised everybody by marrying an American banker, many years her junior, who had been an intimate friend of the Lewes household. Once more she found the world "intensely interesting,"

for at sixty she was the same clinging vine, the same hero-wors.h.i.+per, as at sixteen. The marriage occurred in 1880, and her death the same year. An elaborate biography, interesting but too fulsome, was written by her husband, John Walter Cross.

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

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

[Sidenote: HER BEST NOVELS]

In her first three novels she repeats the same message with more detail, and with a gleam of humor here and there to light up the gloomy places.

_Adam Bede_ (1859) has been called a story of early Methodism, but in reality it is a story of moral principles which work their inevitable ends among simple country people. The same may be said of _The Mill on the Floss_ (1860) and of _Silas Marner_ (1861). The former is as interesting to readers of George Eliot as _Copperfield_ is to readers of d.i.c.kens, because much of it is a reflection of a personal experience; but the latter work, having more unity, more story interest and more cheerfulness, is a better novel with which to begin our acquaintance with the author.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRIFF HOUSE, GEORGE ELIOT'S EARLY HOME IN WARWICKs.h.i.+RE]

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

[Sidenote: LATER WORKS]

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

[Sidenote: ROMOLA]

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

THE QUALITY OF GEORGE ELIOT. Of the moral quality of George Eliot we have already said enough. To our summary of her method this should be added, that she tried to make each of her characters not individual but typical.

In other words, if t.i.to came finally to grief, and Adam arrived at a state of gloomy satisfaction (there is no real happiness in George Eliot's world), it was not because t.i.to and Adam lived in different times or circ.u.mstances, but because both were subject to the same eternal laws. Each must have gone to his own place whether he lived in wealth or poverty, in Florence or England, in the fifteenth or the nineteenth century. The moral law is universal and unchanging; it has no favorites, and makes no exceptions. It is more like the old Greek conception of Nemesis, or the Anglo-Saxon conception of Wyrd, or Fate, than anything else you will find in modern fiction.

[Sidenote: FATE AND SELF-SACRIFICE]

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

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

OTHER VICTORIAN NOVELISTS

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

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLOTTE BRONTe]

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

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855) was perhaps the more gifted of the two sisters, and her best-known works are _Jane Eyre_ and _Villette_.

The date of the latter novel (1853) was made noteworthy by the masterpiece of another woman novelist, Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), who was the exact opposite of the Bronte sisters,--serene, well-balanced, and with a fund of delicious humor. All these qualities and more appeared in _Cranford_ (1853), a series of sketches of country life (first contributed to d.i.c.kens's _Household Words_) which together form one of the most charming stories produced during the Victorian era. The same author wrote a few other novels and an admirable _Life of Charlotte Bronte_.

[Sidenote: CHARLES READE]

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. ELIZABETH GASKELL From the portrait by George Richmond, R.A.]

[Sidenote: TROLLOPE]

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) began as a follower of Thackeray, but in the immense range of his characters and incidents he soon outstripped his master. Perhaps his best work is _Barchester Towers_ (1857), one of a series of novels which picture with marvelous fidelity the life of a cathedral town in England.

Another novelist who followed Thackeray, and then changed his allegiance to d.i.c.kens, was Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873). He was essentially an imitator, a follower of the market, and before Thackeray and d.i.c.kens were famous he had followed almost every important English novelist from Mrs. Radcliffe to Walter Scott. Two of his historical novels, _Rienzi_ and _The Last Days of Pompeii_, may be mildly recommended. The rest are of the popular and somewhat trashy kind; critics jeer at them, and the public buys them in large numbers.

One of the most charming books of the Victorian age was produced by Richard Blackmore (1825-1900). He wrote several novels, some of them of excellent quality, but they were all overshadowed by his beautiful old romance of _Lorna Doone_ (1869). It is hard to overpraise such a story, wholesome and sweet as a breath from the moors, and the critic's praise will be unnecessary if the reader only opens the book. It should be read, with _Cranford_, if one reads nothing else of Victorian fiction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE]

Two other notable romances of a vanished age came from the hand of Charles Kingsley (1819-1875). He produced many works in poetry and prose, but his fame now rests upon _Hypatia_, _Westward Ho!_ and a few stories for children. _Hypatia_ (1853) is an interesting novel dealing with the conflict of pagan and Christian ideals in the early centuries.

_Westward Ho!_ (1855) is a stirring narrative of seafaring and adventure in the days of Elizabeth. It has been described as a "stunning"

boys' book, and it would prove an absorbing story for any reader who likes adventure were it not marred by one serious fault. The author's personal beliefs and his desire to glorify certain Elizabethan adventurers lead him to p.r.o.nounce judgment of a somewhat wholesale kind. He treats one religious party of the period to a golden halo, and the other to a lash of scorpions; and this is apt to alienate many readers who else would gladly follow Sir Amyas Leigh on his gallant ventures in the New World or on the Spanish Main. Kingsley had a rare talent for writing for children (his heart never grew old), and his _Heroes_ and _Water Babies_ are still widely read as bedtime stories.

Of the later Victorian novelists, chief among them being Meredith, Hardy and Stevenson, little may be said here, as they are much too near us to judge of their true place in the long perspective of English literature.

Meredith, with the a.n.a.lytical temper and the disconnected style of Browning, is for mature readers, not for young people. Hardy has decided power, but is too hopelessly pessimistic for anybody's comfort,--except in his earlier works, which have a romantic charm that brightens the obscurity of his later philosophy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON From a photograph]

[Sidenote: STEVENSON]

In Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) we have the spirit of romance personified. His novels, such as _Kidnapped_ and _David Balfour_, are stories of adventure written in a very attractive style; but he is more widely known, among young people at least, by his charming _Child's Garden of Verses_ and his _Treasure Island_ (1883). This last is a kind of dime-novel of pirates and buried treasure. If one is to read stories of that kind, there is no better place to begin than with this masterpiece of Stevenson. Other works by the same versatile author are the novels, _Master of Ballantrae_, _Weir of Hermiston_ and _Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_; various collections of essays, such as _Virginibus Puerisque_ and _Familiar Studies of Men and Books_; and some rather thin sketches of journeying called _An Inland Voyage_ and _Travels with a Donkey_.

The cheery spirit of Stevenson, who bravely fought a losing battle with disease, is evident in everything he wrote; and it was the author's spirit, quite as much as his romantic tales or fine prose style, that won for him a large and enthusiastic following. Of all the later Victorians he seems, at the present time, to have the widest circle of cultivated readers and to exercise the strongest influence on our writers of fiction.

III. VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS AND HISTORIANS

There is rich reading in Victorian essays, which reflect not only the practical affairs of the age but also the ideals that inspire every great movement whether in history or literature. For example, the intense religious interests of the period, the growth of the Nonconformists or Independents, the Oxford movement, which aimed to define the historic position of the English Church, the chill of doubt and the glow of renewed faith in face of the apparent conflict between the old religion and the new science,--all these were brilliantly reflected by excellent writers, among whom Martineau, Newman and Maurice stand out prominently. The deep thought, the serene spirit and the fine style of these men are unsurpa.s.sed in Victorian prose.

Somewhat apart from their age stood a remarkable group of historians--Hallam, Freeman, Green, Gardiner, Symonds and others no less praiseworthy--who changed the whole conception of history from a record of political or military events to a profound study of human society in all its activities. In another typical group were the critics, Pater, Bagehot, Hutton, Leslie Stephen, who have given deeper meaning and enlarged pleasure to the study of literature. In a fourth group were the scientists--Darwin, Wallace, Lyell, Mivart, Tyndall, Mill, Spencer, Huxley, and their followers--some of whom aimed not simply to increase our knowledge but to use the essay, as others used the novel, to portray some new scene in the old comedy of human life. Darwin was a great and, therefore, a modest man; but some of his disciples were sadly lacking in humor. Spencer and Mill especially wrote with colossal self-confidence, as if the world no longer wore its veil of mystery. They remind us, curiously, that while poetry endures forever, nothing on earth is more subject to change and error than so-called scientific truth.